"It doth much add to a man's reputation, and is (as Queen Isabella saith) like perpetual letters commendatory, to have good forms."] Query, Which Queen Isabella was the author of this saying? Essay LIII. Of Praise.--See _Antith._, No. 10. vol. viii. p. 358. "Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantium."] From Tacit. _Agric._ c. 41., where the words are: "Pessimum inimicorum genus, laudantes." _Laudantium_ for _laudantes_ in the text of Bacon is an error. Essay LIV. Of Vain-glory.--See _Antith._, No. 19. vol. viii. p. 364. Essay LVI. Of Judicature.-- "Judges ought to remember that their office is _jus dicere_, and not _jus dare_."] Compare Aph. 44. and 46., in the eighth book _De Augmentis_. L. * * * * * BISHOP BURNET, H. WHARTON, AND SMITH. The following curious piece of literary history is quoted from pp. 145-147. of Smith's _De Re Nummaria_: "But having thus owned the bishop's generosity, I must next inform the reader what occasion I have to make some complaint of hard usage, partly to myself, but infinitely more to Dr. H. Wharton, and that after his decease also. The matter of fact lies in this order. After Ant. Harmer had published his _Specimen of Errors_ to be found in the Bishop's _History of the Reformation_, there was a person that frequented the coffee-house where we met daily at Oxon, and who {168} afterwards became a prelate in Scotland, that was continually running down that History for the errors discovered in it, many of which are not very material, and might in so large a work have been easily pardoned; and in order to obtain such a pardon, I acquainted his Lordship with some more considerable errata to be found in the first volume of _Anglia Sacra_, out of which I had drawn up as many mistakes as I could possibly meet with, and had descanted upon them, as far as I was able, in the same method Ant. Harmer had drawn up his, and without acquainting the Bishop who was the author, sent them up to his Lordship with license, if he thought fitting, to print them. But when the collection was made, I had prefixed a letter to his Lordship, and next an epistle to the reader. In the former it was but fitting to compliment his Lordship, but the latter was altogether as large a commendation of Dr. Wharton's skill, diligence, and faithfulness in viewing and examining the records of our English church history. The disgust that this last gave his Lordship obliged him to stifle the whole tract; but yet he was pleased to show part of it to many by way, as I suppose, of excuse or answer for his own mistakes; but as I take it, after the Doctor's decease, he made it an occasion of foully bespattering him as a man of no credit, and all he had writ in that _Specimen_ was fit to go for nothing; which practice of his lordship, after I came to read both