Such are the sources of information which have come down to us in biographical notices. In the British Museum, the Record Office, and elsewhere are the originals of the letters and the manuscripts of some of the tracts which Spedding has printed. The British Museum also possesses two books of Memoranda used by Bacon. The Transportat is entirely, and the Promus is partly, in his handwriting. Beyond his published works, that is all that so far has been available. Spedding remarks[4]: "What became of his books which were left to Sir John Constable and must have contained traces of his reading, we do not know, but very few appear to have survived." Happily, Spedding was wrong. During the past ten years nearly 2,000 books which have passed through Bacon's hands have been gathered together. These are copiously annotated by him, and from these annotations the wide range and the methodical character of his reading may be gathered. Manuscripts which were in his library, and at least four common-place books in his handwriting, have also been recovered. Particulars of these have not yet been made public, but the advantage of access to them has been available in the preparation this volume. FOOTNOTES: [2] There are copies of this work bearing date 1626, the year in which Bacon died. [3] The concluding paragraph of the Epistle to the Reader is as follows: "It's easily imaginable how unconcerned I am as to the fate of this Book either in the History, or the Observations, since I have been so faithful in the first, that it is not my own, but the Historians; and so careful in the second that they are not mine, but the Histories." [4] "Life and Letters," Vol. VII., page 552. CHAPTER II. THE STOCK FROM WHICH BACON CAME. "A prodigy of parts he must be who was begot by wise Sir Nicholas Bacon, born of the accomplished Mrs. Ann Cooke," says an early biographer.