[613] Pars prima secundae, Qu. cix. sqq.
[614] Another reading is delectatio, i.e. enjoyment.
[615] Bacon’s Opus majus was edited in incomplete form by Jebb in 1733, and reprinted in 1750 at Venice. This edition is superseded by that of Bridges, in two volumes, published with the Moralis philosophia and Multiplicatio specierum by the Clarendon Press in 1897. The text of this edition had many errors, which have been corrected by a third volume published in 1900 by Williams and Norgate, who are now the publishers of the three volumes. In 1859 Brewer edited the Opus tertium, the Opus minus, and Compendium philosophiae for the Master of the Rolls Series.
“An unpublished Fragment of a work by Roger Bacon” was discovered by F. A. Gasquet in the Vatican Library, and published in the English Historical Review for July 1897. It appears to be a letter to Clement IV., written in 1267.
In 1861 appeared the excellent monograph by Émile Charles, entitled Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines. To this one still must turn for extracts from the Compendium theologiae, and the Communia naturalium. The last-named work, with the Compendium philosophiae and the Multiplicatio specierum (which appears not to be an intrinsic part of the Opus majus), may have been composed as parts of what was to be the writer’s Opus principale. Bacon’s Greek Grammar has been edited by Nolan and Hirsch (Cambridge, 1902).
[616] Opus tertium, chap. xxv. p. 91 (Brewer’s text).
[617] Opus tertium, chap. xvii. (pp. 58-59, Brewer’s ed.).
[618] Brewer, R. Bacon, Opera inedita, p. 1.
[619] Opus tertium, pp. 7 and 8.
[620] In Opus tertium, chap. iii. (Brewer, p. 15), Bacon plainly tells the pope the difficulties in which he had been placed by this injunction of secrecy: “The first cause of delay came through those who are over me. Since you have written nothing to them in my excuse, and I could not reveal to them your secret, they insisted with unspeakable violence that I should obey their will; but I refused, because of the bond of your mandate, which bound me to your work, notwithstanding any order from my prelates. And, of a surety, as I was not excused by you, I met with obstacles too great and many to enumerate.... And another obstacle, enough to defeat the whole business, was the lack of funds.”