The Epistle Dedicatory

To the Right Honorable, My Very Good Lord, The Duke of Buckingham, His Grace, Lord High Admiral of England

Excellent Lord:

Solomon says, "A good name is as a precious ointment"; and I assure myself, such will your Grace's name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent, and you have planted things that are like to last.

I do now publish my Essays; which, of all my other works, have been most current, for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them, both in number and weight, so that they are indeed a new work.

I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and in Latin.

Introduction and Dedication by Francis Bacon