ntury, and
a voluminous writer.]

[Footnote 3: It is a singular thing that this most eminent man should be
so constantly spoken of by a title which he never had. His first title
in the peerage was Baron Verulam; his second, on a subsequent promotion,
was Viscount St. Albans; yet the error is as old as Dryden, and is
defended by Lord Macaulay in a sentence of pre-eminent absurdity:
"Posterity has felt that the greatest of English philosophers could
derive no accession of dignity from any title which power could bestow,
and, in defiance of letters-patent, has obstinately refused to degrade
Francis Bacon into Viscount St. Albans." But, without stopping to
discuss the propriety of representing a Britiph peerage, honestly
earned, and, in his case as Lord Chancellor, necessarily conferred, as a
"degradation," the mistake made is not that of continuing to call him
Francis Bacon, a name by which at one time he was known, but that of
calling him "Lord Bacon," a title by which he was never known for a
single moment in his lifetime; while, if a great philosopher was really
"degraded" by a peerage, it is hard to see how the degradation would
have been lessened by the title being Lord Bacon, which it was not,
rather than Viscount St. Albans, which it was.]

[Footnote 4: The "Biographie Universelle" (art. _Newcomen_) says of the
Marquis: "Longtemps avant lui [Neucomen] on avait remarque la grande
force expansive de la vapeur, et on avait imagine de l'employer comme
puissance. On trouve deja cette application proposee et meme executee
dans un ouvrage publie en 1663, par le Marquis de Worcester, sous le
titre bizarre, 'A Century of Inventions.'"]

If I happen to be less punctual in my correspondence than I intend to
be, you must conclude I am writing my book, which being designed for a
panegyric, will cost me a great deal of trouble. The dedication with
your leave, shall be addressed to your son that is coming, or, with Lady
Ailesbury's leave, to your ninth son, who will be unborn nearer to the
time I am writing of; always provided that she does not bring three at
once, like my Lady Berkeley.

Well! I have here set you the example of writing nonsense when one has
nothing to say, and shall take it ill if you don't keep up the
correspondence on the same foot. Adieu!

_REJOICINGS FOR THE PEACE--MASQUERADE AT RANELAGH--MEETING OF THE
PRINCES PARTY AND THE JACOBITES--PREVALENCE OF DRINKING AND
GAMBLING--WHITEFIELD._

TO SIR HORACE