This volume belongs to the new critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume contains Bacon’s earliest known writings, dating from 1584 to 1596, comprising position papers, commentaries on printed works, legal readings and opinions, and discourses of advice, usually written in response to specific events or demands, and circulated in manuscript.