Bacon was more cautious. As an orator he received the commendation of old Ben Jonson, who says, "There happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end."

Two great parties at court sought power and royal favor; one was headed by Bacon's uncle and cousin, the Cecils; the other, by the Earl of Essex, step-son of the Earl of Leicester. Bacon allied himself to Essex. The office of Solicitor-General becoming vacant in the spring of 1594, Bacon applied for it. He greatly needed the income, for he was always living beyond his means; in fact, this improvidence was the fountain of most of his subsequent difficulties and sorrows, and a knowledge of his pecuniary embarrassments is the key to the mysteries of his otherwise inexplicable misconduct. Essex exerted himself to the utmost for his friend, but in vain: the office was given to another.

Essex now made Bacon a present of an estate at Twickenham, worth £1,800. To the wayward queen, who had so unreasonably thwarted his wishes, Bacon obsequiously dedicated a treatise, written in 1596, but not published till after his death, on the elements and use of the common law. His object was to establish in this, as in every science, general principles that should diminish labor and be the foundation of discoveries.

In 1597 his first publication appeared. It was a small duodecimo volume, containing Essays, ten in number, Religious Meditations, and a Table of the Colors of Good and Evil. In 1598 appeared another edition; a third, with additions, in 1612; and a fourth in 1625. They were immediately translated into French, Italian, and Latin, and for two hundred and seventy years they have enjoyed an extraordinary degree of popularity.

In 1598 he made a strong effort to capture the affections of Lady Hatton, a widow of long purse and sharp tongue; but, fortunately, she was reserved to torment his great rival at the bar, Attorney-General Edward Coke. In the same year he wrote another law treatise, a luminous and profound work on the Statute of Uses.

In 1599 he exerted his best endeavors to dissuade Essex from the unfortunate expedition which ultimately proved the ruin of that warm-hearted but reckless and headstrong nobleman.

In 1600 it became his official duty to prosecute Essex for disobedience. A severe struggle ensued in Bacon's breast, but he decided to act against his former benefactor. The trial took place in June. Essex was convicted, suspended from office, and imprisoned during the pleasure of the queen. The fallen favorite soon engaged in his preposterous attempt to capture London and seize the queen. The plot utterly failing, Bacon again prosecuted him, this time for high treason. The trial began February 19, 1601. On the 25th of the same month, the prisoner was beheaded in the Tower. By the queen's command, Bacon wrote an Account of the Treasonable Practices of Robert, Earl of Essex."

On the coronation of King James, May 23, 1603, some three hundred gentlemen were knighted, among whom was Bacon. It is said that his object in seeking this honor was to gratify the lady whom he married in 1606, Miss Alice, daughter of Alderman Barnham, a Cheapside merchant. In March, 1604, he took his seat as a member of Parliament for Ipswich. He spoke often, sat upon twenty-nine committees, and in six months was appointed "King's Counsel Learned in the Law," with two pensions, of forty and sixty pounds respectively.

In 1605 he published his work, On the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning, afterwards enlarged and published in Latin under the title, De Augmentis Scientiarum, which also is the first part of his gigantic work, Instauratio Scientiarum, the second part being the Novum Organum. Years before this, he had deliberately written of himself, "I have taken all knowledge to be my province !"

In 1607 he became Solicitor-General; in 1612, Judge of the Marshalsea Courts; in 1613, Attorney-General; in 1616, Member of the Privy Council; in 1617, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; in January, 1618, Lord High Chancellor; in July, 1618, Baron Verulam; and in January, 1619, Viscount St. Albans. He had reached the summit of political distinction; but all such splendor grows pale in the light of his intellectual achievements. In 1620 was published in Latin his Instauratio Magna, of which the following synopsis may be given:

I. De Augmentis Scientiarum, giving a general summary of human knowledge, taking special notice of gaps and imperfections in science.

II. Novum Organum, explaining the inductive method of reasoning, on which his philosophy is founded. Of the nine sections into which he divides the subject, he fully treats of but one, the rest being only named.

III. Sylva Sylvarum, designed to give a complete View of Natural Philosophy and Natural History. He has discussed but four topics under this head, viz. : the History of Winds, of Life and Death, of Density and Rarity, of Sound and Hearing.

IV. Scala Intellectus, of which we have but a few pages, and those introductory. V. Prodromi, of which but a few fragments were composed.

VI. Philosophia Secunda, never written.

This sketch is colossal. No one man of fewer years than Methuselah could hope to fill out the details of so vast a plan. To have conceived it and to have made so grand a beginning show the grasp of a mighty genius.

For thirty years he had been climbing, and now, on his sixtieth birthday, which he celebrated with great pomp, he seemed to have reached a higher summit of intellectual and political glory than had fallen to the lot of any other man. But in the twinkling of an eye all was changed. He

"Dropped from the zenith like a falling star."

Twenty-two distinct charges of bribery and corruption were made against him by the House of Commons in March, 1620. The case being investigated by the House of Lords, he substantially confessed in writing his guilt, and threw himself upon the mercy of his judges. The Lords appointed a committee to visit him and ask whether it was his own hand that was subscribed to the confession. He replied, "It is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships, be merciful to a broken reed." He was fined £40,000, and sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure, be forever incapable of holding office, and never come within the verge of the court. King James remitted the fine, and released him from the Tower after two days' imprisonment.

Sixty years old, he retired to his country home in Gorhambury. Here he spent the remainder of his life in reading, writing, and in scientific experiments. He composed, among other works, at this time, the History of the Reign of King Henry VII., and the Fable of the New Atlantis, and also revised and enlarged his Essays. The last of his literary labors was his Version of the Psalms.

On the second of April, 1626, as he was riding near Highgate, while the ground was thinly covered with snow, the question occurred to him, whether meat might not be preserved in snow as well as in salt. Alighting, he scooped up a quantity in his hands, and having bought a hare and had it dressed, he himself stuffed and packed it with snow. Extremely chilled, he immediately fell sick, and, being unable to reach

home, stopped at the house of the Earl of Arundel, where he was put into a damp bed. Violent fever ensued, and on the ninth of April he breathed his last. By his own request, his body was buried in the same grave with his mother's, in St. Michael's Church, near St. Albans. For my name and memory," he says in his last will, “I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next ages."

See Montagu's Life of Bacon, prefixed to his edition of Bacon's Works; Macaulay's brilliant essay on Bacon; the compilations and treatises of English Literature cited in the case of Spenser, p. 69; the Encyclopedias and Dictionary of Authors, there named; the magazine articles referred to in Poole's Index, title Bacon; and the English Histories that treat of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Above all, in regard to Bacon's Essays, see Archbishop Whately's edition, containing that distinguished prelate's Annotations. Whately is one of the most stimulating and healthful of writers. Heard's Student's Edition of Whately, published by Lee & Sheppard, containing a Glossarial Index, should be in every reader's hands. Let not the student accept our statements in regard to Bacon without verifying them. Let him fill out with additional facts the meagre outline we have given.

PREFATORY EPISTLE.

TO. MR. ANTHONY BACON, HIS DEAR BROTHER.

Loving and beloved brother, I do now like some that have an orchard ill-neighbored, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print: to labor the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment, which it might please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them. Therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself, as they passed long ago from my pen, without any further disgrace than the weakness of the author. And, as I did ever hold there might be as great a vanity in retiring and withdrawing men's conceits (except they be of some nature) from the world as in obtruding them; so in these particulars I have played myself the inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrary or infectious to the state of religion or manners, but rather, as I suppose, medicinable. Only I dislike now to put them out, because they will be like the late new halfpence,* which though the silver were good, yet the pieces were small. But since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have preferred them to you, that are next myself; dedicating them, such as they are, to our love; in the depth whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind; and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest. So commend I you to the preservation of the Divine Majesty. Your entire loving brother,

From my Chamber, at Gray's Inn,

this 30th of January, 1597.

FRAN. BACON.

*Coined in 1582-3, and in circulation till 1601.

+ I have preferred them to you. I have presented or dedicated them to you. Preferred is Lat. pre, before, forward, akin to pro and præ, Gr. #pó; Lat. fero, I bring (whence, by Grimm's Law, Eng. bear); Gr. Pepw.

ESSAYS, CIVIL AND MORAL.

OF TRUTH (1625).

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the

What is truth? John xviii. 38.-Jesting (Lat. gestum, deed, fr. gerere, to accomplish; O. Fr. geste, exploit; O. Eng, jest, story of an exploit, good story, joke). Was Pilate jesting?Giddiness (A. S. gidig, dizzy; gyddian, to be giddy), instability. See homeliness, p. 33.Fix a belief, settle upon a belief.-Affecting, aiming at, making a show of.-Discoursing (Lat. dis, in different directions; currere, to run), rambling, discursive, desultory.-Veins (Lat. vena, vein; Fr. veine), tempers, tendencies of disposition.-Blood. Meaning?-Ancients, Democritus and other laughing philosophers."-Finding out of. Of should be omitted (or the word the inserted before finding). What should be in it, the hidden cause.-Cannot tell. What?-Masques, plays or festive entertainments in which the company wear masks; masquerades; masks.-Mummeries (Ger. mummerei; Fr. momerie, mummery), farcical shows, maskings, buffooneries.-Triumphs (Lat. triumphus, a magnificent procession with imposing ceremonies in honor of a victorious general at Rome), stately shows.-Daintily, delicately, elegantly. Either fr. Lat. dignus, worthy; or fr. W. dain, fine, delicate; or possibly fr. Lat. dens; W. dant; Ger. zahn; Gr. ò-dóvs, ò-dóvT-os, a tooth. See Grimm's Law.-Carbuncle (Lat. carbo, coal, carbon; carbunculus, a little coal), a beautiful red gem, that in the sunlight looks like burning coal.-Lie (A. S. lyge; Ger. lüge, lug).--But. After doubt that, but should be omitted.-Imaginations (of things) as one would (like to have them).

GRAMMATICAL EQUIVALENTS.-Few exercises are more useful in giving a command of language, cultivating both fluency and elegance of speech, than the practice of finding equivalent grammatical expressions. He who would become an extemporaneous speaker, can hardly bestow too much time upon it. Even those who have no higher ambition in a rhetorical direction than to converse or write readily and correctly, should make it a daily exercise. The teacher will do well to give a few minutes' drill in it, if practicable, as an accompaniment to the recitations in Grammar, Composition, Rhetoric, Logic, and English Literature. We give a few illustrations, but the instructor should take pains to supplement and continue the work by a multitude of similar exercises, and should always teach the pupil to choose wisely among the equivalents. For convenience, the expressions which we select for the pupil to translate into other language, are placed at the bottom of the successive pages of the extracts from Bacon. Affecting free-will in thinking = aiming at freedom of thought = lectual freedom = endeavoring after intellectual liberty solicitous to be intellectually free, etc.

=

=

=

=

desiring to attain intelstriving to be free in thought =

ingenious minds given to discourse

Discoursing wits discursive wits rambling wits = subtle intellects fond of light speculation, etc. It imposeth upon men's thoughts: it lays restraint upon men's thoughts = it puts restrictions upon men's thoughts it puts bounds to the license of speculation, etc. Imaginations as one would unrestrained imaginations = unbridled fancies. Other equiva

lents?

=

minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy* "vinum dæmonum," because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breatheth light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breatheth light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of

It was

*Poesy, poetry. See posies, Index.-Vinum dæmonum, wine of devils. St. Augustine.-Shadow of a lie. Why so?-Howsoever, however, although. Inquiry of, inquiry after, search for.-Belief. Genuine belief issues in action. Creature, creation. -Of the days. See the account of the Creation, in Genesis. Note the beauty of this whole passage.-Poet that beautified, Lucretius, a profound Roman philosopher as well as poet. His great work, entitled De Natura Rerum, is considered by many scholars the greatest didactic poem in any language. He is said to have died by his own hand in 52 B. C. See Lucretius, in Class. Dict. The sect, the Epicureans. Epicurus, the celebrated philosopher, was born in Samos in 341 B. C., and died in 270. He taught that evdaμóreia, “supreme mental bliss," is the end and should be the purpose of life. St. Paul encountered the Epicureans at Athens. Lucretius was one of their greatest ornaments.-Adventures (Lat. advenire, to come to (pass), to happen), hazards, bold exploits.-Vantage-ground (Lat. ab, from, ante, before; Fr. avant, before; avantage, forward position), advantageous position.-Commanded (in a military sense), held within control.-So always, on condition always, provided always.-Truth of civil business, truth exemplified in the business of society.-Round (Fr. rond; Lat. rotundus, wheel-shaped, round; fr. rota, à wheel), candid, “fair and square.'

Unpleasing = distasteful. Other equivalents?

The sovereigh good of human nature man's highest welfare. Give six other equivalents. The first creature of God the first creation of God the first of God's created works = the first object created by God God's first creation God's earliest creation = the earliest work of Jehovah = the earliest manifestation of the creative power of Deity = the very beginning of God's handiwork = the earliest production of the Omnipotent Hand = the

"Offspring of Heaven first-born," etc.

Saith excellently well saith very justly and fitly saith very happily

appropriate and striking remarks. Give other grammatical equivalents.

See the adventures witness the fortunes. Other equivalents?

makes the very

So always that this prospect be = provided always that this prospect be accompanied. Other equivalents?

Clear and round dealing. Equivalents?