the writings of certain authors; from which, if These warnings seem to have been disregardany man happens to differ, he is presently repre-ed, and the art of governing, not a ship, which hended as a disturber and innovator."1 Whether the intellectual gladiatorship by which students in the universities of England are now stimulated, then prevailed, does not appear, but his dislike of this motive he early and always avowed. "It is," he says, "an unavoidable decree with us ever to retain our native candour and simplicity, and not attempt a passage to truth under the conduct of vanity; for, seeking real nature with all her fruits about her, we should think it a betraying of our trust to infect such a subject either with an ambitious, an ignorant, or any other faulty manner of treating it."2 would not be attempted without a knowledge of navigation, but the ship of the state, is intrusted, not to a knowledge of the principles of human nature, but to the knowledge of Latin and Greek and verbal criticisms upon the dead languages."4 And what has been the result? During the. last two centuries one class of statesmen has re|sisted all improvement, and their opponents have been hurried into intemperate alterations: whilst philosophy, lamenting these contentions, has, instead of advancing the science of government, been occupied in counteracting laws founded erroneous principles; erroneous commercial laws; erroneous laws against civil and religious liberty; and erroneous criminal laws. upon So deeply was Bacon impressed with the mag. nitude of this evil, that by his will he endowed two lectures in either of the universities, by "a lecturer, whether stranger or English, provided he is not professed in divinity, law, or physic." The subject of universities, and the importance Some years after Bacon had quitted Cambridge, he published his opinions upon the defects of universities; in which, after having warned the community that, as colleges are established for the communication of the knowledge of our predecessors, there should be a college appropriated to the discovery of new truths, a living spring to mix with the stagnant waters. "Le it," he says, "be remembered that there is not any col-to the community and to the advancement of scilegiate education of statesmen, and that this has not only a malign influence upon the growth of sciences, but is prejudicial to states and governments, and is the reason why princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state." ence, that the spring should not be poisoned or polluted, was ever present to his mind,—and, in the decline of his life, he prepared the plan of a college for the knowledge of the works and creations of God, "from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall;" but the plan was framed upon a model so vast, that, without a See the chapter on Vanity, in the admirable work, the purse of a prince and the assistance of a peo"Search's Light of Nature:" where the distinction be-ple, all attempts to realize it must be vain and 1 Ax. 90. lib. i. tween the love of excelling and the love of excellence, as a motive for acquiring knowledge, is fully explained. hopeless. Some conception of his gorgeous mind in the formation of this college, may appear even at the entrance. "We have (he says) two very long and fair galleries: and in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies; also the inventor of ships; your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and ef gunpowder; the inventor of music; the inventor of letters; the inventor of printing; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor of works in metal; the inventor of glass; the inventor of silk of the worm; the inventor of wine; the inventor of corn and bread; the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are some of brass; some of maiole and touchall the Roman edicts and tables with their Justinian; and so to the Saxon laws of England. Milton, Education, vol. Bacon says, First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large. And this I take to be a great cause, that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not any thing you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that must work it. Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to professory learning, hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state, because there is no education collegiate which is free, where such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of state. This truth, confirmed by daily experience, was, fifty years after his death, repeated by Milton, who indignantly says, "when young men quit the university for the trade of law, they ground their purposes, not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees; and if they quit it for state affairs, they betake themselves to this trust with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery, and court-shifts, and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest points of wisdom. After having prescribed the proper order of education, he adds, The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they inay not in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately showni. p. 270. themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state. After this they are to drive into the grounds of law and legal justice, delivered first, and with best warrant to Moses, and as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solon, &c. and thence to "Such," says Milton, "are the errors, such the fruits of mispending our prime youth at schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned." See his Tract on Fducation stone; some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of silver; some of gold." Such is the splendour of the portico, or anteroom. Passing beyond it, every thing is to be found which imagination can conceive or reason suggest. This entrance to Bacon's college always forces itself on my mind when I visit the University Library of Cambridge; in which I see the portrait of Mr. Thomas Nicholson, known by the name of Maps, the proprietor of a circulating library, a laborious pioneer in literature. Under his feet are some relics from classic ground, more valuable, perhaps, for their antiquity than for their beauty. Delightful as is the love of antiquity, this artificial retrospective extension of our existence, (see Shakspeare's Sonnet, 123,) might it not be adorned, in the present times, by casts from the Elgin marbles, of which the cost does not exceed 2001. By one of the universities (I think it is of Dublin) these casts have been procured. Let any parent of the mind, who considers the various modes by which the heart of a nation is formed, (which is beautifully described in Ramsden's sermon on the Cessation of Hostilities,) look in Boydell's Shakspeare, at Barry's Cordelia, to be found, most probably, in the Fitzwilliam collection: and let him compare it with the magnificent affecting fainting female in the Elgin marbles, and he will see the benefit which would result from the university containing these valuable retics. 2 We have large and deep caves of several depths: the deepest are sunk six hundred fathom, and some of them are digged and made under great hills and mountains: so that if you reckon together the depth of the hi and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep; these caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of new artificial metals, by compositions and materials. We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and some of them likewise set upon high mountains, est of them three miles at least. And these places we call the upper region. We use these towers, according to their several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation, and for the view of divers meteors, as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the fiery meteors. We have great lakes, both salt and fresh; whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies: for we find a difference in things buried in earth, or in air below the earth; and things so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the high buried in water. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea; and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the air and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions: and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going divers motions. We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. We have also great and spacious houses, where we imitate and demonstrate meteors, as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies, and not of water, thunders, nings. After having enumerated all the instruments of knowledge, "such," he says, "is a relation of the true state of Solomon's house, the end of which foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible." In these glorious inventions of one rich mind, may be traced much of what has been effected in science and mechanics, since Bacon's death, and more that will be effected during the next two centuries. After three years' residence in the university, his father sent him, at the age of sixteen, to Paris, under the care of Sir Amias Paulett, the English ambassador at that court: by whom, soon after his arrival, he was intrusted with a mission to the queen, requiring both secrecy and despatch: which he executed with such ability as to gain the approbation of the queen, and justify Sir Amias in the choice of his youthful messenger. From the confidence thus reposed in him, and from the impression made upon all with whom he conversed; upon men of letters, with whom he contracted lasting friendships; upon grave statesmen and learned philosophers, it was manifest that the promise in his infancy of excellence, whe ther for active or for contemplative life, seemed beyond the most sanguine expectation to be realized.3 After the appointment of Sir Amias Paulett's successor, Bacon travelled into the French provinces, and spent some time at Poictiers. He prepared a work upon Ciphers, which he afterlikewise for dissections and trials, that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. 4 We have also particular pools where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use, such as are with you your silk worms and bees. We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty and unknown; crystals and glasses of divers kinds. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds; and likewise new mixtures and light-compositions of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water and unquenchable; also fireworks of all variety, both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming girdles and supporters. We have also certain chambers, which we call chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases, and preservation of health. We have also fair and large baths of several mixtures, for the cure of diseases. We have also large and various orchards and gardens; wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs: and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set, whereof we make divers kinds of drink, besides the vineyards. In these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating, as well of wild trees as fruit trees, which produceth many effects. We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of heats, fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist, and the like. But above all we have heats, in imitation of the sun's and heavenly bodies, heats that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we may produce admirable effects. We procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven, and remote places; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as near, making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses. We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds; which we use not only for view or rareness, but We have also sound houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music, likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We have also a mathematical house, where are all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. We have also houses of deceits of the senses, &c. &c. It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that an eminent artist, to whom, when in Paris, he sat for his portrait, was so conscious of his inability to do justice to his extraordinary intellectual endowments, that he has written on the side of his picture: Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem. In the Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. vi. speaking of ciphers, he says, Ut verò suspicio omnis absit, aliud inventum subjiciemus, quod certè cùm adolescentuli essemus Parisiis excogitavimus, nec etiam adhuc visa nobis res digna est quæ pereat. Watts's English translation of this part is as follows: But that jealousies may be taken away, we will annex another invention, which, in truth, we de vised in our youth, when we were at Paris: and is a thing that yet seemeth to us not worthy to be lost. It containetli wards published, with an outline of the state of Europe, but the laws of sound and of imagination continued to occupy his thoughts.1 Whilst he was engaged in these meditations his father died suddenly, on the 20th February, 1579. He instantly returned to England. CHAPTER II. Law and politics were the two roads open before him; in both his family had attained opulence and honour. Law, the dry and thorny study of law, had but little attraction for his discursive and imaginative mind. With the hope, therefore, that, under the protection of his political friends, and the queen's remembrance of his father, and notice of him when a child, he might escape from the mental slavery of delving in this laborious profession, he made a great effort to secure some small competence, by applying to Lord Burleigh to re FROM THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER TILL HE ENGAGED commend him to the queen, and interceding with IN ACTIVE LIFE. 1580 to 1590. 2 DISCOVERING, upon his arrival in England, that, by the sudden death of his father, he was left without a sufficient provision to justify him in devoting his life to contemplation, it became necessary for him to select some pursuit for his support," to think how to live, instead of living only to think."3 the highest degree of cipher, which is to signify omnia per omnia, yet so, as the writing infolding, may bear a quintuple proportion to the writing infolded; no other condition or restriction whatsoever is required. Lady Burleigh to urge his suit with his uncle. But his application was unsuccessful; the queen and the lord treasurer, distinguished as they were for penetration into character, being little disposed My singular good lord, My humble duty remembered, and my humble thanks presented for your lordship's favour and countenance, which it pleased your lordship, at my being with you, to vouchsafe me, above my degree and desert: my letter hath no further errand but to commend unto your lordship the remembrance of my suit, which then I moved unto you; whereof it also pleased your lordship to give me good hearing, so far forth as in behalf of it, that which I may better deliver by letter than to promise to tender it unto her majesty, and withal to add, by speech; which is, that although it must be confessed that the request is rare and unaccustomed, yet if it be observed hu-laws, either being well left or friended, or at their own free how few there be which fall in with the study of the common election, or forsaking likely success in other studies of more delight and no less preferment, or setting hand thereunto early, without waste of years; upon such survey made, it may be my case may not seem ordinary, no more than my suit, and so more beseeming unto it. As I forced myself to say this in excuse of my motion, lest it should appear unto your lordship altogether indiscreet and unadvised, so my hope to obtain it reseth only upon your lordship's good affection toward me, and grace with her majesty, whc, methinks, needeth never to call for the experience of the thing, where she hath so great and so good of the person which recommendeth it. According to which trust of mine, if it may please your lordship both herein and elsewhere to be my patron, and to make account of me, as one in whose well-doing your lordship hath interest, albeit, indeed, your lordship hath had place to benefit many, and wisdom to make due choice of lighting places for your goodness, yet do I not fear any of your lordship's former experiences for staying my thankfulness borne in art, howsoever God's good pleasure shall enable me or disable me, outwardly, to make proof thereof; for I cannot account your lordship's service distinct from that which I to God and my prince; the performance whereof to best proof and purpose is the meeting point and rendezvous of all my thoughts. Thus I take my leave of your lordship, in humble manner, committing you, as daily in my prayers, so, likewise, at this present, to the merciful protection of the Almighty. Your most dutiful and bounden nephew, From Grey's Inn, B. FRA. this 16th of September, 1580. 1 His meditations were both upon natural science and man sciences, as will appear from the following facts. In his History of Life and Death, speaking of the differences between youth and old age, and having enumerated many of them, he proceeds thus: When I was a young man at Poictiers in France, I familiarly conversed with a young gentleman of that country, who was extremely ingenious, but somewhat talkative; he afterwards became a person of great eminence. This gentleman used to inveigh against the manners of old people, and would say, that if one could see their minds as well as their bodies, their minds would appear as deformed as their bodies; and indulging his own humour, he pretended, that the defects of old men's minds, in some measure corresponded to the defects of their bodies. Thus, dryness of the skin, he said, was answered by impudence; hardness of the viscera, by relentlessness; blear-eyes, by envy; and an evil eye, their down look, and incurvation of the body, by atheism, as no longer, says he, looking up to heaven; the trembling and shaking of the limbs, by unsteadiness and inconstancy; the bending of their fingers as to lay hold of something, by rapacity and avarice; the weakness of their knees, by fearfulness; their wrinkles, by indirect dealings and cunning, &c. And again, for echoes upon echoes, there is a rare instance thereof in a place which I will now exactly describe. It is some three or four miles from Paris, near a town called Pont-Charenton; and some bird-bolt shot or more from the river of Sein. The room is a chapel or small church. The walls all standing, both at the sides and at the ends. Speaking at the one end, I did hear it return the voice thirteen several times. (Sylva, art. 249.) There are certain letters that an echo will hardly express; as S for one, especially being principal in a word. I remember well, that when I went to the echo at Pont-Charenton, there was an old Parisian, that took it to be the work of spirits, and of good spirits. For, said he, call "Satan," and the echo will not deliver back the devil's name; but will say, "va t'en;" which is as much in French as "apage," or avoid. And thereby I did hap to find, that an echo would not return an 8, being but a hissing and an interior sound. (Art. 750.) To Lady Burghley, to speak for him to her lord. waiting on your ladyship, at your being in town, as now by So too the nature of imagination continued to interest him. In the Sylva, art. 986, he says, the relations touching the force of imagination and the secret instincts of nature are so uncertain, as they require a great deal of examination ere we conclude upon them. I would have it first thoroughly inquired, whether there be any secret passages of sympathy between persons of near blood; as parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, husbands, wives, &c. There be many reports in history, that upon the death of persons of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, that being in Paris, and my father dying in London, two or three days before my father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, that my father's house in the country was plas-dence of the Almighty. Lered all over with black mortar. Rawley Biog. Brit. This is an expression of his own, I forget where. Your dyship's most dutiful and bounden nephew, this 16th of September, 1580. B. FRA LIFE OF BACON. His agreeable occupations, and extensive views to encourage him to rely upon others rather than upon himself, and to venture on the quicksands of of science, during his residence in Gray's Inn, did politics, instead of the certain profession of the law, not check his professional exertions. In the year in which the queen had, when he was a child, pre-1586, he applied to the lord treasurer to be called dicted that he would one day be her "lord keeper." To law, therefore, he was reluctantly obliged to devote himself, and as it seems, in the year 1580, he was admitted a student of Gray's Inn, of which society his father had for many years been an illustrious member.1 Having engaged in this profession, he, as was to be expected, encountered and subdued the difficulties and obscurities of the science in which he within the bar; and in his thirtieth year was CHAPTER III. DISAPPOINTMENT AS SOLICITOR. 1590 to 1596. was doomed to labour, and in which he after- FROM HIS ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE TILL HIS wards was eminently distinguished, not only by his professional exertions and honours, but by his valuable works upon different practical parts of the law, and upon the improvement of the science, by exploring the principles of universal justice the laws of law. He thus entered on public life, submitting, as a lawyer and a statesman, to worldly occupations (being then but twenty-eight years of age) the honourable society of Gray's Inn chose him for their lent reader. Orig. p. 295. In the time of Lord Bacon there was a distinction between outer and inner barristers. By the following letter in 1586, it will appear that he applied to the lord treasurer that he might be called within bars. To the right honourable the lord treasurer.* I take it as an undoubted sign of your lordship's favour unto me that, being hardly informed of me, you took occasion rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if of theirs, I might and would truly have upholden that few your lordship had grounded only upon the said information of the matters were justly objected; as the very circumstances do induce, in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me, and, besides, were to give colour to their own doings. But because your lordship did mingle thereyou had otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do with both a late motion of mine own, and somewhat which effectual in my doings hereafter, than causeless by excusing stand affected) rather to prove your lordship's admonition what is past. And yet (with your lordship's pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember, that I did endeavour to set forth that said motion in such sort as it might breed no harder effect than a denial. And I protest simply before God, that I sought therein an ease in coming within bars, and not any extraordinary or singular note of favour. And for that your more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself; indeed I lordship may otherwise have heard of me it shall make me Extensive as were his legal researches, and great 1 The admission book at Gray's Inn begins in the year 1580; Being returned from travel he applied himself to the study Dugdale, in his account of Bacon, says, in 30th Elizabeth, FR. BACON. rately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet la- Lands. MS. li. art. 5. Orig. and the pursuit of worldly honours, that, sooner | modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance or later, he might escape into the calm regions of of his father's virtues, he immediately acknowphilosophy. ledged his obligation to the queen. This reverAt this period the court was divided into twosion, however, was not of any immediate value; parties at the head of the one were the two Ce-for, not falling into possession till after the lapse cils; of the other, the Earl of Leicester, and after- of twenty years, he said that "it was like another wards his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex. man's ground buttailing upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barns." In the parliament which met on February 19, 1592, and which was chiefly called for consultation and preparation against the ambitious designs of the King of Spain, Bacon sat as one of the To the Cecils Bacon was allied. He was the nephew of Lord Burleigh, and first cousin to Sir Robert Cecil, the principal secretary of state; but, connected as he was to the Cecils by blood, his affections were with Essex. Generous, ardent, and highly cultivated, with all the romantic enthusiasm of chivalry, and all the graces and accom-knights for Middlesex. On the 25th of February, plishments of a court, Essex was formed to gain partisans, and attach friends. Attracted by his mind and character, Bacon could have but little sympathy with Burleigh, who thought £100 an extravagant gratuity to the author of the Fairy Queen, which he was pleased to term "an old | song," and, probably, deemed the listeners to such songs little better than idle dreamers. There was much grave learning and much pedantry at court, but literature of the lighter sort was regarded with coldness, and philosophy with suspicion: instead, therefore, of uniting himself to the party in power, he not only formed an early friendship himself with Essex, but attached to his service his brother Anthony, who had returned from abroad, with a great reputation for ability and a knowledge of foreign affairs. 1592, he, in his first speech, earnestly recommended the improvement of the law, an improvement which through life he availed himself of every opportunity to encourage, not only by his speeches, but by his works; in which he admonishes lawyers, that although they have a tendency to resist the progress of legal improvement, and are not the best improvers of law, it is their duty to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of their science, productive of such blessings to themselves and to the community; and he submitted to the king that the most sacred trust to sovereign power consisted in the establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world. To assist in the improvement which he recommended, he, in after life, prepared a plan for a digest and amendment of the whole law, and particularly of the penal law of England, and a tract upon Universal Justice; the one like a fruitful shower, profitable and good for the latitude of ground on which it falls, the other like the benefits of heaven, permanent and universal. This intimacy could not fail to excite the jealousy of Lord Burleigh; and, in after life, Bacon was himself sensible that he had acted unwisely, and that his noble kinsmen had some right to complain of the readiness with which he and his brother had embraced the views of their powerful rival. But, attached as he was to Essex, Bacon In another debate on the 7th of March, Bacon was not so imprudent as to neglect an application forcibly represented, as reasons for deferring for to them whenever opportunity offered to forward six years the payment of the subsidies to which his interests. In a letter written in the year 1591 the house had consented, the distresses of the to Lord Burleigh, in which he says that "thirty-people, the danger of raising public discontent, one years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass," and the evil of making so bad a precedent against he made another effort to extricate himself from the slavery of the law, by endeavouring to procure some appointment at court; that, "not being a man born under Sol that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter that loveth business, but wholly carried away by the contemplative planet," he might by that mean become a true pioneer in the deep mines of truth. To these applications, the Cecils were not entirely inattentive; for, although not influenced by any sympathy for genius, "for a speculative man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business," as he was represented by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, they procured for him the reversion of the Registership of the Star Chamber, worth about £1600 a year, for which, themselves and posterity. With this speech the queen was much displeased, and caused her displeasure to be communicated to Bacon both by the lord treasurer and by the lord keeper. He heard them with the calmness of a philosopher, saying, that "he spoke in discharge of his conscience and duty to God, to the queen, and to his country; that he well knew the common beaten road to favour, and the impossibility that he who selected a course of life estimate only by the few,' should be approved by the many." He said this, not in anger, but in the consciousness of the dignity of his pursuits, and with the full knowledge of the doctrine and consequences both of concealment and revelation of opinion: of the time to speak and the time to be silent. If, after this admonition, he was more cautious in the expression of his sentiments, he did not |