This expression, "saili à pés," is translated in the Glossary "rose upon feet;" but the more correct rendering of it appears to me to be that of jumping or dancing for joy.
James F. Ferguson.
Dublin.
"What is Truth?"—Bacon begins his "Essay of Truth" (which is dated 1625) with these words:
"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting freewill in thinking, as well as in acting."
There is a similar passage in Bishop Andrews's sermon Of the Resurrection, preached in 1613:
"Pilate asked, Quid est veritas? And then some other matter took him in the head, and so up he rose, and went his way, before he had his answer; he deserved never to find what truth was. And such is our seeking mostwhat, seldom or never seriously, but some question that comes cross our brain for the present, some quid est veritas? So sought as if that we sought were as good lost as found. Yet this we would fain have so for seeking, but it will not be."
Perhaps Bacon heard the bishop preach (the sermon was at Whitehall); and if so, the passage in Andrews will explain the word "jesting" to mean, not scoffing, but asking without serious purpose of acquiring information.
J. A. H.
Abolition of Government Patronage.—The following passage, from Dr. Middleton's Dedication of the Life of Cicero to Lord Keeper Hervey, is