am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence."

To the committee of the Lords who were sent to inquire if this confession were indeed signed by himself, his pathetic answer was: " My Lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a

broken reed!"

His faithful friend, Rare Ben Jonson, groups together his sunshine and twilight in a few pathetic lines:

"My conceit of his person was never increased towards him by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want." The ex-chancellor survived his political bankruptcy five years. The cause of his death is well known. Anxious to test a theory that he had formed relative to the efficacy of snow in arresting animal putrefaction, he one cold day left his coach, near Highgate, bought a fowl at an adjoining cottage, and stuffed it with snow. He was suddenly seized with an alarming sensation of chilliness, and was carried to the mansion of the Earl of Arundel, at Highgate, where he lingered for a week, and expired on Easter morning, 1626, in the arms of his friend, Sir Julius Cæsar. His last letter was written to his host, who was then absent from home. In this letter he calls himself the "martyr of science," and compares himself to Pliny the Elder, who lost his life in the cause of investigation. In his will he leaves his name and memory to men's charitable speeches, "to foreign nations, and to my own countrymen, after some time be passed over."

We shall now proceed to review, briefly, the literary productions of the distinguished subject of our memoir. We have already referred to Mr. Basil Montagu as a biographer, and frankly expressed our dissent from some of his conclusions respecting the character of one the influence of whose name is great enough for any thing but successful resistance to the verdict of unconquerable truth. But we should be justly blamed did we omit to record our gratitude to Mr. Montagu for his splendid edition of the Works of Lord Bacon, in 17 vols. 8vo, 1825-34: £8 188. 6d. ; large paper, £26 158. 6d. See ELLIS, R. LESLIE.

It is deeply to be regretted that Lord Bacon never carried out a favourite plan long cherished by him, of

"Reducing or perfecting the course, or corps, of the Common Law, digesting or recompiling them, so that the entire body and substance of Law should remain; only discharged of idle, or unprofitable, or hurtful matter. I dare not advise to cast the law into a new mould. The work which I propound tendeth to pruning and grafting the Laws, and not to ploughing up and planting It again; for such remove I hold a perilous innovation."

His Elements of the Laws of England, published in 1636, consists of, 1. A Collection of some Principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Law, with their Latitude and Extent. We have here but twenty-five out of three hundred Rules which he had collected:

"I thought good, before I brought them all into form, to publish some few, that by the taste of other men's opinions, in this first, I might receive either approbation in my own course, or better advice for the altering of others which remain; for it is great reason that that which is intended to the profit of others, should be guided by the conceits of others."

The excellence of that which we possess makes us grieve that we have so small a proportion of that which the author designed:

"Though some great masters of the Law did outgo him in bulk and particularly in cases: yet in the science of the grounds, and mysteries of the Law, he was exceeded by none."-Preface to Blackmie's Anal.

What an invaluable acquisition to the legal and philoso

"Not only completely fitted for the improvement of such as study the Law, but also the Book in the world best calculated to give every man of good sense and unbiassed judgment, both a general idea, and a good opinion of the Law, which is represented therein in that light which is at once the fairest, fullest, and most agreeable."

The best-known law treatise of Lord Bacon is his Reading on the Statute of Uses, which was delivered before the Society of Gray's Inn about the year 1600. This can be considered only an unfinished design:

"A profound treatise on the subject, as far as it goes."-HARGRAVE The History of the Alienation Office has been cited as a proof of

"How great a master he was not in one Law only, but in our History and Antiquities; so that it may be justly said, there never fell any thing from his pen which more clearly and fully demonstrated his abilities."

The History of Henry VII. has been censured by Dr. Johnson as evincing a want of care usual to the day:

"It is but of late that Historians bestow pains and attention in consulting records, to attain to accuracy. Bacon, in writing his History of Henry VII., does not seem to have consulted any, but to have just taken what he found in other histories, and blend ed it with what he learned by tradition."

But Bishop Nicolson, speaking of the authors who have written concerning the reign of Henry VII., cannot suffi ciently commend our historian:

"This good work was most effectually undertaken and completed by the incomparable Sir Francis Bacon, who has bravely surmounted all those difficulties, and passed over those rocks and shallows, against which he took such pains to caution other less experienced historians. He has perfectly put himself into King Henry's own garb and livery, giving as sprightly a view of the secrets of his Council, as if himself had been President in it."— English Historical Library.

Catherine Macaulay, on the other hand, blames the historian for flattering King James

"So far as to paint his grandfather, Henry the Seventh, in an amiable light."-Catherine Macaulay's History of England, vol. i.

We proceed to the consideration of Bacon's philosophical writings. His Essays, or Counsels, Civil and Moral, were first published in 1597; 2d edition, with additions, in 1612; 3d, still further augmented, in 1624. In the dedication to his brother, Anthony Bacon, the author states that he published his Essays "because many of them had stolen abroad in writing," and he was anxious to give a correct impression of them.

"To write just treatises requires leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader. . . . The word [Essays] 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."-From the intended Preface to the 2d edition.

This is the work by which Bacon is best known to the majority of readers.

"The first in time, and, we may justly say, the first in excellence, of English writings on moral prudence, are the Essays of Bacon. . . . The transcendent strength of Bacon's mind is visible in the whole tenor of these Essays, unequal as they must be from the very nature of such compositions. They are deeper and more discriminating than any earlier, or almost any later, work in the English language; full of recondite observations, long matured, and carefully sifted. . . . Few books are more quoted, and, what is not always the case with such books, we may add, that few are more generally read. In this respect they lead the van of our prose literature; for no gentleman is ashamed of owning that he has not read the Elizabethan writers; but it would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the Essays of Bacon.”—Hallam's Introduc. to the Lit. of Europe.

"The virtue of these Essays is too well allowed to require any comment. Without the elegance of Addison, or the charming egotism of Montaigne, they have acquired the widest circulation; and if Bacon had written no more, they would have bequeathed his name undying to posterity. Burke preferred them to the rest of his writings, and Dr. Johnson observed, that 'their excellence and value consists in their being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life, and, in consequence, you will find there what you seldom find in other books."-Malone's Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Rose's Biog. Dict.: read the whole of this excellent sketch of Bacon and his writings.

"Under the head of Ethics may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of Essays; the best known and the most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of his subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before. This indeed is a characteristic of all Bacon's writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties."-Dugald Stewart, 1st Prel. Diss. to Encyc. Brit. About the 26th year of his age, Bacon formed the first sketch of the great work which he designed completing in tled Temporus Partus Maximus; The Greatest Birth of Time. In writing, towards the close of his life, to Father Fulgentio, a learned Italian, who had asked of him an account of his works, he remarks,

his "Instauration of the Sciences." This sketch he enti

verses, that it was on the high road to Dunce table. i. e. Dunstable, and therefore appropriate to the author of such a book. Mr. Se cretary Cuffe said that it was a book which a fool could not have written, and a wise man would not.' King James declared it was like the Peace of God-it passeth all understanding.' Coke wrote, under a device on the title page, of a ship passing through the pillars of Hercules,

'It deserveth not to be read in schools. But to be freighted in the ship of fools."" To such hypercriticism, the author's faithful friend in Prosperity and affliction-the friend who had rejoiced in the rise, and wept over the fall, of "England's High Chancellor," who not only participated in his festive hospitality in that "high day," when "all things did about him smile," but entered into his closet on his behalf, in his hour of darkness and disgrace, to pray that God would "give him strength in his day of adversity,"-twice Rare Ben Jonson thus adverts, when he declares that the Novum Organum, "Though by the most of superficial men who cannot get be really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book 'Qui longum noto scriptori proragat ævum. To latest time shall hand the author's name."" Morhof, in his Polyhistor, commends this work in the highest terms, remarking that he

The Treatise on the Advancement of Learning, which was the germ of the De Augmentis Scientiarum, (pub. 1623,) was published in 1605.

"In this, indeed, the whole of the Baconian philosophy may be said to be implicitly contained, except, perhaps, the second book of the Novum Organum."

De Sapientia Veterum [The Wisdom of the Ancients] 1609. Written," as he says, "in the midst of a term and

Parliament."

Had found but very little in the books since written by Englishmen, the grounds of which he had not long before met with in Bacon; the extent of his genius struck him with admiration, as it must do every man who takes the pains to understand him; because, though this new knowledge of his be very difficult, and requires much study and application to master it, yet it leads to the knowledge of things, and not of words."

Voltaire is not behind in commendation:

Novum Organum, 1620. This work was immediately honoured by "the warmest expressions of admiration from the ablest men of Europe."

"The greatest of all his works, and the central pile of that edifice of philosophy on which the world has bestowed his name. The Novum Organum was received with unbounded applause of the learned, both in his own and foreign nations, and placed the fame of its author at once above that of every other living author." This work was valued by Bacon above all his other writings; twelve times was it revised, altered, and corrected, year by year, before publication. This ambitious title, in which the author enters the lists with the ancient "Organon," the logical text-book of Aristotle, shows the confidence which the modern philosopher entertained in the value of his improvements in the art of reasoning. This production is to be accepted as the second part of the Instauratio Magna, which he tells us was to be "the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things, and of the true aids to the understanding;" in other words, an exposition of the inductive method; what we now term the Baconian philosophy. The Novum Organum by no means answers the expressed design of the author. We mean that he has not filled his own sketch.

"The aphorisms into which he has digested it being rather the heads or theses of chapters, at least in many places, that would have been farther expanded. And it is still more important to observe that he did not achieve the whole of this summary that he had promised; but out of nine divisions of his method, we only possess the first, which he denominates prærogitiva. Eight others, of exceeding importance to logic, he has not touched at all, except to describe them by name, and to promise more.... His terminology is often a little affected, and, in Latin, rather barbarous. The divisions of his prerogative instances in the Novum Organum, are not always founded upon intelligible distinctions. And the general obscurity of the style, neither himself nor his assistants being good masters of the Latin language, which, at the best, is never flexible or copious enough for our philosophy, renders the perusal of both his great works too laborious for the impatient reader. Brucker has well observed that the Novum Organum has been neglected by the generality, and proved of far less service than it would otherwise have been in philosophy, in consequence of these very defects, as well as the real depth of the author's mind." HALLAM.

To the celebrated Sir Henry Wotton the author sent three copies of this book, which gift was rewarded by a very laudatory letter from this famous statesman, diplomatist, and author. The Novum Organum has received the commendations of very eminent authorities, both in the author's own time, and in every successive generation. Like all productions of genius, it likewise elicited some ensorious criticisms.

"The most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which is most useless and least read, I mean his Novum Scientiarum Organum; this is the scaffold with which the new Philosophy was fold, was no longer of service. The Lord Bacon was not yet acseveral paths that led to it."-Letters on the English Nation; quoted quainted with nature, but then he knew, and pointed out, the in the Biog. Brit. The whole of this excellent article should be perused.

Let us quote the opinions of a few modern writers: "Though he possessed, in a most eminent degree, the genius of philosophy, he did not unite with it the genius of the sciences; the methods proposed by bim for the investigation of truth, consisting entirely of precepts which he was unable to exemplify, had little or no effect in accelerating the rate of discovery."-CONDORCET: in Dugald Stewart's Prel. Diss. to Encyc. Brit.

"The merits of Bacon, as the father of Experimental Philosophy, are so universally acknowledged, that it would be superfluous to touch upon them here. The lights which he has struck out in various branches of the Philosophy of Mind have been much less attended to... In the extent and accuracy of his physical knowledge, he was far inferior to many of his predecessors; but he sur passed them all in his knowledge of the laws, the resources, and the limits of the human understanding."-DUGALD STEWART, ibid. "Without any disparagement to the admirable treatise De Augmentis, we must say, that, in our judgment, Bacon's greatest performance is the first book of the Novum Organum. All the peculiarities of his extraordinary mind are found there in the highest which he gives examples of the influence of the idola, show a perfection. Many of the aphorisms, but particularly those in nicety of observation that has never been surpassed. Every part of the book blazes with wit, but with wit which is employed only to illustrate and decorate truth. No book ever made so great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so many prejudices, introduced so many new opinions."-T. B. MACAULAY: the reader should peruse and reperuse this admirable article.

The De Augmentis Scientiarum, a translation of the Advancement of Learning, revised and enlarged, (see ante,) was published in 1623. The Biblical Simile of King James has been imputed to this, as well as the preceding, work. The translation was made by Ben Jonson, George Herbert, and other friends.

Apothegms, 1625.

"The best jest-book ever given to the public."-Edin. Rev.,No. 132. Translation of Psalms into English Verse, 1625. "Aubrey declared Lord Bacon to have been a good poet, but in this work his piety is more to be commended than his poetry. It was dedicated to his friend, the incomparable George Herbert." Among his principal works may also be reckoned the A list will be Sylva Sylvarum and the New Atlantis. found in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. Mr. Montagu's complete edition, published 1825-34, comprises no less than 17 volumes. As the reader will frequently find in notices of Bacon's philosophy references to the Instauratio Magna, or Instauration of the Sciences, we can hardly properly dismiss our subject without giving a brief programme (abbreviated from Mr. Hallam's excellent Introduction to the Lit. of Europe-a book which should be in every li brary) of this noble project of Lord Bacon:

sept, these vacant spaces of science. This first part he declares to b wanting in the instauratio. It has been chiefly supplied by the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum; yet, perhaps, even that "The second part of the Instauratio was to be, as he expresses it, the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things, and of the true aids of the understanding,' the new loic or inductive method in which what is eminently styled the Baconian philosophy consists. This, as far as he completed it, is known to all by the name of the Novum Organum. But he seems to have designed a fuller treatise in place of this; the aphorisms into which he has digested it being rather the heads or theses of chapters, at least in many places, that would have been farther expanded. It is entitled by himself Partis secundæ summa, digesta in aphorismos." See preceding remarks.

does not fully come up to the amplitude of his design.

"The third part of the Instauratio Magna was to comprise an entire natural history, diligently and scrupulously collected from experience of every kind; including under that name of natural history every thing wherein the art of man has been employed on natural substances, either for practice or experiment; no method of reasoning being sufficient to guide us to truth as to natural things, if they are not themselves clearly and exactly apprehended. It is unnecessary to observe that very little of this immense chart of nature could be traced by the hand of Bacon, or in his time. His Centuries of Natural History, containing about one thousand observed facts and experiments, are a very slender contribution towards such a description of universal nature as he contemplated: these form no part of the Instauratio Magna, and had been compiled before...

"The fourth part, called Scala Intellectus, is also wanting, with the exception of a very few introductory pages. By these tables,' says Bacon, we mean not such examples as we subjoin to the several rules of our method, but types and models, which place before our eyes the entire progress of the mind in the discovery of truth, selecting various and remarkable instances.'

"In the fifth part of the Instauratio Magna. Bacon had designed to give a specimen of the new philosophy which he hoped to raise after a due use of his natural history and inductive method, by way of anticipation or sample of the whole. He calls it Prodromi, sive Anticipationes Philosophia Secundæ. And some fragments of this part are published by the names Cogitata et Visa, Cogitationes de Natura Rerum, Filum Labyrinthi, and a few more, being as much, in all probability, as he had reduced to writing. In his own metaphor, it was to be like the payment of interest till the principal could be raised; tanquam foenus reddatur, donec sors haberi possit.

"For he despaired of ever completing the work by a sixth and last portion, which was to display a perfect system of philosophy, deduced and confirmed by a legitimate, sober, and exact inquiry, according to the method which he had invented and laid down.

"To perfect this last part is above our powers, and beyond our hopes. We may, as we trust, make no despicable beginnings; the destinies of the human race must complete it; in such a manner, perhaps, as men looking only at the present would not readily conceive. For upon this will depend not only a speculative good, but all the fortunes of mankind, and all their power.' And with an eloquent prayer that his exertions may be rendered effectual to the attainment of truth and happiness. this introductory chapter of the Instauratio, which announces the distribution of its por tions, concludes. Such was the temple, of which Bacon saw in vision before him the stately front and decorated pediments, in all their breadth of light and harmony of proportion, while long vistas of receding columns and glimpses of internal splendour revealed a glory that it was not permitted him to comprehend. In the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum, and in the Novum Organum, we have less, no doubt, than Lord Bacon, under different conditions of life, might have achieved; he might have been more emphatically the high-priest of nature, if he had not been the Chancellor of James I.; but no one man could have filled up the vast outline which he alone, in that stage of the world, could have so boldly sketched."

George Sandys, the poet and traveller, in nis learned notes on his version of Ovid's Metamorphoses, acknowledges himself to be much beholden to the De Sapientia Veterum, and styles the writer the "crown of all modern authors."

"This plan as laid down by him looks liker an universal art than a distinct logic, and the design is too great, and the induction too large to be made by one man, or any society of men in one age, if at all practicable. For whatever opinion he might have of the conclusiveness of this way, one cross circumstance in an experiment would as easily overthrow his induction, as an ambiguous word would disorder a syllogism; and a man needs only make a trial in any part of natural history, as left us by my Lord Bacon, to see how conclusive his induction was like to have been. To sav nothing, that notwithstanding his blaming the common logics, as being too much spent in words, himself runs into the fault he condemns: for what else can we make of his Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Fori, Theatri; or of his instantiæ, solitariæ, migrantes, ostensivæ, clandestinæ, constitutivæ, &c., but fine words put to express verv common and ordinary things?"-BAKER.

Mr. T. B. Macaulay has a criticism upon the Baconian terminology somewhat of the same character as Mr. Baker's, which he thus humorously phrases:

"We are not inclined to ascribe much practical value to the analysis of the inductive method which Bacon has given in the second book of the Novum Organum. It is indeed an elaborate and correct analysis. But it is an analysis of that which we are all doing from morning to night, and which we continue to do even in our dreams. A plain man finds his stomach out of order. He never heard Lord Bacon's name. [He must, indeed, be a "plain man." like Jacob, "dwelling in tents," never to have heard of Lord Bacon.] But he proceeds in the strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the second book of the Novum Organum, and satisfies himself that minced pies have done the mischief. I ate minced pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept awake by indigestion all night.' This is the comparentia ad intellectum inston tiurum convenientium. I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well.' This is the comparentia instantiarum in proximo quæ natura data privantur. Iate very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening. But on Christmas-day I almost dined on them, and was so iil that I was in some danger. This is the comparentia instantiarum secundum magis et minus. 'It cannot have been the brandy which I took with them; for I have drunk brandy daily for years without being the worse for it.' This is the rejectio naturarum Our invalid then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the Vindemiatio, and pronounces that minced pies do not agree with him. We might go on to what are called by Bacon prærogativæ instantiarum. For example: It must be something peculiar to minced pies, for I can eat any other pastry without the least bad effect.' This is the instantia solitariu. We might easily proceed, but we have already sufficiently explained our meaning."

Now this is all very amusing, but whether it have any other merit, we leave it to the reader to decide. We contend that this devotee to minced pies argues more like a philosopher who had profited by the inductive mode, (although perhaps ignorant of its terminology,) than "plain men who have never heard of Lord Bacon" are apt to reason. Further, it is not indispensable to a "plain man's" profiting by the Baconian system, that he should have heard of Lord Bacon. It is with philosophy as with the light of the sunthousands enjoy its advantages where one understands its nature. The question is whether the reveller in minced pies in the 19th century, be not more favourably situated for the correction of undue indulgence, than was his brother epicure of the 16th century. Or whether a man who was put to bed by minced pies under the Organon of Aristotle, would not suffer a daily repetition of the offence and pencaulay's invalid, under the brighter dispensation of the Organon of Bacon. Besides, the whole business of life is not to luxuriate in minced pies: the Mart, the Forum, the Altar, and the Camp, all have their duties and their codes, which, if based upon reason, may be perfected by induc. tion; and unless Mr. Macaulay indited his able essay about Christmas-time, for the January number of the Edinburgh, we cannot conceive how he happened to select so odd an illustration of the instantiarum convenientem. But to be serious: we happen to remember a passage of Mr. Hallam's, bearing upon such objections as those advanced by Mr. Baker and Mr. Macaulay; whether meant for these gentlemen or not, we have no means of knowing, but his reflections could not be more to the purpose:

Having thus reviewed at some length the principal works of Lord Bacon, perhaps a fitting conclusion to our sketch will be a citation of some opinions, in addition to those we have presented, respecting an author who has been not extravagantly lauded as the "Glory and ornament of his age and nation:"

"Though there was bred in Mr. Bacon so early a dislike of the Physiology of Aristotle, yet he did not despise him with that pride and haughtiness with which youth is wont to be puffed up. He had a just esteem of that great master of learning, greater than that which Aristotle expressed himself towards the philosophers that went before him; for he endeavoured (some say) to stifle all their labours, designing to himself an universal monarchy over opinions, as his patron Alexander did over men. Our hero owned what was excellent in him, but in his inquiries into nature he proceeded not upon his principles. He began the work anew, and laid the foundation of philosophic theory in numerous experiments."-ARCHBISHOP TENISON: Baconia.

"Those who object to the importance of Lord Bacon's precepts in philosophy, that mankind have practised many of them imme morially, are rather confirming their utility, than taking off much from their originality to any fair sense of that term. Every logical method is built on the common faculties of human nature, which have been exercised since the Creation in discerning, better or worse, truth from falsehood, and inferring the unknown from the known. That men might have done this more correctly, is manifest from the quantity of error into which. from want of reasoning well on what came before them, they have habitually fallen. In experimental philosophy, to which the more special rules of Lord Bacon are generally referred, there was a notorious want of that very process of reasoning which he has supplied."—Introduction ↳ Liž Europe, vol. ii.

Bushel, in his Abridgment of Bacon's Philosophical Theory in Mineral Prosecutions, gives a pathetic account rf the sad fall of the Lord Chancellor :

"Shortly after the king dissolved the Parliament, but never restored that matchless lord to his place, which made him then to wish the many years he had spent in state policy and law study had been solely devoted to true philosophy: for (said he) the one, at the best, doth but comprehend man's frailty in its greatest splendour; but the other the mysterious knowledge of all things created in the six days' work."

We need no voucher for the authenticity of this reflection! It is Lord Bacon's! The image and the superscription are there! We are told by Rushworth that

He treasured up nothing for himself or family, but was over Indulgent to his servants, and connived at their takings, and their ways betrayed him to that error: they were profuse and expensive,

and had at their command whatever he was master of."

"Who can forbear to observe and lament the weakness and infirmity of human nature? To see a man so far exalted above the common level of his fellow-creatures, to sink so far below it; to see a man who, like Seneca, gave admirable rules for the conduct of life, and condemning the avaricious pursuit after riches, and, what is unlike Seneca, condemning them in his own person, and yet be defiled thereby."-Sephens's Introduction to Bacon's Letters.

The Chancellor being convicted of bribery, pretends, as if being weary of honour, he would resign his place, being much loaded with calumnies."-Camden's Annals of King James.

His great spirit was brought low, and this humiliation might have raised him again, if his offences had not been so weighty as to keep him down. . . . He was a fit jewel to have beautified and adorned a flourishing kingdom, if his flaws had not disgraced the

lustre that should have set him off."-Wilson's Life and Reign of King James.

"The Parliament was prorogued at Easter, from the 27th of March to the 18th of April, the marquis having his eye therein upon the Lord Chancellor, to try if time could mitigate the displeasure, which in both Houses was strong against him."-HACKET: Life of Archbishop Williams.

An eminent authority remarks that

"The Earl of Salisbury was an excellent speaker, but no good penman; Lord Henry Howard was an excellent penman, but no good speaker; Sir Francis Bacon alike eminent for both."-SIR WALTER RALEIGH,

Lord Bacon committed his Orations and Epistles to the care of Archbishop Williams, who addressed him as follows: "Your Lordship doth most worthily, therefore, in preserving these two pieces among the rest of those matchless monuments you shall leave behind you: considering that as one age hath not bred your experience, so is it not fit it should be confined to one are, and not imparted to the times to come; for my part therein, I do embrace the honour with all thankfulness, and the trust imposed upon me with all religion and devotion."

**Your Lordship hath done a great and everlasting benefit to all the children of Nature, and to Nature herself in her utmost extent of latitude, who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I am readier to style your Lordship) never so inward a Secretary of her cabinet."-Letter from Sir Henry Wotton, on receiving a copy of the Novum Organum.

The University of Oxford, shortly after his fall, acknowledged, in the most laudatory terms, the gift of a copy of the De Augmentis Scientiarum :

Right honourable, and what in nobility is almost a miracle, most learned Viscount! Your honour could have given nothing more agreeable, and the University could have received nothing more acceptable than the Sciences.... She readily acknowledgeth, that though the Muses are born in Oxford, they grow elsewhere: grown they are, and under your pen, who, like some mighty Her cules in learning. have by your own hand, further advanced those pillars in the learned world, which by the rest of that world were supposed immovable."

Mr. Francis Osborn declares that Bacon was

"The most universal genius he had ever seen, or was ever like to see, had he lived ever so long. He was so excellent, so agreeable a speaker, that all who heard him were uneasy if he was interrupted, and sorry when he concluded.... Now this general knowledge he had in all things husbanded by his wit, and dignified by so majestical a carriage, he was known to own, struck such an awful reverence in those he questioned, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic part of their mysteries from him, for fear of appearing ignorant or saucy: all which rendered him no less necessary than admirable at the Council-table, where in reference to impositions, monopolies, &c., where the meanest manufac tures were a usual argument; and, as I have heard, did in this baffle the Earl of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen; yet without any great, (if at all,) interrupting his other studies, as is not hard to be imagined of a quick apprehension, in which he was admirable."-Miscell. Works of Francis Osborn, 1722.

Pity it was he was not entertained with some liberal salary, abstracted from all affairs both of court and judicature, and furnished with sufficiency both of means and helps for the going on of his design; which, had it been, he might have given us such a body of Natura! Philosophy, and made it so subservient to the public good, that neither Aristotle nor Theophrastus amongst the Ancients, nor Paracelsus, or the rest of our latest chymists, would have been considerable."-DR. PETER HEYLIN: Life of Archb. Loud. Cowley, in his Pinderic on the Royal Society, lauds the "mighty discoveries of the great Lord Bacon."

“Methinks," says Bishop Sprat in his History of the Royal Soelety, "in this one man I do at once find enough occasion to admire the strength of human wit, and to bewail the weakness of a mortal condition: for is it not wonderful, that he who had run through all the degrees of that profession which usually takes up

English Historical Library.

On the other hand, Catherine Macaulay objects to the and prefaces portraiture of Henry VII., as we have seen, her dissent with some very severe strictures on the author: "Thus ignominious was the fall of the famous Bacon! despicable in all the active parts of life, and only glorious in the contemplative. Him the rays of knowledge served but to embellish, not enlighten; and philosophy itself was degraded by a conjunc tion with his mean soul: we are told that he often lamented that ambition and vain glory had diverted him from spending his whole time in the manner worthy of his extensive genius; but there is too much reason to believe, from his conduct, that these sentiments arose from the weight of his mortifications, and not from the conviction of his judgment. He preferred mean applications to James, and continued to flatter him so far, as to paint his grandfather, Henry the Seventh, in an amiable light."—History of England, vol. i.

Rushworth remarks, that

"His decrees were generally made with so much equity, that, though gifts rendered him suspected for injustice, yet never any decree made by him was reversed as unjust."-Collections, vol. i.

The Chancellor made an earnest defence, both when first. accused and after sentence. When first suspected, he confidently declares his innocence in a letter to Buckingham:

"Your Lordship spoke of Purgatory. I am now in it. But my mind is in a calm: for my fortune is my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart; and, I hope, a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest Judge, by such hunting for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the game."

This indignant defence compares strangely with his after confession, and with his letter to the Lords before his formal and detailed acknowledgment. He remarks, that understanding some justification was expected from him, he had

"Chosen one only justification instead of all others: for after the clear submission and confession which he should then make to their Lordships, he hoped he might say, and justify with Job in these words, I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my fault in my bosom."

Not only so, but when he resigned the seals, he accompanied the act with the pathetic exclamation: "Rex dedit, culpa abstulit!" that is, "The King gave, and my own faults have taken away!"

Yet Mr. Montagu, with charming naïveté, asks us to believe that Bacon was innocent; that he could have proved his entire innocence; but was generously willing to sacrifice himself at the command of the King and the favourite. Like the Roman of old, he determined to close the "great gulf fixed" between the throne and the Parliament, by self-immolation. Mr. Montagu is grave; therefore, we presume, serious. We have seen that he defends Bacon's prosecution of Essex by that rule of legal morality which makes the advocate abjure every consideration which may interfere with his official character. He now makes Bacon utter the grossest falsehoods, and expose himself to the merited condemnation of the world for judicial corruption, in order to gratify his King and please the King's favourite. First, he sacrifices his friend to his court brief, and then immolates himself to his King's whim. Verily, the golden rule itself is but selfishness compared to such abnegation! Damon and Pythias will fade in story, and the Suttee pyre hardly arrest the attention of the passing stranger!

Addison, after stating that he would "show that all the

93

laymen who have exerted a more than ordinary genius in their writings, and were the glory of their times, were men whose hopes were filled with immortality, and the prospect of future rewards, and men who lived in a dutiful submission to all the doctrines of revealed religion,”— goes on to remark:

"I shall in this paper only instance Sir Francis Bacon, a man

who, for greatness of genius, and compass of knowledge, did honour to his age and country; I could almost say to human nature itself. He possessed at once all those extraordinary talents which were divided amongst the greatest authors of antiquity. He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination."Tutler, No. 267.

Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, asserts that "All his works are, for expression, as well as thought, the glory of our nation and of all latter ages."

Condé de Gondamar wrote him a letter on his fall, in which he assures him of the King of Spain's interposition, if he judged it any way convenient for the restoring of his condition.-Stephens's Collection.

Lord Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, received a letter from Italy, in which it was stated that

"Lord Bacon was more and more known, and his books more and more delighted in; so that those men who had more than ordinary knowledge in human affairs, esteemed him one of the most capable spirits of that age."

M. Voiture writes:

"I find every thing perfectly fine that you have sent me of Bacon, but do you not think that Horace, who said, 'Visum Britannos hospitibus feros,' would be much more astonished to hear a barbarian talk in this manner, and to see that there is not perhaps at this day a Roman who speaks so good Latin as this Englishman? And would not Juvenal say, with greater reason than ever, 'Nunc totus Grajas nostrasque habet orbis Athenas?'"

This compliment of M. Voiture will perhaps recall to some of our readers the epigram with which the learned Grotius honoured John Barclay's classical erudition: it will be found under his portrait prefixed to the "Argenis:" "Gente Caledonius, Gallus natalibus, hic est Romam Romano qui docet ore loqui.'

'A Scot by blood-and French by birth-this man At Rome speaks Latin as no Roman can.'" Grotius speaks most favourably also of Bacon's Life of Henry VII., and the learned Conringius fully agrees with this opinion.

Baron Puffendorf commends him in the most exalted terms:

"The late most wise Chancellor of England was the chief writer of our age, and carried as it were the standard that we might press forward, and make greater discoveries in Philosophic matters, than any of which hitherto our schools had rung. So that if in our time any great improvements have been made in Philosophy, there has been not a little owing to that great man."-Specimen Controvers., cap. i.

Puffendorf's representation of Bacon as a "standardbearer," instantly reminds us of the philosopher's own modest and beautiful comparison. In a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, he remarks that in his book he was "contented to awake better spirits, being himself like a bell-ringer, who is first up to call others to church." To carry on the ecclesiastical simile, as Aristotle has been called the Pope of Philosophy until "a greater arose in his place," we may compare Bacon, not to the bell-ringer in the steeple, but to the Luther in the pulpit, who questioned his infallibility, and struck a fatal blow at the supremacy of that school which "made nothing perfect," though the bringing in of a better system did.

Francis Buddeus styles Bacon a

"New light in Philosophy, one who first united speculation and practice, and opened a passage to those mighty discoveries that have been made since his time."-Compendium Historia Philosophica. Voltaire calls him

"The father of experimental philosophy, owning that what surprised him most was to find the Doctrine of Attraction, which Is looked upon to be the foundation of another philosophy, expressly set down in Lord Bacon's, in words not to be controverted or mistaken."

“Bacon was generous, easy, good-natured, and naturally just.

But he had the misfortune to be beset by domestic harpies, who, in a manner, farmed out his office; and he had given way to intolerable impositions upon the subject among the masters in Chancery."-GUTHRIE,

So Addison:

"His principal fault seems to have been the excess of that virtue which covers a multitude of faults. This betrayed him to so great an indulgence towards his servants, who made a corrupt use of it, that it stripped him of all those riches and honours which a long series of merits had heaped upon him."-Tatler, No. 267. This is indeed a specimen of suaviter in modo. But Wilson, "who is acknowledged not to have been prejudiced against the chancellor," speaks in a very different strain: "He was the true emblem of human frailty, being more than man in some things, and less than a woman in others. His crimes were bribery and extortion; and these he had often con-¡

demned others for as a judge, which now he came to suffer for ass delinquent. And they were proved and aggravated against him with so many circumstances, that they fall very toully upon him, both in relation to his reception of them, and his expending of them."-Kennet's History of England.

It may be pertinent to remark here that Buckingham's displeasure at the manner in which Williams received his suggestions relative to depending cases in the Court of Chancery, gives reason to fear that the preceding Lord Keeper was more compliant.-Bacon's Letters, by Birch, Hacket's Life of Archbp. Williams.

Hume remarks that

"Bacon was a man universally admired for the greatness of his genius, and beloved for the courteousness and humanity of his behaviour. He was the great ornament of his age and nation; and nought was wanting to render him the ornament of human nature itself, but that strength of mind which might check his intemperate desire of preferment, that could add nothing to his dig. nity, and restrain his profuse inclination to expense, that could be requisite neither for his honour nor entertainment."—History of Great Britain.

"The great glory of literature in this Island, during the reign of James, was my Lord Bacon. Most of his performances were composed in Latin; though he possessed neither the elegance of that, nor of his native tongue. If we consider the variety of talents displayed by this man-as a public speaker, a man of business, a wit, a courtier, a companion, an author, a philosopherhe is justly the object of great admiration. If we consider him merely as an author and philosopher, the light in which we view him at present, though very estimable, he was yet inferior to his contemporary, Galileo, perhaps even to Kepler. Bacon pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy: Galileo both pointed it out to others, and made himself considerable advances in it.”— Ibid. Upon which we have in the British Biography: "Galileo was undoubtedly an illustrious man, and Kepler an admirable astronomer: but though we admit their superiority in astronomy, mechanics, and some particular branches of physical knowledge, it does by no means follow that either of them were

greater philosophers than Bacon. The praise of Bacon is founded not upon his skill in this or that particular branch of knowledge, but on his great and comprehensive understanding, which took in almost the whole extent of universal science. And he was so little indebted to the partiality of his countrymen, that his writ ings appear, for some time at least, to have been more esteemed and admired in foreign countries than in England."

His eminent French disciple, D'Alembert, by whose means his writings were more widely introduced to the French than they had been previously, cannot sufficiently

commend our author:

"On considering attentively the sound, intelligent, and extensive views of this great man, the multiplicity of objects his piereing wit had comprehended within its sphere, the elevation of his style, that everywhere makes the boldest images to coalesce with the most vigorous precision, we should be tempted to esteem him as the greatest, the most universal, and the most eloquent of philosophers. His works are justly valued, perhaps more valued than known, and, therefore, more deserving of our study than eulogium."-An. Reg., vol. xvi.; see the whole of this article.

We consider Mr. Hume to be sufficiently punished. He was the last man to weigh Bacon, who has displayed so little of the spirit of the true philosopher himself. His theory of evidence would never have been allowed to expose his folly to the world, had he understood even the Comparentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenientem. Bacon's genius was indeed comprehensive. Sir John Hawkins states that

"Lord Bacon, in his natural history, has given a great variety barely a philosopher, an enquirer into the phænomena of sound, of experiments touching music, that show him to have been not but a master of the science of harmony, and very intimately ac quainted with the precepts of musical composition."

Sir John quotes the following remark of Lord Bacon as a proof of his knowledge of the sciences:

"The sweetest and best harmony is when every part or instru ment is not heard by itself. but a conflation of them all; which requireth to stand some distance off: even as it is in the mixture of perfumes, or the taking the smells of several flowers in the air."-History of Music. The above authorities, quoted from the Biographia Britannica, should be read at length.

His chaplain tells us that our great philosopher pursued the true plan of acquiring general knowledge: "He would light his torch at every man's candles." We have referred to the graphic picture which Osborn gives us of his puzzling Lord Middlesex at the council-table by his minute knowledge of manufactures and the rules of trade. Os. born further tells us:

"I have heard him entertain a country lord in the proper terma relating to hawks and dogs; and at another time out-cant a London chirurgeon."

Pope refers to the precision of Bacon's language: "Words that wise Bacon or grave Raleigh spake." An English dictionary, Mr. Seward remarks, might be definite, and not one, we think, which Bacon would have composed from his works; but this compliment is very incoveted. Dugald Stewart remarks, in reference to Bacon's design of classifying the multifarious objects of humar knowledge: