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128 FRANCIS BACON'S CRYPTIC RHYMES
more than ten separate Essays, with the "Meditationes
Sacrae" (" Thoughts on Sacred Subjects ")
in Latin,
and a number of other Meditations entitled " Of the
Coulers of good and evill a fragment," added as supple
ments. Another edition of the Essays appeared in
1612, without the two addenda, but the number of the
Essays had increased to forty. The third edition, the
one which we shall deal with exhaustively, contained
fifty-eight Essays (1625), with all the former ones
which had either been enlarged or entirely rewritten.
Hence, the eighteen new Essays of this, the last
edition he published, and the new editions to the
earlier Essays contained therein, constitute the actually
new work which Bacon gave to the world in 1625, a
year before his death. And these Essays shall claim
our chief attention, containing, as they do, the nucleus
of all that Francis Bacon wanted to reveal to the
world before he departed this life.
They constitute
his literary bequest in the fullest sense of this word.
The third French edition of the " Oevvres Morales
et Politiques," published in
1633 contained the Essays
in their entirety, translated from the edition of 1625.
The Essays, rendered into the language of the thena-days
scholar, together with a few other works of
Bacon also translated into Latin, did not appear,
however, until some years after, namely in 1638.
was whom Bacon had entrusted
Secretary Rawley it
with the publication of his works in that classic guise.
had all been translated into Latin in Bacon's
They
life-time, for he himself had read and finally revised
them. But, in accordance with "my vows" ("Votis
meis "), Rawley was not allowed to publish them
" before that time
"
(" ante hoc tempus "), i.e., Rawley