Chapter IX: Part 9

It was almost immediately after the publication of these researches that Dr. Cullen was elected Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh. The reputation which Dr. Black had now acquired pointed him out as the proper person to succeed to the vacant chair at Glasgow, to which he was accordingly appointed in 1756. His department included chemistry and medicine; and he also practised as a physician. His lectures soon became highly popular from the clearness of his style and method, and the beauty and simplicity of his experimental illustrations. He did not however prosecute his inquiries, in that particular department of chemistry, in which he had already had so much success. But in another branch of science his power of original research was signally displayed.

The relations of bodies to heat, especially in connexion with the changes of state they undergo, was a subject which had hitherto excited hardly any notice; and though some effects were such as might have been supposed obvious, still no one had as yet reasoned on them, or understood their nature.

It is a characteristic of great genius to find important matter of reflection in objects which the vulgar pass by as too common to excite notice, and Dr. Black having remarked some very common facts with regard to heat, was conducted to those great discoveries on which his celebrity rests:—that of _latent heat_, and that of _specific heat_; which last term is, in fact, only another mode of expressing the same principle. This great truth, the foundation of all our determinate ideas of the causes of those diversities of physical condition which the same mass of matter is capable of assuming, seems to have suggested itself to the mind of the discoverer about the year 1757.

After the invention of the thermometer, it had been among the earliest facts observed that changes in the state of bodies, such as boiling, freezing, melting, &c., take place always at certain fixed temperatures as indicated by the thermometer; and at a different degree of the scale, for each different substance. And several of these remarkable points came by custom to be marked upon the thermometric scale.

When however it was said that water always boiled at 212° of Fahrenheit, or froze at 32°, &c., it was not meant that the mass would boil or freeze the instant the thermometer reached that point. It was supposed that a certain increase or diminution of temperature (as the case might be) was necessary for the production of the effect beyond that precise point; though that point marked, as it were, the commencement of the process. The views generally entertained on this subject were however so vague, that it is difficult to make out precisely what was imagined to take place; but it seems to have been supposed, that a very slight accession or loss of heat was sufficient completely to accomplish the change.

Such were the notions which prevailed on the subject prior to the commencement of Dr. Black’s researches. No one advanced, or seemed to have any desire to advance, a step nearer to the truth: yet the whole was a mere question of fact, and a fact of the most obvious nature. In this we cannot fail to observe one of those instructive instances, which the history of science often brings before us, of the unaccountable blindness, even of inquiring minds, to truths constantly before their eyes, or, if perceived, to the importance of their being thoroughly examined. A very little consideration ought to have shown any observer, that the gain or loss of heat in the cases in question is by no means slight or trifling in amount: yet no one thought of this till Dr. Black pointed it out; and no one reasoned upon it, or perceived its bearing, till that philosopher showed the curious inference to be drawn from it. The case was simply this:—Two equal vessels, one full of water just at the freezing temperature, the other of actual ice, are brought into a warm room. In a short time the water acquires the temperature of the room. Exactly the same quantity of heat has been communicated to the vessel of ice; yet, at the end of the same time, it is found to retain precisely the same temperature as at first. A considerable part of it indeed has been melted, but it may take several hours more to melt the whole. Until that change is completed, the temperature does not vary a single degree. As soon as all the ice is liquefied, and not before, the temperature of the mass begins to rise, and proceeds to increase, from this time, as rapidly as that of the water in the other vessel did before, until it acquires the temperature of the room.

What then, Dr. Black enquired, becomes of the heat which has been all along given to the vessel of ice? Heat has been communicated to it as well as to the other vessel; yet it has not been employed in raising the temperature, but in some way has been expended in converting the ice into water. It is but this simple fact otherwise stated, when we say that the heat so imparted has _disappeared_ as heat of temperature; but may it not have been destroyed or annihilated? To reply to this question we have only to consider that the same vessel of water, cooled nearly to the freezing point, and then exposed to a much greater degree of cold, must, by the same rule, continue parting with its excess of temperature above that of the colder bodies around it. Yet a thermometer immersed in it continues invariably at 32° till the whole has become ice; it then will sink to the lower temperature, but not before. Thus there must be within it a continued supply of _heat_ in order to keep it up to 32° all the time.

Is not this a sufficient answer to the question just proposed? Adopt any theory you please respecting the nature of heat: suppose a material substance, or conceive an effect, or quality, or a series of vibrations; in any case, what is apparently lost in the former case is regained in the latter. Without sacrifice of accuracy we may affirm, in any sense, that the heat which had disappeared in the process of thawing has re-appeared in the process of congealing. Moreover, the most exact thermometric observations showed the _amount_ in the two cases to be the same. Thus, without reference to any particular theory of the nature of heat, Dr. Black was justified in asserting that a certain portion of heat becomes _latent_ in the water; and that it owes its fluid state to this latent heat.

We have here referred only to one class of these phenomena; to one particular application of the general law. Similar results take place when water boils: the boiler receives as much heat from the fire during the time requisite to raise it to 212° as it does during the next equal portion of time; but its temperature (in an open vessel) will not rise beyond that point. Here then again a quantity of heat has disappeared; but the water is converted into vapour. Collect the vapour in a cold receiver; it produces a high degree of heat, and is re-condensed into the form of water.

The heat then, whatever it be, Dr. Black inferred, is latent in the steam. It is not destroyed; it disappears as temperature, but under other circumstances it can be made to re-appear: it is therefore merely concealed, or dormant for the time; and no term can be so proper to describe its condition as _latent heat_.

Analogous facts are presented by all other bodies which have been subjected to examination. Whenever a change of state from the aëriform to the liquid, or from the solid to the liquid takes place, a corresponding evolution or absorption of heat accompanies it. Every research of experimenters on this subject, since Dr. Black, has contributed fresh instances confirming the universality of this great law of nature.

A solid body then requires a certain portion of heat to be thrown into it, in order to melt, or convert it into a liquid: and the liquid again requires a similar supply to evaporate it into steam, or convert it into an elastic fluid state; and this portion of heat produces no influence on the temperature of the body. The reverse is true of the reverse processes. The quantity of heat so absorbed or given out is different in different bodies.

Not only indeed is this the case in these changes of state, but it is also the case in the simple instance of mere changes in the temperature of bodies; different bodies require different degrees of heat to be communicated, or thrown into them, in order to produce the same increase of sensible temperature. This was the other great result to which we referred at first as the discovery of Dr. Black: he designated this peculiarity in bodies their _capacity for heat_; a term sufficiently expressive, but which is now more usually exchanged for the term _specific heat_. The establishment of the accurate values of this capacity or specific heat, in a number of different bodies, has afforded a wide field of research for subsequent experiments. It has been sometimes said that to Dr. Black’s discovery of latent heat we owe the steam-engine. This is, we think, a mistaken view of the matter. That heat will generate steam, and cold condense it, are facts that were well known, independently of the doctrine of latent heat; though that doctrine undoubtedly gives the explanation of them. The knowledge of these facts might therefore have been practically applied in the construction of the steam-engine, had Dr. Black’s discovery never been made. It is at the same time perfectly true, that this theory supplies us with accurate data dependent on the quantity of heat necessary to be communicated, on which calculation must proceed: and it is on the basis of such exact investigation, that the great improvements in the application of steam have been brought about.

To return however to our narrative: though, as we have said, the leading ideas of these discoveries had occurred to the author probably about the year 1757, yet it was not till a few years afterwards that he had fully made out his theory. The discovery of specific heat was announced in 1760; and that of latent heat, with all the details of its experimental proof, was laid before a literary society in Glasgow, in a paper read April 23, 1762. After this period a full account of both subjects was regularly introduced by the author into his courses of lectures. He did not himself follow out the train of experimental research to which he had opened the way, but his friends and disciples entered largely upon the investigation of those valuable data, the numerical values expressing the quantities of latent heat and specific heat belonging to different substances.

In 1766, Dr. Cullen having been promoted to the chair of medicine, Dr. Black, again treading in the steps of his revered friend and instructor, was called from Glasgow to the professorship of chemistry at Edinburgh. He was thus placed in a more conspicuous position, and the fame of the Edinburgh school was not a little raised by his accession to it. Students flocked from all quarters in increasing numbers, and Dr. Black now devoted himself entirely to perfecting his chemical lectures.

In reference to this period, it has been sometimes remarked as singular, that while chemical science was beginning to make those rapid strides by which its modern advance has been so much accelerated, Dr. Black should have been contented to go on merely as an able expositor and illustrator of what others were doing, without himself taking any share in their labours. Perhaps it might be difficult to assign any better reasons for this conduct than are to be found in the peculiar disposition of the individual, though it has been alleged that he was actuated by a dread of criticism; this, indeed, can only be regarded as itself an indication of a morbid sensitiveness of mind, of which, unhappily, we have other instances in individuals of the highest philosophical genius; and which has probably, in more than one instance, deprived the world of services which would have been invaluable in the cause of science. Be this as it may, Dr. Black, though he continued by constant revisions and additions to make his lectures amply keep pace with the discoveries of the day, yet himself produced during this period only two papers, and those of minor importance: one appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1774, in which he assigned the reason why water which has been boiled freezes more easily than that which has not, viz., the expulsion of the air: another was inserted in the second volume of the Edinburgh Transactions, on the analysis of the water from the Geysers of Iceland.

It appears from an anecdote related on good authority, (see Edinburgh Encyclopædia, article, Dr. Black) that so early as 1766, when the low specific gravity of hydrogen as discovered by Mr. Cavendish had been announced, the idea of employing it for balloons occurred to Dr. Black; and that he actually exhibited a small one, to the extreme astonishment of a party of friends. It was not till 1782 Montgolfier claimed the merit of originating this idea.

Dr. Black never enjoyed very robust health, but by great care and attention he managed to the best advantage a constitution naturally delicate, pursuing, especially towards the latter part of his life, an extremely regular and abstemious mode of living. About 1793 his strength began to fail. In 1796 he became unequal to the sole discharge of his duties as a lecturer, and employed an assistant. In the following year he was compelled to relinquish lecturing altogether. Though in great weakness, he was able by unremitting precautions to preserve a considerable share of general health. He had always expressed a hope that he might be spared the distress of a long illness; and, in accordance with this wish, while sitting at table partaking of his usual simple fare, he expired November 26, 1799, in so tranquil a manner, that a cup of milk which he had placed on his knee remained unspilt; and it was some time before his servant perceived that life was extinct.

The cast and character of Dr. Black’s mind is illustrated by the whole nature and course of his labours and investigations. Methodical precision and originality of thought were the qualities which pre-eminently distinguished him. In framing general conclusions he was peculiarly cautious and exact. It is clear that he possessed abilities which might have placed him much higher in the rank of original discoverers, had not an unfortunate backwardness, perhaps the result of natural timidity or indolence, perhaps of weak health and incessant employment, withheld him from pushing his researches to a greater extent, and even from asserting his just claims to what he had done, which was in some instances wrongfully appropriated by others. Some charges of this nature have been brought against Lavoisier, in reference to the discovery of the nature of alkalies; but in his writings Lavoisier certainly does ample justice to Black.

In all the best and most substantial qualifications of a teacher and lecturer, he has seldom been surpassed. His method was luminous and natural; his style unadorned, but beautifully perspicuous; his experimental illustrations completely satisfactory and convincing, yet always of the simplest possible kind. He manifested a great dislike to any unnecessary parade of apparatus, and the exhibition of showy and striking, but useless phenomena. He aimed not at display and popular fame, but to arrive at the best means of interesting, instructing, and enlightening his pupils. He led them by his own example pre-eminently to value accuracy in the establishment of facts, caution in deducing general conclusions, and a resolute adherence to the results derived from experiment and induction.

Dr. Black’s moral and social character was exactly such as harmonized with his mental endowments. He was moderate in his desires, temperate in his enjoyments, benevolent and warm in his affections. He manifested a strong love of order, propriety, and decorum, and a total absence of jealousy against scientific rivals, or envy of their fame. His disposition was at once serious and cheerful; and he was distinguished by a happy equanimity of temper. He was sometimes accused of penuriousness: but the charge is wholly denied by his relative, Dr. Ferguson; and his intimate friend, Professor Robison, has related many instances of his conduct totally incompatible with such a disposition. In person he was rather above the middle height; of a slender figure, with a mild and engaging countenance.

After Dr. Black’s death his manuscript lectures were revised and published by Professor Robison, in two quarto volumes, in 1803. The first and most important portion of the work is devoted to the subject of heat; and contains the development of the author’s original researches to which we have referred. The simplicity of style, the admirable taste and propriety of language, and the perspicuous and luminous method of illustration, cannot be too highly praised. With respect to the other portion, embracing the details of chemistry properly so called, though the same commendation as to the manner must be bestowed, the matter, which was not less excellent for the time at which the lectures were delivered, was yet, at the period of the publication, necessarily much behind the advance of discovery.

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

LORD BACON.

_From a Print by J. Houbraken 1738._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

LORD BACON.

Among the many great names which England boasts of, few have such claims to her gratitude as that of FRANCIS BACON. For besides the unparalleled services which science received from him, to his _original_ genius we may indirectly ascribe many, if not most, of those large improvements in the arts of life which have raised this nation to the highest place among the countries of the world.

Francis Bacon was the second son, by a second marriage, of Sir Nicholas Bacon, twenty years Keeper of the Great Seal in the reign of Elizabeth, and Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, the preceptor of Edward the Sixth. He was born at York House or Place, in the Strand, January 22, 1561. In 1573 he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he speedily acquired more than the ordinary learning of the age, becoming deeply versed in classical literature. Although taught to look up to Aristotle as to a writer whom it was almost heresy to question, yet at that early age he began to perceive where his philosophy failed, and to conceive the reorganization of a purer and better system. “His exceptions against that great philosopher not being founded on the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a philosophy only for disputations and contentions, but barren in the production of works for the benefit of the life of man, in which mind he continued to his dying day.”—(Dr. Rawley’s Life of Bacon.) His intellectual efforts were ever after bent on working out and declaring these novel views, of which, through many modifying and expanding minds, we now reap the fruits.

In 1576 he was entered as a Student in the Society of Gray’s Inn, with the view of keeping his terms for the bar. Before, however, he commenced his legal studies, his father sent him to France, in the suite of the Queen’s Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. During his residence abroad he wrote his first work, which was not intended originally for publication, but was improved and printed after some years. It is called, A short View of the Present State of Europe. It derives its chief interest from having been written at the early age of nineteen; but the civil and political views are sound, and the composition graceful.

In 1579 Sir Nicholas Bacon died, leaving Francis but a small share of his fortune, in consequence of family circumstances, which we need not here relate. Finding his private means insufficient for his support, he returned to England, and commenced the study of the Law, to which he applied himself with great diligence.

He did not, however, suffer the demands of his profession to interfere with those pursuits, in which he was fully persuaded that his great strength lay. Between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight he produced a work, which he called the Greatest Birth of Time. It was never published, and is lost in its separate form, but the substance of it remains in his Instauration.

In 1582 Bacon was called to the bar, and in 1588 was chosen Reader or Lecturer by the Society of which he was a member, and the same year he received the only mark of honour conferred upon him in the reign of Elizabeth, in the title of Counsel Learned in the Law Extraordinary. It seems strange that Bacon, who was the nephew of the Lord High Treasurer Burleigh, and cousin of the principal Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil, should never have been able to obtain any office in the Court of Elizabeth. The reason possibly was that he had early attached himself to the faction of the Earl of Essex, who, though the Queen’s greatest favourite, was in constant opposition to her ministers. This unfortunate nobleman exerted himself to the utmost, at the extreme risk of offending: his testy mistress, to secure for Bacon the place of Solicitor General, as the first step of legal advancement; but he was unsuccessful. The ministers declared their belief that Bacon was merely a theorist, and that his talents were not of a nature fitted for practical purposes: perhaps there was no small mixture of jealousy in this declaration. To make some amends to his friend for this disappointment, Essex gave him an estate (which he afterwards sold at an under price for 1300_l._) out of his private fortune: one of many kindnesses which Bacon too ill requited.

In 1592 Bacon published a defence of the government, in answer to a libel, in consequence of which he received the reversion of the register’s office to the Star-chamber, which he did not enjoy till twenty years after. In the Parliament of 1593 he was chosen member for the county of Middlesex, a proof that his public talents were not unappreciated by his countrymen. In the House he shone as an orator of the first class, his speeches were extremely elegant and forcible, and his wit so well blended with good sense and winning manners, as to secure to him the favourable attention of that assembly. He was frequently employed by the government to defend their measures in Parliament, which he did with consummate prudence, but he still went unrewarded.

In 1596 Bacon composed, but did not then print, his Maxims of the Law; and in the year following he published his first edition of Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral; the work by which he is best known to the general reader. In the trial of the Earl of Essex for high treason (1601) Bacon appeared as counsel for the Crown; and after the execution of that unfortunate nobleman, the Queen directed him to compose and publish An Account of the Earl of Essex’s Treasons. His apparent zeal on this occasion excited the indignation of the people, among whom Essex was much beloved, and he was obliged to apologize for his conduct, by a letter to the Earl of Devonshire, one of the firm partisans of Essex.

The death of Elizabeth, which soon followed that of her favourite, revived Bacon’s hopes of advancement. He applied himself early to obtain the favour of the new king; and a proclamation, which he drew up on James’s arrival, though never published, did him great service. He was introduced to the King at Whitehall, and was knighted, July 23, 1603. In the following year his services to the court in Parliament, and elsewhere, were rewarded by the title of King’s Counsel, with a stipend of forty, and an additional pension of sixty pounds.

But though he seemed in the high road to preferment, Bacon had powerful enemies to obstruct his advancement. Sir Robert Cecil, son of Lord Burleigh, created Earl of Salisbury by James I., though Bacon’s cousin by the maternal side, had always shown himself averse to his kinsman’s preferment, apparently from jealousy of his uncommon talents. Between Bacon and the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, there existed a more violent hostility, arising from various causes. Sir Edward was successful early, Bacon late, and the power which Coke obtained, he used to depress his antagonist. They had both been suitors of the rich Lady Hatton, Lord Burleigh’s grand-daughter, whom Coke married; and, as a farther exasperation of their enmity, in that celebrated dispute, which occurred in 1616, between the courts of King’s Bench and Chancery, “Whether the Chancery, after judgment given in the Courts of Law, was prohibited from giving relief upon matters arising in equity, which the judges at law could not determine or relieve,” Bacon had a leading share in obtaining that decision in favour of the privileges of the Court of Chancery, which has had so great an influence upon the jurisdiction of courts.

In 1605 Bacon published his first specimen of The Advancement of Learning. His view of the service he was doing to science, is shewn in a letter to Lord Salisbury, sent with a copy of this work, where he says, that “in this book he was contented to awake better spirits, being himself like a bell-ringer, who is the first to call others to church.”

The following year he married Alice, the daughter of Benedict Barnham, alderman, a lady of large fortune, who outlived him many years, and by whom he had no children. The year 1607 produced him his first solid success. Lord Salisbury had arisen to such power and confidence with his master, that he no longer feared the talents of Bacon, and with his concurrence, if not by his means, Bacon was at length appointed Solicitor-General, which, besides its future promise, was an office worth 5000_l._ or 6000_l._ a-year to him in private practice. Though now a busy man, and constantly engaged in affairs of the Crown, he nevertheless found time to write and publish his Wisdom of the Ancients, a work of great elegance and profound learning, but not one to which the present age owes much. In 1611 he was appointed joint judge of the Marshal’s court, and immediately afterwards Attorney-General, on the promotion of Lord Coke to the office of Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Bacon did not attach himself to the fortunes of the reigning favourite Somerset, and when that lord and his countess were brought to trial for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, he had the management of the case for the Crown, which he so conducted as to keep himself out of the disgrace into which Coke and others fell with the King, on account of this critical affair.

He was farther advanced to the office of Lord Keeper in March, 1617, on the resignation of the Lord Chancellor Viscount Brackley, and the same year sat at the head of the council-board, as manager of the King’s affairs, during the absence of the monarch and his new favourite Buckingham in Scotland. On the return of the King, Bacon was made Lord High Chancellor, Jan. 4, 1618; and in July following he was created Baron of Verulam. In 1620 he sent to the King his Novum Organum, or ‘New Instrument of Logic, better calculated for the real progress of science than that of Aristotle.’

The next year Bacon received the title of Viscount St. Albans, and opened the Parliament of February, 1621, the most honoured, and among the most powerful subjects of the realm. But this parliament was fatal to him. James had not called this assembly together for more than ten years, except for the short session of two months in 1614, and during that period had been subsisting on the unconstitutional resources of benevolences, and the sale of monopolies. Almost the first act of this parliament was the inquiry into abuses, and more particularly those of the courts of justice, and the sale of patents. As all patents had to pass the seal, it was natural that the conduct of the Lord Keeper should be looked into, and this led to farther inquiry concerning the administration of justice in the Chancellor’s court. The chairman of a committee appointed to conduct this inquiry, brought up two charges of bribery against Bacon. This alarmed James and his favourite, and the parliament was adjourned for three weeks, in the hope that the affair would blow over. But during this recess, twenty-two cases of bribery were charged upon the Chancellor, and a deputation from the lower House waited on him to know whether he would confess or refute them. In a few days he chose to make confession, and threw himself on the mercy of his peers. His confession was not thought ample enough, and too extenuatory; and he was obliged to make one still more full, in writing, upon which a deputation of thirteen Lords was sent to him, to know whether it were really his. His answer to them was, “My Lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart; I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.” At the petition of the Peers, the seals were sequestrated, Bacon was deprived of his speakership and of his seat in Parliament, and farther was fined 40,000_l._, sentenced to imprisonment during the King’s pleasure, debarred from entering the verge of the Court, and declared incapable of holding any office in future. This penalty was considerably mitigated by James, who confined him but for a short space in the Tower, allowed him to make over the fine to assignees of his own choosing, and, for the settling of his affairs, gave him leave to reside for some time within the verge of the Court. After some years, at the earnest solicitation of Bacon, “that his royal master would be pleased to wipe out his disgrace from the page of history by his princely pardon,” he received the favour he so much desired.

At the age of sixty-one, Bacon retired to his country-seat at Gorhambury, having an income of about 2500_l._ His debts amounted to about 30,000_l._, of which he liquidated a third before his death.

Apart from the noise and stir of life, Bacon more sedulously bent his mind to the cultivation of philosophy, his true field of labour. With the exception of his Reign of Henry the Seventh, and a tract written against the match between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain, the five last years of his life were spent in making philosophical experiments, and in moulding his works to a more perfect form. It was his great wish that what he had written should be translated into the general language of learning, Latin; consequently much of his time during this period was employed in translating himself, or revising the translations of his friends. His chief labour, however, was the reduction of his Instauration to a most highly finished state of aphorisms. He took incredible pains with this great performance. His biographer and editor, Dr. Rawley, declares that this work was revised and corrected, almost re-written, at least ten times, and finally left _unfinished_: for a book which taught what was known in the world, and wherein that knowledge was defective or pretended; which professed to teach a new system, by which general laws should be made for the foundation of true science; and which pointed out what remained to be known, was indeed rather the undertaking of many lives of manhood, than a few years of one suffering under a load of debt, disgrace, infirmity, and age. The peculiarity of Bacon’s philosophical doctrine may be expressed in few words. He found that the beliefs of learned men (apart from religious beliefs) rested upon the authority of one unquestionably great intelligence, Aristotle, who had invented laws of science, unfounded except in the speculations of his own mind, and many of them misunderstood by his idolizers. These laws were given or made, and facts were supposed to follow from them necessarily and without question. But Bacon proposed to found his general laws on actual experiments. So that when by a multitude of facts arising from this course of proceeding, laws should be produced which fairly accounted for phenomena, the application of such laws might farther become the confirmation of fresh and, it may be, more difficult, combinations. It is curious that Bacon’s own experiments should, for the most part, be so signally frivolous and inconclusive. This may be accounted for, in some measure, by the novelty of the method,—his own defence, for he was aware of the fact, is, “that he did not like to throw away any experiment, however seeming foolish, in case that some spark of truth should be contained in it, or suggested by it.” But he certainly did not possess the power of applying his own principles to practice, and far better examples of the inductive powers may be found, even in the labours of his predecessors, than any which his own writings afford.

After having spent five years in this labour for posterity, on the 9th of April, 1626, Bacon died at the age of 66, at the house of Lord Arundel, in Highgate, on his way to London. A week’s acute illness carried him to his grave. He was buried at Old Verulam, and for a long time no “stone told where he lay,” till the affection of an old servant erected a marble monument to the memory of his noble master. His name was well known among the continental nations, and he himself was understood and appreciated by them, to a far greater extent than by his fellow-countrymen. Some allusion to this is found in his will, in which, after having commended his soul to God, and his body to the dust, he proceeds, prophetically, to “bequeath his name and fame to foreign nations, and to his own countrymen after some time be passed over.”

The character of Bacon has been held up as an extraordinary anomaly, as containing the extremes of strength and weakness. Pope was pleased to call him

“The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,”

probably for the sake of the powerful contrast presented in the line. That his great strength lay in his intellectual powers there is no doubt, but that his moral power was slight enough for him to deserve the character of “meanest of mankind,” is not to be believed. The wrong he did to Essex is perhaps the strongest stain that remains on his memory. The charge of bribery is not so heinous in him as it appears to be at first sight. He says (and though it be a sophism yet it has some weight,) “that he never sold injustice,” nor did he: his decrees were pronounced without regard to the parties concerned, and were none of them reversed; moreover, judicial bribery was not thought so vicious then as it is now; in France, it was open and daily. Of the twenty-two charges brought against him, five only were really for bribery, that is, while the suit was pending. The rest were presents. He had lived in want for the greater portion of his life, and becoming suddenly rich, and full of various business, he was naturally careless of expenses, and left a great deal more than he ought to have done in the hands of his servants; who lived upon him so extravagantly, that on passing through his hall (when they rose at his presence) he said, “Sit down, my masters, your rise hath been my fall.” There is also every reason to believe that he was induced to suppress his defence by the intrigues of James, and his favourite Buckingham; to whose escape he had the weakness to let himself be made a sacrifice. He has been accused of cringing to this powerful favourite in less important particulars; but his letters are no more than a type of the usual style of an inferior to a superior in the Court in which he lived. He fell upon hard times, first the courtier of a princess whose thirst of praise and requisition of humility was unbounded, then the courtier and servant of a king who all but believed himself to be a god. The most marvellous fact of Bacon’s character is, that he who knew men so well, and whose insight into their feelings and motives was so clear, should have been so blind as to remain totally ignorant, as is apparent from all his letters and writings, of that youthful spirit of freedom which in the subsequent reign sprung into such vigorous manhood. But he seems to have been “the king’s true chancellor,” and to have believed most firmly in that Divine right for which James argued and his son died.

Bacon’s private character was generous and humane almost to a fault. His manners were exceedingly winning, and his method of drawing from all sorts of men the information belonging to their separate callings was wonderful. He was constitutionally timid, and was always in weak health. His person was slightly above the common height, his countenance most dignified, and intellectually commanding.

]

_Engraved by W. Holl._

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

_From a Bust by Chantrey._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

SIR W. SCOTT.

Walter Scott was born in the Old Town of Edinburgh, April 15, 1771, in a house at the head of the College Wynd, which has been pulled down to make way for the new buildings of the University. His father was a writer to the signet, his grandfather a farmer resident in Roxburghshire, who traced his descent to the ancient Border family of Scott of Harden. His infancy gave no promise of the robust manhood which he attained: and in addition to general weakness of constitution, his right foot received an early injury, which rendered him lame through life. This delicacy of health induced his parents to send him, when almost an infant, to his grandfather’s farm at Sandyknow in Roxburghshire, adjoining the Border fortress called Smailholm Tower, in the heart of that romantic pastoral district whose scenery and legends he has rendered famous. [5]“His residence at this secluded spot, which after early boyhood was, we believe, occasionally renewed during the summer vacations of the High School and College, was undoubtedly fraught with many advantages, physical and mental. It was here that his feeble constitution was, by the aid of free air and exercise, gradually strengthened into robustness; and though he never got rid of his lameness, it was so far overcome as to be in after life rather a deformity than an inconvenience. It was here that his love of ballad lore and border story was fostered into a passion; and it was here doubtless, and at the house of one of his uncles, Mr. Thomas Scott, of Woolee, also a Roxburghshire farmer, that he early acquired that intimate acquaintance with the manners, character, and language of the Scottish peasantry, which he afterwards turned to such admirable account in his novels.”

Footnote 5:

This, and the other passages marked with inverted commas, except those
taken from Scott’s Autobiography, are derived from a memoir of Sir
Walter Scott published in the Penny Magazine, No. 37, and written by
Scott’s countryman and acquaintance, the late Mr. Pringle.

In October, 1779, he entered the High School of Edinburgh, which he attended during four years. He there acquired the character of being “a remarkably active and dauntless boy, full of all manner of fun, and ready for all manner of mischief;” and so far from being timid or quiet on account of his lameness, that very defect, (as he himself remarked to be usually the case in similar circumstances with boys of enterprising disposition) prompted him to take the lead among all the stirring boys in the street where he lived, or the school which he attended. In Greek and Latin he made little progress, and obtained little credit for talent or industry from his masters; but he has invoked his surviving school-fellows, in the Introduction to the last edition of the Waverley Novels, “to bear witness that I had a distinguished character for talent as a tale-teller, at a time when the applause of my companions was the recompense for the disgraces and punishments which the future romance-writer incurred for being idle himself, and keeping others idle, during hours of the day that should have been employed upon our tasks.”

He entered the University of Edinburgh in October, 1783; but his attendance there was only for two sessions. About the age of fifteen the rupture of a blood-vessel again reduced him to a very weak state, and during the space of two years bodily and mental exertion were forbidden. He had recourse for amusement to a circulating library, “rich,” he says, “in works of fiction, from the romances of chivalry, and the ponderous folios of Cyrus and Cassandra, down to the most approved works of later times. I was plunged into this great ocean of reading without compass or pilot, and unless when some one had the charity to play at chess with me I was allowed to do nothing, save read, from morning to night.... I believe I read almost all the old romances, old plays, and epic poetry in that formidable collection, and no doubt was unconsciously amassing materials for the task in which it has been my lot to be so much employed. At the same time I did not in all respects abuse the license permitted me. Familiar acquaintance with the specious miracles of fiction brought with it some degree of satiety, and I began by degrees to seek in histories, memoirs, voyages and travels, and the like, events nearly as wonderful as those which were the work of the imagination, with the additional advantage that they were at least in a great measure true. The lapse of two years, during which I was left to the service of my own free will, was followed by a temporary residence in the country, where I was again very lonely but for the amusement which I derived from a good though old-fashioned library. The vague and wild use which I made of this advantage I cannot describe better than by referring my reader to the desultory studies of Waverley in a similar situation; the passages concerning whose reading were imitated from recollections of my own.”

After recovering from this illness his constitution changed, and he became unusually robust, and capable of enduring great bodily and mental fatigue; even his lameness occasioning no serious inconvenience. He then applied himself in earnest to the study of law, and, to acquire a thorough knowledge of its technicalities, went through the duties of a clerk in his father’s office. He completed the usual course of legal education, and was called to the bar in July, 1792. He seemed however little anxious for business; and as usual, business unsought came slowly: in his legal capacity he acquired neither wealth nor distinction. But, in amends for this, in those days of volunteer corps, he made an admirable quarter-master to the Edinburgh Light Dragoons; and his zeal and skill, and the popularity which his high powers of social entertainment procured, recommended him to the friendship of the Duke of Buccleugh, by whose interest he obtained, in December, 1799, the appointment of Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of 300_l._ He had married in 1797 Miss Carpenter, a lady of foreign birth but English parentage, possessed of fortune sufficient, when added to the salary of his office, and his own patrimonial inheritance, to release him from the necessity of labouring at the bar for a livelihood. This was a step on which his mind had been some time bent. “My profession and I,” he says, “came to stand nearly on the footing which honest Slender consoled himself on having established with Mistress Anne Page—‘There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on farther acquaintance.’ I became sensible that the time was come when I must either buckle myself resolutely to ‘the toil by day, the lamp by night,’ renouncing all the Dalilahs of my imagination, or bid adieu to the profession of the law, and hold another course.”

Scott was not a premature writer; he had reached his twenty-fifth year before he tried his strength in composition, excepting a few trivial attempts in childhood; and his name was still unknown to the public, when he resolved to devote his powers to literature. His first essays were made about 1796, when his attention was caught by the Leonora, and other poems of Bürger, which he translated and published anonymously. “The adventure,” he says, “proved a dead loss, and a great part of this edition was condemned to the service of the trunk-maker.” His next performance was a translation of Goethe’s drama, Goetz of Berlichingen, published in 1799. But he continued his devotion to ballad poetry, and as his confidence rose, essayed his strength in Glenfinlas, and the Eve of St. John, his first original compositions. At Lasswade on the banks of the Esk, about five miles from Edinburgh, where he spent several summers after his marriage, he prosecuted with increased zeal and success his favourite inquiries into the antiquities and legendary song of his country, and commenced the work which gave him a name in literature, the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. “The materials for this work were collected during various excursions, or _raids_, as Sir Walter was wont to call them, through the most remote recesses of the border glens, made by the poetical compiler in person, assisted by one or two other enthusiasts in ballad lore. Pre-eminent among his coadjutors in this undertaking was Dr. John Leyden, an enthusiastic borderer and ballad-monger like himself, and to whom he has gratefully acknowledged his obligations both in verse and prose.”

“Some amusing anecdotes have been printed, and others are still extant in oral tradition among the border hills, of the circumstances attending the collection of these ballads. The old women, who were almost the only remaining depositories of ancient song and tradition, though proud of being solicited to recite them by ‘so grand a man’ as an Edinburgh Advocate, could not repress their astonishment that ‘a man o’ sense and lair’ should spend his time in writing into a book ‘auld ballads and stories of the bluidy Border wars, and paipish times....’ The Minstrelsy was printed at Kelso, in 1802, at first in two volumes, to which a third was added in the second edition. Two years subsequently Scott published the romance of Sir Tristram, a Scottish metrical tale of the thirteenth century, which he showed, in a learned disquisition, to have been composed by Thomas of Ercildown, commonly called the Rhymer.”

“These works, especially the Border Minstrelsy, were favourably received by the public, and established Scott’s reputation on a very respectable footing, as an excellent poetical antiquary, and as a writer of considerable power and promise, both in verse and prose. As yet, however, he had produced no composition of originality and importance sufficient to secure that high and permanent rank in literature, to which his secret ambition led him to aspire. But he had now a subject in hand which was destined to attain for him a popularity far beyond what his most sanguine hopes could have ventured to anticipate.”

“The Lay of the Last Minstrel appeared in 1805. The structure of the verse was suggested, as the author states, by the Christabel of Coleridge; a part of which had been repeated to him about the year 1800. The originality, wildness, poetical beauty, and descriptive powers of Scott’s Border romance produced an effect on the public mind, only to be equalled perhaps by some of the earlier works of Byron.”

“In the spring of 1806 Sir Walter obtained an appointment, which, he says, completely met his moderate wishes as to preferment. This was the office of a principal Clerk of Session, of which the duties are by no means heavy, though personal attendance during the sitting of the courts is required. Mr. Pitt, under whose administration the appointment had been granted, having died before it was officially completed, the succeeding Whig ministry had the satisfaction of confirming it. The emoluments of this office were about 1200_l._ a year; but Scott received no part of the salary till 1812, the appointment being a reversionary one.”

His reputation and his fortune seemed now to be completely established. Marmion, published in 1808, and the Lady of the Lake, in 1810, were received each with greater favour than its predecessor. Don Roderick, 1811, was not successful; Rokeby, 1813, and The Lord of the Isles, 1814, were generally thought inferior in merit to his earlier works. This might arise, in part, from the extraordinary rapidity of their composition: for Rokeby was commenced September 15, and finished December 31, 1812; and the Lord of the Isles was written in the following autumn, with equal rapidity, but under circumstances which rendered the task a burden, and damped the fire of his muse. Still these, like their predecessors, commanded very large sales, and brought in large sums to the author, and large profits to the publishers. His popularity, however, was on the ebb, and it was the general impression that Scott had nearly written himself out. At the time when this was said, he had already published one anonymous poem, the Bridal of Triermain, 1810, as if ashamed of his prolific pen. Afterwards, in 1817, he published Harold the Dauntless, in the same way. The censure, however, was not unfounded; and the two last acknowledged poems of Scott were inferior in interest and execution to his earlier productions. Another reason for the decrease of Scott’s popularity he has himself assigned, in the rapid growth of Lord Byron’s.

It was about the end of 1813 that accident threw in his way the mislaid manuscript of the beginning of Waverley, seven chapters of which he had composed in 1805, and had thrown aside, in deference to the unfavourable opinion of a critical friend. At different times he had been inclined to resume this work, but had been prevented by the loss of the manuscript: which he now applied himself in earnest to complete. Waverley was published in the summer of 1814; and obtained success beyond the author’s fondest expectations. The history of this wonderful series of works of fiction, and the author’s reasons for adopting and retaining his incognito, are familiar to the public, through his own account in the Introduction to the Waverley Novels. The manner in which the secret was kept is a remarkable anecdote in literary history: for, whatever conclusions might be drawn from internal evidence by Scott’s intimate friends, and from putting things together by the public, not a particle of external evidence was produced to fasten it upon him, until the failure of Constable’s house in 1826 led to Scott’s public avowal of the authorship in 1827. Perhaps this mystery tended to keep alive the public interest: perhaps also Scott had a keener relish of the homage paid to the Great Unknown, than if it had been offered to him in his own person.

Scott’s metrical romances, as they were composed with unexampled rapidity, commanded also unexampled prices from the booksellers. And at the same time he found leisure for a variety of laborious works in criticism, biography, and miscellaneous literature, which added considerably both to his funds and his reputation. Among these were new editions of the works of Dryden and Swift, with biographical accounts; Sadler’s State Papers; Somers’s Tracts; Lives of the Novelists; besides numerous contributions to encyclopædias, reviews, and other periodical publications. His scheme of devoting himself to literature had borne fruit of fame and profit beyond his brightest anticipations. His certain income (we presume after the year 1812) is said by Mr. Pringle to have exceeded 2000_l._: and he was supposed to double that sum by the exuberant harvest of his brain.