Was the "French Academie" Bacon's temporis partus maximus? It is only in a letter written to Father Fulgentio about 1625 that this work is heard of. Bacon writes: "Equidem memini me, quadraginta abhinc annis, juvenile opusculum circa has res confecisse, quod magna prorsus fiducia et magnifico titulo 'Temporis Partum Maximum' inscripsi."[13]
Spedding says: "This was probably the work of which Henry Cuffe (the great Oxford scholar who was executed in 1601 as one of the chief accomplices in the Earl of Essex's treason) was speaking when he said that 'a fool could not have written it and a wise man would not.' Bacon's intimacy with Essex had begun about thirty-five years before this letter was written."
Forty years from 1625 would carry back to 1585, the year preceding the date of publication of the first edition in English. If Cuffe's remark was intended to apply to the "French Academy," it is just such a criticism as the book might be expected to provoke.
The first edition of "The French Academie" in English appeared in 1586, the second in 1589, the third (two parts) in 1594, the fourth (three parts) in 1602, the fifth in 1614 (all quartos), then, in 1618, the large folio edition containing the fourth part "never before published in English." It appears to have been more popular in England than it was in France. Brunet in his 1838 edition mentions neither the book nor the author, Primaudaye. The question as to whether there was at this time a reading public in England sufficiently wide to absorb an edition in numbers large enough to make the publication of this and similar works possible at a profit will be dealt with hereafter. In anticipation it may be said that the balance of probabilities justifies the conjecture that the issue of each of these editions involved someone in loss, and the folio edition involved considerable loss.
A comparison between the French and English publications points to both having been written by an author who was a master of each language rather than that the latter was a mere translation of the former. The version is so natural in idiom and style that it appears to be an original rather than a translation. In 1586 how many men were there who could write such English? The marginal notes are in the exact style of Bacon. "A similitude"—"A notable comparison"—occur frequently just as the writer finds them again and again in Bacon's handwriting in volumes which he possesses. The book abounds in statements, phrases, and quotations which are to be found in Bacon's letters and works.
One significant fact must be mentioned. The first letter of the text in the dedication in the first English translation is the letter S. It is printed from a wood block (Fig. I.). Thirty-nine years after (in 1625) when the last edition of Bacon's Essays—and, with the exception of the small pamphlet containing his versification of certain Psalms, the last publication during his life—was printed, that identical wood block (Fig. II.) was again used to print the first letter in the dedication of that book. Every defect and peculiarity in the one will be found in the other. A search through many hundreds of books printed during these thirty-nine years—1586 to 1625—has failed to find it used elsewhere, except on one occasion, either then, before, or since.
Fig. I.
The first letter in the text of the dedication of the 1st edition of the English translation of the "French Academie," 1586. Printed at London by G. Bollifant. The block is also used in a similar manner in the 2nd edition, 1589. Londini Impensis, John Bishop.
