“In 1610 he published another treatise, entitled, Of the Wisdom
of the Ancients. This work bears the same stamp of an original
and inventive genius with his other performances. Resolving not
to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, men,
according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain
commonplaces, he strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters
into the most secret recesses of this wild and shadowy region, so
as to appear new on a known and beaten subject. Upon the whole,
if we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all
the physical, moral, and political meaning veiled under those
fables of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must
own that it required no common penetration to be mistaken with
so great an appearance of probability on his side. Though it
still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so knowing as
he attempts to show they were, the variety and depth of his own
knowledge are, in that very attempt, unquestionable.”
In the year 1619 this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Gorges.
Prefixed to the work are two letters; the one to the Earl of Salisbury,
the other to the University of Cambridge, which Gorges omits, and
dedicates his translation to the high and illustrious princess the Lady
Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess of Baviare, Countess Palatine of
Rheine, and chief electress of the empire.
This translation, it should be noted, was published during the life of
Lord Bacon by a great admirer of his works.