for Comus; and a number of miscellaneous poems, consisting of odes, songs, sonnets, epistles, elegies, and epitaphs. He died probably in 1645.

[Bullen's selections from the Elizabethan lyrics and song-books, and the same editor's selections from Drayton, are recommended. Excellent editions of Drummond and Browne are published in the Muses' Library.]

Bacon, the

in literary prose on philosophy

CHAPTER IV.

FRANCIS BACON.

The prose writers we have dealt with so far took for their subjects religion, politics, history, or fiction. Neither philosophy nor science had as yet been first to write regarded by English authors as a subject for literary treatment. Bacon was the first to write in literary English prose on inductive philosophy and on the right method of advancing science. As a man of letters, he can claim the honour of introducing into our literature a new form of prose-the Essay.

and science.

1

Bacon was a politician as well as an author, and his career was largely bound up with the historical and political events of his time. Like many eminent writers before and after him, he held high offices of state. Indeed, it has been said that Bacon himself thought he would be remembered rather as a politician than as a man of letters.

Francis Bacon was born at York House in the Strand in 1561. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was Elizabeth's first Lord Keeper; his mother, a parentage. daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, who had been tutor to Edward VI., was sister to the wife of William

Birth and

1 Chaucer was employed by the king on foreign missions; More was Lord Chancellor; Spenser, secretary to a Lord-deputy of Ireland; Milton, Latin Secretary; Addison, Secretary of State, &c.

Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, the great statesman of Elizabeth's reign. At an early age Bacon Education. entered Trinity College, Cambridge. On

leaving the University he went to London and began to study law at Gray's Inn, and then spent two years in France. His father's death in 1579 left him with but a slender portion, and it was necessary to set to work in good earnest. In 1586 he became bencher

Enters the

of the law.

of Gray's Inn. Two years earlier he had sat profession in Parliament, and was again member in 1586 and 1593. He hoped, however, that his close relationship to Burleigh would gain him a post in which he would find leisure to pursue the studies for which he cared even more than for political preferment. In a letter to Burleigh in 1592, asking for some Letter to office, he declared that he had "vast contem- Burleigh. plative ends"; "I have", he said, "taken all knowledge to be my province". Indeed, from the general tone of Bacon's letters we learn that he regarded his political and legal work chiefly as a means of livelihood, while carrying on what was to him the really important work of his life-his investigations into human knowledge. Burleigh not responding to Bacon's wishes, the latter attached himself to Essex, who attempted, but without success, to advance Bacon's fortunes. Bacon offended Elizabeth by calling in question in Parliament some of her decisions. Therefore when Essex demanded of her the solicitor-generalship for his friend, it was refused; but later the queen appointed Bacon one of her learned counsel. When the earl fell into disgrace, Bacon sacrificed his friend to his own interests. At the Bacon and request of the government, he wrote a docu- Essex. ment setting forth Essex's offences, entitled Declaration of the Treason of the Earl of Essex, and in 1601 took a prominent part in the prosecution which ended in the condemnation of Essex to a traitor's death. At the beginning of James's reign Bacon wrote an apology, giving reasons for his conduct; but it cannot be said to clear his character from the stain of sacrificing his friend to

his own advancement. It may have been his duty to separate himself from Essex, but it could never have been imperative on him to appear in public as his

accuser.

In the meanwhile, in 1597 had appeared the first edition of Bacon's Essays.

In 1605 Bacon published his second book, the Advancement of Learning. He sent a copy to Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bodleian Library publications. at Oxford, with a letter that has much biographical interest. In it he writes:

First

I think no man may more truly say with the psalm multum incola fuit anima mea1 than myself. For I do confess since I was of any understanding, my mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done; and in absence are many errors which I do willingly acknowledge; ... knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part, I have led my life in Civil Causes; for which I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my mind.

The next year Bacon married Alice Barnham, the daughter of a rich alderman, and in 1607 was appointed solicitor-general. His rise was now rapid Marriage. and assured. In 1612 appeared the second edition of the Essays. In 1613 he became attorneygeneral, and in 1616 a privy-councillor; in

Becomes Attorneygeneral.

1617 Lord Keeper, and the next year Lord Chancellor. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam, and in 1621 was created Viscount St. Created a Albans. The year before, he had published the Novum Organum. It was intended to form the second book of a work never completed, the The "Novum Instauratio Magna, which occupied him at Organum". intervals all through his life.

peer.

But Bacon was not destined to end his days in honour and high office. He sided with the king on a question

1 The beginning of the verse: "My soul hath long dwelt among them that are enemies unto peace".

concerning monopolies, and thus made himself enemies, at whose instigation he was charged in 1621 His fall. with accepting bribes. He did not defend

himself from the accusation, but declared that he had never allowed the bribes to influence his decisions. For this avowed corruption he was deprived of his office in 1621, fined £40,000, and condemned to imprisonment during the king's pleasure. The fine was remitted, and he was only kept a few days in the Tower. His career as a public man was ruined and ended, and he retired to his house at Gorhambury, near St. Albans.

last years.

There Bacon was not idle. He completed his History of Henry VII., which was published in 1622, and a third edition of his Essays appeared in 1625. He Literary owed his death to his scientific curiosity. work of his Driving one bitterly cold day, he stopped his carriage in order that he might alight and stuff a hen with snow, believing that extreme cold would preserve flesh from decay. He took a chill, and died on Easter Day, 1626. He was buried in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans, and, as he said in his will, left his name and memory "to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages”.

Death.

With Bacon the politician, and Bacon the man, we need not concern ourselves here. As a politician he must be studied in relation to the history of Bacon, the the country during his lifetime. As a man politician. he offers an interesting field of speculation to the moralist, and to all students of human character. But we have to deal only with Bacon's importance in the domains of science and literature.

Bacon, the

Bacon is sometimes credited with the introduction of a new system of reasoning, that of induction.1 Such a method, had, however, been known and understood even in the days of Aristotle.

philosopher and man of

science.

1 A method of searching for truth grounded mainly upon observation and experiment. It is chiefly useful in the physical sciences, such as heat, electricity, and chemistry. J. S. Mill held that all new truths, however discovered, rest ultimately on premises gathered from induction.

But Bacon was the first to make such a mode of inquiry effective, by insisting on the necessity of careful experiments and observation.

The "Ad

1

To prepare the way for his great scheme of reform in experimental philosophy set forth in the Novum Organum, Bacon wrote the Advancement of Learning vancement (1605). The work is dedicated to James I. of Learning" and is in two books. The first deals with "the excellence of learning and knowledge, and the excellence of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof"; the second book treats of "what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects and undervalues I find in such particular acts".

Bacon begins by attempting to deliver knowledge from the "discredits and disgraces" it has received, "all from ignorance", appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines who forget that "the Contemplation of God's creatures and works produceth (having regard to the works and creatures themselves) knowledge, but having regard to God, no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge"; sometimes in the severity and arrogance of politicians, and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.

Bacon very aptly illustrates the influence of learning on intercourse between men, by reference to the tale of the influence of the sweet sounds of Orpheus's harp on the beasts, who " 'forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be

1 The full title is the Two Books of Francis Bacon; of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.