1560-1-1626
[Sidenote: Montague’s _Life of Bacon_. *]
[Sidenote: Evelyn on Medals.]
“He was of a middle stature, and well proportioned; his features were
handsome and expressive, and his countenance, until it was injured by
politics and worldly warfare, singularly placid. There is a portrait
of him when he was only eighteen now extant, on which the artist
has recorded his despair of doing justice to his subject, by the
inscription,--‘Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem.’ His portraits
differ beyond what may be considered a fair allowance for the varying
skill of the artist, or the natural changes which time wrought upon
his person; but none of them contradict the description given by one
who knew him well, ‘That he had a spacious forehead and piercing eye,
looking upward as a soul in sublime contemplation, a countenance worthy
of one who was to set free captive philosophy.’”
[Sidenote: Aubrey’s _Lives of Eminent Persons_. *]
“He had a delicate, lively hazel eie; Dr. Harvey told me it was like
the eie of a viper.”
[Sidenote: Campbell’s _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_. *]
“All accounts represent him as a delightful companion, adapting himself
to company of every degree, calling, and humour,--not engrossing the
conversation,--trying to get all to talk in turn on the subject they
best understood, and not disdaining to light his own candle at the
lamp of any other.... Little remains except to give some account of
his person. He was of a middling stature; his limbs well-formed though
not robust; his forehead high, spacious and open; his eye lively and
penetrating; there were deep lines of thinking in his face, his smile
was both intellectual and benevolent; the marks of age were prematurely
impressed upon him; in advanced life his whole appearance was venerably
pleasing, so that a stranger was insensibly drawn to love before
knowing how much reason there was to admire him.”