Third Work, Lesser Work, and Compendium of Philosophy

to entitle Compendium Philosophiae, for reasons to be presently stated, no notice is to be found, with the exception of two meager and vague references made to it by Jebb in the volume already referred to. It appears from his statement, which will be considered hereafter, that Jebb regarded the Compendium Philosophiae as forming a second and enlarged edition of the Opus Minus.¹

Their history.

To remove some of the misconceptions existing in reference to these treatises, and the many errors occasioned by the variety of their titles, I propose to give a brief account of their literary history. The publication of the present volume supplies materials hitherto unknown to the biographers of Roger Bacon, and more obvious means for correcting previous mistakes.

¹ Of this learned and laborious scholar I wish to speak with unfeigned respect. English literature is much indebted to his disinterested, zealous, and indefatigable exertions. He was born at Nottingham, educated at Peterhouse in Cambridge, attached himself to the nonjurors, and became librarian to the celebrated Jeremy Collier. He appeared as an author at an early age, printing during his residence at Cambridge, in 1718, a translation of "Martyn's answers to Emlyn." On leaving the University he married a relative of a Mr. Dillingham, an apothecary in large practice in Red Lion Square. From Dillingham he received lessons in chemistry. His son, afterwards Sir Richard Jebb, the eminent physician, well known to the readers of Boswell's Johnson, was born at

Stratford in Essex, in 1729, where his father had settled shortly before. Dr. Samuel Jebb is favorably known to students of English history by his Life of Mary Queen of Scots, extracted from the original records—a work still high in repute—and by his edition of Bacon's Opus Majus, published in 1733, and dedicated to Dr. Mead. He died in the enjoyment of a comfortable fortune, acquired by his profession, on the 9th of March 1772. The brother of whom he speaks, in his preface to the Opus Majus, as first drawing his attention to a copy of that work among the MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin, was undoubtedly Dr. John Jebb, the Dean of Cashel, father of the Cambridge reformer. A waspish notice of him occurs in Hearne's Reliquiae, p. 665, under the year 1727.