BIOGRAPHY:

Consisting of the

CIVIL CHARACTERS

OF

JULIUS CÆSAR, AUGUSTUS CÆSAR, HENRY VII.

AND

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

INTRODUCTION.

THE four following pieces, are all that Lord Bacon appears

to have written, in the way of character or biography. The advantages of this kind of writing are shewn, and the practice of it recommended, in the de Augmentis Scientiarum. It is a practice that now seems to obtain pretty generally in Europe; and affords us the lives of many eminent persons, both public and private. Whether the author had any particular view in drawing the civil characters of Julius and Augustus Cæsar, or whether he intended to have gone through with the twelve Casars in the same manner, does not appear.

The character of King Henry the Seventh is taken from the recapitulation of the English history of that prince; collated with the author's Latin version: and the rest are new translations from the Latin originals.