In the autumn of 1625 Francis Bacon wrote in Latin to the Venetian scholar, Father Fulgentio, explaining that he intended to have many of his own writings translated into Latin (Works, ed. Spedding et al., 1874, 14. 531-3). Latin seemed to Bacon (‘because I work for posterity’) to be more a more stable language than English, and capable also of bringing his works to the attention of a wider European readership (Binns, 1990, 252-3). Amongst the works to be translated were Bacon’s Essays, which were simultaneously being prepared for an expanded (fifth) English edition, to be published in 1625 under the title Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral. The Latin version of these essays would constitute (so Bacon told Fulgentio) ‘the little book which in your language you have called Saggi Morali [wise sayings]. But I give it a weightier name, entitling it ‘Faithful Discourses – or the Inwards of Things’: Sermones fideles, sive interiora rerum ( Works, ed. Spedding et al., 1874, 14.533). The Latin version of the essays was accordingly published under that title in 1638: Sermones fideles, sive interiora rerum. Forty years later Thomas Tenison, future Archbishop of Canterbury, explained in his Baconiana (1679, 60) that the title derived from a passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes (AV; 12: 10-11) in which ‘The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth’; adding that ‘Mr Benjamin Johnson (the learned and judicious poet)’ was one of those who had assisted in the Latin translation.

Tenison’s attribution would not have been made from first-hand knowledge, for he was only an infant at the time of Jonson’s death in 1637 and the publication of the translation a year later. But he was well acquainted with two scholars whose testimony was to be trusted: William Rawley, chaplain and amanuensis to Bacon in the 1620s (Binns, 1990, 253), and Brian Duppa, who, as a deprived bishop, had secretly ordained Tenison in 1659 (ODNB, ‘Thomas Tenison’). Rawley would have known very well who had undertaken the translation of Bacon’s writings in the 1620s. Brian Duppa – the editor of Jonsonus Virbius, the volume to Jonson’s memory, published in 1638 – had been associated with Jonson throughout the 1620s and was closely familiar with his scholarly activities. Though Dana F. Sutton (Bacon, ed., 2000/2001, Introduction) – missing these attributions and the chain of acquaintanceship – argues on stylistic grounds that Bacon might well have translated the essays himself, there is a strong likelihood therefore that Tenison’s statement was substantially correct. It is possible that Bacon gave the translation of the essays a final polish, as he had done with the Latin translation of The Advancement of Learning (Binns, 1990, 252), making any stylistic testing particularly problematical.

A dozen years later Tenison’s attribution was endorsed by Anthony à Wood, who declared in his Athenae Oxonienses (1691-2, 2.509) that Ben Jonson ‘did with Dr. Hacket (afterwards B. of Lichfield) translate into Latin the Lord Bacons Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral.’ John Hacket, twenty years Jonson’s junior, was a brilliant Latinist who had been educated at Westminster School, and served as John Williams’s household chaplain after Williams’s appointment as Lord Keeper in 1621. In 1623, King James, delighted with Hacket’s daring Latin comedy, Loyola, had made Hacket his own chaplain, and was showing him other marks of favour. Jonson is likely to have found him a congenial collaborator.

Jonson and Bacon had probably been acquainted since the late 1590s, when Jonson may have been loosely associated with the scriptorium run under Bacon’s supervision for the Earl of Essex (Donaldson, 2011, ch. 6). After Bacon was dramatically stripped of the office of Lord Chamberlain in June 1621 and announced he would ‘retire from the stage of civil action and betake myself to letters’, Jonson remained fiercely loyal to him (Bacon, Works, ed. Spedding, 1874, 14.285; Donaldson, 2011, ch. 17). Jonson’s tributes to Bacon at this time are frequent and heartfelt. He praised Bacon as one who had ‘performed that in our tongue which may be compared, or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome’ (Discoveries, 657-8; 637-79; The Underwood, 51). Given the existence of such a cordial relationship between the two men and the combined testimony of Tenison and Wood, it seems plausible to conclude that Bacon did indeed invite Jonson to undertake this work, and that Jonson did indeed carry it out, probably in association with John Hacket.