him, was once more his own, and nature, whom he worshipped, spread her vast untrodden fields before him, where, with science as his handmaid, he might wander at his will; but the expectations of the learned world and the hopes of his devoted friends were all blighted by a perceptible decay of his health and strength in the beginning of the sickly year of 1625.

amongst his legacies to his friends, he says, "I the distractions of politics refreshed and consoled give unto the right honourable my worthy friend, the Marquis Fiatt, late lord ambassador of France, my books of orisons or psalms curiously rhymed." As a parent he wrote to the marquis, who esteemed it to be the greatest honour tonferred upon him to be called his son. He caused his Essays and treatise De Augmentis to be translated into French; and, with the affectionate enthusiasm of youth, upon his return to France, requested and obtained his portrait.

During this year his publications were limited to a new edition of his Essays, a small volume of His friendship with Sir Julius Cæsar, Master Apophthegms, the production, as a recreation in of the Rolls, continued to his death, sickness, of a morning's dictation, and a transla

Selden, the chief of learned men reputed in tion of a few of the Psalms of David into English this land, expressed his respect, with the assu-verse, which he dedicated to a divine and poet, rance that "never was any man more willing or his friend, the learned and religious George ready to do your lordship's service than myself." Herbert. This was the last exercise, in the time Ben Jonson, not in general too profuse of of his illness, of his pious mind; and a more praise, says, "My conceit of his person was pious mind never existed. never increased toward him by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever by his works one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages: in his adversity, I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want; neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."

Sir Thomas Meautys stood by him to his death with a firmness and love which does honour to him and to human nature.

His exclusion from the verge of the court had long been remitted; and, in the beginning of the year 1624, the whole of the parliamentary sentence was pardoned, by a warrant which stated that, " calling to mind the former good services of the Lord St. Albans, and how well and profitably he hath spent his time since his trouble, we are pleased to remove from him that blot of ignominy which yet remaineth upon him, of incapacity and disablement; and to remit to him all penalties whatsoever infiicted by that sentence. Having therefore formerly pardoned his fine, and released his confinement, these are to will and require you to prepare, for our signature, a bill containing a pardon of the whole sentence."

This was one of the last of the king's acts, who thus faithfully performed, to the extent of his ability, all his promises. He died at Theobalds, on the 27th of March, 1625.

His lordship was summoned to parliament in the succeeding reign, but was prevented, by his infirmities, from again taking his seat as a peer. Though Lord Bacon's constitution had never been strong, his temperance and management of his health seemed to promise old age, which his unbounded knowledge and leisure for speculation could not fail to render useful to the world and glorious to himself. The retirement, which in all

There is scarcely a line of his works in which a deep, awful, religious feeling is not manifested. It is perhaps, most conspicuous in his Confession of Faith, of which Dr. Rawley says, "For that treatise of his lordship's, inscribed, A Confession of the Faith, I have ranked that in the close of this whole volume; thereby to demonstrate to the world that he was a master in divinity, as well as in philosophy or politics, and that he was versed no less in the saving knowledge than in the universal and adorning knowledges; for though he composed the same many years before his death, yet I thought that to be the fittest place, as the most acceptable incense unto God of the faith wherein he resigned his breath; the crowning of all his other perfections and abilities; and the best perfume of his name to the world after his death. This confession of his faith doth abundantly tes tify that he was able to render a reason of the hope which was in him."

It might be said of him, as one of the most deep thinking of men said of himself, "For my religion, though there be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all, yet, in despite thereof, I dare, without usurpation, assume the honourable style of a Christian; not that I merely owe this title to the font, my education, or clime wherein I was born, but having, in my riper years and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find myself bound by the principles of grace and the law of mine own reason to embrace no other religion than this."

From his Prayers, found after his death, his piety cannot be mistaken. They have the same glory around them, whether they are his supplications as a student, as an author, or as a preserver, when chancellor, of the religious sentiments of the country.

As a student, he prays, that he may not be inflated or misled by the vanity which makes man wise in his own conceit: To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we put forth

most humble and hearty supplications, that hu- in the New Atlantis: in his tract " De principiis," man things may not prejudice such as are divine; and the tract, entitled "The Conditions of Entineither that, from the unlocking of the gates of ties." sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, any thing of incredulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards divine mysteries."

As an author he prays in the same spirit: "Thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which, coming from thy goodness, returneth to thy glory."

The same spirit did not forsake him when chancellor: "Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father from my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before thee: remember what I have first sought, and what hath | been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies: I have mourned for the divisions of thy church: I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine, which thy right-hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first and the latter rain; and that it might stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples."

There is a tract entitled "The Characters of a

believing Christian, in paradoxes and seeming contradictions," which is spurious.

Such are his religious sentiments in different parts of his works: but they are not confined to his publications. They appear where, according to his own doctrine, our opinions may always be discovered, in his familiar letters, in the testimony of his friends, in his unguarded observations, and in his will.

In a letter to Mr. Mathew, imprisoned for religion, he says, "I pray God, who understandeth us all better than we understand one another, contain you, even as I hope he will, at the least, within the bounds of loyalty to his majesty, and natural piety towards your country." In the decline of his life, in his letter to the Bishop of Winchester, he says, "Amongst consolations, it is not the least to represent to a man's self like examples of calamity in others. In this kind of consolation I have not been wanting to myself though, as a Christian, I have tasted, through God's great goodness, of higher remedies."

In his essay on Atheism there is an observation, which may appear to a superficial observer hasty and unguarded, inconsistent with the language of philosophy, and at variance with his own doctrines. It was written, not in prostration to any idol, but from his horror of the barren and desolate minds that are continually saying, “There is no God," and his preference, if compelled to elect, of the least of two errors. "I had rather," he says, "believe all the fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind."

As knowledge consists in understanding the sequence of events, or cause and effect, he knew that error must exist, not only from our ignorance, but from our knowledge of immediate causes.

The same holy feeling appears in all his important works. The preface to his Instauratio Magna opens and concludes with a prayer. The treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum" abounds with religious sentiments, contains two tracts, one upon natural, the other upon revealed religion, "the Sabbath and port of all men's labours," and concludes, "Attamen, quoniam etiam res quæque maximæ initiis suis debentur, mihi satis fuerit sevisse posteris et Deo immortali: cujus numen supplex precor, per filium suum et servatorem nostrum, ut has et hisce similes intellectus huIn the infancy of his reason, man ascribes mani victimas, religione tanquam sale respersas, events to chance, or to a wrong natural cause, or et gloriæ suæ immolatas, propitius accipere dig- to the immediate interference of a superior benenetur." In the midst of his profound reasoning volent or malevolent being; and, having formed in the Novum Organum, there is a passage in an opinion, he entrenches himself within its narwhich his opinion of our incorporeal nature is dis-row boundaries, or is indolently content without closed. And the third part of the Instauration concludes thus: "Deus Universi Conditor, Conservator, Instaurator, hoc opus, et in ascensione ad gloriam suam, et in descensione ad bonum humanum pro sua erga homines, benevolentia, et misericordia, protegat et regat, per Filium suum unicum, nobiscum Deum."

In his minor publications the same piety may be seen. It appears in the Meditationes Sacræ; in the Wisdom of the Ancients; in the fables of Pan, of Prometheus, of Pentheus, and of Cupid: in various parts of the Essays, but particularly in the Essay on Atheism and Goodness of Nature:

seeking for any remote cause, but philosophy endeavours to discover the antecedent in the chain of events, and looks up to the first cause.

This stopping at second causes, the property of animals and of ignorance, always diminishes as knowledge advances. Great intellect cannot be severed from piety. It was reserved for the wisest of men to raise a temple to the living God.

The philosopher who discovered the immediate cause of lightning was not inflated by his beautiful discovery: he was conscious of the power which dwelleth in thick darkness, and sendeth out lightning like arrows."

The philosopher who discovered the immediate revived, and he returned to his favourite seclusion cause of the rainbow did not rest in the proximate in Gray's Inn, from whence, on the 2d of April, cause, but raised his thoughts to Him who placeth either in his way to Gorhambury, or when making his bow in the heavens. "Very beautiful it is in an excursion into the country, with Dr. Witherthe brightness thereof: it compasseth the heaven bone, the king's physician, it occurred to him, as about with a glorious circle, and the hand of the he approached Highgate, the snow lying on the Most High hath bended it." ground, that it might be deserving consideration, whether flesh might not be preserved as well in snow as in salt; and he resolved immediately to try the experiment. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and stuffed the body with snow, and my lord did help to do it himself. The snow chilled him, and he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to Gray's Inn, but was taken to the Earl of Arundel's house, at Highgate, where he was put into a warm bed, but it was damp, and had not been slept in for a year before.

Hence, therefore, Bacon said in his youth, and repeated in his age, "It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion; for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." The testimony of his friends is of the same nature. His chaplain and biographer, Dr. Rawley, says, "That this lord was religious and conversant with God, appeareth by several passages throughout the whole current of his writings. He repaired frequently, when his health would permit him, to the service of the church; to hear sermons; to the administration of the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ; and died in the true faith established in the Church of England."

His will thus opens: "I bequeath my soul and body into the hands of God by the blessed oblation of my Saviour; the one at the time of my dissolution, the other at the time of my resurrection."Such are the proofs of his religious opinions.

His version of the Psalms was the last of his literary labours.

In the autumn, he retired to Gorhambury.
In the latter end of October he wrote to Mr.
Palmer.

Good Mr. Palmer :-I thank God, by means of the sweet air of the country, I have obtained some degree of health. Sending to the court, I thought I would salute you; and I would be glad, in this solitary time and place, to hear a little from you how the world goeth, according to your friendly manner heretofore. Fare ye well, most heartily. Your very affectionate and assured friend, FR. ST. ALBAN. Gorhambury, Oct. 29, 1625.

Whether Sir Thomas Meautys or Dr. Rawley could be found does not appear; but a messenger was immediately sent to his relation, the Master of the Rolls, the charitable Sir Julius Cæsar, then grown so old, that he was said to be kept alive beyond nature's course, by the prayers of the many poor whom he daily relieved. He instantly attended his friend, who, confined to his bed, and so enfeebled that he was unable to hold a pen, could still exercise his lively fancy. He thus wrote to Lord Arundel :

"My very good Lord,

"I was likely to have had the fortune of Cajus Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of the Mountain Vesuvius. For I was also desirous to try an experiment or two, touching the conservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and Highgate I was taken with such a fit of casting as I knew not whether it were the stone, or some surfeit, or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your lordship's house, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your lordship will not only pardon towards

deed your lordship's house was happy to me; and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it.

him, but think the better of him for it. For in

"I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship with any other hand than my own; but, by my troth, my fingers are so disjointed with this In November he wrote to the Duke of Buck- fit of sickness, that I cannot steadily hold a pen." ingham.

The severe winter which followed the infectious summer of this year brought him very low. On the 19th of December he made his will.

This was his last letter. He died in the arms of Sir Julius Cæsar, early on the morning of Easter Sunday, the 9th of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth

In the spring of 1626 his strength and spirits | year of his age.

He is buried in the same grave with his mother, ject by the inscription "Si tabula daretur digin St. Michael's church.

As to temporary inability, his golden rules | being; and, however he may abstract himself in were, "1st, Fix good, obliterate bad times. 2dly, his study, or climb the hill above him, he must In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon daily mingle with their hopes and fears, their himself, let him set hours for it; but whatever is wishes and affections. He was cradled in poliagreeable to his nature, let him take no care for tics: to be lord keeper was the boundary of the any set hours, for his thoughts will fly to it of horizon drawn by his parents. He lived in an themselves." He so mastered and subdued his age when a young mind would be dazzled, and a mind as to counteract disinclination to study; and young heart engaged by the gorgeous and chivalhe prevented fatigue by stopping in due time: by ric style which pervaded all things, and which a a judicious intermission of studies, and by never romantic queen loved and encouraged: life seemplodding upon books; for, although he read inces-ed a succession of splendid dramatic scenes, and santly, he winnowed quickly. Interruption was the gravest business a well acted court masque; only a diversion of study; and if necessary, he sought retirement.

the mercenary place-hunter knelt to beg a favou with the devoted air of a knight errant; and even Of inability to acquire particular sorts of know- sober citizens put on a clumsy disguise of galledge he was scarcely conscious. He was inte- lantry, and compared their royal mistress to Venus rested in all truths, and, by investigations in his and Diana. There was nothing to revolt a young youth upon subjects from which he was averse, and ingenuous mind: the road to power was, no he wore out the knots and stonds of his mind, and | doubt, then as it is now; but, covered with tapesmade it pliant to all inquiry. He contemplated try and strewed with flowers, it could not be nature in detail and in mass: he contracted the suspected that it was either dirty or crooked. He sight of his mind and dilated it.—He saw differ- had also that common failing of genius and ardent ences in apparent resemblances, and resemblances youth, which led him to be confident of his in apparent differences.-He had not any attach-strength rather than suspicious of his weakness; ment either to antiquity or novelty.-He prevented and it was his favourite doctrine, that the perfecmental aberration by studies which produced fix-tion of human conduct consists in the union of edness, and fixedness by keeping his mind alive contemplation and action, a conjunction of the and open to perpetual improvement.

The theory of memory he understood and explained and in its practice he was perfect. He knew much, and what he once knew he seldom forgot.

two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action; but he should have recollected that Jupiter dethroned Saturn, and that civil affairs seldom fail to usurp and take captive the

the end, how unworthy the means! but he was fettered by narrow circumstances, and his endeavours to extricate himself were vain.

In his compositions his first object was clear-whole man. He soon saw his error: how futile ness to reduce marvels to plain things, not to inflate plain things into marvels. He was not attached either to method or to ornament, although he adopted both to insure a favourable reception for abstruse truths.

Such is a faint outline of his mind, which, "like the sun, had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion, no quiet but in activity: it did not so properly apprehend, as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. There was no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were quick and expedite: they were ready upon the first summons, there was freedom and firmness in all their operations; his understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy; he saw consequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn, in the womb of their causes.' How much is it to be lamented that such a mind, with such a temperament, was not altogether devoted to contemplation, to the tranquil pursuit of knowledge, and the calm delights of piety.

That in his youth he should quit these pleasant paths for the troubels and trappings of public life would be a cause for wonder, if it were not remembered that man amongst men is a social

Into active life he entered, and carried into it his powerful mind and the principles of his phi| losophy. As a philosopher he was sincere in his love of science, intrepid and indefatigable in the pursuit and improvement of it: his philosophy is, "discover-improve." He was patientissimus veri. He was a reformer, not an innovator. His desire was to proceed, not " in aliud," but " in melius." His motive was not the love of excelling, but the love of excellence. He stood on such a height that popular praise or dispraise could not reach him.

He was a cautious reformer; quick to hear, slow to speak. "Use Argus's hundred eyes before you raise one of Briareus's hundred hands," was his maxim.

He was a gradual reformer. He thought that reform ought to be, like the advances of nature, scarce discernible in its motion, but only visible in its issue. His admonition was, "Let a living spring constantly flow into the stagnant waters.'

99

He was a confident reformer. "I have held up a light in the obscurity of philosophy, which will be seen centuries after I am dead. It will be seen amidst the erection of temples, tombs, pa