ot difficult for
such an intellect to discover many irresistible arguments in favor
of such a scheme. He conducted the great case of the POST NATI in
the Exchequer Chamber; and the decision of the judges--a decision the
legality of which may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which
must be acknowledged--was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous
management.

Again:

While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of law,
he still found leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble treatise on
the ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, which at a later period was expanded into
the DE AUGMENTIS, appeared in 1605.

The WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS, a work which, if it had proceeded from any
other writer, would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit and
learning, was printed in 1609.

In the mean time the NOVUM ORGANUM was slowly proceeding. Several
distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see portions of that
extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest admiration of his
genius.

Even Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the COGITATA ET VISA, one of the
most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great oracular
volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that "in all proposals and
plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master workman"; and that "it
could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over did abound with
choice conceits of the present state of learning, and with worthy
contemplations of the means to procure it."

In 1612 a new edition of the ESSAYS appeared, with additions surpassing
the original collection both in bulk and quality.

Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work the most
arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty
powers could have achieved, "the reducing and recompiling," to use his
own phrase, "of the laws of England."

To serve the exacting and laborious offices of Attorney-General and
Solicitor-General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man
for hard work, but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just
described, to satisfy his. He was a born worker.

The service which he rendered to letters during the last five years of
his life, amid ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase the
regret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted, to use
the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, "on such study as was not worthy such a
student."

He commenced a digest of the l