The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bacon’s Essays, by Bacon.

4 It is not surprising that ladies then received an education rare in our own times. It should be remembered that in the sixteenth century Latin was the language of courts and schools, of diplomacy, politics, and theology; it was the universal language, and there was then no literature in the modern tongues, except the Italian; indeed all knowledge, ancient and modern, was conveyed to the world in the language of the ancients. The great productions of Athens and Rome were the intellectual all of our ancestors down to the middle of the sixteenth century.

5 Prospetto delle Memorie aneddote dei Lincei da F. Cancellieri. Roma, 1823. This fact is quoted by Monsieur Cousin, in a note to his Fragments de Philosophie Cartésienne.

7 Gray’s Inn is one of the four Inns or companies for the study of law.

8 King’s or Queen’s Counsel are barristers that plead for the government; they receive fees but no salary; the first were appointed in the reign of Charles II. Queen’s Counsel extraordinary was a title peculiar to Bacon, granted, as the patent specially states, honoris causa.

9 Letter to Lord Burleigh.

10 The Solicitor-General is a law-officer inferior in rank to the Attorney-General, with whom he is associated in the management of the law business of the crown. He pleads also for private individuals, but not against government. He has a small salary, but very considerable fees. The salary in Bacon’s time was but seventy pounds.

11 Bacon was, like other courtiers, in the habit of presenting the Queen with a New Year’s gift. On one occasion, it was a white satin petticoat embroidered with snakes and fruitage, as emblems of wisdom and beauty. The donors varied in rank from the Lord Keeper down to the dust-man.

13 The Attorney-General is the public prosecutor on behalf of the Crown, where the state is actually and not nominally the prosecutor. He pleads also as a barrister in private causes, provided they are not against the government. As he receives a fee for every case in which the government is concerned, his emoluments are considerable; but he has no salary. His official position secures to him the best practice at the bar. The salary was, in Bacon’s time, but 81l. 6s. 8d. per annum; but the situation yielded him six thousand pounds yearly.

14 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.

16 Decisions being given against the parties is no proof of uncorruptness; it is always the party who loses his suit that complains; the gainer receives the price of his bribe, and is silent.

17 The exactions of his servants appear to have been very great; their indulgence in every kind of extravagance, and the lavish profuseness of his own expenses, were the principal causes of his ruin. Mallet relates that one day, during the investigation into his conduct, the Chancellor passed through a room where several of his servants were sitting; as they arose from their seats to greet him, “Sit down, my masters,” exclaimed he, “your rise hath been my fall.”

19 Macaulay’s Essays.

20 He was not, as has been erroneously supposed, stripped of his titles of nobility; this was proposed; but it was negatived by the majority formed by means of the bishops.

21 The Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles the First, was before he ascended the throne the patron of Bacon, who said of him in his will, “my most gracious sovereign, who ever when he was prince was my patron.”

23 Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England.

24 Bracton is one of the earliest writers of English law. He flourished in the thirteenth century. The title of his work is De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, first printed in 1569.

25 The woods on his estate of Gorhambury.

26 Of the Interpretation of Nature.

29 Advancement of Learning.

30 Edinburgh Review.

32 Advancement of Learning.

33 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.

34 Tattler, No. 267.

35 Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

36 Montaigne says, in his author’s address to the reader:—

“Ie veulx qu’on m’y veoye en ma façon simple, naturelle et ordinaire, sans estude et artifice; car c’est moi que je peinds.” He says again elsewhere: “Ie n’ay pas plus faict mon livre, que mon livre m’a faict; livre consubstantiel à son aucteur, d’une occupation propre, membre de ma vie, non d’une occupation et fin tierce et estrangiere, comme touts aultres livres.” (Livre ii. ch. xviii.)

37 Introduction to the Encyclopædia.

38 Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

39 Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

42 He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: “Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.”

43 He probably refers to the “New Academy,” a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, “What is truth?” Upon which they came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that mankind has no criterion by which to form a judgment.

44 Perhaps he was thinking of St. Augustine.—See Aug. Confess. i. 25, 26.

45 “The wine of evil spirits.”

46 Genesis i. 3: “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.”

47 At the moment when “The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”—Genesis ii. 7.

48 Lucretius, the Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, is alluded to.—Lucret. ii. init. Comp. Adv. of Learning, i. 8, 5.

49 He refers to the sect which followed the doctrines of Epicurus. The life of Epicurus himself was pure and abstemious in the extreme. One of his leading tenets was, that the aim of all speculation should be to enable men to judge with certainty what course is to be chosen, in order to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind. The adoption, however, of the term “pleasure,” as denoting this object, has at all periods subjected the Epicurean system to great reproach; which, in fact, is due rather to the conduct of many who, for their own purposes, have taken shelter under the system in name only, than to the tenets themselves, which did not inculcate libertinism. Epicurus admitted the existence of the Gods, but he deprived them of the characteristics of Divinity, either as creators or preservers of the world.

50 Lord Bacon has either translated this passage of Lucretius from memory or has purposely paraphrased it. The following is the literal translation of the original: “’Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the dangers of another upon the mighty ocean, when the winds are lashing the main; not because it is a grateful pleasure for any one to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free: ’tis also a pleasant thing to behold the mighty contests of warfare, arrayed upon the plains, without a share in the danger; but nothing is there more delightful than to occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life.”

51 Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French Essayist. His Essays embrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and entertaining manner, and are replete with remarks indicative of strong native good sense. He died in 1592. The following quotation is from the second book of the Essays, c. 18: “Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is ‘affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men;’ it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for, can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God?”

52 St. Luke xviii. 8: “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?”

53 A portion of this Essay is borrowed from the writings of Seneca. See his Letters to Lucilius, B. iv. Ep. 24 and 82.

54 “The array of the death-bed has more terrors than death itself.” This quotation is from Seneca.

55 He probably alludes to the custom of hanging the room in black where the body of the deceased lay, a practice much more usual in Bacon’s time than at the present day.

56 Tacit. Hist. ii. 49.

58 “Reflect how often you do the same things; a man may wish to die, not only because either he is brave or wretched, but even because he is surfeited with life.”

59 “Livia, mindful of our union, live on, and fare thee well.”—Suet. Aug. Vit. c. 100.

60 “His bodily strength and vitality were now forsaking Tiberius, but not his duplicity.”—Ann. vi. 50.

61 This was said as a reproof to his flatterers, and in spirit is not unlike the rebuke administered by Canute to his retinue.—Suet. Vespas. Vit. c. 23.

62 “I am become a Divinity, I suppose.”

63 “If it be for the advantage of the Roman people, strike.”—Tac. Hist. i. 41.

64 “If aught remains to be done by me, dispatch.”—Dio Cass. 76, ad fin.

65 These were the followers of Zeno, a philosopher of Citium, in Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or “School of the Portico,” at Athens. The basis of his doctrines was the duty of making virtue the object of all our researches. According to him, the pleasures of the mind were preferable to those of the body, and his disciples were taught to view with indifference health or sickness, riches or poverty, pain or pleasure.

66 “Who reckons the close of his life among the boons of nature.” Lord Bacon here quotes from memory; the passage is in the tenth Satire of Juvenal, and runs thus:—

“Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem,
Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
Naturæ”—

“Pray for strong resolve, void of the fear of death, that reckons the closing period of life among the boons of nature.”

67 He alludes to the song of Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost had revealed, “that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” When he beheld the infant Jesus in the temple, he took the child in his arms and burst forth into a song of thanksgiving, commencing, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”—St. Luke ii. 29.

68 “When dead, the same person shall be beloved.”—Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 14.

69 “Behold, he is in the desert.”—St. Matthew xxiv. 26.

70 “Behold, he is in the secret chambers.”—Ib.

71 He alludes to 1 Corinthians xiv. 23: “If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?”

72 Psalm i. 1: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

73 This dance, which was originally called the Morisco dance is supposed to have been derived from the Moors of Spain; the dancers in earlier times blackening their faces to resemble Moors. It was probably a corruption of the ancient Pyrrhic dance, which was performed by men in armor, and which is mentioned as still existing in Greece, in Byron’s “Song of the Greek Captive:”—

“You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet.”

Attitude and gesture formed one of the characteristics of the dance. It is still practised in some parts of England.—Rabelais, Pantag. ii. 7.

75 He alludes to the words in Revelation, c. iii. v. 14, 15, 16: “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.—I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Laodicea was a city of Asia Minor. St. Paul established the church there which is here referred to.

76 St. Matthew xii. 30.

77 “In the garment there may be many colors, but let there be no rending of it.”

78 “Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called.”—1 Tim. vi. 20.

79 He alludes to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, significant of the limited duration of his kingdom.—See Daniel ii. 33, 41.

80 Mahomet proselytized by giving to the nations which he conquered, the option of the Koran or the sword.

81 “To deeds so dreadful could religion prompt.” The poet refers to the sacrifice by Agamemnon, the Grecian leader, of his daughter Iphigenia, with the view of appeasing the wrath of Diana.—Lucret. i. 95.

82 He alludes to the massacre of the Huguenots, or Protestants, in France, which took place on St. Bartholomew’s day, August 24, 1572, by the order of Charles IX. and his mother, Catherine de Medici. On this occasion about 60,000 persons perished, including the Admiral De Coligny, one of the most virtuous men that France possessed, and the main stay of the Protestant cause.

83 More generally known as “The Gunpowder Plot.”

85 Allusion is made to the “caduceus,” with which Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, summoned the souls of the departed to the infernal regions.

86 “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”—James i. 20.

87 He alludes to Cosmo de Medici, or Cosmo I., chief of the Republic of Florence, the encourager of literature and the fine arts.

88 Job ii. 10.—“Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

89 By “public revenges,” he means punishment awarded by the state with the sanction of the laws.

90 He alludes to the retribution dealt by Augustus and Anthony to the murderers of Julius Cæsar. It is related by ancient historians, as a singular fact, that not one of them died a natural death.

91 Henry III. of France was assassinated in 1599, by Jacques Clement, a Jacobin monk, in the frenzy of fanaticism. Although Clement justly suffered punishment, the end of this bloodthirsty and bigoted tyrant may be justly deemed a retribution dealt by the hand of an offended Providence; so truly does the Poet say:—

“neque enim lex æquior ulla

Quam necis artifices arte perire suâ.”

92 Sen. Ad Lucil. 66.

94 Stesichorus, Apollodorus, and others. Lord Bacon makes a similar reference to this myth in his treatise “On the Wisdom of the Ancients.” “It is added with great elegance, to console and strengthen the minds of men, that this mighty hero (Hercules) sailed in a cup or ‘urceus,’ in order that they may not too much fear and allege the narrowness of their nature and its frailty; as if it were not capable of such fortitude and constancy; of which very thing Seneca argued well, when he said, ‘It is a great thing to have at the same time the frailty of a man, and the security of a God.’”

95 Funereal airs. It must be remembered that many of the Psalms of David were written by him when persecuted by Saul, as also in the tribulation caused by the wicked conduct of his son Absalom. Some of them, too, though called “The Psalms of David,” were really composed by the Jews in their captivity at Babylon; as, for instance, the 137th Psalm, which so beautifully commences, “By the waters of Babylon there we sat down.” One of them is supposed to be the composition of Moses.

96 This fine passage, beginning at “Prosperity is the blessing,” which was not published till 1625, twenty-eight years after the first Essays, has been quoted by Macaulay, with considerable justice, as a proof that the writer’s fancy did not decay with the advance of old age, and that his style in his later years became richer and softer. The learned critic contrasts this passage with the terse style of the Essay of Studies (Essay 50), which was published in 1597.

98 Tac. Hist. ii. 76.

99 A word now unused, signifying the “traits,” or “features.”

100 A truth.—A. L. II. xxiii. 14.

101 Proverbs x. 1: “A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

102 Petted—spoiled.

103 This word seems here to mean “a plan,” or “method,” as proved by its results.

105 There is considerable justice in this remark. Children should be taught to do what is right for its own sake, and because it is their duty to do so, and not that they may have the selfish gratification of obtaining the reward which their companions have failed to secure, and of being led to think themselves superior to their companions. When launched upon the world, emulation will be quite sufficiently forced upon them by stern necessity.

106 “Select that course of life which is the most advantageous; habit will soon render it pleasant and easily endured.”

107 His meaning is, that if clergymen have the expenses of a family to support, they will hardly find means for the exercise of benevolence toward their parishioners.

108 “He preferred his aged wife Penelope to immortality.” This was when Ulysses was entreated by the goddess Calypso to give up all thoughts of returning to Ithaca, and to remain with her in the enjoyment of immortality.—Plut. Gryll. 1.

109 “May have a pretext,” or “excuse.”

110 Thales, Vide Diog. Laert. i. 26.

111 So prevalent in ancient times was the notion of the injurious effects of the eye of envy, that, in common parlance, the Romans generally used the word “præfiscini,”—“without risk of enchantment,” or “fascination,” when they spoke in high terms of themselves. They supposed that they thereby averted the effects of enchantment produced by the evil eye of any envious person who might at that moment possibly be looking upon them. Lord Bacon probably here alludes to St. Mark vii. 21, 22: “Out of the heart of men proceedeth—deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye.” Solomon also speaks of the evil eye, Prov. xxiii. 6, and xxviii. 22.

112 To be even with him.

113 “There is no person a busybody, but what he is ill-natured too.” This passage is from the Stichus of Plautus.

114 Narses superseded Belisarius in the command of the armies of Italy, by the orders of the Emperor Justinian. He defeated Totila, the king of the Goths (who had taken Rome), in a decisive engagement, in which the latter was slain. He governed Italy with consummate ability for thirteen years, when he was ungratefully recalled by Justin the Second, the successor of Justinian.

115 Tamerlane, or Timour, was a native of Samarcand, of which territory he was elected emperor. He overran Persia, Georgia, Hindostan, and captured Bajazet, the valiant Sultan of the Turks, at the battle of Angora, 1402, whom he is said to have inclosed in a cage of iron. His conquests extended from the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to the Grecian Archipelago. While preparing for the invasion of China, he died, in the 70th year of his age, A. D. 1405. He was tall and corpulent in person, but was maimed in one hand, and lame on the right side.

116 Spartian Vit. Adrian, 15.

117 Comes under the observation.

118 “By a leap,” i. e. over the heads of others.

119 “How vast the evils we endure.”

120 He probably alludes to the custom of the Athenians, who frequently ostracized or banished by vote their public men, lest they should become too powerful.

121 From in and video,—“to look upon;” with reference to the so-called “evil eye” of the envious.

122 “Envy keeps no holidays.”

123 See St. Matthew xiii. 25.

125 He iniquitously attempted to obtain possession of the person of Virginia, who was killed by her father Virginius, to prevent her from falling a victim to his lust. This circumstance caused the fall of the Decemviri at Rome, who had been employed in framing the code of laws afterwards known as “The Laws of the Twelve Tables.” They narrowly escaped being burned alive by the infuriated populace.