Holmes's own-as original and charming as the Spectator himself.

American journalism has not produced much important work in the field of the essay. Perhaps the most distinguished name in this connection is that of George William Curtis, a man of letters who combined something of the courtliness of the old school with a keen sense of the significant qualities of contemporary life. For many years his editorial contributions to Harper's Weekly maintained a high standard of social criticism; while on the lighter side his sketches in Potiphar Papers and Prue and I (1853 and 1856) hover charmingly on the border-line between the essay and fiction. Charles Dudley Warner in like manner blended the serious and the familiar with some distinction in such essays as his Backlog Studies (1872). We cannot undertake here to follow the essay into the work of our own contemporaries; yet one name may be added which links the nineteenth century with the twentieth-that of Mr. William Dean Howells. Best known as a novelist, Howells has also done admirable and delightful work in the essay, both of the critical and the familiar sort.

In general, when we consider this form with reference to the present time, we observe that, like all other literary types, it is not now maintained in any traditional form for its own sake, but changes and reappears in ways characteristic of the demands of the new generation. The old-time formal essay, whether critical or personal, tends to disappear; on the other hand, the continued growth of journalism maintains various kinds of periodical essay, from the comparatively brief editorial to the more serious critical review. Indeed the essay form is so flexible, so adaptable to the spirit of different periods, that there is no reason to expect any decline of its importance so long as literature exists at all.

FRANCIS BACON

[FRANCIS BACON was born in London in 1561. He looked forward to a diplomatic career, and, after completing his formal education at Cambridge, went to Paris in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet, ambassador to France. Returning to England, he was made Member of Parliament for Middlesex (1595), and thereafter rose rapidly in political life, becoming successively AttorneyGeneral, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam, and Viscount St. Albans. His political enemies having sought out means to attack him, he was proved (and confessed) to have received gifts from some whose suits were before him as Lord Chancellor, and, being convicted of bribery, was sentenced to a fine of 40,000 pounds and deposed from office. This tragic end of his public career led Pope to describe Bacon in the famous but grossly exaggerated phrase, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." Meantime Bacon had devoted much of his time to literature and philosophy, and his monumental work, the Novum Organum (or "New Instrument" for the discovery of truth), first published in Latin in 1620, is one of the landmarks in the history of both philosophy and science. Bacon died in 1626. For his essays, see the Introduction, p. 7.]

OF TRUTH1

and would not stay delight in giddiness," affecting free-will in And though the sects of

What is truth?2 said jesting Pilate, for an answer. Certainly there be that and count it a bondage to fix a belief; thinking, as well as in acting. philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there

1. This essay, which appeared first in the collection of 1625, was given the place of honor in that volume, as Essay I.

2. What is truth? See John 18: 38.

3. jesting. Scoffing.

4. there be that. There are those who. The reference is especially to the "sect" of Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher who flourished 300 B.C., and who, since he denied the possibility of human knowledge, was called the founder of the skeptical school.

5. giddiness. Levity or inconstancy.

6. discoursing

way.

veins. Wits who still argue in the same

be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts,, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. [Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would," and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers,10 in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum, because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge

7. imposeth. Exerts a forcible influence.

8. One of the later schools. Lucian of Samosata, of the second century A.D.

9. as one would. At pleasure, unrestrained.

10. One of the fathers. St. Jerome had called the songs of poets "dæmonum cibus", "food of demons"; and St. Augustine referred to poetry as "vinum erroris", "the wine of sin." Bacon may have confused the two passages.

of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet11 that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below: so12 always that this prospect13 be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round14 dealing is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like allay15 in coin of gold and silver; which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth16 it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There

11. The poet. Lucretius, who died 55 B.C. His "sect" was that of the Epicureans, whose doctrines he wrote his great poem De Rerum Natura to expound. The quotation is from Book ii, lines 1-13.

12. so. Provided.

13. prospect. Survey.

14. round. Fair.

15. allay. Alloy.

16. embaseth it. Debases its value.

is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne17 saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge; saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold that, when Christ cometh,18 he shall not find faith upon the earth.

OF REVENGE1

REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Salomon,2 I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offense. That which is past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why

17. Montaigne. See the Introduction, page 6. The quotation is from the 18th essay of Montaigne's second Book; he derived it from Plutarch's Lives.

18. when Christ cometh, etc. See Luke 18: 8. Bacon interprets the word "faith" in the sense of "fidelity" rather than in the New Testament sense.

1. First published in 1625 as Essay IV.