sitions are denied, there is an end of them; but if they be allowed, it requireth a new work: which false point1 of wisdom is the bane of business. To conclude: there is no decaying merchant, or inward beggar,2 hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth, as these empty persons have to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion ;3 but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly, you were better take for business a man somewhat absurd5 than over formal.

XXVII. OF FRIENDSHIP.

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, 'Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.'6 For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and

1 False point] Lat. Genus spurium.

2 Inward beggar] One who hides poverty.

3 Opinion] Reputation. Lat. Opinionem vulgi.

You were better take] It were, or would be, better for you to take. This was a common idiomatic corruption in Bacon's time. Thus in Shakspeare, As You Like It, iii. 3, 'I were better to be married of him than of another;' and iv. I, 'You were better speak first.'

5 Absurd] Inconsistent.

6 Whosoever, &c.] This is from Aristotle, Pol. i. I.

1 A higher conversation] A higher intercourse. Lat. Altioribus contemplationibus. Phil. iii. 20, ‘Our conversation is in heaven.'

2

feignedly in some of the heathen, as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian,' and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love.3 The Latin adage meeteth with it a little, magna civitas, magna solitudo; 4 because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body;

1 Epimenides, &c.] Epimenides, a poet and sage of Crete (now sometimes called Candia), was said to have passed about fifty years of his life in a cave; some say he slept all that time. Numa, the second king of Rome, pretended to be from time to time divinely instructed in legislation by an invisible nymph, Egeria, in the grove of Aricia. Empedocles, a Sicilian philosopher, affected to be thought immortal, and was said to have for a long time secluded himself from society, and at last to have thrown himself into the crater of Mount Ætna, that his death might not be known.

2 Apollonius of Tyana] See p. 76, note 2.

3 But a tinkling cymbal, &c.] I Cor. xiii. I, 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.'

• Magna civitas, &c.] A great city is a great solitude. This adage was a quotation by Strabo from a Greek comic poet, making word-play with Megalopolis, the name of a town in Arcadia.

and it is not much otherwise in the mind: you may take sarza1 to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur3 for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great Kings and Monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For Princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions, and almost equals to themselves; which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace or conversation :8 but the Roman name attaineth the true use

1 Sarza] An extract obtained from the root of sarsaparilla, a climbing plant found chiefly in South America. Most species of the plant have a prickly stem, whence the name sarza, Spanish zarza, a bramble. Parilla means a vine, and refers to the climbing or twining habit of the plant.

2 To open] To relieve.

3 Flowers of sulphur] Sublimed sulphur; a fine powder obtained by vaporising and condensing brimstone. In old chemistry the fine particles of sublimed substances were called flowers.

4 Castoreum] Castor; a substance obtained from the body of the beaver. It has a bitter taste and a strong unpleasant smell. It is used medicinally for the promotion of a healthy action of the nervous system.

5 Civil] Secular; non-ecclesiastical.

6

Sorteth] Falls out; turns out.

1 Privadoes] Privado, Span., is a secret friend.

8 Conversation] Intercourse. See p. 105, note 7.

and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum ;1 for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate Princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned, who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men.

L. Sylla when he commanded Rome,3 raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting.5 With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus 6 had obtained that interest, as he set him

1 Participes curarum] Sharers of cares.

2 Passionate] Emotional.

3 Commanded Rome] Was Dictator of Rome. See p. 62, note I. 4 The pursuit] The solicitation or canvassing. Lat. ambitum: fraudulent solicitation. Sylla desired the consulship for Catulus.

5 For that more men, &c.] Plutarch, in the Life of Pompey, refers this saying to the occasion of Sylla's refusal to allow Pompey a triumph. Pompey required the honour of triumph, but Sylla denied it, alleging that none could enter in triumph into Rome but Consuls or Prætors; and told him plainly that if he were bent to stand in it, he would resist him. All this blanked not Pompey, who told him frankly again how men did honour the rising, not the setting, of the sun; meaning thereby how his own honour increased, and Sylla's diminished.'-NORTH'S Translation. It was after his triumph that Pompey procured the consulship for Lepidus. 'It spited Sylla to see him come so fast forward, and to rise to so great credit; notwithstanding, being ashamed to hinder him, he was contented to keep it to himself, until that Pompey by force, and against Sylla's will, had brought Lepidus to be consul, by the help and good will of the people that furthered his desire.'—Ibid.

• Decimus Brutus, &c.] Shakspeare, in his play of Julius Cæsar,

down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew.1 And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Cæsar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calphurnia,2 this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamed a better dream. And it seemeth his favour was so great, as3 Antonius, in a letter, which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics,4 calleth him venefica,-witch;' as if he had enchanted Cæsar. Augustus raised Agrippa" (though of mean birth) to that height, as,6 when he consulted with Mecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Mecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life: there was no third way; he had made him so great. With Tiberius Cæsar, Sejanus had ascended to that height as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a letter to him, saith, hæc pro amicitia nostra non occultavi:8 and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimus Severus and Plautianus

;

has erred in supposing Marcus Brutus, instead of this Decimus Brutus, to have been Cæsar's special favourite; and he has copied Plutarch's mistake in writing Decius for Decimus.

1 His nephew] Octavius, afterwards Augustus Cæsar, whose parents were Octavius, a senator, and Accia, the sister of Julius Cæsar.

2 Calphurnia] Properly Calpurnia, Cæsar's third wife.

3 As] That.

4 One of Cicero's Philippics] xiii. 11.

5

Agrippa] M. Vipsanius Agrippa, a distinguished Roman general. He built the Pantheon at Rome.

• As] That.

Macenas] Chief minister of Augustus, and an eminent patron of learned men.

Hæc pro amicitia, &c.] Tacitus, Ann. iv. 40. In consideration of our friendship, I have not kept back from you these things.