Page images
PDF
EPUB

The immediate success of the work appears not only from the unusual number of editions, but also from its having been translated into Latin, French, and Italian, during the lifetime of the author. Posterity has ratified the verdict of cotemporaries; few works of the same kind have been more extensively read or more deservedly valued; the essays are addressed not merely to the learned, but to all mankind, they bring home important truths to the breast and bosom of every reader. To render this edition available to those who have not received a classical education, the Latin quotations have been translated, and a few notes added to elucidate remote allusions.

The "Two Books of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human," were published in 1605. This work, although less popular in its character than the "Essays," is of the highest and most lasting interest. (See Life, p. xiv.) The Editor has also in this portion of the present Volume translated the Latin quotations.

The life of Bacon has been the subject of so much controversy, that it appeared desirable to the editor to prepare a new biography from original authorities. In executing this task he has been more anxious to set forth the merits of the philosopher than the errors of the politician. The effects of Bacon's faults died with him, the influence of the services he rendered to humanity will be felt to the latest posterity.

[graphic]
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]

AMONG the ancient Egyptians, we are told, that a tribunal was established for the trial of the dead, and that no birth however illustrious, no rank however exalted, no talents however conspicuous could rescue the deceased from the rigid scrutiny of his posthumous judges. Public opinion may be regarded as a similar tribunal established in modern times; it possesses an advantage denied to the Egyptian courts, it allows of appeal from its judgments and permits the case to be heard over again when fresh evidence has been obtained. There is a general feeling, in which perhaps "the wish is father to the thought" that rather a scant measure of justice has been dealt out to the illustrious Bacon, and that the conclusion of the sentence pronounced on him as

"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind"

is rather more remarkable for its pungency than its truth. The admirable judicial rule which he has himself enunciated-" It is the part of a just judge to take into consideration

not only facts but the times and circumstances of facts"-has not been applied to the trial of his case; he has been judged by a standard of morals much higher than that which existed in his age and generation; "He has been weighed in the balance and found wanting," but the weights employed are constructed on a scale perfected by modern improvement and utterly unknown when the deeds brought to so severe a test were committed.

There are rigid moralists who stigmatise a plea of extenuation as a defence of guilt, they will make no allowance for the influence of precedent, example, and circumstances; they look for rude health in a sickly season, and expect ripe harvests in an unpropitious autumn. They forget that it was admitted as valid reasoning in a profligate period, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Bacon himself proudly because justly claimed the benefit of this plea;

[ocr errors]

in his last will he says, My name and memory I bequeath to foreign nations and to my own countrymen, after some time be passed over." Let us then receive his life in the form of his bequest, and while the accusing spirit reprobates the crime, let the recording spirit attemper the harshness by a tear for the weakness of humanity exposed to strong temptation.

Nicholas Bacon, the father of Francis Lord Bacon was the first Lord Keeper who obtained the additional rank of Chancellor; he held this exalted station for nearly twenty years under Queen Elizabeth, and was highly esteemed by that princess. He was a virtuous and intelligent minister who preserved in the midst of his wealth and fortune that moderation and simplicity of character which are always the sign of an exalted mind. By his second wife, the daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, he had two sons, Anthony, who became the favourite correspondent of the leading statesmen and literati of Europe, and Francis the subject of the present memoir.

Francis Bacon was born at York-House in the Strand, January 22nd, A. D. 1561. From his earliest childhood he displayed proofs of a superior mind. Queen Elizabeth who was a shrewd appreciator of talent loved to converse with the boy, and took great delight in his ready repartee. She once asked his age, and Bacon replied, "Madam, I was born two years before your Majesty began your happy reign.”

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at twelve years of age, and was placed under the charge of Dr. Whitgift, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. At the age of sixteen he had completed the circle of the sciences as then taught; but what is more surprising he had thus early discovered that the scholastic philosophy, libellously ascribed to Aristotle, was fundamentally wrong, and that the edifice of useful knowledge should be based on a different foundation, and constructed of different materials from what had been used during nineteen centuries. It seems not unlikely that he was in some degree guided to this result by the perusal of some of the works of his illustrious name-sake Friar Bacon; there is too great a similarity between the principles advocated by these illustrious men to be the result of accident; more than the germs of the Chancellor Bacon's Novum Organum are to be found in the Friar's Opus Majus, and were the works of Roger Bacon as attainable as those of Francis, Oxford might dispute the parentage of modern philosophy with Cambridge.

This does not, however, in the least detract from the merits of Francis Bacon; it required extraordinary strength and originality of mind to break through the trammels of education, to encounter inveterate prejudice, and to undertake the Herculean task of convincing the learned throughout Europe that all their labours hitherto were mere "vanity and vexation of spirit." The mere conception of such a revolution in an age remarkable above all others for

pedantry and scholastic trifling is a kind of moral miracle; its success is without a parallel in the annals of philosophy. Bacon had the good fortune to see this great revolution considerably advanced in his own day; the ensuing generation beheld the new philosophy adopted by the learned throughout Europe.

After quitting the university, Bacon, as was the custom of the age, visited Paris in the train of Sir Amias Paulet. The ambassador was so pleased with him that he intrusted him with an important commission to the queen (Elizabeth) which demanded secrecy and promptitude. He acquitted himself with success, and then returned to continue his tour on the continent. The reflective turn of his mind led him to investigate carefully the manners and customs of the several nations he visited, to examine the characters of their princes and the various consti tutions of their governments. In his 19th year he gave the first fruits of his observations to the world, in a work entitled Of the State of Europe, in which he gave the most astonishing proofs of the singular maturity of his judgment.

The lord-keeper, who loved Francis more than his other children, had amassed during his absence a sum of money sufficient to enable him to pursue his studies without interruption; but he died suddenly intestate, and Bacon receiving only a portion of the sum designed for him, was compelled to seek support from a profession. He chose the law, less through taste than necessity; but having once made a choice, he pursued it with such zeal and energy that he soon attained the highest rank among peers. He entered at Gray's Inn, and was almost from the very outset esteemed the greatest ornament of that community, whilst his mildness and affability gained him the affection of all who came into contact with him.

his com

His professional habits did not withdraw Bacon from the pursuit of philosophy nor weaken his determination of reforming the course of scholastic study. Soon after his appointment as Counsel Extraordinary to the Queen, he published a sketch of his future great work, with the ambitious title of The Greatest Production of Time. This essay has not been preserved, and if we may judge from his own account of it in his letter to Father Fulgentius, the loss is not greatly to be lamented.

Bacon was a poor man, and poverty was aggravated by the consciousness that if he could once acquire a competence he would immortalise his name and confer the most important benefits on mankind. Such feelings are very seductive, they expose the struggling scholar to the temptation of obtaining his noble ends by unworthy means, especially when he perceives himself far outstripped by his inferiors in the race for fortune. He becomes impatient when he finds year roll on after year, while the great work to which he feels himself summoned by destiny continues yet unaccomplished. He bends his stubborn spirit to seek wealth by unworthy compliances, and learns when too late that he has prostituted talent to the service of cunning, and rendered genius the slave of sordid interest. Lord Burleigh and his son Sir Robert Cecil acquired this dominion over the mind of Bacon: from the moment he sacrificed his independence he was spell-bound, realising the fable of the Talmud, that the noblest of fallen spirits becomes the most degraded slave of the sorcerer.

The Cecils were not content with Bacon's sacrifice of himself, they demanded that of his friend and benefactor. Robert Earl of Essex had earnestly sought from the Queen the appointment of Bacon to the office of Solicitor-General, and when his efforts failed

he endeavoured to indemnify him by the gift of an estate in land, worth about two thousand pounds. Yet when this generous but imprudent nobleman, driven by the crafty intrigues of his enemies into the appearance of rebellion stood at the bar to plead for his life, he beheld Bacon conducting the prosecution; not indeed with all the virulence of Sir Edward Coke, but still with the zeal of a partisan rather than an advocate. Essex was hunted down by his ignoble persecutors; he died with the magnanimity of a hero and the piety of a Christian. One universal cry of reprobation was raised throughout England, and the government deemed it necessary to make an apology to the nation. Bacon was employed to prepare this extraordinary state-paper; an artifice worthy of the Cecils, who foresaw that they would thus turn from themselves and against him the storm of indignation excited by their judicial murder. They succeeded; the malpractices of all the rest was forgotten in the indignation excited by Bacon's ingratitude. The people of England can only hate one thing at a time, but there are no bounds to their wrath against this unfortunate object. So universal and intense was the hatred excited against Bacon that his life was in danger, and he was several times on the point of being assassinated. Under these circumstances he published a long and laboured apology for his conduct; unfortunately for his fame this defence has been preserved, and is his most formidable accusation with posterity. The Cecils were now disposed to lay him aside: with great difficulty he obtained from them the situation of secretary to the court of Star-chamber, worth about sixteen hundred a-year, and this was his only promotion during the reign of Elizabeth.

Bacon's parliamentary career was rather more creditable than his professional. He had been chosen member for the county of Middlesex in 1593, and voted with the popular party against the measures of the ministry though he continued in the service of the Crown. Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign his conduct became more servile; but some allowance must be made for his poverty, which was so great, that he was twice arrested for debt. Still he did not quite abandon the career of a patriot; he exerted himself to support the rights of the poor by resisting the enclosures of commons, and he tried to get a fixed standard of weights and measures, instead of the clumsy and uncertain expedients which prevailed in England to a very recent period.

The

Bacon's prospects were improved on the accession of James I.: he hastened to pay his court to the new monarch, and in 1603 received the honour of knighthood. project of a union between England and Scotland early engaged the attention of James, and in the mean time he exerted himself to get the Scotch who accompanied him to London naturalised and admitted to all the civil rights of Englishmen. Sir Francis Bacon zealously supported these measures; but the English, not unreasonably jealous of the king's undisguised partiality for the most worthless of his countrymen, and especially the favourite Carr, resisted the royal wishes, and the bills of Union and Naturalization were lost in the House of Commons. The services of Sir Francis Bacon were rewarded with the post of Solicitor-General, which had long been the object of his ambition: it is truly mortifying to find that every step in the promotion of this great man was gained not by his unrivalled powers, but by his abject submission to the court, and his readiness to undertake any job however unpopular or degrading.

In 1605 Bacon published his admirable work cn 'The Advancement of Learning.' Its

« PreviousContinue »