"Antiquitas Sæculi Juventus Mundi"

A learned friend, who although involved in the avocations of an active professional career, delights "inter sylvas Academi quærere verum," has favoured me with the following observation on these words: —"That the phrase *Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi* is in Italics in Bacon's work does not, in my opinion, prove it to be a quotation, any more than the words *ordine retrogrado* in the subsequent passage. Italics were used in Bacon's time, and long afterwards, to to mark not only quotations, but emphatic words, γνωμαι, and epigrammatic sentences, of which you will every where see instances. I…