among his works down to the present day—is certainly not his at all, but was most probably compiled by William Lambard, the author of the Perambulation of the County of Kent,' the Archaionomia,' and other works. It has not a trace of Bacon's manner.

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'The Arguments in Law, of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Solicitor-General, in certain great and difficult Cases,' were first published by Blackbourne in his Edition of Bacon's Works, 1730. The world," says Blackbourne, "is indebted for this treasure to the humanity of a worthy man, Mr. Thomas Richardson, apothecary, of Aldersgate Street, who is a citizen of the world, a credit to his employ, and a blessing to his neighbourhood. Mr. Stephens, knowing these arguments to be authentic, and the unquestionable writings of our noble author, was so obliging as to peruse and examine them sheet by sheet, as the press delivered them; and I can vouch they are printed to a degree of nicety from the fair original." The cases are, 1. The Case of Impeachment of Waste, argued before all the Judges in the Exchequer Chamber; 2. Low's Case of Tenures, in the King's Bench; 3. The Case of Revocation of Uses, in the King's Bench; 4. The Jurisdiction of the Marches. The arguments must have been held between June, 1607, and October, 1613, the period of Bacon's tenure of the office of Solicitor-General. They had been intended for publication by Bacon himself, as appears from a short but characteristic Dedication to his "Loving Friends and Fellows, the Readers, Ancients, Utter-Barristers, and Students of Gray's Inn, in which, after observing that the publication of such pleadings has been usual both in ancient times and in other modern nations, he proceeds: "I know no reason why the same should not be brought in use by the professors of our law for their arguments in principal cases. And this I think the more necessary, because the compendious form of reporting resolutions, with the substance of the reasons, lately used by Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, doth not delineate or trace out to the young practisers of the law a method and form

of argument for them to imitate. It is true I could have wished some abler person had begun; but it is a kind of order sometimes to begin with the meanest. Nevertheless, thus much I may say with modesty, that these arguments which I have set forth, most of them, are upon subjects not vulgar; and therewithal, in regard of the commixture which the course of my life hath made of law with other studies, they may have the more variety, and perhaps the more depth of reason for the reasons of municipal laws, severed from the grounds of nature, manners, and policy, are like wall-flowers, which, though they grow high upon the crests of states, yet they have no deep root. Besides, in all public services, I ever valued my reputation more than my pains; and, therefore, in weighty causes I always used extraordinary diligence. This work I knew not

to whom to dedicate, rather than to the Society of Gray's Inn, the place whence my father was called to the highest place of justice, and where myself have lived and had my procedure so far as, by his majesty's rare, if not singular, grace, to be of both his councils." This must have been written, apparently, not only after Bacon had become Attorney-General on the removal of Coke to the King's Bench, in October, 1613, but after he had been made a privy-counsellor in June, 1616. By being of both councils he means, apparently, the having been made a privy-counsellor at the same time that he held the office of attorney-general, or chief of the King's counsel learned in the law; according to what he says in the beginning of his Proposition touching the amendment of the Laws,' where he speaks of such a union of offices or honours as more than what had been "these hundred years before." *

The remaining pieces that come under the present head, with the dates of the first publication of each, as far as we have been able to ascertain them, are as follow:'A draught of an Act against an Usurious Shift of Gain

* In Vol. I. p. 113, misprinted "three hundred years before."

in delivering Commodities instead of Money,' in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio (1670); 'A Preparation toward the Union of the Laws of England and Scotland,' addressed to the King, in Stephens's Second Collection (1734); An Explanation what manner of persons those should be that are to execute the power or ordinance of the King's Prerogative' (of doubtful authenticity), with the Essay of a King,' in 1642, and again in the Remains of the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam,' &c., 1648, and The Mirror of State and Eloquence' (the same with the Remains), 1656 ;* The Office of Constables, Original and Use of Courts Leet, Sheriff's Turn, &c., with the Answers to the Questions propounded by Sir Alexander Hay, Knt., touching the Office of Constables; A.D. 1608,' when first printed we have not been able to discover; 'The Argument of Sir Francis Bacon, Knt., His Majesty's Solicitor-General, in the Case of the PostNati of Scotland, in the Exchequer Chamber, before the Lord Chancellor and all the Judges of England,' separately, in 4to., Lon. 1641, and afterwards in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio (1670); A Proposition to his Majesty, by Sir Francis Bacon, Knt., His Majesty's Attorney-General and one of his Privy Council, touching the Compiling and Amendment of the Laws of England,' written between June, 1616, and March, 1617, in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); An Offer to King James of a Digest to be made of the Laws of England,' in Certain Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam, &c., published by Willian Rawley, D.D.' 1629; 'The Judicial Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knt., the King's Solicitor, upon the Commission of Oyer and Terminer held for the Verge of the Court,' delivered in 1611, 4to. Lon. 1662, and again in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio (1670); 'A_Charge delivered by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Solicitor-General, at the arraignment of the Lord Sanquhar in the King's Bench at Westminster'

* See ante, Vol. I. p. 86, † See ante, Vol. I. p. 115.

(29th June, 1612, for the murder of John Turner, of which he was found guilty and for which he suffered death), in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio (1670); The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Attorney-General, touching Duels, upon an information in the Star-Chamber against Priest and Wright; with the Decree of the Star-Chamber in the same cause' (26th January, 1614), 4to. Lon. 1614, and in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio (1670); The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Attorney General, against William Talbot, a Counsellor at Law, of Ireland, upon an information in the Star-Chamber, ore tenus, for a writing under his hand, whereby the said William Talbot, being demanded whether the doctrine of Suarez touching the deposing and killing of Kings excommunicated were true or no, he answered that he referred himself unto that which the Catholic Roman Church should determine thereof,' delivered in Hilary Term, 1613, in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); A Charge given by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney General, against Mr. Oliver St. John, for scandalizing and traducing, in the public sessions, Letters sent from the Lords of the Council touching the Benevolence,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657): The Charge of Owen, indicted for High Treason, in the King's Bench, by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, his Majesty's Attorney General,' (in 1615, for affirming, conditionally, that if the King were excommunicated, it were lawful to kill him), in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); 'The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the King's Attorney General, against Mr. Lumsden, Sir John Wentworth, and Sir John Holmes, for Scandal and traducing the King's justice in the proceedings against Weston in the Star-Chamber, November, 1615' (Weston was one of the persons implicated in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury), in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney General, against Frances Countess of Somerset, intended to have been spoken by him at her

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Arraignment, on Friday, May 24, 1616, in case she had pleaded Not Guilty' (for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury), in Birch's Letters, Speeches, Charges, Advices, &c., of Francis Bacon, Lord Viscount St. Alban,' 8vo., Lon. 1763; The Charges, by Way of Evidence, by Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney General, before the Lord High Steward and the Peers, against Frances Countess of Somerset, and against Robert Earl of Somerset, concerning the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury,' very incorrectly in A True and Historical Relation of the Poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury,' 12mo. Lon. 1651, first correctly by Tenison in the Baconiana (1679): The Effect of that. which was spoken by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, at the taking of his place in Chancery, in performance of the Charge his Majesty had given him when he received the Seal, May 7, 1617,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); The Speech which was used by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in the Star-Chamber before the Summer Circuits, the King being then in Scotland, 1617,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); The Speech used by Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, to Sir William Jones, upon his calling to be Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, 1617,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); The Lord Keeper's Speech in the Exchequer to Sir John Denham, when he was called to be one of the Barons of the Exchequer, in 1617,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657); "His Lordship's Speech in the Common Pleas to Justice Hutton, when he was called to be one of the Judges of the Common Pleas,' in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657) ; and Ordinances made by the Lord Chancellor Bacon, for the Better and more regular Administration of Justice in the Chancery, to be daily observed, saving the prerogative of the Court,' separately in 4to. in 1642, but much more correctly in the Fourth Volume of Blackbourne's edition of Bacon's Works (1730). In the latter editions of the collected Works are added, The Passages in Parliament against Francis Viscount St. Al