they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and the temporal; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion : but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or like unto it : that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like; tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God. For this is but to dash the first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed:

Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum.

7. What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, or the powder treason of England 2? He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people; let that be left unto the anabaptists and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, "I will ascend and be like the Highest;" but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in

The Massacre of the Protestants throughout France ordered by Catharine di Medici and Charles IX, and begun on Saint-Bartholomew's day, the 24 August 1572. From twenty five to thirty thousand Huguenots, as they were then called, perished in that dreadful catastrophe.

The Powder treason, or as it is more generally called the Gunpowder plot, was a plan formed for blowing up with gun-powder the Houses of Parliament on the 5th November 1605, the day appointed for the opening of the session. The object of the conspirators was, as Lingard expresses it, "to involve in one common destruction the King, the Lords and the Commons, all those who framed, with the chief of those who executed, the penal laws against the English catholics." Guy Faukes or Fawkes was to fire the mine. The conspiracy was detected the very day of its intended execution; its anniversary is still commemorated in England.

saying, "I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness." And what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set, out of the bark of a Christian church, a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins. Therefore it is most necessary that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod to damn, and send to hell for ever, those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same, as hath been already in good part done. Surely in councils concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, "Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei." And it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences were commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends.

IV. OF REVENGE.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior: for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offense." That which is past is gone and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill nature; why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy: but then, let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to

punish; else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh; this is the more generous for the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. "You shall read," saith he, " that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?" and so of friends in a proportion'. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate: as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of France; and many more. But in private revenges it is not so; nay, rather vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.

V. OF ADVERSITY.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired: "Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia." Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen). "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God: "-"Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei." This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed. And the poets, indeed, have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which

In a proportion for in proportion. 2 Stesichorus, Apollodorus, etc.

seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian: "that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world." But to speak in a mean1: the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many herselike airs as carols: and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue 3.

VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION.

4. Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

2. Tacitus saith, "Livia sorted well with the arts of her

In a mean for between the two.

2 Herselike (old) for funereal.

3 This beautiful passage beginning at "Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament," not published till 1625, i. e. 28 years after the first Essays, has been adduced by Mr. Macaulay as a proof that Bacon's fancy, contrarily to the general rule, grew with his age and that his style constantly became richer and softer. The all-talented critic contrasts this passage with the severe close style of the Essay Of Studies (Essay L) published in 1597.

husband, and dissimulation of her son;" attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius; he saith, "We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius." These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or closeness are, indeed, habits and faculties several', and to be distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be shown at half lights, and to whom and when (which, indeed, are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain3 to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general; like the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed; for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn: and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible.

3. There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second dissimulation in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that" he is. And the third, simulation in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

4. For the first of these, secrecy : it is indeed the virtue of a