a

And for the Government of the church, it con-| the Intellectual World, as truly and faithfully ag sisteth of the patrimony of the church, the fran- I could discover; with a note and description of chises of the church, and the offices and jurisdic- those parts which seem to me not constantly occutions of the church, and the laws of the church pate, or not well converted by the labour of man. directing the whole; all which have two consi- In which, if I have in any point receded from that derations, the one in themselves, the other how they which is commonly received, it hath been with a stand compatible and agreeable to the civil estate. purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud;

This matter of divinity is handled either in a mind of amendment and proficience, and not of form of instruction of truth, or in form of confu- change and difference. For I could not be true tation of falsehood. The declinations from reli- and constant to the argument I handle, if I were gion, besides the privative, which is atheism, and not willing to go beyond others; but yet not the branches thereof, are three; heresies, idola- more willing than to have others go beyond me try, and witehcraft; heresies, when we serve the again: which may the better appear by this, that true God with a false worship; idolatry, when we I have propounded my opinions naked and unworship false gods, supposing them to be true; armed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of and witchcraft, when we adore false gods, know- men's judgments by confutations. For in any ing them to be wicked and false : for so your ma- thing which is well set down, I am in good hope, jesty doth excellently well observe, that witch- that if the first reading move an objection, the craft is the height of idolatry. And yet we see second reading will make an answer. And in though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us those things wherein I have erred, I am sure I that they are all of a nature, when there is once a have not prejudiced the right by litigious argureceding from the word of God; for so he saith, ments; which certainly have this contrary effect “Quasi peccatum ariolandi est repugnare, et quasi and operation, that they add authority to error, scelus idololatriæ nolle acquiescere."

and destroy the authority of that which is well These things I have passed over so briefly, invented : for question is an honour and preferbecause I can report no deficiency concerning ment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a rethem: for I can find no space or ground that lieth pulse to truth. But the errors I claim and chalvacant and unsown in the matter of divinity; so lenge to myself as mine own: the good, if any diligent have men been, either in sowing of good be, is due “ tanquam adeps sacrificii,” to be inseed, or in sowing of tares.

censed to the honour, first of the Divine Majesty,

and next of your majesty, to whom on earth I am Thus have I made as it were a small Globe of l most bounden.

NOTES TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

protection was necessary for the advancement of knowledge. “Among the promoters of frivolous studies, may be reckoned
In his letter of the 19th of October, 1620, to the king, he says, the modern Latin poets, of various nations: the making verses
speaking of the Novum Organum : " This work is but a new in a dead language was the prevalent taste and occupation
body of clay, whereunto your majesty, by your countenance of the learned world, at the revival of letters, and produced
and protection, may breathe life. And, to tell your majesty almost infinite attempts of an inferior order, for a very few
truly what I think, I account your favour may be to this work good poets. Those, in fact, who possessed the powers of
as much as an hundred years' time: for I am persuaded, the imagination and judgment, displayed them successfully in
work will gain upon men's minds in ages, but your gracing it whatever language they wrote: as Politan, Fracastilo, Vida,
may make it take hold more swiftly; which I would be very Criton, (whose two remaining poems have great merit,)
glad of, it being a work meant, not for praise or glory, but for Mantuan, and some others. The rest attained the language,
practice, and the good of men.”

and were elegantly dull. Such were Vaniere and Rapin the
If this opinion of the necessity of the king's protection, or jesuits, Barbeirni, (D'Urban,) and even Casimir with some
of any patronage, for the progress of knowledge, be now exceptions.-- Anon. MSS. Notes.
supposed a weakness: if in these times, and in this enlighten-

NOTE C.
ed country, truth has nothing to dread: if Galileo may now,
without fear of the inquisition, assert that the earth moves

Referring to page 139.
round; or if an altar is raised to the unknown God,” he In the Novum Organum this sentiment is repeated. “The
who is ignorantly worshipped, we may declare ; let us not opinions which men entertain of antiquity, is a very idle
be unmindful of the present state of the press in other coun- thing, and almost incongruous to the word; for the old age
tries, or forget that, although Bacon saw a little ray of distant and length of days of the world, should in reality be accounted
light, yet that it was seen from far, the refraction of truth yet antiquity, and ought to be attributed to our own times, not to
below the horizon. Let us not forget that he had neither the youth of the world, which it enjoyed among the ancients:
schools nor disciples. “We,” he says, "judge also, that for that age, though with respect to us it be ancient and
mankind may conceive some hope from our example, which greater, yet, with regard to the world, it was new and less
we offer not by way of ostentation, but because it may be And as we justly expect a greater knowledge of things, and
useful. If any one, therefore, should despair, let him con- a riper judgment, from a man of years than from a youth, on
sider a man as much employed in civil affairs as any other of account of the greater experience, and the greater variety
his age, a man of no great share of health, who must there and number of things seen, heard, and thought of, by the
fore have lost much time, and yet, in his undertaking, he is person in years; so might much greater matters be justly ex-
the first that leads the way, unassisted by any mortal, and pected from the present age, (if it knew but its own strength,
steadfastly entering the true path that was absolutely untrod and would make trial and apply,) than from former times;
before, and submitting his mind to things, may thus have as this is the more advanced age of the world, and now en-
somewhat advanced the design.” Let us, remembering this, riched and furnished with infinite experiments and observa-
not withhold from him the indulgence which he solicits, for tions."
the infirunities from which even philosophy is not exempt. Sir Henry Wotton, in his answer to Bacon's presentation
“I am not ignorant what it is that I do now move and at of the Novum Organum, says, “Of your Novum Organum I
tempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my shall speak more hereafter ; but I have learnt thus much
purpose; but my hope is that if my extreme love to learning already by it, that we are extremely mistaken in the compu-
carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for tation of antiquity by searching it backwards; because, in
that it is not granted to man to love and to be wise.' » deed, the first times were the youngest.”

In addition to these reasons, the explanation to the penetration and judgment of the reader in the body of the treatise

NOTE D. of the object of the address with which it opens, ought not

Referring to page 139. to be forgotten; and some caution ought, it should seem, to Bacon, in various parts of his works, expresses his disapbe used in not suffering our judgments to be warped when probation of method and arrangement, but acknowledges the examining a charge of indignity offered by such a philosopher necessity of attention to style, for the purpose of rendering to philosopby; but, after every caution which can in justice philosophy acceptable to heedless or unwilling ears.-See be used, and after every allowance which can in charity be page 214 of this volume, where he explains the preference of made, it cannot but be wished that this work, which will be writing in aphorisms to methodical writing: for as to writing consecrated to the remotest posterity for its many excellen- in aphorisms, he says; Ist. It trieth the writer whether he be cies, had not in any part or for any purpose, been wanting in superficial or solid. 2. Methods are more fit to win consent that dignity for which, as a whole, it stands so proudly emi or belief, but less fit to point to action. 30. Aphorisms genenent.

rate inquiry. And again, see page 241, when speaking of inNote B.

terpretation of Scripture, he says,

“It is true that knowledges reduced into exact methods Referring to page 139.

have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support As to prevalence of delicate learning.

and sustain the other; but this is more satisfactory than sub-
“ After the barbarism of the feudal times, the only polite- stantial : like unto buildings which stand by architecture and
ness of conversation, as the only knowledge, was among the compaction, which are more subject to ruin than those which
clergy. Tournaments, hunting, hawking, &c. made the sole are built more strong in their several parts though less com-
Occupation of the nobility. Upon the revival of the humanity pacted.”
studies, they were eagerly followed, to polish as well as to And again he says,
inform. They answered that end which keeping good com- The worst and most absurd sort of triflers are those who
pany does at this day; they gave an habitual elegance to the have pent the whole art into strict methods and narrow sys-
conversation and sentiments of those who cultivated them, tems, which men commonly cry up for the sake of their regu-
and were therefore, at that time, of much more positive im- larity and style.
port than at present, or even in Bacon's time. As society " Knowledge is uttered to men in a form, as if every thing
became improved, and its intercourse became more frequent, were finished: for it is reduced into arts and methods which
the nicety and time bestowed in these pursuits became a fri- in their divisions do seem to include all that may be. And
volous vanity: the end was otherwise answered. Hence how weakly soever the parts are filled, yet they carry the
may be deduced their gradual decline, till at length they serve show and reason of a total; and thereby the writings of some
now for the first institutions of schools, and, perhaps, for the received authors go for the very act; whereas antiquity used
occasional amusement of a few persons of just taste, who to deliver the knowledge which the mind of man had gathered
read them not for information, but through indolence. in observations, aphorisms, or short or disposed sentences, or

w of the renovation of the humanity studies, in Europe, small tractates of some parts that they had diligently medi-
particularly the Greek language, vid. Hody de Græcis illustri- tated and laboured; which did incite men both to ponder that
bus, &c., who has given the lives of Leon. Pilatus, who was which was invented and to add and supply farther.”
master to Boccace, of Crysolorus, Gaza, Trapezuntius, Bes- Rawley, in his preface to the Sylva Sylvarum, says, "I have
sarion, and others, who passed into Europe, and lectured on heard his lordship often say, that, if hee should have served
The Green language, both before and after the taking of Con- the glory of his owne name, hee had beene better not to have
stantinopic.

published this naturall history: for it may seeme an indigested

x 2

heape of particulars, and cannot have that lustre, which may well be counted in the number of Mathematical Arts, bookes cast into methods have: but that he resolved to pre- not without great diminution of the dignity thereof; seeing ferre the goode of men, and that which might best secure it, it ought rather (if it would maintain its own right) be constibefore any thing that might have relation to himselfe. I have tuted a branch, and that most principal of Natural Philosophy heard his lordship say also, that one great reason, why hee for whoever shall reject the feigned divorces or superlunary would not put these particulars into any exact method and sublunary bodies; and shall intentively observe the ap(though hee that looketh attentively into them shall finde that petencies of matter, and the most universal passions, (which they have a secret order) was, because he conceived that in either globe are exceeding potent, and transverberate the other men would not thinke that they could doe the like; and universal nature of things,) be shall receive clear information so goe on with a further collection ; which is the method had concerning celestial matters from the things seen here with beene exact, many would have despaired to attaine by imita- us: and contrariwise from those motions which are practised tion.'”

in heaven; he shall learn many observations which now are His opinion of the necessity of attention to style is stated latent, touching the motions of bodies here below : not only in pages 169, 170 of this work, in his dissertation upon Delicate so far as these inferior motions are moderated by superior, Learning. To these opinions of Bacon's, we are most pro- but in regard they have a mutual intercourse by passions bably indebted for the symmetry and beauty in the Advance common to them both." (See the mode by which Newton is ment of Learning. They have been, as Bacon foresaw they said first to have thought of the influence of the laws of would be, causes, and only temporary causes, of the preference gravity.) which has been given to the Advancement of Learning. He So, in another work,"Descriptio Globi intellectualis," he was too well acquainted with what he terms the idols of the says, “We must, however, openly profess, that our hope of mind to be diverted from truth either by the love of order or discovering the truth, with regard to the celestial bodies, de. by the love of beauty. He knew the charms of theories and pends not solely upon such a history, raised after our own systems, and the necessity of adopting them to insure a fa- manner; but much more upon the observation of the common vourable reception for abstruse works, but he was not misled properties, or the passions and appetites of the matter of both by them. It did not require his sagacity to predict such ob globes. Por as to the separation that is supposed betwixt the servations as, two centuries after his death, have been made ætherial and sublunary bodies, it seems to us no more than a upon his classification by the philosophers of our times. The fiction, and a degree of superstition, mixed with rashness : noble temple which he raised may now, perhaps, be destroy for it is certain, that numerous effects, as expansion, contraced and rejected of the builders altogether, but though it should tion, impression, yielding, collection, attraction, repulsion, be levelled to the ground, the genius of true philosophy will assimilation, union, and the like, have place, not only here stand discovered among the ruins.

upon the surface, but also in the bowels of the earth, and reProfessor Stewart, after various observations upon the ar. gions of the heavens. And no more faithful guide can be rangements of Bacon and D'Alembert, says: "If the fore used or consulted, than these properties of matter, to conduct going strictures be well founded, it seems to follow, that not the understanding to the depths of the earth, which are absoonly the endeavours of Bacon and D'Alembert to classify the lutely not seen at all, and to the sublime regions of the heasciences and arts according to a logical division of our facul.vens, which are generally seen, bus falsely ; on account of ties, is altogether unsatisfactory, but that every future attempt their great distance, the refraction of the air, the imperfection of the same kind may be expected to be liable to similar ob- of glasses, &c. The ancients, therefore, excellentły repre. jections.”—Bentham in his Chrestomathia, speaking of Ba- sented Proteus as capable of various shapes, and a most excon's arrangement says, “Of the sketch given by D'Alembert traordinary prophet, who knew all things, both the past, the the leading principles are, as he himself has been careful to future, and the secrets of the present. For he who knows declare, taken from that given by Lord Bacon. Had it been the universal properties of matter, and by that means underentirely his own, it would have been, beyond comparison, a stands what may be, cannot but know what has been, is, and better one. For the age of Bacon, Bacon's was a precocious shall be the general state and issue of things. Our chiefest and precious fruit of the union of learning with science : for hope and dependence in the consideration of the celestial the age of D'Alembert, it will, it is believed, be found but a bodies, is therefore placed in physical reasons; though not poor production, below the author as well as the age.”—The such as are commonly so called; but those laws, with regard Chrestomathia then contains various objections to these sys- to the appetites of matter, which no diversity of place or reteins of arrangement, and suggests another system which, gion can abolish, break through, disturb, or alter." perhaps, after the lapse of two more centuries, will share See also the fable of Proteus, in his Wisdom of the Ancients. the same fate. No man was, for his own sake, less attached See also the beginning of the tenth century of the Sylva Byd to system or ornament than Lord Bacon. A plain, unadorned varum; and in bis Aphorisms concerning the composure of style in aphorisms, in which the Novum Organum is written, History, he says: “In the hisiory which we require, and is, he invariably states, the proper style for philosophy purpose in our mind, above all things it must be looked after,

that its extent be large, and that it be made after the measure NOTE E.

of the universe, for the world ought not to be tied into the Referring to page 140.

straitness of the understanding (which hitherto basb been Amongst the many “idols of the understanding," as they done) but our intellect should be stretched and widened, so as are termed by Bacon; amongst the many tendencies of the to be capable of the image of the world, such as we find it; mind to warp us from truth, the most subtle seem to be those for the custom of respecting but a few things, and passing which emanate from the love of truth itself, undermining the sentence according to that paucity and scantness hath spoiled understanding, as ruin ever works, on the side of our virtues. all." The love of truth, the desire to know the causes of things, is,

Upon the same principle, he says, I think in bis history of perhaps, one of our strongest passions; and, like all strong Life and Death, “ All tangible bodies contain a spirit cover passion, it has a tendency, unless restrained, to hurry us into

ed over, enveloped with the grosser body. There is no known excess. From an impatience to possess this treasure we are body, in the upper parts of the earth, without its spirit; induced to assent hastily, and accept counterfeits as sterling whether it be generated by the attenuating and concoeting coin :-we are induced to generalize hastily, and to abandon power of the celestial warmth, or otherwise : for the pores universality, to suppose that we have attained the truth in of tangible bodies are not a vacuum; but either contain air, all the extent in which it exists. The idols of the under. or the peculiar spirit of the substance, and tbis not a vis, an standing from the love of truth which generate haste, seem energy, a soul, or a fiction; but a real, subtile, and invisible therefore to be

body, circumscribed by place and dimension," "Such was 1. Hasty Assent.

the language of Bacon iwo centuries ago; the same senti. 2. Hasty Generalization.

ments have lately appeared in another form. in the works of 3. Abandoning Universality.

one of our modern poets. This note is upon “Abandoning universality," the nature “To every form of being is assigned of which is mentioned in page 173 of this work, and in pages

An active principle, howe'er removed 193, 191, and 201. And in the treatise "De Augmentis," there

From sense and observation; it subsists is an observation founded upon this doctrine which is not

In all things, in all natures, in the stars contained in the Advancement of Learning. Speaking of Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, agronomy, he says: “Asttunomy, such as now it is made, In flower and treo, and every pebbly s.one

That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,

Although the love of excelling is the motive by which in our The moving waters and the invisible air.

public schools, and our universities, youth is stimulated, and Whate'er exists hath properties that spread

is in the common world a very common motive of action, yet Beyond itself, communicating good,

this intellectual gladiatorship does not and never did influence A simple blessing or with evil mixed :

the noblest minds : it is only a temporary motive, and fosters Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

bad passion. The love of excellence on the other hand, is No chásm, no solitude, from link to link

powerful and permanent, and constantly generates good feel. It circulates the soul of all the worlds.",

ing. That the love of excelling does not influence philosophy, is Excursion, page 387. an opinion so prevalent that, assuming it to be the motive by

which men are generally induced to engage in public life, it NOTE F.

has been urged by politicians as an objection to learning, Referring to page 140.

" that it doth divert men's travails from action and business, To this tendency to hasty assent, which is one of the idols and bringeth them to a love of leisure and privateness."** of the understanding, originating in a love of truth, (see ante The error of the supposition that the love of excelling can innote E) it may seem that Bacon ought to have traced the fluence philosophy, may be seen in the nature of the passion, evils of credulity, which he has classed under Fantastical in the opinions of eminent moralists, and in the actions of Learning. (page 171.) Bacon, also says,

those illustrious men, who, without suffering worldly dis. “ The mind of map doth wonderfully endeavour and extinctions to have precedence in their thoughts, are content tremely covet that it may not be pensile: but that it may light without them, or with them, when following in the train of upon something fixed and immoveable, on which, as on a fir- their duty. mament, it may support itself in its swift motions and disqui. With respect to the nature of the passion, it is difficult to supsitions. Aristotle endeavours to prove that in all motions of pose that it can influence any mind, which lets its hopes and bodies, there is some point quiescent: and very elegantly ex. fears wander towards future and far distant events. “If a pounds the fable of Atlas, who stood fixed and bare up the man,” says Bacon, “meditate much upon the universal frame heavens from falling, to be meant of the poles of the world, of nature, the earth with men upon it, (the divineness of souls whereupon the conversion is accomplished. In like manner, except,) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, where as men do earnestly seek to have some atlas or axis of their co- some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go gitations within themselves, which may, in some measure, empty, and all to-and-fro a little heap of dust.” So says Bishop moderate the fluctuations and wheelings of the understanding, Taylor, “Whatsoever tempts the pride and vanity of ambifearing it may be the falling of their heaven.”

tious persons is not so big as the smallest star which we see He says also,

scattered in disorder and unregarded upon the pavement and “ We are not so eager as to reap moss for corn: or the ten

floor of heaven. And if we would suppose the pismires had der blade for ears: but wait with patience the ripeness of the but our understanding, they also would have the method of a harvest.”

man's greatness, and divide their little mole-hills into proAnd again,

vinces and exarchats: and if they also grew as vitious and as Beware of too forward maturation of knowledge, which miserable, one of their princes would lead an army out, and makes man bold and confident, and rather wants great pro- kill his neighbour ants, that he might reign over the next ceeding than causeth it."

handful of a turf." "Buch a rash impotency and intemperance doth possess and

The same lesson may be taught by a moment's self-re. infatuate the whole race of man: that they do not only pre

flection. sume upon and promise to themselves what is repugnant in

“I shall entertain you," Bishop Taylor, in the preface to nature to be performed: but also are confident that they are

his Holy Dying, says, " in a charnel-house, and carry your able to conquer, even at their pleasure, and that by way of meditation a while into the chambers of death, where you recreation, the most difficult passages of nature without trou.

shall find the rooms dressed up with melancholick arts, and ble or travail.”

fit to converse with your most retired thoughts, which begin “ Stay a little, that you may make an end the sooner," was

with a sigh, and proceed in deep consideration, and end in a a favourite maxim of Sir Nicholas Bacon.

holy resolution. The sight that St. Augustin most noted in In Locke's Conduct of the Understanding, there are some

that house of sorrow was the body of Cæsar clothed with all observations upon the evils of haste in the acquisition of the dishonours of corruption that you can suppose in six knowledge, in departing from the old maxim that the sinews months' burial.” of wisdom are slowness of belief.” So true it is,

“I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who li. “We must take root downwards, if we would bear fruit | ving, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity upwards ; if we would bear fruit and continue to bear fruit, of his friends' desire, by giving way that after a few days' buwhen the foodful plants that stand straight, only because they rial, they might send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw grew in company; or whose slender service-roots owe their cause for it, draw the image of his death unto the life. They whole steadfastness to their entanglement, have been beaten

And Tucker, in his most valuable work on the Light of | under 801, that loveth honour ; nor under Jupiter, that lovetk Nature pursued, in his chapter on vanity, says,

business, for the contemplative planet carrieth me away “We find in fact that the best and greatest men, those who wholly: but as a man born under an excellent sovereign, have done the most essential services to mankind, have been that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides i the most free from the impulses of vanity. Lycurgus and do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater Solon, those two excellent lawgivers, appear to have had part of my thoughts are to deserve well, if I were able of my none : Socrates, the prime apostle of reason, Euclid and Hip friends, and namely of your lordship; who being the Atlas pocrates, had none : whereas Protagoras with his brother of this commonwealth, the honour of my house, and the sea sophists, Diogenes, Epicurus, Lucretius, the Stoics who were cond founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both the bigots, and the latter Acadeinies who were the free of a good patriot, and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an thinkers of antiquity, were overrun with it. And among the obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am, to do you ser. moderns, Boyle, Newton, Locke, have made large improve vice. Again the meanness of my estate doth somewbat move ments in the sciences without the aid of vanity; while some me : for though I cannot accuse myself, that I am either proothers I could name, having drawn in copiously of that in. digal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course toxicating vapour, have laboured only to perplex and obscure to gel. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative them."

ends as I have moderate civil ends : for I have taken all Thomas Carlysle, in his Life of Schiller, just published, says, knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two

"The end of literature was not, in Schiller's judgment, to sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, amuse the idle, or to recreate the busy, by showing spectacles confutations, and verbosities: the other with blind experifor the imagination, or quaint paradoxes and epigramniatic ments and auricular traditions, and impostures, hath comdisquisitions for the understanding: least of all was it to mitted so many spoils ; I hope I should bring in industrious gratisy in any shape the selfishness of its professors, to mi observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions nister to their malignity, their love of money, or even of fame. and discoveries; the best state of that province. This, For persons who degrade it to such purposes, the deepest con. whether it be curiosity, or vainglory, or nature, or, if one tempt of which his kindly nature could admit was at all times take it favourably, philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind, as it in store. "Unhappy mortal!' says he to the literary trades. cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any man, the man who writes for gain, ' Unhappy mortal! that reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more with science and art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest wits than of a man's own; which is a thing I greatly affect. and allemplest nothing more, than the day drudge with the And for your lordship, perhaps you shall not find more meanest! That in the domain of perfect freedom bearest strength and less encounter in any other. And if your lord. about in thee the spirit of a slave! As Schiller viewed it, ship shall find now or at any time, that I do seek or affect genuine literature includes the essence of philosophy, religion, any place, whereunto any that is nearer unto your lordship art; whatever speaks to the immortal part of man. The shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest man. daughter, she is likewise the nurse of all that is spiritual and And if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as exalted in our character. The boon she bestows is truth; Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation truth not merely physical, political, economical, such as the unto voluntary poverty: but this I will do, I will sell the sensual man in us is perpetually demanding, ever ready to inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick reward, and likely in general to find; but the truth of moral revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by feeling, truth of taste, that inward truth in its thousand mo. deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become ditications, which only the most ethereal portion of our na- some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of ture can discern, but without which that portion of it lan. truth, which, he said, lay so deep. This which I have writ guishes and dies, and we are left divested of our birthright, unto your lordship, is raiher thoughts than words, being set thenceforward “of the earth earthy,' machines for earning down without all art, disguising, or reservation: wherein I and enjoying no longer worthy to be called the Sons of Hea- have done honour both to your lordship’s wisdom, in judging ven. The treasures of literature are thus celestial, imperish that that will be best believed of your lordship which is able, beyond all price: with her is the shrine of our best truest; and to your lordship's good nature, in retaining nohopes, the palladium of pure manhood; to be among the thing from you. And even so, I wish your lordship all hapguardians and servants of this is the noblest function that piness, and to myself means and occasion to be added to my can be entrusted to a mortal. Genius, even in its faintest faithful desire io do your service.— From my lodging at scintillations, is 'the inspired gift of God;' a solemn mandate Gray's-Inn." to its owner to go forth and labour in his sphere, to keep “To the Lord Treasurer Burghley.--It may please your alive the sacred fire' among his brethren, which the heavy good lordship, I am to give you humble thanks for your and polluted atmosphere of this world is forever threatening favourable opinion, which by Mr. Secretary's report I find to extinguish. Woe to him if he neglect this mandate, if he you conceive of me, for the obtaining of a good place, wbich hear not its small still voice! Woe to him if he turn this some of my honourable friends have wished unto me nec inspired gift into the servant of his evil or ignoble passions ; opinanti. I will use no reason to persuade your lordship's if he offer it on the altar of vanity, if he sell it for a piece of mediation, but this, that your lordship, and my other friends, money!"

shall in this beg my life of the queen; for I see well the bar The most apparent extraordinary influence of ambition, will be my bier, as I must and will use it, rather than my poor which is but a form of the love of excelling, is in the conduct estate or reputation shall decay." of Lord Bacon in his political life, who appears to have been "To my Lord of Essex.--For as for appetite, the waters of attracted by worldly distinction, although he well knew jis Parnassus are not like the waters of the Spaw, that give a cmptiness, and well knew “how much it diverteth and inter- stomach; but rather they quench appetite and desires." rupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like A letter of recommendation of his service to the Earl of unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which while Northumberland, a few days before Queen Elizabeth's death. she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up the race is hindered."'* -“To be plain with your lordship, it is very true, and no

That Bacon's real inclination was for contemplation, ap. winds or noisos of civil matters can blow this out of my head pears in the following letters: "To my Lord Treasurer Burgh- or heart, that your great capacity and love towards studies ley, (A. D. 1501.)—“My lord, with as much confidence as and contemplations of a higher and worthier nature, than mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service, popular, a nature rare in the world, and in a person of your and your honourable correspondence unto me and my poor lordship’s quality almost singular, it is to me a great and chief estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your motive to draw my affection and admiration towards you." lordship. I wax now somewhat apcient; one and thirty “To Mr. Matthew."-Written, as it seems, when he bad years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I made progress in the Novum Organum, probably about 1609. thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not fear that action “I inust confess my desire to be, that my writings should not shall impair it; because I account my ordinary course of court the present time, or some few places, in such sont as study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of might make them either less general to persons, or less per. action are. I ever bear a mind, in some middle place that I manent in future ages. As to the Instauration your so full could discharge, to serve her majesty; not as a man born approbation thereof I read with much comfort, by how much

more my heart is upon it; and by how much less I expected • See page 174 of this volume.

consent and concurrence in a matter so obscure. Of this I