"Consider likewise, what commodities the soil where the plantation is doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the plantation; so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia.">[ On the excessive cultivation of tobacco by the early colonists of Virginia, see Grahame's History of North America, vol. i. p. 67. King James's objection to tobacco is well known.
"But moil not too much underground.">[ This old word, for to toil, to labour, has now become provincial.
"In marish and unwholesome grounds.">[ Marish is here used in its original sense, as the adjective of mere. Spenser and Milton use it as a substantive; whence the word marsh.
"It is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons.">[ No instance of the word commiserable is cited in the Dictionaries from any other writer than Bacon.
Essay XXXIV. Of Riches.—See Antith., No. 6. vol. viii. p. 356.
"In sudore vultûs alieni.">[ Gen. iii. 19.
"The fortune in being the first in an invention, or in a privilege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches, as it was with the first sugar-man in the Canaries.">[ When was the growth of sugar introduced into the Canaries? To what does Bacon allude? It does not appear that sugar is now grown in these islands; at least it is enumerated among their imports, and not among their exports.
Essay XXXV. Of Prophecies.—
"Henry VI. of England said of Henry VII., when he was a lad and gave him water, 'This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown for which we strive.'">[ Query, Is this speech reported by any earlier writer?
"When I was in France I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the queen-mother, who was given to curious arts, caused the king her husband's nativity to be calculated under a false name, and the astrologer gave a judgment that he should be killed in a duel; at which the queen laughed, thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels; but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery going in at his beaver.">[ The king here alluded to is Henri II., who was killed at a tournament in 1559; his queen was Catherine de Medici. Bacon's visit to France was in 1576-9 (Life, by Montagu, p. xvi.), during the reign of Henri III., when Catherine of Medici was queen-mother. Query, Is this prophecy mentioned in any French writer?