"Certain allusions to events then passing (which will be pointed out in their place) prove that the original paper was written, or at least completed, in the summer of 1582, at which time Francis Bacon was studying law in Gray's Inn, while Anthony was travelling in France in search of political intelligence and was in close correspondence with Nicholas Faunt, a secretary of Sir Francis Walsingham's, who had spent the previous year in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the north of Italy, on the same errand; and was now living about the English Court, studying affairs at home, and collecting and arranging the observations which he had made abroad, 'having already recovered all his writings and books which he had left behind him in Italy and in Frankfort' (see Birch's 'Memoirs,' I. 24), and it is remembered that if this paper belonged to Anthony Bacon, it would naturally descend at his death to Francis and so remain among his manuscripts, where it is supposed to have been found. "Thus it appears that the external evidence justifies no inference as to the authorship, and the only question is whether the _style_ can be considered conclusive. To me it certainly is not. But as this is a point upon which the reader should be allowed to judge for himself, and as the paper is interesting in itself and historically valuable and has always passed for Bacon's, it is here printed from the original though (to distinguish it from his undoubted compositions) in a smaller type." Spedding's difficulty in accepting this paper as from Bacon's pen really lay in the fact that from the internal evidence it is obvious that it was written by one who had himself travelled through, at any rate, some of the countries described. The results of personal observation are again and again apparent. According to Spedding, Bacon was in 1581-1582 studying law at Gray's Inn; according to Bodley he was on the Continent making observations for his future guidance. The reader can judge of the value of the external evidence. It is not conclusive, but the draft being found amongst papers which were unquestionably Bacon's writings and being adopted as Bacon's and published as such by those who found it, the balance of probabilities is distinctly in favour of its being his. As to the internal evidence much may be said. It corresponds as closely as it is possible with Bodley's requirements as set forth in his letter of December. It is exactly "the manner of return" Bodley wrote to Francis "your friends expect from you." "And," he added, "if in this time of your liberal Traffick, you will give me any advertisement of your commodities in these kinds, I will make you as liberal a return from myself and your friends here as I shall be able."