no ways able to examine or debate matters," as "instances of what may, perhaps, be described as an instinctive striving after a natural arrangement of words, inconsistent indeed with modern English grammar, but perfectly authorized by that of the Elizabethan age."

p. 86, 1. 12. "exhaust." This form of this word also occurs in Essay LVIII. "Of Vicissitudes of Things," p. 569.

OPINION. This all you will present?

FANCY..

You speak as if

Fancy could be exhaust; invention flows

From an immortal spring.

SHIRLEY. Triumph of Peace, ed. Gifford and
Dyce, VI. 272.

p. 86, 1. 16. Plut. Gryll. I. Compare "Adv. of Learning," I. 8, § 7:

Ulysses, Qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati, being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency.

Cf. Cic. de Orat. I. 44, where it is Ithaca, not his old wife, that
Ulysses is said to prefer to immortality.

p. 86, 1. 22. “So as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will." Literally a cause of complaint; hence any cause or

reason.

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling. - Macbeth, I. 2.

p. 86, 1. 24.- See Plutarch, Symp. Probl. III. 6:

Thales the wise, being importuned by his mother (who pressed hard upon him) to marry; prettily put her off, shifting and avoiding her cunningly, with words: for at the first time, when she was in hand with him, he said unto her: Mother, it is too soon, and it is not yet time: afterwards, when he had passed the flower of his age, and that she set upon him the second time, and was very instant: Alas mother, it is now too late, and the time is past. — HOLLAND'S Transl. p. 567, ed. 1657.

ESSAY IX.

p. 90. Compare with the beginning of this Essay, "Natural History," cent. X. exp. 944, Works, II. p. 653.

p. 91, 1. 22. "Agesilaus."

And for the deformitie of his legges, the one being shorter than

the other, in the flower of his youth, through his pleasant wit, he used the matter so pleasantly and patiently, that he would merrily mocke himselfe: which manner of merrie behaviour did greatly hide the blame of the blemish. Yea further, his life and courage was the more commendable in him, for that men saw that notwithstanding his lamenesse, he refused no paine nor labour. - NORTH'S Plutarch, Agesilaus, p. 612, ed. 1631. Agesilaus II. was king of Sparta from 398 to 361 B.C.

ESSAY X.

p. 100, first line. "The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man." Bacon, I think, always uses beholding.

And upon this occasion her majesty expressed a great sense of the loss she had sustained by the death of her old confessor, father Phillips; who, she said, always told her, that as she ought to continue firm and constant to her own religion, so she was to live well towards the Protestants, who deserved well from her, and to whom she was beholding. CLARENDON. History of the Rebellion, etc., Book XIII. § 44, vol. V. p. 84, ed. Oxford, 1849.

p. 100, 1. 9.

Cleopatra oftentimes unarmed Antonius, and enticed him to her, making him lose matters of great importance, and very needfull journies to come and be dandled with her, about the rivers of Canobus and Taphosiris. - NORTH's Plutarch, Demetrius and Antonius, p. 951, ed. 1631.

p. 100, 1. 10.— Livy, III. 33 :

In this new state of government, Appius was the man that bare the greatest stroke, he ruled the rost and swaied all the rest, so highly stood he in grace and favour with the people. — HOLLAND'S Transl. p. 109, ed. 1600. The allusion is to the story of Virginia.

p. 100, l. 16.—Seneca, Ep. I. 7, § 11: quoted also in "Adv. of Learning," I. 3, § 6:

For it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.

ESSAY XI.

p. 104, last line. "Illi Mors gravis incubat," etc. Jasper Heywood translated these lines of the second act of "Thyestes" as follows:

But greevous is to him the death, that when
So farre abroade the bruite of him is blowne,
That knowne hee is to much to other men:
Departeth yet unto himselfe unknowne.

SENECA. His Tenne Tragedies, Translated into Englysh. 1581, p. 27.

p. 105, 1. 3. "for in evil, the best condition is not to will, the second not to can." Can is now used only as an auxiliary verb with the sense of to be able, though formerly it was sometimes employed with the same sense as a common verb.

p. 106, last line but one.

$5:

Compare "Adv. of Learning," II. 23,

Here is noted, that a judge were better be a briber than a respecter of persons; for a corrupt judge offendeth not so lightly as a facile.

p. 107, 1. 12. · Compare "Adv. of Learning," II. 10, § 1:—

So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that principle be true that Motus rerum est rapidus extra locum, placidus in loco.

ESSAY XII.

p. 123, 1. 20. "popular." Democratic. He was "popular" once, not who had acquired, but who was laying himself out to acquire, the favor of the people.

Of a Senatour he became popular, and began to breake his mind, and impart his designes unto the Magistrates of the Commons: finding fault with the Nobilitie, and complaining of them: solliciting and inveagling the Commons, to cast a liking and favour toward himselfe. -HOLLAND. Livy, p. 224, ed. 1600.

See also note to Essay XLVIII.

p. 124, 1. 13. "like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir."

KATH. I pray you, sir, is it your will

To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

The Taming of the Shrew, I. 1. "She means to say, 'Do you intend to make a strumpet of me among these companions?'; but the expression seems to have been suggested by the chess-term of stale-mate, which is used when the game is ended by the king being alone and unchecked, and then

forced into a situation from which he is unable to move without going into check. This is a dishonorable termination to the adversary, who thereby loses the game.". DOUCE. Illustrations of Shakespeare, 2d ed. p. 202.

ESSAY XIII.

p. 127, 1. 3.— Phædr. III. 12. A good story is told in "Apophthegms," 203, in which an allusion to this fable is brought in:

When peace was renewed with the French in England, divers of the great counsellors were presented from the French with jewels. The Lord Howard was omitted. Whereupon the King said to him; My Lord, how haps it that you have not a jewel as well as the rest? My Lord answered again, (alluding to the fable in Æsop ;) Non sum Gallus, itaque non reperi gemmam.

p. 127, 1. 30.

tarch:

See Timon's speech to the Athenians as given by Plu

My Lords of Athens, I have a little yard at my house where there groweth a figge tree, on the which many citizens have hanged themselves and because I meane to make some building on the place, I thought good to let you all understand it, that before the figge tree be cut downe, if any of you be desperate, you may there in time goe hang yourselves. - NORTH'S Plutarch, Antonius, p. 943, ed. 1631.

Compare "Timon of Athens," V. 1, vol. VI. p. 571, ed. Dyce, 1864:

TIM. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,

That mine use invites me to cut down,

And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends,

Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,

From high to low throughout, that whoso please

To stop affliction, let him take his haste,

Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.

p. 128, 1. 11. Rom. IX. 3. In the "Adv. of Learning," II. 20, § 7, the same passage is alluded to:

But it may be truly affirmed that there never was any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the Holy Faith; well declaring that it was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave those laws

of nature to inanimate creatures that we spoke of before; for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves anathematized and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and infinite feeling of communion.

ESSAY XIV.

p. 134, 1. 20. p. 144, 1. 8. "insolency." Trench ("Glossary") gives the following lucid explanation of the meaning of this word:

The "insolent" is properly no more than the unusual. This, as the violation of the fixed law and order of society, is commonly offensive, even as it indicates a mind willing to offend; and thus "insolent" has acquired its present meaning.

For dittie and amorous Ode I finde Sir Walter Rawleygh's vayne most loftie, insolent, and passionate.- PUTTENHAM, The Arte of English Poesie, (1589) lib. I. ch. xxxi. vol. I. p. 51, Haslewood's reprint.

p. 134, 1. 23. "surcharge of expense." Overcharge, excessive burden. The following quotation from Blackstone's "Commentaries," III. 237, illustrates Bacon's use of the word: —

Another disturbance of common is by surcharging it; or putting more cattle therein than the pasture and herbage will sustain, or the party hath a right to do.

This word is also used in the same sense in Essay XXXIII. p. 355, 1. 20.

ESSAY XV.

p. 139, 1. 11. Virg. Æn. IV. 179. Quoted in "Adv. of Learning," II. 4, § 4:

In heathen poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity; as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their war against the gods, the Earth their mother in revenge thereof brought forth Fame:

Illam terra parens, etc.,

expounded that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people (which is the mother of rebellion) doth bring forth libels and slanders and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind with rebellion, but more feminine.

In the "History of King Henry VII." Bacon wrote:

Hereupon presently came forth swarms and vollies of libels (which