Bacon in retirement. His death

Merits of

Bacon's style

the proceedings is very noticeable; he clearly remembered Bacon's share in the
proceedings against himself and Essex. Judged by the standard of our day
Bacon's conduct appears flagitious; according to that of his own it amounted at
most to culpable disregard of appearances, for clearly the gift which the judge
was permitted to accept after trial might have been the fulfilment of a corrupt
bargain entered into previously. Bacon must here as elsewhere be acquitted of
deliberate wrong-doing, but here as elsewhere censured or compassionated for a
deplorable lack of moral sensitiveness. It is characteristic of the duality of his
nature that his intellectual conscience did not mislead him, and even gave him
strength to rejoice at the purification of justice, though to his own shame and detri-
"I was," he said, "the justest judge that was in England these fifty years;
but it was the justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years."
It is gratifying to be able to believe that Bacon's spirit was by no means
crushed by his fall. He turned immediately to his History of Henry VII.,
which was completed by October, published in the following year, and trans-
lated into Latin by the author. It proves that he might have been a great his-
torian, and excites lively regret that the merest fragment was written of the
life of Henry VIII. which was to have followed it. Bacon's judgments on the
men and affairs of that eventful reign would have been invaluable. The rest of
his life is too justly described by Mr. Spedding as "a continual struggle to obtain
by the help of others the means of pursuing the great purpose for which he lived,
and generally a losing struggle." James applauded the resolution of "our cousin,"
degere vitam quietam et tranquillam in studiis et contemplatione rerum,
atque hoc modo etiam posteritati inservire," but, under the sinister influence
of Buckingham, as is probable, refrained from aiding him to carry it out. Like
his successor, Lord Westbury, under somewhat similar circumstances, he offered
to devote his leisure to codifying the law. The offer was not accepted, nor
could he obtain the provostship of Eton for which he applied, or prevail upon
Charles I. to recall him to the House of Lords. That he did not feel himself
estranged from politics may be gathered from his Considerations touching a War
with Spain, written when the failure of the Spanish match had established the
soundness of his views on foreign policy. His main attention, nevertheless,
was devoted to natural philosophy. The Advancement of Learning was repub-
lished in 1623 in a Latin form and with most extensive additions, as De Augmentis
Scientiarum. For the rest of his life Bacon was active in the observations and
experiments designed to confirm the truth of his great principle that knowledge
comes from the study of Nature. Some of these were published by himself, others.
appeared after his death under the title of Sylva Sylvarum. He may be said
to have laid down his life in the cause. A chill caught in a trivial experiment
upon the antiseptic properties of snow brought him to the tomb on April 9,
1626. Even after his fall he had affected a magnificent style of living, and he died
deeply in debt. But he had other possessions to bequeath than the goods of this
world. A few months previously he had written in his will the oft-quoted words:
For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches and to
foreign nations and the next ages."

As an author, Bacon is a representative of his age, but surpasses it where it is strongest, and avoids in great measure its characteristic defects. The prose of the period has a general air of loftiness and magnanimity, and

Bacon's communicates this impression more impressively than any other.
Whatever may be known or surmised against his character, no reader while
reading him can conceive of him.
as other than a magnanimous man.
It was an age of metaphors and
similes, and Bacon's are more nu-
merous and more striking than
those of any prose contemporary.
In truth, his vivid perception of
what might be but superficial
analogies sometimes misguided his
judgment, though it never preju-
diced him his style. Perspicuity of
style and methodical arrangement
of matter are not conspicuous among
the literary virtues of the period,
but Bacon possessed both. As with
Chaucer, his genius is attested by
his perennial freshness. Representa-
tive as he is of his own time, no
contemporary has so much the air
of a modern.

It is remarkable that none of the four great writers whom we have selected as the four dominant figures of Elizabethan prose were, strictly speaking, men of letters. Hooker never affected any character but that of the divine; Raleigh's principal works were composed to record his own exploits, or solace his captivity; banishment from court. produced Sidney's Arcadia, and amorous disappointment his Astrophel and Stella; while the motive of most of Bacon's works is not

literary but scientific. That they
should nevertheless have so greatly
excelled professed authors is an
indication that the man of thought
was not so widely severed from the man of action as in our day, and
that Captain Sword and Captain Pen kept closer company then than
now. Bacon comes nearer to the modern ideal than his contemporaries,
his ordinary pursuits having a nearer affinity than theirs to the literary
life. Yet even the most literary of his works, the Essays, does not

VOL. II

B

Bacon's
"Essays"

read like the production of a professional author. Much of it might well pass for registered self-communings or memoranda for his own guidance in his pursuit of power, and wealth, and fame. The extraordinary point, which gives it a piquancy far surpassing that of any other work of precepts, is the alliance of this mere self-seeking with so ample an endowment of the wisdom from above. There is little to condemn absolutely, but much that savours rather of the counsel of Ahithophel than of the schools of the prophets; much again that could hardly be refined upon by Ideal Virtue This duality is one secret of the permanence and immense popularity of the book, equally acceptable to the children of this world and to the children of light. It is but natural that one of the least satisfactory of the Essays should be that on Love, which, compared with the discourse of other great men upon this immortal theme, seems carbo pro thesauro. Yet it is most characteristic; for Bacon, the man of intellect, sees above all things in love the perturbing force that overthrows wisdom and turns counsel into foolishness. Characteristic it is, therefore, that he should regard Love as an inconvenient, almost an inimical phenomenon what is really disappointing is that he should appear able to conceive of him merely as an extravagant and irrational passion. With friendship he is more at home; friendship is really in his mind when he eulogises love. "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." Yet throughout his Essay on Friendship the note is pitched disappointingly low: we hear far more of the advantages and commodities of friendship than of its divinity. In both these essays Bacon creeps where Emerson soars: yet in the parts of the subject which come within the domain of the intellect his wisdom is supreme and authoritative. These are indeed golden words:

Friendship maketh a fair day in the affections from storms and tempests: but it maketh daylight in the understanding out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another. He tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas: Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth and that a man giveth himself as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. How many things are there which a man cannot with any face or comeliness say or do himself! A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them. A man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth which are blushing in a man's own.

:

None of Bacon's Essays are more interesting than those in which he affords us glimpses of himself. The essay on masques, for example, although he

somewhat contemptuously dismisses the subject with, "Enough of these toys," acquires extraordinary interest when it is remembered how actively he was himself at various times concerned in the production of such entertainments at the Inns of Court. The Essay on Gardens is a mirror of his taste in gardening; the Essay on Plantations shows the attention he had given to questions of colonisation, in which he had a personal concern his admirable advice to judges and advocates bespeaks the decorum of his own court. Ere he has yet been called to the chancellorship he here gives himself counsel, to have followed which would have averted his ruin :

Do not only bind thine own hands, or thy servants' hands from taking; but bind the hand of suitors also from offering. For integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other. And avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion.

In great part the Essays are a very enchiridion of generous sentiment: yet indications are not wanting that the writer's moral nature was not of the most exalted:

Certainly there be not two more fortunate properties than to have a little of

the fool, and not too much of the honest. Therefore extreme lovers of their country or masters, were never fortunate, neither can they be. For when a man placeth his thoughts without himself, he goeth not his own way.

This is wisdom, but assuredly not the wisdom from above.

If affection lead a man to favour the wrong side in justice, let him rather use his countenance to compound the matter than to carry it. If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert, let him do it without depraving or disabling the better deserver.

This is indeed the attitude of him who

Would not play false,

And yet would wrongly win.

Although Bacon's Essays in form correspond to his definition of an essay as "a dispersed meditation," in substance they are concentrated wisdom. It is, therefore, needful that they should be pregnant and pithy. It is consequently difficult to find elaborate passages available for quotation. They cannot, like Emerson's, be criticised as discontinuous but the transitions frequently appear abrupt, from no want of art in the writer, but simply because an artful concatenation of thoughts would have required many words, and destroyed the aphoristic character of the piece. The perfect success of the author's method is evinced by the number of phrases which have found their way into literature as familiar quotations, selected by a process no less conclusive as to the infallibility of the general judgment in the long run than as to the merit of the sayings themselves. Whatever is most familiar is also best :

Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

It is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

"The Ad

vancement of Learning"

It is a sure sign of a worthy and generous spirit whom honour amends.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

All rising to a great place is by a winding stair.

Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds, they ever fly to twilight.
It breeds great perfection if the practise be harder than the use.

God Almighty first planted a garden.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

A mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolors of death. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A painter may make a better face than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician that maketh an excellent air in music) and not by rule. These latter remarks prove Bacon's insight into æsthetics to have been no less than his insight into moral and natural philosophy. It is to be regretted that he wrought so little in this department. His reading in Latin, French, and Italian literature seems to have been very extensive : but it may be doubted whether the modern poets of any nation were much in his hands, and he probably read Greek only in Latin translations, a great misfortune, as it would disable him from gaining any real acquaintance with the Greek drama. Had this been otherwise the drama might not have been such a dead letter to him, as, but for his frequent concern with masques and pageants, would seem to have been the case. He derives striking similes from theatrical representations, and it seems impossible that he should not have highly appreciated Ben Jonson, the bent of whose genius must have been so much to his own taste, with whom he had much familiar intercourse, and who would certainly expect the high estimation in which he himself held Bacon to be repaid in kind. There are nevertheless few symptoms. of Bacon having realised the importance of the drama either as an intellectual achievement or as a social force. In his essay on Travel he does, indeed, advise the young voyager to attend, with many similar gatherings, the representation of comedies, but only "such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort;" and he evidently has chiefly in view the opportunities thus afforded for making acquaintances, and learning the language of the country.

The history of The Advancement of Learning (1605) is remarkable as that of a great and epoch-making book swallowed up in one more extensive, much as Wordsworth's Excursion would have disappeared as an independent poem if the author's design had been fully carried out. The republication, however, of The Advancement of Learning in 1623, greatly enlarged, under the title, De Augmentis Scientiæ, is in Latin, and The Advancement still stands as the author's chief contribution to science in his native tongue. It consists of two parts, the nature and design of which are thus stated by the author himself:

The former concerning the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof, the latter, what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and