Chapter III: Preface (1)

In the early part of the year 1597, Lord Bacon’s first publication appeared. It is a small 12mo. volume, entitled “Essayes, Religious Meditations, Places of Perswasion and Disswasion.” It is dedicated

“_To M. Anthony Bacon, his deare Brother_.

“Louing and beloued Brother, I doe nowe like some that have an
Orcharde ill Neighbored, that gather their Fruit before it is
ripe, to preuent stealing. These Fragments of my Conceites were
going to print, To labour the staie of them had bin troublesome,
and subiect to interpretation; to let them passe had beene to
aduenture the wrong they mought receiue by vntrue Coppies, or
by some Garnishment, which it mought please any that should set
them forth to bestow vpon them. Therefore I helde it best as
they passed long agoe from my Pen, without any further disgrace,
then the weaknesse of the Author. And as I did euer hold, there
mought be as great a vanitie in retiring and withdrawing mens
conceites (except they bee of some nature) from the World, as
in obtruding them: So in these particulars I haue played myself
the Inquisitor, and find nothing to my vnderstanding in them
contrarie or infectious to the state of Religion, or Manners, but
rather (as I suppose) medecinable. Only I disliked now to put
them out, because they will be like the late new Halfepence,
which, though the Siluer were good, yet the Peeces were small.
But since they would not stay with their Master, but would needes
trauaile abroade, I haue preferred them to you that are next my
selfe, Dedicating them, such as they are, to our Loue, in the
depth whereof (I assure you) I sometimes wish your Infirmities
translated vppon my selfe, that her Maiestie mought haue the
Seruice of so actiue and able a Mind, and I mought be with
excuse confined to these Contemplations and Studies for which I
am fittest, so commend I you to the Preseruation of the Diuine
Maiestie: From my Chamber at Graies Inne, this 30 of Januarie,
1597. Your entire Louing Brother, FRAN. BACON.”

The Essays, which are ten in number, abound with condensed thought and practical wisdom, neatly, pressly, and weightily stated, and, like all his early works, are simple, without imagery. They are written in his favorite style of aphorisms, although each essay is apparently a continued work, and without that love of antithesis and false glitter to which truth and justness of thought are frequently sacrificed by the writers of maxims.

A second edition, with a translation of the _Meditationes Sacræ_, was published in the next year; and another edition enlarged in 1612, when he was solicitor-general, containing thirty-eight essays; and one still more enlarged in 1625, containing fifty-eight essays, the year before his death.

The Essays in the subsequent editions are much augmented, according to his own words: “I always alter when I add, so that nothing is finished till all is finished,” and they are adorned by happy and familiar illustration, as in the essay of Wisdom for a Man’s Self, which concludes, in the edition of 1625, with the following extract, not to be found in the previous edition: “Wisdom for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are _Sui Amantes sine Rivali_ are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of Fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self wisdom, to have pinioned.”

So in the essay upon Adversity, on which he had deeply reflected before the edition of 1625, when it first appeared, he says: “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 great benediction, and the clearer revelation of God’s favor. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David’s harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored 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 odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.”

The Essays were immediately translated into French and Italian, and into Latin, by some of his friends, amongst whom were Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield, and his constant, affectionate friend, Ben Jonson.

His own estimate of the value of this work is thus stated in his letter to the Bishop of Winchester: “As for my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature, I count them but as the recreations of my other studies, and in that manner purpose to continue them; though I am not ignorant that these kind of writings would, with less pains and assiduity, perhaps yield more lustre and reputation to my name than the others I have in hand.”

Although it was not likely that such lustre and reputation would dazzle him, the admirer of Phocion, who, when applauded, turned to one of his friends, and asked, “What have I said amiss?” although popular judgment was not likely to mislead him who concludes his observations upon the objections to learning and the advantages of knowledge by saying: “Nevertheless, I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment either of Æsop’s cock, that preferred the barleycorn before the gem; or of Midas, that being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the Muses, and Pan, god of the flocks, judged for plenty; or of Paris, that judged for beauty and love against wisdom and power. For these things continue as they have been; but so will that also continue whereupon learning hath ever relied and which faileth not, _Justificata est sapientia a filiis suis_:” yet he seems to have undervalued this little work, which for two centuries has been favorably received by every lover of knowledge and of beauty, and is now so well appreciated that a celebrated professor of our own times truly says: “The small volume to which he has given the title of ‘Essays,’ the best known and the most popular of all his works, is 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 the 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.”

During his life six or more editions, which seem to have been pirated, were published; and after his death, two spurious essays, “Of Death,” and “Of a King,” the only authentic posthumous essay being the Fragment of an Essay on Fame, which was published by his friend and chaplain, Dr. Rawley.

This edition is a transcript of the edition of 1625, with the posthumous essays. In the life of Bacon[1] there is a minute account of the different editions of the Essays and of their contents.

They may shortly be stated as follows:—

First edition, 1597, genuine.

There are two copies of this edition in the university library at Cambridge; and there is Archbishop Sancroft’s copy in Emanuel Library; there is a copy in the Bodleian, and I have a copy.

Second edition, 1598, genuine.

Third edition, 1606, pirated.

Fourth edition, entitled “The Essaies of Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, the Kings Solliciter Generall. Imprinted at London by Iohn Beale, 1612,” genuine. It was the intention of Sir Francis to have dedicated this edition to Henry, Prince of Wales; but he was prevented by the death of the prince on the 6th of November in that year. This appears by the following letter:—

_To the Most High and Excellent Prince, Henry, Prince of Wales,
Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester._

It may please your Highness: Having divided my life into the
contemplative and active part, I am desirous to give his Majesty
and your Highness of the fruits of both, simple though they be.
To write just treatises, requireth leisure in the writer and
leisure in the reader, and therefore are not so fit, neither in
regard of your Highness’s princely affairs nor in regard of my
continual service; which is the cause that hath made me choose
to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than
curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the
thing is ancient; for Seneca’s Epistles to Lucilius, if you mark
them well, are but Essays; that is, dispersed meditations though
conveyed in the form of epistles. These labors of mine, I know,
cannot be worthy of your Highness, for what can be worthy of you?
But my hope is, they may be as grains of salt, that will rather
give you an appetite than offend you with satiety. And although
they handle those things wherein both men’s lives and their
persons are most conversant; yet what I have attained I know not;
but I have endeavored to make them not vulgar, but of a nature
whereof a man shall find much in experience and little in books;
so as they are neither repetitions nor fancies. But, however, I
shall most humbly desire your Highness to accept them in gracious
part, and to conceive, that if I cannot rest but must show my
dutiful and devoted affection to your Highness in these things
which proceed from myself, I shall be much more ready to do it in
performance of any of your princely commandments. And so wishing
your Highness all princely felicity, I rest your Highness’s most
humble servant,

1612. FR. BACON.

It was dedicated as follows:—

_To my loving Brother, Sir John Constable, Knt._

My last Essaies I dedicated to my deare brother Master Anthony
Bacon, who is with God. Looking amongst my Papers this vacation,
I found others of the same nature: which, if I myselfe shall
not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the World will not; by the
often printing of the former. Missing my Brother, I found you
next; in respect of bond both of neare Alliance, and of straight
Friendship and Societie, and particularly of communication in
Studies. Wherein I must acknowledge my selfe beholding to you.
For as my Businesse found rest in my Contemplations, so my
Contemplations ever found rest in your loving Conference and
Judgment. So wishing you all good, I remaine your louing Brother
and Friend,

FRA. BACON.

Fifth edition, 1612, pirated. Sixth edition, 1613, pirated. Seventh edition, 1624, pirated. Eighth edition, 1624, pirated. Ninth edition, entitled, “The Essayes or Covnsels, Civill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Vervlam, Viscovnt St. Alban. Newly enlarged. London, Printed by Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret and Richard Whitaker, and are to be sold at the Signe of the King’s Head in Paul’s Churchyard.” 1625, genuine.

This edition is a small quarto of 340 pages; it clearly was published by Lord Bacon; and in the next year, 1626, Lord Bacon died. The Dedication is as follows, to the Duke of Buckingham:—

_To the Right Honorable my very good Lo. the Duke of Buckingham
his Grace, Lo. High Admirall of England._

EXCELLENT LO.:—Salomon saies, A good Name is as a precious
Oyntment; and I assure myselfe, such wil your Grace’s Name bee,
with Posteritie. For your Fortune and Merit both, haue beene
eminent. And you haue planted things that are like to last. I
doe now publish my Essayes; which, of all my other Workes, have
beene most currant: for that, as it seemes, they come home to
Mens Businesse and Bosomes. I haue enlarged them both in number
and weight, so that they are indeed a new Work. I thought it
therefore agreeable to my Affection, and Obligation to your
Grace, to prefix your Name before them, both in English and in
Latine. For I doe conceiue, that the Latine Volume of them (being
in the vniuersal language) may last as long as Bookes last. My
Instauration I dedicated to the King: my Historie of Henry the
Seventh (which I haue now also translated into Latine), and my
Portions of Naturall History, to the Prince: and these I dedicate
to your Grace: being of the best Fruits, that by the good
encrease which God gives to my pen and labours, I could yeeld.
God leade your Grace by the Hand. Your Graces most obliged and
faithfull Seruant.

FR. ST. ALBAN.

Of this edition, Lord Bacon sent a copy to the Marquis Fiat, with the following letter:[2]—

“MONSIEUR L’AMBASSADEUR MON FILZ: Voyant que vostre Excellence
faict et traite Mariages, non seulement entre les Princes
d’Angleterre et de France, mais aussi entre les langues (puis
que faictes traduire mon Liure de l’Advancement des Sciences en
Francois) i’ai bien voulu vous envoyer mon Liure dernierement
imprimé que i’avois pourveu pour vous, mais i’estois en doubte,
de le vous envoyer, pour ce qu’il estoit escrit en Anglois. Mais
a’ cest’heure pour la raison susdicte ie le vous envoye. C’est un
Recompilement de mes Essays Morales et Civiles; mais tellement
enlargiés et enrichiés, tant de nombre que de poix, que c’est de
fait un ouvre nouveau. Ie vous baise les mains, et reste vostre
tres affectionée Ami, et tres humble Serviteur.

THE SAME IN ENGLISH.

MY LORD AMBASSADOR, MY SON: Seeing that your Excellency makes and
treats of Marriages, not only betwixt the Princes of France and
England, but also betwixt their languages (for you have caused
my book of the Advancement of Learning to be translated into
French), I was much inclined to make you a present of the last
book which I published, and which I had in readiness for you. I
was sometimes in doubt whether I ought to have sent it to you,
because it was written in the English tongue. But now, for that
very reason, I send it to you. It is a recompilement of my Essays
Moral and Civil; but in such manner enlarged and enriched both in
number and weight, that it is in effect a new work. I kiss your
hands, and remain your most affectionate friend and most humble
servant, &c.

Of the translation of the Essays into Latin, Bacon speaks in the following letter:—

“TO MR. TOBIE MATHEW: It is true my labors are now most set to
have those works which I had formerly published, as that of
Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII., that of the Essays,
being retractate and made more perfect, well translated into
Latin by the help of some good pens which forsake me not. For
these modern languages will, at one time or other, play the
bankrupt with books; and since I have lost much time with this
age, I would be glad, as God shall give me leave, to recover it
with posterity. For the Essay of Friendship, while I took your
speech of it for a cursory request, I took my promise for a
compliment. But since you call for it, I shall perform it.”

In his letter to Father Fulgentio, giving some account of his writings, he says:—

“The _Novum Organum_ should immediately follow; but my moral and
political writings step in between as being more finished. These
are, the History of King Henry VII., and the small book, which,
in your language, you have called _Saggi Morali_, but I give it a
graver title, that of _Sermones Fideles_, or _Interiora Rerum_,
and these Essays will not only be enlarged in number, but still
more in substance.”

The nature of the Latin edition, and of the Essays in general, is thus stated by Archbishop Tenison:—

“The Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral, though a by-work
also, do yet make up a book of greater weight by far than the
Apothegms; and coming home to men’s business and bosoms, his
lordship entertained this persuasion concerning them, that
the Latin volume might last as long as books should last. His
lordship wrote them in the English tongue, and enlarged them as
occasion served, and at last added to them the Colors of Good and
Evil, which are likewise found in his book _De Augmentis_. The
Latin translation of them was a work performed by divers hands:
by those of Dr. Hacket (late Bishop of Lichfield), Mr. Benjamin
Jonson (the learned and judicious poet,) and some others, whose
names I once heard from Dr. Rawley, but I cannot now recall them.
To this Latin edition he gave the title of _Sermones Fideles_,
after the manner of the Jews, who called the words Adagies, or
Observations of the Wise, Faithful Sayings; that is, credible
propositions worthy of firm assent and ready acceptance. And
(as I think), he alluded more particularly, in this title, to
a passage in _Ecclesiastes_, where the preacher saith, that he
sought to find out _Verba Delectabilia_ (as Tremellius rendereth
the Hebrew), pleasant words; (that is, perhaps, his Book of
Canticles;) and _Verba Fidelia_ (as the same Tremellius),
Faithful Sayings; meaning, it may be, his collection of Proverbs.
In the next verse, he calls them Words of the Wise, and so many
goads and nails given _ab eodem pastore_, from the same shepherd
[of the flock of Israel”].

In the year 1638, Rawley published, in folio, a volume containing, amongst other works, _Sermones Fideles, ab ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, præterquam in paucis, Latinitate donati_. In his address to the reader, he says:—

_Accedunt, quas priùs_ Delibationes Civiles _et_ Morales
_inscripserat; Quas etiam in Linguas plurimas Modernas translatas
esse novit; sed eas posteà, et Numero, et Pondere, auxit; In
tantum, ut veluti Opus Novum videri possint; Quas mutato Titulo_,
Sermones Fideles, _sive_ Interiora Rerum, _inscribi placuit_. The
title-page and dedication are annexed: _Sermones Fideles sive
Interiora Rerum. Per Franciscum Baconum Baronem de Vervlamio,
Vice-Comitem Sancti Albani. Londini Excusum typis Edwardi
Griffin. Prostant ad Insignia Regia in Cœmeterio D. Pauli,
apud Richardum Whitakerum_, 1638.

Illustri et Excellenti Domino _Georgio_ Duci _Buckinghamiæ_,
Summo _Angliæ_ Admirallio.

_Honoratissime Domine_, _Salomon_ inquit, _Nomen bonum est
instar Vnguenti fragrantis et pretiosi_; Neque dubito,
quin tale futurum sit _Nomen_ tuum apud Posteros. Etenim
et Fortuna, et Merita tua, præcelluerunt. Et videris ea
plantasse, quæ sint duratura. In lucem jam edere mihi visum
est _Delibationes meas_, quæ ex omnibus meis Operibus fuerunt
acceptissimæ: Quia forsitan videntur, præ cæteris, _Hominum_
Negotia stringere, et in sinus fluere. Eas autem auxi, et
Numero, et Pondere; In tantum, ut planè Opus Novum sint.
Consentaneum igitur duxi, Affectui, et Obligationi meæ, erga
_Illustrissimam Dominationem_ tuam, ut _Nomen_ tuum illis
præfigam, tam in _Editione Anglicâ_, quam _Latinâ_. Etenim, in
bonâ spe sum, Volumen earum in _Latinam_ (_Linguam_ scilicet
universalem), versum, posse durare, quamdiù _Libri_ et _Literæ_
durent. _Instaurationem_ meam _Regi_ dicavi: _Historiam
Regni Henrici Septimi_ (quam etiam in _Latinum_ verti et
Portiones meas _Naturalis Historiæ_, _Principi_): Has autem
_Delibationes Illustrissimæ Dominationi_ tuæ dico, Cùm sint,
ex Fructibus optimis, quos Gratia divinâ Calami mei laboribus
indulgente, exhibere potui. _Deus illustrissimam Dominationem_
tuam manu ducat. _Illustrissimæ Dominationis_ tuæ Servus
Devinctissimus et Fidelis.

FR. S. ALBAN.

In the year 1618, the Essays, together with the Wisdom of the Ancients, was translated into Italian, and dedicated to _Cosmo de Medici_, by Tobie Mathew; and in the following year the Essays were translated into French by Sir Arthur Gorges, and printed in London.

WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS.

In the year 1609, as a relaxation from abstruse speculations, he published in Latin his interesting little work, _De Sapientia Veterum_.

This tract seems, in former times, to have been much valued. The fables, abounding with a union of deep thought and poetic beauty, are thirty-one in number, of which a part of The Sirens, or Pleasures, may be selected as a specimen.

In this fable he explains the common but erroneous supposition that knowledge and the conformity of the will, knowing and acting, are convertible terms. Of this error, he, in his essay of Custom and Education, admonishes his readers, by saying: “Men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions, but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed; Æsop’s Damsel, transformed from a cat to a woman, sat very demurely at the board-end till a mouse ran before her.” In the fable of the Sirens he exhibits the same truth, saying: “The habitation of the Sirens was in certain pleasant islands, from whence, as soon as out of their watchtower they discovered any ships approaching, with their sweet tunes they would first entice and stay them, and, having them in their power, would destroy them; and, so great were the mischiefs they did, that these isles of the Sirens, even as far off as man can ken them, appeared all over white with the bones of unburied carcasses; by which it is signified that albeit the examples of afflictions be manifest and eminent, yet they do not sufficiently deter us from the wicked enticements of pleasure.”

The following is the account of the different editions of this work: The first was published in 1609. In February 27, 1610, Lord Bacon wrote to Mr. Mathew, upon sending his book _De Sapientia Veterum_:—

“MR. MATHEW: I do very heartily thank you for your letter of the
24th of August, from Salamanca; and in recompense therefore I
send you a little work of mine that hath begun to pass the world.
They tell me my Latin is turned into silver, and become current:
had you been here, you should have been my inquisitor before it
came forth; but, I think, the greatest inquisitor in Spain will
allow it. But one thing you must pardon me if I make no haste to
believe, that the world should be grown to such an ecstasy as
to reject truth in philosophy, because the author dissenteth in
religion; no more than they do by Aristotle or Averroes. My great
work goeth forward; and after my manner, I alter even when I add;
so that nothing is finished till all be finished. This I have
written in the midst of a term and parliament; thinking no time
so possessed, but that I should talk of these matters with so
good and dear a friend. And so with my wonted wishes I leave you
to God’s goodness.

“From Gray’s Inn, Feb. 27, 1610.”

And in his letter to Father Fulgentio, giving some account of his writings, he says: “My Essays will not only be enlarged in number, but still more in substance. Along with them goes the little piece _De Sapientia Veterum_.”

In the Advancement of Learning he says:—

“There remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite
to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate
and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other
to retire and obscure it; that is, when the secrets and mysteries
of religion, policy, or philosophy are involved in fables or
parables. Of this in divine poesy we see the use is authorized.
In heathen poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out
sometimes with great felicity; as in the fable that the giants
being overthrown in their war against the gods, the earth, their
mother, in revenge thereof brought forth Fame,—

_Illam Terra parens, irâ irritata Deorum,_
_Extremam, ut perhibent, Cœo Enceladoque sororem_
_Progenuit,_

expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual
and open rebels, then the malignity of the people, which is the
mother of rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and
taxations of the State, which is of the same kind with rebellion,
but more feminine. So in the fable, that the rest of the gods
having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus, with
his hundred hands, to his aid; expounded, that monarchies need
not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects,
as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who
will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable, that
Achilles was brought up under Chiron, the centaur, who was part
a man and part a beast, expounded ingeniously, but corruptly by
Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and discipline
of princes to know as well how to play the part of the lion in
violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and
justice. Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather
think that the fable was first, and the exposition then devised,
than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed.
For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled
himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the
stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets; but yet that all
the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure, and not
figure, I interpose no opinion. Surely, of those poets which
are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made
a kind of Scripture by the latter schools of the Grecians), yet
I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no
such inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon
a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm; for he was not
the inventor of many of them.”

In the treatise _De Augmentis_ the same sentiments will be found, with a slight alteration in the expressions. He says:—

“There is another use of parabolical poesy opposite to the
former, which tendeth to the folding up of those things, the
dignity whereof deserves to be retired and distinguished, as
with a drawn curtain; that is, when the secrets and mysteries of
religion, policy, and philosophy are veiled and invested with
fables and parables. But whether there be any mystical sense
couched under the ancient fables of the poets, may admit some
doubt; and, indeed, for our part, we incline to this opinion, as
to think that there was an infused mystery in many of the ancient
fables of the poets. Neither doth it move us that these matters
are left commonly to school-boys and grammarians, and so are
embased, that we should therefore make a slight judgment upon
them, but contrariwise, because it is clear that the writings
which recite those fables, of all the writings of men, next to
sacred writ, are the most ancient; and that the fables themselves
are far more ancient than they (being they are alleged by those
writers, not as excogitated by them, but as credited and recepted
before) seem to be, like a thin rarefied air, which, from the
traditions of more ancient nations, fell into the flutes of the
Grecians.”

Of this tract, Archbishop Tenison, in his _Baconiana_, says:—

“In the seventh place, I may reckon his book _De Sapientia
Veterum_, written by him in Latin, and set forth a second
time with enlargement; and translated into English by Sir
Arthur Gorges; a book in which the sages of former times are
rendered more wise than it may be they were, by so dexterous an
interpreter of their fables. It is this book which Mr. Sandys
means, in those words which he hath put before his notes on the
Metamorphosis of Ovid. ‘Of modern writers, I have received the
greatest light from Geraldus, Pontanus, Ficinus, Vives, Comes,
Scaliger, Sabinus, Pierius, and the crown of the latter, the
Viscount of St. Albans.’

“It is true, the design of this book was instruction in natural
and civil matters, either couched by the ancients under those
fictions, or rather made to seem to be so by his lordship’s wit,
in the opening and applying of them. But because the first ground
of it is poetical story, therefore, let it have this place till a
fitter be found for it.”

The author of Bacon’s Life, in the _Biographia Britannica_, says:—

“That he might relieve himself a little from the severity of
these studies, and, as it were, amuse himself with erecting a
magnificent pavilion, while his great palace of philosophy was
building, he composed and sent abroad, in 1610, his celebrated
treatise of the Wisdom of the Ancients, in which he showed
that none had studied them more closely, was better acquainted
with their beauties, or had pierced deeper into their meaning.
There have been very few books published, either in this or any
other nation, which either deserved or met with more general
applause than this, and scarce any that are like to retain it
longer, for in this performance Sir Francis Bacon gave a singular
proof of his capacity to please all parties in literature, as
in his political conduct he stood fair with all the parties in
the nation. The admirers of antiquity were charmed with this
discourse, which seems expressly calculated to justify their
admiration; and, on the other hand, their opposites were no
less pleased with a piece from which they thought they could
demonstrate that the sagacity of a modern genius had found out
much better meanings for the ancients than ever were meant by
them.”

And Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, says:—

“In 1610 he published another treatise, entitled, Of the Wisdom
of the Ancients. This work bears the same stamp of an original
and inventive genius with his other performances. Resolving not
to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, men,
according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain
commonplaces, he strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters
into the most secret recesses of this wild and shadowy region, so
as to appear new on a known and beaten subject. Upon the whole,
if we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all
the physical, moral, and political meaning veiled under those
fables of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must
own that it required no common penetration to be mistaken with
so great an appearance of probability on his side. Though it
still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so knowing as
he attempts to show they were, the variety and depth of his own
knowledge are, in that very attempt, unquestionable.”

In the year 1619 this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Gorges. Prefixed to the work are two letters; the one to the Earl of Salisbury, the other to the University of Cambridge, which Gorges omits, and dedicates his translation to the high and illustrious princess the Lady Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess of Baviare, Countess Palatine of Rheine, and chief electress of the empire.

This translation, it should be noted, was published during the life of Lord Bacon by a great admirer of his works.

The editions of this work with which I am acquainted are:—

Year. Language. Printer. Place. Size.

1609 Latin, R. Barker, London, 12mo.
1617 ” J. Bill, ” ”
1618 Italian, G. Bill, ” ”
1619 English, J. Bill, ” ”
1620 ” ” ” ”
1633 Latin, F. Maire, Lug. Bat., ”
1634 ” F. Kingston, London, ”
1638 ” E. Griffin, ” Folio.
1691 ” H. Wetstein, Amsterdam, 12mo.
1804 French, H. Frantin, Dijon, 8vo.

NOTICE

OF

FRANCIS BACON.

Francis Bacon, the subject of the following memoir, was the youngest son of highly remarkable parents. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was an eminent lawyer, and for twenty years Keeper of the Seals and Privy Counsellor to Queen Elizabeth. Sir Nicholas was styled by Camden _sacris conciliis alterum columen_; he was the author of some unpublished discourses on law and politics, and of a commentary on the minor prophets. He discharged the duties of his high office with exemplary propriety and wisdom; he preserved through life the integrity of a good man, and the moderation and simplicity of a great one. He had inscribed over the entrance of his hall, at Gorhambury, the motto, _mediocria firma_; and when the Queen, in a progress, paid him a visit there, she remarked to him that his house was too small for him. “Madam,” answered the Lord Keeper, “my house is well, but it is you that have made me too great for my house.” This anecdote has been preserved by his son,[3] who, had he as carefully retained the lesson of practical wisdom it contained, might have avoided the misfortunes and sorrows of his checkered life.

Bacon’s mother, Anne Cooke, was the daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor to King Edward the Sixth; like the young ladies of her time, like Lady Jane Grey, like Queen Elizabeth, she received an excellent classical education; her sister, Lady Burleigh, was pronounced by Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth’s preceptor, to be, with the exception of Lady Jane Grey, the best Greek scholar among the young women of England.[4] Anne Cooke, the future Lady Bacon, corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, and translated from the Latin this divine’s _Apologia_; a task which she performed so well that it is said the good prelate could not discover an inaccuracy or suggest an alteration. She also translated from the Italian a volume of sermons on fate and freewill, written by Bernardo Ochino, an Italian reformer. Francis Bacon, the youngest of five sons, inherited the classical learning and taste of both his parents.

He was born at York House, in the Strand, London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61. His health, when he was a boy, was delicate; a circumstance which may perhaps account for his early love of sedentary pursuits, and probably the early gravity of his demeanor. Queen Elizabeth, he tells us, took particular delight in “trying him with questions,” when he was quite a child, and was so much pleased with the sense and manliness of his answers that she used jocularly to call him “her young Lord Keeper of the Seals.” Bacon himself relates that while he was a boy, the Queen once asked him his age; the precocious courtier readily replied that he “was just two years younger than her happy reign.” He is said, also, when very young, to have stolen away from his playfellows in order to investigate the cause of a singular echo in St. James’s Fields, which attracted his attention.

Until the age of thirteen he remained under the tuition of his accomplished mother, aided by a private tutor only; under their care he attained the elements of the classics, that education preliminary to the studies of the University. At thirteen he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his father had been educated. Here he studied diligently the great models of antiquity, mathematics, and philosophy, worshipped, however, but indevoutly at the shrine of Aristotle, whom, according to Rawley, his chaplain and biographer, he already derided “for the unfruitfulness of the way,—being only strong for disputation, but barren of the production of works for the life of man.” He remained three years at this seat of learning, without, however, taking a degree at his departure.

When he was but sixteen years old he began his travels, the indispensable end of every finished education in England. He repaired to Paris, where he resided some time under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English minister at the court of France.

Here he invented an ingenious method of writing in cipher; an art which he probably cultivated with a view to a diplomatic career.

He visited several of the provinces of France and of the towns of Italy. Italy was then the country in which human knowledge in all its branches was most successfully cultivated. It is related by Signor Cancellieri that Bacon, when at Rome, presented himself as a candidate to the Academy of the _Lincei_, and was not admitted.[5] He remained on the continent for three years, until his father’s death, in 1580. The melancholy event, which bereft him of his parent, at the age of nineteen, was fatal to his prospects. His father had intended to purchase an estate for his youngest son, as he had done for his other sons; but he dying before this intention was realized, the money was equally divided between all the children; so that Francis inherited but one fifth of that fortune intended for him alone. He was the only one of the sons that was left unprovided for. He had now “to study to live,” instead of “living to study.” He wished, to use his own language, “to become a true pioneer in that mine of truth which lies so deep.” He applied to the government for a provision which his father’s interest would easily have secured him, and by which he might dispense with a profession. The Queen must have looked with favor upon the son of a minister, who had served her faithfully for twenty long years, and upon a young man whom, when he was a child, she had caressed, she had distinguished by the appellation of her “young Lord Keeper.” But Francis Bacon was abandoned, and perhaps opposed by the colleague and nearest friend of his father, the brother-in-law of his mother, his maternal uncle, Lord Burleigh, then Prime Minister, who feared for his son the rivalry of his all-talented nephew. It is a trick common to envy and detraction, to convert a man’s very qualities into their concomitant defects; and because Bacon was a great thinker, he was represented as unfit for the active duties of business, as “a man rather of show than of depth,” as “a speculative man, indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business.”[6] Thus was the future ornament of his country and of mankind sacrificed to Robert, afterwards Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, of whose history fame has learned but little, save the execution of Essex and Mary Queen of Scots, the name, and this petty act of mean jealousy of his father! In the disposal of patronage and place, acts and even motives of this species are not so unfrequent as the world would appear to imagine. In all ages, it is to be feared, many and great, as in Shakspeare’s time, are,

the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes.

It is, however, but justice to the morals of Lord Burleigh, to add that he was insensible to literary merit; he thought a hundred pounds too great a reward to be given to Spenser for what he termed “an old song,” for so he denominated the _Faery Queen_.

Bacon then selected the law as his profession; and in 1580 he was entered of Gray’s Inn;[7] he resisted the temptations of his companions and friends, (for his company was much courted), and diligently pursued the study he had chosen; but he did not at this time entirely lose sight of his philosophical speculations, for he then published his _Temporis partus maximus_, or _The Greatest Birth of Time_. This work, notwithstanding its pompous title, was unnoticed or rather fell stillborn from the press; the sole trace of it is found in one of his letters to Father Fulgentio.

In 1586, he was called to the bar; his practice there appears to have been limited, although not without success; for the Queen and the Court are said to have gone to hear him when he was engaged in any celebrated cause. He was, at this period of his life, frequently admitted to the Queen’s presence and conversation. He was appointed her Majesty’s Counsel Extraordinary,[8] but he had no salary and small fees.

In 1592, his uncle, the Lord Treasurer, procured for him the reversion of the registrarship of the Star Chamber, worth sixteen hundred pounds (forty thousand francs) a year; but the office did not become vacant till twenty years after, so that, as Bacon justly observes, “it might mend his prospects, but did not fill his barns.”

A parliament was summoned in 1593, and Bacon was returned to the House of Commons, for the County of Middlesex; he distinguished himself here as a speaker. “The fear of every man who heard him,” says his contemporary, Ben Jonson, “was lest he should make an end.” He made, however, on one occasion a speech which much displeased the Queen and Court. Elizabeth directed the Lord Keeper to intimate to him that he must expect neither favor nor promotion; the repentant courtier replied in writing, that “her Majesty’s favor was dearer to him than his life.”[9]

In the following year the situation of Solicitor-General[10] became vacant. Bacon ardently aspired to it. He applied successively to Lord Burleigh, his uncle, to Lord Puckering, his father’s successor, to the Earl of Essex, their rival, and finally to the Queen herself, accompanying his letters, as was the custom of the times, with a present, a jewel.[11] But once more he saw mediocrity preferred, and himself rejected. A Serjeant Fleming was appointed her Majesty’s Solicitor-General. Bacon, overwhelmed by this disappointment, wished to retire from public life, and to reside abroad. “I hoped,” said he in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, “her Majesty would not be offended that, not able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade.”

The Earl of Essex, whose mind, says Mr. Macaulay, “naturally disposed to admiration of all that is great and beautiful, was fascinated by the genius and the accomplishments of Bacon,”[12] had exerted every effort in Bacon’s behalf; to use his own language, he “spent all his power, might, authority, and amity;” he now sought to indemnify him, and, with royal munificence, presented him with an estate of the value of nearly two thousand pounds, a sum worth perhaps four or five times the amount in the money of our days. If anything could enhance the benefaction, it was the delicacy with which it was conferred, or, as Bacon himself expresses it, “with so kind and noble circumstances as the manner was worth more than the matter.”

Bacon published his _Essays_ in 1597; he considered them but as the “recreations of his other studies.” The idea of them was probably first suggested by Montaigne’s _Essais_, but there is little resemblance between the two works beyond the titles. The first edition contained but ten Essays, which were shorter than they now are. The work was reprinted in 1598, with little or no variation; again in 1606; and in 1612 there was a fourth edition, etc. However, he afterwards, he says, “enlarged it both in number and weight;” but it did not assume its present form until the ninth edition, in 1625, that is, twenty-eight years after its first publication, and one year before the death of the author. It appeared under the new title of _The Essaies or Covnsels Civill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Vervlam,_ _Viscovnt St. Alban. Newly enlarged._ This is not followed by the _Religious Meditations, Places of Perswasion and Disswasion, seene and allowed_. The _Essays_ were soon translated into Italian with the title of _Saggi Morali del Signore Francesco Bacono, Cavagliero Inglese, Gran Cancelliero d’ Inghilterra_. This translation was dedicated to Cosmo de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany; and was reprinted in London in 1618. Of the three Essays added after Bacon’s decease, two of them, _Of a King_ and _Of Death_, are not genuine; the _Fragment of an Essay on Fame_ alone is Bacon’s.

In this same year (1597) he again took his seat in Parliament. He soon made ample amends for his opposition speech in the previous session; but this time he gained the favor of the Court without forfeiting his popularity in the House of Commons.

He now thought of strengthening his interest, or increasing his fortune, by a matrimonial connection; and he sought the hand of a rich widow, Lady Hatton, his second cousin; but here he was again doomed to disappointment; a preference was given to his old rival, the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, notwithstanding the “seven objections to him—his six children and himself.” But although Bacon was perhaps unaware of it, the rejection of his suit was one of the happiest events of his life; for the eccentric manners and violent temper of the lady rendered her a torment to all around her, and probably most of all to her husband. In reality, as has been wittily observed, the lady was doubly kind to him; “she rejected him, and she accepted his enemy.”

Another mortification awaited him at this period. A relentless creditor, a usurer, had him arrested for a debt of three hundred pounds, and he was conveyed to a spunging-house, where he was confined for a few days, until arrangements could be made to satisfy the claim or the claimant.

We now arrive at a painfully sad point in the life of Bacon; a dark foul spot, which should be hidden forever, did not history, like the magistrate of Egypt that interrogated the dead, demand that the truth, the whole truth, should be told.

We have seen that between Bacon and the Earl of Essex, all was disinterested affection on the part of the latter; the Earl employed his good offices for him, exerted heart and soul to insure his success as Solicitor-General, and, on Bacon’s failure, conferred on him a princely favor, a gift of no ordinary value.

When Essex’s fortunes declined, and the Earl fell into disgrace, Bacon endeavored to mediate between the Queen and her favorite. The case became hopeless. Essex left his command in Ireland without leave, was ordered in confinement, and after a long imprisonment and trial before the Privy Council, he was liberated. Irritated by the refusal of a favor he solicited, he was betrayed into reflections on the Queen’s age and person, which were never to be forgiven, and he engaged in a conspiracy to seize on the Queen, and to settle a new plan of government. On the failure of this attempt, he was arrested, committed to the Tower, and brought to trial for high treason before the House of Peers. During his long captivity, who does not expect to see Bacon, his friend, a frequent visitor in his cell? Before the two tribunals, can we fail to meet Bacon, his counsel, at his side? We trace Bacon at Court, where, he assures us, after Elizabeth’s death, that he endeavored to appease and reconcile the Queen; but the place was too distant from the prison: for he never visited there his fallen friend.

At the first trial, Bacon did indeed make his appearance, but as “her Majesty’s Counsel extraordinary,” not for the defence, but for the prosecution of the prisoner. But he may be expected at least to have treated him leniently? He admits he did not, on account, as he tells us, of the “superior duty he owed to the Queen’s fame and honor in a public proceeding.” But hitherto, the Earl’s liberty alone had been endangered; now, his life is at stake. Do not the manifold favors, the munificent benefactions all arise in the generous mind of Bacon? Does he not waive all thought of interest and promotion and worldly honor to devote himself wholly to the sacred task of saving his patron, benefactor, and friend? Her Majesty’s Counsel extraordinary appeared in the place of the Solicitor-General, to reply to Essex’s defence; he compared the accused first to Cain, then to Pisistratus. The Earl made a pathetic appeal to his judges; Bacon showed he had not answered his objections, and compared him to the Duke of Guise, the most odious comparison he could have instituted. Essex was condemned; the Queen wavered in her resolution to execute him; his friend’s intercession might perhaps have been able to save Essex from an ignominious death. Did Bacon, in his turn, “spend all his power, might, and amity?” The Queen’s Counsel extraordinary might have offended his sovereign by his importunity, and have been forgotten in the impending vacancy of the office of Solicitor-General! Essex died on the scaffold. But the execution rendered the Queen unpopular, and she was received with mournful silence when she appeared in public. She ordered a pamphlet to be written to justify the execution; she made choice of Bacon as the writer; the courtier did not decline the task, but published _A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, late Earle of Essex and his Complices, against her Maiestie and her Kingdoms_. This faithless friend, to use the language of Macaulay, “exerted his professional talents to shed the Earl’s blood, and his literary talents to blacken the Earl’s memory.”

The memory of Essex suffered but little from the attack of the pamphlet; the base pamphleteer’s memory is blackened forever, and to his fair name of “the wisest, brightest,” has been appended the “meanest of mankind.” But let us cast a pall over this act, this moral murder, perpetrated by the now degraded orator, degraded philosopher, the now most degraded of men.

Elizabeth died in 1601; and before the arrival of James, in England, Bacon wrote him a pedantic letter, probably to gratify the taste of the pedant king; but he did not forget in it, “his late dear sovereign Mistress—a princess happy in all things, but most happy—in such a successor.”

Bacon solicited the honor of knighthood, a distinction much lavished at this period. At the King’s coronation, he knelt down in company with above three hundred gentlemen; but “he rose Sir Francis.” He sought the hand of a rich alderman’s daughter, Miss Barnham, who consented to become Lady Bacon.

The Earl of Southampton, Shakspeare’s generous patron and friend, who had been convicted of high treason in the late reign, now received the King’s pardon. This called to all men’s minds the fate of the unhappy Earl of Essex, and of his odiously ungrateful accuser; the latter unadvisedly published the _Sir Francis Bacon, his Apologie in certaine imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex_; a defence which, in the estimation of one of his biographers, Lord Campbell, has injured him more with posterity than all the attacks of his enemies.

In the new Parliament, he represented the borough of Ipswich; he spoke frequently, and obtained the good graces of the King by the support he gave to James’s favorite plan of a union of England and Scotland; a measure by no means palatable to the King’s new subjects.

The object of all his hopes, the price, perhaps, of his conduct to Essex, seemed in 1606 to be within his reach; but he was once more to be disappointed. His old enemy, Sir Edward Coke, prevented the vacancy. The following year, however, after long and humiliating solicitation, he attained the office to which he had so long aspired, and was appointed Solicitor-General to the Crown.

Official advancement was now the object nearest his heart, and he longed to be Attorney-General.[13]

In 1613, by a master stroke of policy, he created a vacancy for himself as Attorney-General, and managed at the same time to disserve his old enemy, Coke, by getting him preferred in rank, but at the expense of considerable pecuniary loss.

After his new appointment, he was reëlected to his seat in the House of Commons; he had gained so much popularity there, that the House admitted him, although it resolved to exclude future Attorneys-General; a resolution rescinded by later Parliaments.

The Attorney-General, as may be supposed, did not lack zeal in his master’s service and for his master’s prerogative. One case, in particular, was atrocious. An aged clergyman, named Peacham, was prosecuted for high treason for a sermon which he had neither preached nor published; the unfortunate old man was apprehended, put to the torture in presence of the Attorney-General, and as the latter himself tells us, was examined “before torture, between torture, and after torture,” although Bacon must have been fully aware that the laws of England did not sanction torture to extort confession. Bacon tampered with the judges, and obtained a conviction; but the government durst not carry the sentence into execution. Peacham languished in prison till the ensuing year, when Providence rescued him from the hands of human justice.

In 1616, Bacon was offered the formal promise of the Chancellorship, or an actual appointment as Privy Councillor; he was too prudent not to prefer an appointment to a promise, and he was accordingly nominated to the functions of member of the Privy Council. His present leisure enabled him to prosecute vigorously his _Novum Organum_, but he turned aside to occupy himself with a proposition for the amendment of the laws of England, on which Lord Campbell, assuredly the most competent of judges, passes a high encomium.