May it pleaſe your honourable good Lordſhip, F your Lordship's honourable difpofition, both
generally and to me, I have that belief, as what I think, I am not afraid to speak; and what I
would ſpeak, I am not afraid to write. And therefore I have thought to commit to letter fome
matter, whereunto [which] I have been [conceived] led [into the fame] by two motives; the
one, the confideration of my own eftate; the other, the appetite, which I have to give your
Lordſhip ſome evidence of the thoughtful and voluntary defire, which is in me, to merit well of …

AS the reader will undoubtedly have fome curiofity about the hiftory of the tranſmiffion of
theſe papers, now preſented to him at the diſtance of an hundred and forty years from the
date of moſt of them, though the hand of the incomparable writer is too confpicuous in them
to admit of any fufpicion of their genuineness; it will be proper here to give him fome
information upon that fubject. Dr. Thomas Tenifon is known to have been the editor of the
Baconiana, published at London 1679, though he added only the initial letters of his name to …