"Gray's Inn, this 10th of October, 1609."

To Bishop Andrewes he sent, also in manuscript, another piece,
belonging to the same plan--the deeply impressive treatise called _Visa
et Cogitata_--what Francis Bacon had seen of nature and knowledge, and
what he had come by meditation to think of what he had seen. The letter
is not less interesting than the last, in respect to the writer's
purposes, his manner of writing, and his relations to his correspondent.

"MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Now your Lordship hath been so long in the
church and the palace disputing between kings and popes, methinks
you should take pleasure to look into the field, and refresh your
mind with some matter of philosophy, though that science be now
through age waxed a child again, and left to boys and young men;
and because you were wont to make me believe you took liking to my
writings, I send you some of this vacation's fruits, and thus much
more of my mind and purpose. I hasten not to publish; perishing I
would prevent. And I am forced to respect as well my times as the
matter. For with me it is thus, and I think with all men in my
case, if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind; but if I
rid my mind of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation.
This hath put me into these miscellanies, which I purpose to
suppress, if God give me leave to write a just and perfect volume
of philosophy, which I go on with, though slowly. I send not your
Lordship too much, lest it may glut you. Now let me tell you what
my desire is. If your Lordship be so good now as when you were the
good Dean of Westminster, my request to you is, that not by pricks,
but by notes, you would mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto you
either not current in the style, or harsh to credit and opinion, or
inconvenient for the person of the writer; for no man can be judge
and party, and when our minds judge by reflection of ourselves,
they are more subject to error. And though for the matter itself my
judgement be in some things fixed, and not accessible by any man's
judgement that goeth not my way, yet even in those things the
admonition of a friend may make me express myself diversly. I would
have come to your Lordship, but that I am hastening to my house in
the country. And so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness."

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