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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I 221
confesses that there is I
something may here at once add
something " very important" which he does not know.
The short, momentous sketch of Bacon's life, written by
his secretary Kawley, was not published till 1657, as intro
duction to the compilation entitled " Resuscitatio." In the
year following, Rawley published that sketch as introduction
to a little Bacon volume printed in Holland, " Opuscula
Philosophica," in Latin, and reprinted
it in another little
book, " Opuscula Varia Posthuma Francisci Baconi,"
Amsteledami, 1663." This "Vita Baconi," a highly
important document, as it deviates in the Latin version in
many respects from the English original, Mr. Spedding
omits from his fourteen-volumed edition, thus only furnish
ing us with a " Life of Bacon " in the English version,
first
appeared in London in 1657.
Those Dutch editions terminate with the sentence :
as it
Quamvis autem Corpus quod deposuit, Mortale fuerit, Libri
tamen ejus & Memoria haud dubie perennes erunt, neque prius fatis
cessuri, quam Orbis terrarum machina dissolvatur.
The concluding words of the English edition of 1657
are :
But howsoever his Body was mortal, yet no doubt his Memory
and Works will live, and will in all probability last as long as the
World lasteth. In order to which I have endeavor'd (after my poor
Ability)
to do this Honour to his Lordship, by way of enducing to
the same.
So that, whereas the English version merely says that the
Memory and Works of Bacon will " last as long as the
World lasteth," the Latin editions published in Holland
end with an allusion to the Theatre
"
: They will not yield
to fate, until the theatrical machinery of the globe is
dissolved."
" Machina," jurj^ai/^
in Greek, signifies the
theatrical or stage- machinery, upon which the gods, in
tragedy, descended (were let down) from above on to the
stage, hence the saying : " Deus ex machina." The English
edition then adds the above-mentioned stilted sentence,