The meaning seems to be that when a basbful or modest, but genuine, person is put out of countenance, his discom fiture is generally variable, and he has something to say, while an impudent person is often ludicrously and utterly staggered by exposure.

ANALYSIS OF ESSAY XII.

I. As in oratory, action is everything; so in civil business, bold

ness.

II. Why boldness is powerful (being the child of ignorance and baseness):

I. It fascinates the shallow and weak among men, who are

the most numerous.

2. It often has temporary success (as mountebanks).

3. Impudence helps it (as in Mahomet's miracle). Yet an impudent person, when discomfited, appears ludicrous. III. The true use of boldness:

It is ill in counsel, good in execution.

XIII. OF GOODNESS AND GOODNESS OF NATURE. (1612, enlarged 1625.)

I TAKE Goodness in this sense, the affecting1 of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call 'Philanthropia;'2 and the word humanity (as it is used) is a little too light to express it. Goodness I call the habit, and Goodness of Nature the inclination. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity: and without it man is a busy,4 mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin.5 Goodness answers to the theological virtue Charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in Charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.

The inclination to Goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards nien, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds; inso

much as Busbechius reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have been stoned for gagging in a waggishness a long-billed fowl.

6

Errors, indeed in this virtue, of Goodness or charity, may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, Tanto buon che val niente:'—' So good that he is good for nothing:' and one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence 10 to put in writing, almost in plain terms, 'That the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust,' which he spake, because, indeed, there was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify Goodness as the Christian religion doth.

Therefore, to avoid the scandal and the danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the errors of a habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies;11 for that is but facility or softness, which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou Æsop's cock 12 a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if he had had a barley-corn. The example of God teacheth the lesson truly: 'He sendeth His rain, and maketh His sun to shine upon the just and the unjust;' but He doth not rain wealth, nor shine honour and virtues upon men equally: common benefits are to be communicate with all, but peculiar benefits with choice. And beware how in making the portraiture thou breakest the pattern; 13 for divinity maketh the love of ourselves the pattern: the love of our neighbours but the portraiture: 'Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me:' but sell not all thou hast except thou come and follow me; that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou mayest do as much good with little means as with great; for otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the fountain.

Neither is there only a habit of Goodness directed by right reason; but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition towards it; as, on the other side, there is a natural Malignity: 14 for there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. The lighter

sort of Malignity turneth but to a crossness,15 or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like; but the deeper sort to envy, and mere mischief.16 Such men in other men's calamities, are, as it were, in season,17 and are ever on the loading part: 18 not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies that are still 19 buzzing upon anything that is raw; misanthropi,20 that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon had: such dispositions are the very errors of human nature,21 and yet they are the fittest timber to make great politics 22 of: like to knee timber,23 that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm.

The parts and signs of Goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world,24 and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them if he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree 25 that is wounded itself when it gives the balm: if he easily pardons and remits offences, it shows that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot: 26 if he be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash;27 but, above all, if he have St Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema from Christ for the salvation of his brethren, 28 it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ himself.

NOTES ON ESSAY XIII.

1. 'affecting'-aiming at, desiring. See note 4, Essay I. 2. Philanthropia,' in English philanthropy—a kindliness of disposition to one's fellow-men. The etymology of the other word, humanity (Latin humanitas, from homo, a man), would suggest very much the same meaning; but the former word is generally restricted to disposition cultivated towards men, while the latter is used also of our regard for dumb animals; and when used in reference to men, includes little more than

courtesy or refinement. This sense of the word is still retained in the designation humanities, in Scotland, of what we call polite letters (literæ humaniores). Bacon seems to use the word in this sense, for he says it is 'a little too light' to be equivalent to goodness.

3. Goodness of Nature' is the disposition or faculty of kindness (i.e. benevolence); goodness is the active and habitual exercise of that faculty (i.e. beneficence).

4.

5.

busy-meddlesome; active in what does not concern him.

' vermin'-small mischievous animals. Thus a farmer includes under this name not only rats, mice, and many insects, but rabbits, squirrels, weasels, stoats, etc. Cf. 'Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and vermin'—Acts X, 12 (Geneva version).

6. admits no excess but error.' A man cannot possibly be too kind, but he may make serious mistakes in the mode of exercising his kindness-the mistake being one not of excess but of misapplication. Kindness often dictates the infliction of very severe punishment, which it would be an error (what we call 'mistaken kindness') to shrink from. Another 'error' of goodness consists often in the relief which kind and wellmeaning people give to those in want: unquestionably such relief often does harm by extending and perpetuating the condition which it is intended simply to help and improve. So long as lazy tramps and beggars are regarded as having a claim upon the kindness and support of society, merely as such, lazy tramps and beggars will of course continue and multiply under the encouragement which mistaken kindness affords to them. The great reason why modern charity is now so largely diverted from this kind of relief and applied to the relief of the sick, infirm, and disabled, is because in the latter case the exercise of charity does not tend to increase the objects upon which it is expended. If I give indiscriminate assistance to a tramp, I thereby encourage other persons to become tramps; but if I give food and help to a man who has broken his leg, it does not cause other men to break their legs.

It is instructive to observe how consistently the miracles recorded in the New Testament seem to have been regulated by some such consideration as this.

7. 'take unto '—become attached to, acquire a fondness for. 8. Busbechius'—a Latinised form of the name of Augier Ghislain de Busbecq, a celebrated_diplomatist (1522-1592). He was sent by the Emperor Ferdinand I as ambassador to the Sultan Solyman II, at Constantinople, where he resided more than seven years. He left an admirable account of the Ottoman empire in a work entitled Legationis Turcice Epistolæ Quatuor.

9. 'waggishness'-fun, frolicsomeness; always involving, however, a slight notion of mischief.

No one can help remarking-not without astonishment and regret that Bacon has, in this essay on Goodness, not one word to say in condemnation of the cruelty of the 'Christian boy;' indeed, the name by which he designates the act palliates it.

Bacon's rendering of the story is as incorrect as his tone with regard to it is unjustifiable. The offender was not a boy, but a Venetian goldsmith, who, when out fowling, caught a bird with a long bill, and which, by way of a joke, he fixed alive over his door, with a stick inserted in the mouth to keep the peak as wide open as possible. The Turks were very properly enraged, and, seizing the man, dragged him before a judge, and he hardly escaped with life.

It is not probable that the protection awarded in Eastern countries to cranes and dogs arises from any feeling of humanity, but because they are useful as devourers of offal. 10. 'confidence '-impudence. For an account of Machiavelli see note 31, Essay I. In this case Bacon seems most unjustly to misrepresent Machiavelli, quoting a passage, the meaning of which seems to be that Christianity has done harm by its excessive inculcation of benevolence, which has exposed Christians to great injuries, without any means of protection.

The reference seems to be to a passage (Discourses, ii, 2), in which Machiavelli is combating this very notion, respecting which he says, 'But that explication of our religion is erroneous, and they who made it were poor and pusillanimous, and more given to their ease than anything that is great. For if the Christian religion allows us to defend and exalt our country, it allows us certainly to love it and honour it, and prepare ourselves so as we may be able to defend it.'

It is the statement Bacon attributes to Machiavelli, which he speaks of a line or two below as a 'scandal,' pointing out a'danger.'

II. their faces or fancies'-anything in their countenances which chances to excite your interest.

12. Esop's cock'-a fable of Phædrus (iii, 12). The meaning is: Let your benevolence take a form suitable to the wants and capacities of the person benefited; just as, says he, God gives the necessities of life ('common benefits') to all alike (Matt. v, 45), but the adornments (peculiar benefits') only to a few.

13. Take care not to break the vase in trying to adorn it with a beautiful painting. The meaning is: Take care not to neglect duties that ought to come before benevolence; the rule should be-having provided for the discharge of all legitimate claims, let the remainder be dispensed in charity.