and that other, Of Rights and Wrongs let old men prate, and learn What is allowed to do and what forbid. For doctrines like these seem to aim at taking the wings away from the Muses' crowns and giving them back to the Sirens. The Sirens are said to live in islands; because Pleasures commonly seek retiring-places aloof from the throngs of men. As for the song of the Sirens, its fatal effect and various artifice, it is everybody's theme, and therefore needs no interpreter. But that circumstance of the bones being seen from a distance like white cliffs, has a finer point: implying that the examples of other men's calamities, however clear and conspicuous, have little effect in deterring men from the corruptions of pleasure. The parable concerning the remedies remains to be spoken of: a wise and noble parable, though not at all abstruse. For a mischief so fraught with cunning and violence alike, there are proposed three remedies: two from philosophy, the third from religion. The first method of escape is to resist the beginnings, and sedulously to avoid all occasions which may tempt and solicit the mind. This is the waxing up of the ears, and for minds of ordinary and plebeian cast — such as the crew of Ulysses- is the only remedy. But minds of a loftier order, if they fortify themselves with constancy of resolution, can venture into the midst of pleasures; nay and they take delight in thus putting their virtue to a more exquisite proof; besides gaining thereby a more thorough insight—as lookers on rather than followers-into the foolishness and madness of pleasures: which is that which Solomon professes con 172 TRANSLATION OF THE DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM. cerning himself, when he closes his enumeration of the pleasures with which he abounded in these words: Likewise my wisdom remained with me. Heroes of this order may therefore stand unshaken amidst the greatest temptations, and refrain themselves even in the steepdown paths of pleasures; provided only that they follow the example of Ulysses, and forbid the pernicious counsels and flatteries of their own followers, which are of all things most powerful to unsettle and unnerve the mind. But of the three remedies, far the best in every way is that of Orpheus; who by singing and sounding forth the praises of the gods confounded the voices of the Sirens and put them aside: for meditations upon things divine excel the pleasures of the sense, not in power only, but also in sweetness. PREFACE. A FEW days before Bacon was made Lord Keeper, the state of the negotiation then pending with Spain for the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta had been laid before the Council board, and they had "by consent agreed that his Majesty might with honour enter into a treaty of marriage" &c.1 It was not a project from which Bacon expected any good; and if the King had taken his advice he would have gone no further in it than to let it be talked of as a possible resource by which the Crown might free itself from debt. Neither did the Council, I think, (judging from the terms of the resolution,) expect it to succeed; but they thought that, if it were fairly proceeded with on the King's part, some occasion would probably turn up for breaking it off with honour and advantage. That it should be proceeded with for the present was however settled; and Sir John Digby was appointed to go as ambassador to Spain, partly to conduct the negotia 1 See "the sum of his M. speech to some of his Council on the 2 of March" [1616-7]. Harl. MSS. 1323. fo. 263. 2" It were very likely that the breach, if any were, could not be but upon some material point of religion; which if it fell out could not be any dishonour to his Majesty, but on the contrary a great reputation, both with his subjects here at home, and with his friends of the reformed religion in foreign parts." |