AT CAMBRIDGE.
Francis Bacon went to reside at Trinity College, Cambridge, in April,
1573, being 12 years and 3 months of age. While the plague raged he was
absent from the end of August, 1574, until the beginning of March
following. He finally left the University at Christmas, 1575, about one
month before his fifteenth birthday.
Rawley says he was there educated and bred under the tuition of Dr. John
Whitgift,[7] then master of the College, afterwards the renowned
Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate of the first magnitude for sanctity,
learning, patience, and humility; under whom he was observed to have
been more than an ordinary proficient in the several arts and sciences.
Amboise, in the "Discours sur la vie de M. Bacon," prefixed to the
"Histoire Naturelle," Paris, 1631, says: "Le jugement et la memoire ne
furent jamais en aucun home au degre qu'ils estoient en celuy-cy; de
sorte qu'en bien peu de temps il se rendit fort habile en toutes les
sciences qui s'apprennent au College. Et quoi que deslors il fust juge
capable des charges les plas importantes, nean-moins pour ne tomber
dedans la mesme faute que sont d'ordinaire les jeunes gens de son
estoffe, qui par une ambition trop precipitee portent souvent au
maniement des grandes affaires un esprit encore tout rempli des crudites
de l'escole, Monsieur Bacon se voulut acquerir cette science, qui rendit
autres-fois Ulysse si recommandable et luy fit meriter le nom de sage,
par la connoissance des moeurs de tant de nations diverses." That is all
that can be said about his career at Cambridge except that Rawley adds:
"Whilst he was commorant in the University, about sixteen years of
age (as his lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he
first fell into the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for
the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all
high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a
philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for
disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works
for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to
his dying day."
As Bacon left Cambridge at Christmas, 1575, before he was 15 years of
age, Rawley's recollection must have been at fault when he mentions the
age of 16 as that when Bacon formed this opinion.
There is another account of this incident in which it is stated that
Francis Bacon left Cambridge without taking a degree as a protest
against the manner in which philosophy was taught there. In the preface
to the "Great Instauration" Bacon repeats his protest: "And for its
value and utility, it must be plainly avowed that that wisdom which we
have derived principally from the Greeks is but like the boyhood of
knowledge and has the characteristic property of boys: it can talk but
it cannot generate: for it is fruitful of controversies but barren of
works."
This is merely a re-statement of the position he took up when at
Cambridge. So this boy set up his opinion against that of the recognised
professors of philosophy of his day, against the whole authority of the
staff of the University, on a fundamental point on the most important
question which could be raised as to the pursuit of knowledge. It is not
too much to say that he had at this time covered the whole field of
knowledge in a manner more thorough than it had ever been covered
before, and with his mind, which was beyond the reach of his
contemporaries, he began to lay down those laws which revolutionised all
thought and have become the accepted method by which the pursuit of
knowledge is followed.
It is necessary again to seek for parallels to justify the position
which will be claimed for Francis Bacon at this period.
Philip Melancthon affords one and James Crichton another. At Heidelberg
Melancthon remained three years. He left when he was 15, the principal
cause of his leaving being disappointment at being refused a higher
degree in the University solely, it is alleged, on account of his youth.
In September, 1512, he was entered at the University of Tubingen, where,
in the following year, before he was 17 years of age, he was created
Doctor in Philosophy or Master of Arts. He then commenced a course of
public lectures, embracing an extraordinary variety of subjects,
including the learned languages, rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics,
and theology. Here in 1516 he put forth his revision of the text of
Terence. Besides he entered into an undertaking with Thomas Anshelmus to
revise all the books printed by him. He bestowed great labour on a large
work in folio by Nauclerus, which he appears to have almost entirely
re-written.
So much romance has been thrown around James Crichton that it is
difficult to obtain the real facts of his life. Sir Thomas Urquhart, in
"Discovery of a Most Exquisite Jewel," published in 1652, gives a
biography which is, without doubt, mainly apocryphal. Certain facts,
however, are well established. He was born in the same year as was Bacon
(1560). At 10 years of age he entered St. Andrew's University, and in
1575 (the year Bacon left Cambridge) took his degree, coming out third
in the first class. In 1576 he went to France, as did Bacon--to Paris.
In the College of Navarre he issued a universal challenge. This he
subsequently repeated at Venice with equal success; that is, to all men,
upon all things, in any of twelve languages named. The challenge is
broad and formal. He pledged himself to review the schoolmen, allowed
his opponents the privilege of selecting their topics--mathematics, no
less than scholastic lore--either from branches publicly or privately
taught, and promised to return answers in logical figure or in numbers
estimated according to their occult power, or in any of a hundred sorts
of verse. He is said to have justified before many competent witnesses
his magnificent pretensions.
What Philip Melancthon was at fifteen, what James Crichton was at
sixteen, Francis Bacon may have been. All the testimony which his
contemporaries afford, especially having regard to his after life,
justify the assertion that in knowledge and acquirements he was at least
their equal.
About eighteen months later his portrait was painted by Hilliard, the
Court miniature painter, who inscribed around it, as James Spedding
says, the significant words--the natural ejaculation, we may presume, of
the artist's own emotion--"_Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem._" If
one could only find materials worthy to paint his mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Dr. Whitgift was a man of strong moral rectitude, yet in 1593 he
became one of its sponsors on the publication of "Venus and Adonis."