nother production of this time, of which we have a
notice from himself in a letter to Toby Matthews, the curious and
ingenious little treatise on the _Wisdom of the Ancients_, "one of the
most popular of his works," says Mr. Spedding, "in his own and in the
next generation," but of value to us mainly for its quaint poetical
colour, and the unexpected turns, like answers to a riddle, given to the
ancient fables. When this work was published, it was the third time that
he had appeared as an author in print. He thus writes about it and
himself:

"MR. MATTHEWS,--I do heartily thank you for your letter of the 24th
of August from Salamanca; and in recompense thereof I send you a
little work of mine that hath begun to pass the world. They tell me
my Latin is turned into silver, and become current. Had you been
here, you should have been my inquisitor before it came forth; but
I think the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it.... My great
work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter ever when I add.
So that nothing is finished till all be finished.

"From Gray's Inn, the 17th of February, 1610."

In the autumn of 1611 the Attorney-General was ill, and Bacon reminded
both the King and Salisbury of his claim. He was afraid, he writes to
the King, with an odd forgetfulness of the persistency and earnestness
of his applications, "that _by reason of my slowness to sue_, and
apprehend occasions upon the sudden, keeping one plain course of painful
service, I may _in fine dierum_ be in danger to be neglected and
forgotten." The Attorney recovered, but Bacon, on New Year's Tide of
1611/12, wrote to Salisbury to thank him for his good-will. It is the
last letter of Bacon's to Salisbury which has come down to us.

"IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--I would entreat the new year to
answer for the old, in my humble thanks to your Lordship, both for
many your favours, and chiefly that upon the occasion of Mr.
Attorney's infirmity I found your Lordship even as I would wish.
This doth increase a desire in me to express my thankful mind to
your Lordship; hoping that though I find age and decays grow upon
me, yet I may have a flash or two of spirit left to do you service.
And I do protest before God, without compliment or any light vein
of mind, that if I knew in what course of life to do you best
service, I would take it, and make my thou