Upon a woman, a most brittle creature, Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing, I vow eternal wars against their whole sex, Found true to none: if one amongst whole hundreds And didst thou know the comfort of two hearts, In one delicious harmony united, As to joy one joy, and think both one thought, To see their souls met at an interview Rin. Are you in that vein too, Valerio? A meadow of so many acres yielded; Val. My father? why, my father? does he think I am a gentleman; though his covetous humour I'll be myself in spite of husbandry. [Enter GRATIANA. For. I were in heaven if once 'twere come to that. 'Young men think old men are fools: but old men know young men are fools' is well put. 'Death and his brother sleep,' so often and so variously linked in contrast by the poets, are by Chapman thus conjoined : Since sleep and death are called the twins of nature. We are reminded of Bunyan by: He that to nought aspires doth nothing need: A homely simile is : Shoes ever overthrow that are too large, And hugest cannon burst with overcharge. There are many ways of putting what Chapman words so 'An Englishman, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.' 'Man is a name of honour for a king' is a pithy single line or sentence; so are 'He that is one man's slave is free from none;' Flatterers look like friends as wolves like dogs;' 'Danger the spur of great minds;' 'A death for love's no death, but martyrdom.' What Keats felt when he heard Chapman speak out loud and bold' we know from Keats's most famous sonnet, 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer.' A complete edition of Chapman's works was published in three volumes in 1873-75, with an essay by Mr Swinburne, also separately published (1875); the volume of the plays was edited by Mr R. H. Shepherd. Another three-volume edition of the plays (1873) retained the old spelling, including the preposterous German of Alphonsus. Dr Carl Elze edited Alphonsus in 1867. Hooper's is the standard edition of the Homer (5 vols. 1857). Francis Bacon. Lord Bacon is the name by which contemporaries and succeeding generations have agreed to speak of the aggressive intellectual reformer, the great English writer, the servile statesman, the corrupt Chancellor, who by etiquette and the rules of the peerage should rather be spoken of as Lord Verulam or Viscount St Albans; in his Apophthegms he spoke of himself as 'the Lord Bacon,' as well as the Lord St Albans.' Born at York House in the Strand on the 22nd of January 1561, Francis Bacon was the younger son by his second marriage of Sir Nicholas Bacon, LordKeeper of the Great Seal; his mother, Ann, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was a lady of strong will and great accomplishments, and a zealous Calvinist. In childhood he displayed such vivacity of intellect and sedateness of behaviour that Queen Elizabeth used to call him her young Lord-Keeper; and at the age of twelve he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he early became disgusted with the Aristotelian philosophy, which still held unquestioned sway in the great English schools of learning. This dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, as Bacon himself declared to his secretary, Dr Rawley, he fell into, 'not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a philosophy only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man.' After spending two years at Cambridge, he began the study of law at Gray's Inn (1576); but that same year he went to France for about three years with Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador. His observations on foreign affairs were afterwards published in a work entitled Of the State of Europe. By the sudden death of his father in 1579, he was compelled to return hastily to England and engage in some profession. After in vain soliciting his uncle, Lord Burghley, to procure for him such a provision from Government as might allow him to devote his time to literature and philosophy, he returned to the study of the law, was called to the Bar in 1582, and became a bencher of his inn in 1586. While engaged in practice as a barrister he did not forget philosophy; early in life he sketched his vast (but never completed) work, The Instauration of the Sciences. He became member of Parliament for Melcombe Regis in 1584, for Taunton in 1586, and for Middlesex in 1593. In 1584 he sought to attract the queen's attention by addressing to her a paper of advice in which, with a boldness unique in a barrister of three-and-twenty, he argued for more tolerance in the treatment of recusants; and in 1589 he wrote a pamphlet on the controversies in the Anglican Church, in which he pleaded for elasticity in matters of doctrine and discipline. As an orator he is highly extolled by Ben Jonson. In one of his speeches he distinguished himself by taking the popular side in a question respectin some large subsidies demanded by the court, and gave great offence to Her Majesty. To Lord Burghley and his son, Robert Cecil, Bacon continued to pay court in hope of advancement, till at length, finding himself disappointed in tha quarter, he attached himself to Burghley's rival, Essex, who, with all the ardour of a generous friendship, endeavoured in vain to procure for him in 1593 the office first of Attorney and then of Solicitor General, and in 1596 that of Master of the Rolls. Essex in some degree soothed Bacon's disappointment by presenting him with an estate at Twickenham, which he afterwards sold for £1800. Bacon recommended his patron to resort to petty flattery of the queen, misunderstanding his frank character; and advised him to undertake the suppression of Tyrone's rebellion (1598). When Essex was brought to trial after his return from Ireland in disgrace in 1599, the friend whom he had so greatly obliged was associated at his own request (in a subordinate capacity) with the prosecuting counsel, in the hope, as he said, of aiding his patron; but Essex was dismissed from all his offices. When Essex broke into open rebellion in 1601, Bacon voluntarily endeavoured to secure his conviction on the capital charge of treason. He complied, moreover, after the earl's execution, with the queen's request that he should write A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, Earl of Essex, which was printed by authority; and in another paper he defended his own conduct on the ground that the claims of the State must override those of friendship. In Elizabeth's last years Bacon tried to mediate between Crown and Parliament, and himself advised tolerance in Ireland. After the accession of James the fortunes of Bacon began to improve. He made extravagant professions of loyalty, planned schemes for the union of England and Scotland, and proved that the difficulties between king and commons could easily be arranged. He was knighted in July 1603, and in subsequent years obtained successively the offices of King's Counsel, Solicitor-General (1607), and Attorney-General (1613). In the execution of his duties he did not scruple to lend himself to the most arbitrary measures of the court, and in 1615 he even assisted in an attempt to extort a confession of treason, under torture, from an old clergyman of the name of Peacham. Torture was applied, not at Bacon's suggestion, but with his assent, and he examined the prisoner while on the rack, without result. Peacham was then tried in King's Bench, Bacon undertaking to confer with each judge so as to secure a conviction. Coke resisted Bacon's advice, and in consequence Bacon helped to get Coke dismissed. Although his income had now been greatly enlarged by the emoluments of office and a marriage Not with the daughter of a wealthy alderman, his extravagance and that of his servants, which he seems to have been too good-natured to check, continued to keep him in difficulties. He cringed to the king and his favourite, Buckingham; and at length, on the 7th of January 1618, he attained the summit of his ambition, by being created Lord High Chancellor of England; and in July he was raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam— a title which gave place in January 1621 to that of Viscount St Albans. As Chancellor it cannot be disputed that, both in his political and judicial capacities, he grossly deserted his duty. only did he suffer Buckingham to interfere with his decisions as a judge, but, by accepting numerous presents or bribes from suitors, he gave occasion, in 1621, to a parliamentary inquiry, which ended in his condemnation and disgrace. It has been argued that he did not allow the presents he received to influence his decisions, or but rarely. But he fully confessed to the twenty-three articles of corruption which were laid to his charge; and when waited on by a committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire whether the confession was subscribed by himself, he answered, 'It is my act, my hand, my heart: I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.' It was decided that he be fined £40,000, imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and banished from Parliament and court. He was soon released and pardoned, but not allowed to return to court, and retired to Gorhambury, near St Albans. He had now ample leisure to attend to his philosophical and literary pursuits ; even while he was engaged in business these had not been neglected. In 1597 he published Meditationes Sacræ, a Table of the Colours of Good and Evil, and ten Essays. In 1612 he reprinted the Essays, increased to thirty-eight; and finally, in 1625, he again issued them, 'newly written,' and now fifty-eight in number. These, as he himself says, 'come home to men's business and bosoms; and, like the late new halfpence, the pieces are small and the silver is good.' The Essays immediately acquired a popularity and credit they have maintained till now. Dugald Stewart says the work was one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage, the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of his subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours, and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.' The Essays, by which Bacon is best known as an author, may fairly be regarded as his most original work. In 1605 he published Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human, which, afterwards published in a Latin expansion with the title De Augmentis Scientiarum, constitutes the first part of his great (but unfinished) Instauratio Scientiarum, meant to be a review and encyclopædia of all knowledge. The second part, entitled Novum Organum, was that on which his high reputation as a philosopher was mainly grounded, and on the composition of which he bestowed most labour. It was written in Latin, and appeared in 1620. In the first part of the Advancement of Learning, after considering the excellence of knowledge and the means of disseminating it, together with what had already been done for its advancement, he divides learning into the three branches of history, poetry, and philosophy, having reference to 'the three parts of man's understanding'-memory, imagination, and reason. The first aphorism of the Novum Organum furnishes a key to the author's leading doctrines: 'Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much, and so much only, as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature.' His new method-novum organum-of employing the understanding in adding to human knowledge is expounded in this work, and more or less fully in all his philosophical treatises. He first abandons the deductive logic of Aristotle and the schoolmen, in which preconceived theories were constructed without reference to actual fact, and were syllogistically arranged to lead to elaborate conclusions never tested by observation and experiment. Bacon relied on inductive methods on the accumulation and systematic analysis of isolated facts to be obtained by observation and experiment. From this assemblage of facts alone were any conclusions to be drawn. The induction was to rest not on a simple enumeration of phenomena, a method familiar to predecessors of Bacon, but on their careful selection and arrangement, with necessary rejections and eliminations. 'Phantoms of the human mind'-'idols' (eidōla) of the tribe, the cave, the market-place, and the theatre, as Bacon called them-inherited by man, or produced by his environment, were exposed and swept aside. Nothing was to obscure the dry light of reason.' Bacon took all knowledge for his province, and his inductive system was to arrive at the causes not only of natural but of all moral and political effects. While developing his new scientific method Bacon made some shrewd scientific observations- he described heat as a mode of motion, and light as requiring time for transmission; but in many things he was even behind the scientific knowledge of his time. His system was never finished. He never reached his examination of metaphysics-of final causes— which was to succeed his treatment of physics. Some other parts of the Instauratio were drafted or nearly completed. The Sylva Sylvarum is devoted to the facts and phenomena of natural science, including suggestions and original observations made by Bacon himself. Other discussions concern the winds, life and death, the dense and the rare. Next in popularity to the Essays was the treatise Of the Wisdom of the Ancients (in Latin, 1609; trans. 1610), wherein Bacon attempts, generally with more ingenuity than success, to discover secret meanings in the mythological fables of antiquity. The New Atlantis, described below, was also one of the most popular of the works. The History of King Henry VII. is held by Spedding to have been the first to give any true picture of the king or of his reign, and to have given really valuable guidance to all who have since treated the period. He translated some of the Psalms into verse; drew up a confession of faith amidst his worst troubles; and composed three prayers, one of which Addison praised for its unexampled elevation of thought. There were also a number of minor treatises and unfinished works, including Maxims of the Law and other professional treatises, and a collection of Apophthegms, anecdotes and witticisms ancient and modern, many of them little above the level of Joe Miller. which he wrote, after comparing himself to elder Pliny, who lost his life by trying an exp ment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius,' does not forget to mention his own experim which, says he, 'succeeded excellently.' The overstatement by his admirers of Bac claims to universal and unparalleled admirat as the greatest of modern philosophers does ultimately an injustice, and his contributions science and scientific progress have been FRANCIS BACON. From the Picture by Paul van Somer in the National Portrait Gallery. jealously a grudgingly c cised. Pop epigram, wisest, bright meanest of m kind,' is too co plimentary to wisdom and hard on his ch acter; Macaula praise and blan glorification vituperation, a a ill balanced in t same way. It absurd to rega him as the i ventor of exper mental science, as having devise a perfect metho Where he actuall expounds scient fic facts he make gross blunders he was not ever abreast of th science of his ow day; he neve mentions Har vey's circulation of the blood, and he persistently re He was not, in philosophy proper, a scientific thinker at all. His scientific importance depends on his insistence on the facts that man is the servant and interpreter of nature, that truth is not derived from authority, and that knowledge is the fruit of experience. The inductive method was practised before his time, but he was the first to show its vast importance and to recognise its scientific justification; the impetus his methods gave to future scientific investigation is indisputable. He turned the tide in favour of experimental research, and though he is not, as used to be said, the father of English philosophy too, the precursor of Locke and Hume, his empiricism gave a tone to English philosophical speculation. His own character is strangely complex. He had an unparalleled belief in himself, which warranted him After retiring from public life, Bacon, though | jected the Copernican system. enjoying an annual income of £2500, continued to live in so ostentatious a style that at his death in 1626 his debts amounted to upwards of £22,000. His devotion to science appears to have been the immediate cause of his death. Travelling in his carriage when there was snow on the ground, he began to consider whether flesh might not be preserved by snow as well as by salt. In order to make the experiment he alighted at a cottage near Highgate, bought a hen, and stuffed it with snow. This so chilled him that he was unable to return home, but went to the Earl of Arundel's house in the neighbourhood, where his illness was so much increased by the dampness of a bed into which he was put that he died in a few days, 9th April 1626. He was buried in St Michael's Church at St Albans. In a letter to the earl, the last ignoring the ordinary laws of morality. He was nscious of possessing intellectual power sufficient revolutionise the relations of man and nature, d he was slow to recognise any moral obstacle at came in the way of his attaining the wealth d position needed for realising his vast intelctual ambition. He found himself drawn to litics in order to obtain power; but he always garded himself as a stranger in the political here he failed as a manager of men, and he ade shipwreck of his life. But with calm conlence he wrote in his will, For my name and emory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches d to foreign nations and the next ages.' His ninence in the sphere of practical philosophy, a master of pregnant thoughts clothed in ›lendid, nervous, dignified, and for his time ngularly concise and trenchant English, is reɔgnised by everybody. The five following extracts are from the Essays: Of Death. Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark : nd as that natural fear in children is increased with ales, so is the other. Certainly the contemplation of leath as the wages of sin and passage to another world is holy and religious; but the fear of it as a ribute due unto nature is weak. Yet in religious mediations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb: for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa. Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, shew death terrible. It is worthy the observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flyeth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity, which is the tenderest of affections, provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: Livia, conjugii nostri memor vive, et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him: Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimu latio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest. .: Ut puto, Deus fio. Galba with a sentence: Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani; holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in dispatch: Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum; and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better saith he [Juvenal], qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponit naturæ. It is as natural to die, as to be born; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who for the time scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixt and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolors of death: but above all believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis; when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy -extinctus amabitur idem. Of Studies. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar; they perfect nature and are perfected by experience-for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man: and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Of Beauty. Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features, and that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect; neither is it almost seen, that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce excellency; and therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds always for Augustus Caesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward IV. of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael, the sophy of Persia, were all high and not |