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mixed, otherwise than with some little aspersion of the old for taste’s sake; I have thought good to procure a translation of that book into the general language, not without great and ample additions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second book, which handleth the Partition of Sciences; in such sort, as I hold it may serve in lieu of the first part of the Instauration, and acquit my promise in that part.’

The provostship of Eton fell vacant in April 1623, and Bacon sought the appointment as ‘a retreat to a place of study so near London,’ but without success. The Advancement of Learning in its Latin form was issued this year under the title of De Augmentis Scientiarum, in nine books, the first closely corresponding with the English. The last two or three years of his life were occupied with dictating his Sylva Sylvarum, putting the last touches to his Essays, which were published in their final form in March 1625, and superintending their translation into Latin with other works to be entitled Opera Moralia. The Apophthegms were the occupation of a morning. It does not appear that the sentence of Parliament was ever entirely revoked. The name of Lord St. Alban’s, it is true, is among those of the Peers summoned to the first Parliament of Charles, but for some reason he did not take his seat in the House. On New Year’s Day, 1625-6, he wrote to Sir Humphry May: ‘The present occasion doth invite me to desire that his grace (i.e. Buckingham) would procure me a pardon of the King of the whole sentence. My writ for Parliament I have now had twice before the time, and that without any express restraint not to use it.’ His health, long feeble, would not have allowed him to attend, but he could have appointed a proxy. At length came death, the friend, whom for five years he had looked steadily in the face, and released him from all his troubles. A cold, caught in the process of an experiment to test the preserving qualities of snow, terminated in a gentle fever, and after lingering a week he passed quietly away in the early morning of Easter-day, April 9, 1626. He died at the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, and was buried in the church of St. Michael, at