the mystery as to the disappearance of Bacon's library. "Which is a
mystery," she adds, "although the world has been content to take it
very apathetically. Where is Bacon's library? Undoubtedly the books
exist and are traceable. We should expect them to be recognisable by
marginal notes; yet those notes, whether in pencil or in ink, may have
been effaced. If annotated, Bacon and his friends would not wish his
books to attract public attention." And further on: "It is probable that
the latter (_i.e._, the books) will seldom or never be found to bear his
name or signature." And again: "Yet it may reasonably be anticipated
that some at least are 'noted in the margin,' or that some will be found
with traces of marks which were guides to the transcriber or amanuensis
as to the portions which were to be copied for future use in Bacon's
collections or book of commonplaces." Mrs. Pott's words were written in
a spirit of true prophecy.
The collecting together of these books originated with that
distinguished Baconian scholar, Mr. W. M. Safford. For years past he has
been steadily engaged in reconstituting Bacon's Library. The writer has
had the privilege of being associated with him in this work during the
past three years. A collection of nearly two thousand volumes has been
gathered together. The annotations on the margins of these books are
unquestionably the work of one man, and that man, or rather boy and man,
was undoubtedly Francis Bacon. The books bear date from 1470 to 1620. It
is impossible to enumerate them all here, but they include the works of
Seneca, Aristotle, Plato, Horace, Alciat, Lucanus, Dionysius, Catullus,
Lactinius, Plutarch, Pliny, Aristophanes, Plautus, Cornelius Agrippa,
Cicero, Vitruvius, Euclid, Virgil, Ovid, Lucretius, Apuleius, Salust,
Tibullus, Isocrates, and hundreds of other classical writers; St.
Augustine, St. Jerome, Calvin, Beza, Beda, Erasmus, Martin Luther, J.
Cammerarius, Sir Thomas Moore, Machiavelli, and other more modern
writers.
The handwriting varies,[52] but there is a particular hand which is
found accompanied by a boy's sketches. There are drawings of full-length
figures, heads of men and women, animals, birds, reptiles, ships,
castles, cathedrals, cities, battles, storms, etc. The writing is a
strong, clerkly student's hand. There is a passage in "Hamlet," Act V.,
scene ii., which is noteworthy. Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says:--
"I sat me down
Devised a new commission; wrote it fair;
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, Sir, now
It did me yeomans service."
The nature of this statement is so personal that it could only have been
written as the result of experience. Hamlet had been taught, when young,
to write a hand so fair that he was capable of producing a fresh
commission which would pass muster as the work of a Court copyist. The
annotation of these books possessed the same qualification. In the
margins of these books are abundant references in handwriting to the
whole range of classical authors.
A copy of the "Grammatice Compendium" of Lactus Pomponius, a very rare
book printed by De Fortis in Venice in 1484, contains on the margins the
boy's scribble and drawings, besides a number of manuscript notes. It
bears traces of his reading probably at eight years of age. A large
folio volume entitled "T. Livii Palvini Latinae Historiae Principis
Decades Tres," published by Frobenius in 1535, is a treasure. It is most
copiously annotated and embellished with sketches. The notes are usually
in Latin, but interspersed with Greek and sometimes with English.
Obviously the writer thought in Latin, and the character of the
drawings justifies the assumption that, at the time, his age would be
from ten to fourteen years.
The most remarkable reference to these annotations is to be found in the
"Rape of Lucrece." The fifteenth stanza is as follows:--
"But she that never cop't with straunger eies,
Could picke no meaning from their parling lookes,
_Nor read the subtle shining secrecies
Writ in the glassie margents of such bookes_,
Shee toucht no unknown baits, nor feared no hooks,
Nor could shee moralize his wanton sight
More than his eies were opend to the light."
It would be difficult to conceive a more inappropriate simile for the
lustful looks in Tarquin's eyes than "the subtle shining secrecies, writ
in the glassie margents of such books." That this is lugged in for a
purpose outside the object of the poem is manifest. How many readers of
"Lucrece" would know of such a practice? Nay. If it did exist, was not
its use very rare?
But the margin of the verse itself yields a subtle shining secret! The
initial letters of the lines are B, C, N, W, Sh, N, M. It is only
necessary to supply the vowels--BACoN, W. Sh., NaMe. Sh is on line 103,
which is the numerical value of the word Shakespeare. The numerical
value of Bacon is 33. In view of this the line 33 is significant:--"Why
is Colatine the publisher?" The use of the word _publisher_ here is
quite inappropriate. It is introduced for some reason outside the
purpose of the text.
The "Rape of Lucrece" commences with Bacon's monogram and, as the late
Rev. Walter Begley pointed out, ends with his signature.
The theory now advanced is that when Bacon read a book he made marginal
notes in it--the object being mainly to assist his memory, but the
critical notes are numerous. It does not follow that all these books
constituted his library. He would read a book and it having served his
purpose he would dispose of it. Some books no doubt he would retain and
these would form his library.
The annotations are chiefly in Latin, but some are in Greek, some in
Hebrew, French and Spanish. When these have been examined and translated
the meaning of the phrase that he had taken all knowledge to be his
province will be better understood. Rawley says: "He read much and that
with great judgment and rejection of impertinences incident to many
authors."
The writer having examined annotations, many and varied, of books in his
library, and having enjoyed the privilege of free access to those
collected by Mr. Safford, ventures to assert that much of the ripe
learning of the Shakespeare plays can be traced therein to its proper
origin. Amongst the former is a copy of Alciat's Emblems, 1577, in the
early part profusely annotated. Ben Jonson in his "Discoveries" has
incorporated the translation of a portion of one of the Emblems and _has
also incorporated a portion of the annotations from this very book_.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] Edwin A. Abbot, in his work, "Francis Bacon," p. 447, writes,
"Bacon's style (as a writer) varied almost as much as his handwriting."
CHAPTER XXII.
TWO GERMAN OPINIONS ON SHAKESPEARE AND BACON.
Dr. G. G. Gervinus, the eminent German Historian and Professor
Extraordinary at Heidelberg, published in 1849 his work, "Shakespeare
Commentaries." This was years before any suggestion had been made that
Bacon was in any way connected with the authorship of the Shakespearean
dramas.
In the Prospectus of "The New Shakespeare Society," written in 1873, Dr.
F. J. Furnivall says:--
"The profound and generous 'Commentaries' of Gervinus--an honour to
a German to have written, a pleasure to an Englishman to read--is
still the only book known to me that comes near the true treatment
and the dignity of its subject, or can be put into the hands of the
student who wants to know the mind of Shakespeare."
The book abounds with references to Bacon. From the Preface to the last
chapter Gervinus appears to have Bacon continually suggested to him by
the thoughts and words of Shakespeare.
In the Preface, after speaking of the value accruing to German
literature by naturalizing Shakespeare "even at the risk of casting
our own poets still further in the shade," he says:--
"A similar benefit would it be to our intellectual life if his
famed contemporary, Bacon, were revived in a suitable manner, in
order to counterbalance the idealistic philosophy of Germany. For
both these, the poet as well as the philosopher, having looked
deeply into the history and politics of their people, stand upon
the level ground of reality, notwithstanding the high art of the
one and the speculative notions of the other. By the healthfulness
of their own mind they influence the healthfulness of others, while
in their most ideal and most abstract representations they aim at a
preparation for life _as it is_--for _that_ life which forms the
exclusive subject of all political action."
In the chapter on "His Age," written prior to 1849, the Professor pours
out the results of a profound study of the writings attributed to both
men in the following remarkable sentences:--
"Judge then how natural it was that England, if not the birthplace
of the drama, should be that of dramatic legislature. Yet even this
instance of favourable concentration is not the last. Both in
philosophy and poetry everything conspired, as it were, throughout
this prosperous period, in favour of two great minds, Shakespeare
and Bacon; all competitors vanished from their side, and they could
give forth laws for art and science which it is incumbent even upon
present ages to fulfil. As the revived philosophy, which in the
former century in Germany was divided among many, but in England at
that time was the possession of a single man, so poetry also found
one exclusive heir, compared with whom those later born could claim
but little.
"That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirably prepared
was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced even by the
corresponding appearance of such a contemporary as Bacon. Scarcely
can anything be said of Shakespeare's position generally with
regard to mediaeval poetry which does not also bear upon the
position of the renovator Bacon with regard to mediaeval philosophy.
Neither knew nor mentioned the other, although Bacon was almost
called upon to have done so in his remarks upon the theatre of his
day. It may be presumed that Shakespeare liked Bacon but little, if
he knew his writings and life; that he liked not his ostentation,
which, without on the whole interfering with his modesty, recurred
too often in many instances; that he liked not the fault-finding
which his ill-health might have caused, nor the narrow-mindedness
with which he pronounced the histrionic art to be infamous,
although he allowed that the ancients regarded the drama as a
school for virtue; nor the theoretic precepts of worldly wisdom
which he gave forth; nor, lastly, the practical career which he
lived. Before his mind, however, if he had fathomed it, he must
have bent in reverence. For just as Shakespeare was an interpreter
of the secrets of history and of human nature, Bacon was an
interpreter of lifeless nature. Just as Shakespeare went from
instance to instance in his judgment of moral actions, and never
founded a law on single experience, so did Bacon in natural science
avoid leaping from one experience of the senses to general
principles; he spoke of this with blame as anticipating nature; and
Shakespeare, in the same way, would have called the
conventionalities in the poetry of the Southern races an
anticipation of human nature. In the scholastic science of the
middle ages, as in the chivalric poetry of the romantic period,
approbation and not truth was sought for, and with one accord
Shakespeare's poetry and Bacon's science were equally opposed to
this. As Shakespeare balanced the one-sided errors of the
imagination by reason, reality, and nature, so Bacon led philosophy
away from the one-sided errors of reason to experience; both with
one stroke, renovated the two branches of science and poetry by
this renewed bond with nature; both, disregarding all by-ways,
staked everything upon this 'victory in the race between art and
nature.' Just as Bacon with his new philosophy is linked with the
natural science of Greece and Rome, and then with the latter period
of philosophy in western Europe, so Shakespeare's drama stands in
relation to the comedies of Plautus and to the stage of his own
day; between the two there lay a vast wilderness of time, as
unfruitful for the drama as for philosophy. But while they thus led
back to nature, Bacon was yet as little of an empiric, in the
common sense, as Shakespeare was a poet of nature. Bacon prophesied
that if hereafter his commendation of experience should prevail,
great danger to science would arise from the other extreme, and
Shakespeare even in his own day could perceive the same with
respect to his poetry; Bacon, therefore, insisted on the closest
union between experience and reason, just as Shakespeare effected
that between reality and imagination. While they thus bid adieu to
the formalities of ancient art and science, Shakespeare to conceits
and taffeta-phrases, Bacon to logic and syllogisms, yet at times it
occurred that the one fell back into the subtleties of the old
school, and the other into the constrained wit of the Italian
style. Bacon felt himself quite an original in that which was his
peculiar merit, and so was Shakespeare; the one in the method of
science he had laid down, and in his suggestions for its execution,
the other in the poetical works he had executed, and in the
suggestions of their new law. Bacon, looking back to the waymarks
he had left for others, said with pride that his words required a
century for their demonstration and several for their execution;
and so too it has demanded two centuries to understand Shakespeare,
but very little has ever been executed in his sense. And at the
same time we have mentioned what deep modesty was interwoven in
both with their self-reliance, so that the words which Bacon liked
to quote hold good for the two works:--'The kingdom of God cometh
not with observation.' Both reached this height from the one
starting point, that Shakespeare despised the million, and Bacon
feared with Phocion the applause of the multitude. Both are alike
in the rare impartiality with which they avoided everything
one-sided; in Bacon we find, indeed, youthful exercises in which he
endeavoured in severe contrasts to contemplate a series of things
from two points of view. Both, therefore, have an equal hatred of
sects and parties; Bacon of sophists and dogmatic philosophers,
Shakespeare of Puritans and zealots. Both, therefore, are equally
free from prejudices, and from astrological superstition in dreams
and omens. Bacon says of the alchemists and magicians in natural
science that they stand in similar relation to true knowledge as
the deeds of Amadis to those of Caesar, and so does Shakespeare's
true poetry stand in relation to the fantastic romance of Amadis.
Just as Bacon banished religion from science, so did Shakespeare
from Art; and when the former complained that the teachers of
religion were against natural philosophy, they were equally against
the stage. From Bacon's example it seems clear that Shakespeare
left religious matters unnoticed on the same grounds as himself,
and took the path of morality in worldly things; in both this has
been equally misconstrued, and Le Maistre has proved Bacon's lack
of Christianity, as Birch has done that of Shakespeare. Shakespeare
would, perhaps, have looked down just as contemptuously on the
ancients and their arts as Bacon did on their philosophy and
natural science, and both on the same grounds; they boasted of the
greater age of the world, of more enlarged knowledge of heaven,
earth, and mankind. Neither stooped before authorities, and an
injustice similar to that which Bacon committed against Aristotle,
Shakespeare _perhaps_ has done to Homer. In both a similar
combination of different mental powers was at work; and as
Shakespeare was often involuntarily philosophical in his
profoundness, Bacon was not seldom surprised into the imagination
of the poet. Just as Bacon, although he declared knowledge in
itself to be much more valuable than the use of invention, insisted
throughout generally and dispassionately upon the practical use of
philosophy, so Shakespeare's poetry, independent as was his sense
of art, aimed throughout at bearing upon the moral life. Bacon
himself was of the same opinion; he was not far from declaring
history to be the best teacher of politics, and poetry the best
instructor in morals. Both were alike deeply moved by the picture
of a ruling Nemesis, whom they saw, grand and powerful, striding
through history and life, dragging the mightiest and most
prosperous as a sacrifice to her altar, as the victims of their own
inward nature and destiny. In Bacon's works we find a multitude of
moral sayings and maxims of experience, from which the most
striking mottoes might be drawn for every Shakespearian play, aye,
for every one of his principal characters (we have already brought
forward not a few proofs of this), testifying to a remarkable
harmony in their mutual comprehension of human nature. Both, in
their systems of morality rendering homage to Aristotle, whose
ethics Shakespeare, from a passage in Troilus, may have read,
arrived at the same end as he did--that virtue lies in a just
medium between two extremes. Shakespeare would also have agreed
with _him_ in this, that Bacon declared excess to be 'the fault of
youth, as defect is of age;' he accounted 'defect the worst,
because excess contains some sparks of magnanimity, and, like a
bird, claims kindred of the heavens, while defect, only like a base
worm, crawls upon the earth.' In these maxims lie at once, as it
were, the whole theory of Shakespeare's dramatic forms and of his
moral philosophy."
DR. KUNO FISCHER, the distinguished German critic and historian of
philosophy, in a volume on Bacon, published in 1856, writes:--
The same affinity for the Roman mind, and the same want of sympathy with
the Greek, we again find in Bacon's greatest contemporary, whose
imagination took as broad and comprehensive a view as Bacon's intellect.
Indeed, how could a Bacon attain that position with respect to Greek
poetry that was unattainable by the mighty imagination of a Shakspeare?
For in Shakspeare, at any rate, the imagination of the Greek antiquity
could be met by a homogeneous power of the same rank as itself; and, as
the old adage says, "like comes to like." But the age, the spirit of the
nation--in a word, all those forces of which the genius of an individual
man is composed, and which, moreover, genius is least able to
resist--had here placed an obstacle, impenetrable both to the poet and
the philosopher. Shakspeare was no more able to exhibit Greek characters
than Bacon to expound Greek poetry. Like Bacon, Shakspeare had in his
turn of mind something that was Roman, and not at all akin to the Greek.
He could appropriate to himself a Coriolanus and a Brutus, a Caesar and
an Antony; he could succeed with the Roman heroes of Plutarch, but not
with the Greek heroes of Homer. The latter he could only parody, but his
parody was as infelicitous as Bacon's explanation of the "Wisdom of the
Ancients." Those must be dazzled critics indeed who can persuade
themselves that the heroes of the Iliad are excelled by the caricatures
in "Troilus and Cressida." The success of such a parody was poetically
impossible; indeed, he that attempts to parody Homer shows thereby that
he has not understood him. For the simple and the naive do not admit of
a parody, and these have found in Homer their eternal and inimitable
expression. Just as well might caricatures be made of the statues of
Phidias. Where the creative imagination never ceases to be simple and
naive, where it never distorts itself by the affected or the unnatural,
there is the consecrated land of poetry, in which there is no place for
the parodist. On the other hand, where there is a palpable want of
simplicity and nature, parody is perfectly conceivable; nay, may even be
felt as a poetical necessity. Thus Euripides, who, often enough, was
neither simple nor naive, could be parodied, and Aristophanes has shown
us with what felicity. Even AEschylus, who was not always as simple as he
was grand, does not completely escape the parodising test. But Homer is
safe. To parody Homer is to mistake him, and to stand so far beyond his
scope that the truth and magic of his poetry can no longer be felt; and
this is the position of Shakespeare and Bacon. The imagination of Homer,
and all that could be contemplated and felt by that imagination, namely,
the classical antiquity of the Greeks, are to them utterly foreign. We
cannot understand Aristotle without Plato; nay, I maintain that we
cannot contemplate with a sympathetic mind the Platonic world of ideas,
if we have not previously sympathised with the world of the Homeric
gods. Be it understood, I speak of the _form_ of the Platonic mind, not
of its logical matter; in point of doctrine, the Homeric faith was no
more that of Plato than of Phidias. But these doctrinal or logical
differences are far less than the formal and aesthetical affinity. The
conceptions of Plato are of Homeric origin.
This want of ability to take an historical survey of the world is to be
found alike in Bacon and Shakspeare, together with many excellencies
likewise common to them both. To the parallel between them--which
Gervinus, with his peculiar talent for combination, has drawn in the
concluding remarks to his "Shakespeare," and has illustrated by a series
of appropriate instances--belongs the similar relation of both to
antiquity, their affinity to the Roman mind, and their diversity from
the Greek. Both possessed to an eminent degree that faculty for a
knowledge of human nature that at once pre-supposes and calls forth an
interest in practical life and historical reality. To this interest
corresponds the stage, on which the Roman characters moved; and here
Bacon and Shakspeare met, brought together by a common interest in these
objects, and the attempt to depict and copy them. This point of
agreement, more than any other argument, explains their affinity. At the
same time there is no evidence that one ever came into actual contact
with the other. Bacon does not even mention Shakspeare when he
discourses of dramatic poetry, but passes over this department of poetry
with a general and superficial remark that relates less to the subject
itself than to the stage and its uses. As far as his own age is
concerned, he sets down the moral value of the stage as exceedingly
trifling. But the affinity of Bacon to Shakspeare is to be sought in his
moral and psychological, not in his aesthetical views, which are too much
regulated by material interests and utilitarian prepossessions to be
applicable to art itself, considered with reference to its own
independent value. However, even in these there is nothing to prevent
Bacon's manner of judging mankind, and apprehending characters from
agreeing perfectly with that of Shakspeare; so that human life, the
subject-matter of all dramatic art, appeared to him much as it appeared
to the great artist himself, who, in giving form to this matter,
excelled all others. Is not the inexhaustible theme of Shakspeare's
poetry the history and course of human passion? In the treatment of this
especial theme is not Shakspeare the greatest of all poets--nay, is he
not unique among them all? And it is this very theme that is proposed by
Bacon as the chief problem of moral philosophy. He blames Aristotle for
treating of the passions in his rhetoric rather than his ethics; for
regarding the artificial means of exciting them rather than their
natural history. It is to the natural history of the human passions that
Bacon directs the attention of philosophy. He does not find any
knowledge of them among the sciences of his time. "The poets and writers
of histories," he says, "are the best doctors of this knowledge; where
we may find painted forth with great life how passions are kindled and
incited; and how pacified and refrained; and how again contained from
act and further degree; how they disclose themselves; how they work; how
they vary; how they gather and fortify; how they are inwrapped one
within another; and how they do fight and encounter one with another;
and other the like particularities."[53] Such a lively description is
required by Bacon from moral philosophy. That is to say, he desired
nothing less than a natural history of the passions--the very thing that
Shakspeare has produced. Indeed, what poet could have excelled
Shakspeare in this respect? Who, to use a Baconian expression, could
have depicted man and all his passions more _ad vivum_? According to
Bacon, the poets and historians give us copies of characters; and the
outlines of these images--the simple strokes that determine
characters--are the proper objects of ethical science. Just as physical
science requires a dissection of bodies, that their hidden qualities and
parts may be discovered, so should ethics penetrate the various minds of
men, in order to find out the eternal basis of them all. And not only
this foundation, but likewise those external conditions which give a
stamp to human character--all those peculiarities that "are imposed upon
the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health and sickness,
by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not
external; and, again, those which are caused by external
fortune"[54]--should come within the scope of ethical philosophy. In a
word, Bacon would have man studied in his individuality as a product of
nature and history, in every respect determined by natural and
historical influences, by internal and external conditions. And exactly
in the same spirit has Shakespeare understood man and his destiny;
regarding character as the result of a certain natural temperament and a
certain historical position, and destiny as a result of character.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] "Advancement of Learning," II. "De Augment. Scient.," VII. 3.
[54] "Advancement of Learning," II. For the whole passage compare "De
Augment. Scient.," VII. 3.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE TESTIMONY OF BACON'S CONTEMPORARIES.
A distinguished member of the Bench in a recent post-prandial address
referred to Bacon as "a shady lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper
correspondents, when attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets
of this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a position so
responsible as that of an English judge should, either through ignorance
or with a desire to be considered a wit, make use of such a term.
Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one fact must stand
unchallenged--that amongst those of his contemporaries who knew him
there was a consensus of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any
failings to which he might be subject.
The following testimonies establish this fact:--
Let BEN JONSON speak first:
"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of
gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass
a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more
pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness,
in what he uttered. No member of his speech, but consisted of his
own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him,
without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry
and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his
power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make
an end," and, after referring to Lord Ellesmere, Jonson
continues:--
"But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor, (_i.e._,
Bacon) is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in
our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent
Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his
times, were all the wits born, that could honour a language, or help
study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence
grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and
[Greek: akoe] of our language.
"My conceit of his person was never increased toward 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 God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.
Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no
accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it
manifest."
SIR TOBY MATTHEW describes Francis Bacon as
"A friend unalterable to his friends;
A man most sweet in his conversation and ways";
and adds:
"It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue."
THOMAS BUSHEL, his servant, in a letter to Mr. John Eliot, printed in
1628, in a volume called "The First Part of Youth's Errors," says:
"Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might extenuate the good
opinion you had of his worth and merit, I must ingenuously confess
that my selfe and others of his servants were the occasion of
exhaling his vertues into a darke exlipse; which God knowes would
have long endured both for the honour of his King and the good of
the Commonaltie; had not we whom his bountie nursed, laid on his
guiltlesse shoulders our base and execrable deeds to be scand and
censured by the whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence
was given, but most of us forsoke him, which makes us bear the badge
of Jewes to this day. Yet I am confident there were some Godly
Daniels amongst us.... As for myselfe, with shame I must acquit the
title, and pleade guilty; which grieves my very soule, that so
matchlesse a Peer should be lost by such insinuating caterpillars,
who in his owne nature scorn'd the least thought of any base,
unworthy, or ignoble act, though subject to infirmites as ordained
to the wisest."
In FULLER'S "Worthies" it is written:
"He was a rich Cabinet filled with Judgment, Wit, Fancy and Memory,
and had the golden Key, Elocution, to open it. He was singular in
singulis, in every Science and Art, and being In-at-all came off
with Credit. He was too Bountifull to his Servants, and either too
confident of their Honesty, or too conniving at their Falsehood.
'Tis said he had 2 Servants, one in all Causes Patron to the
Plaintiff, the other to the Defendant, but taking bribes of both,
with this Condition, to restore the Mony received, if the Cause went
against them. Such practices, tho' unknown to their Master, cost him
the loss of his Office."
In "The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of Elizabeth's Reign" it is
said:--
"His religion was rational and sober, his spirit publick, his love
to relations tender, to Friends faithful, to the hopeful liberal, to
men universal, to his very Enemies civil. He left the best pattern
of Government in his actions under one king and the best principles
of it in the Life of the other."
The following is a translation from the discourse on the life of Mr.
Francis Bacon which is prefixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," by PIERE
AMBOISE, published in Paris in 1631:
"Among so many virtues that made this great man commendable,
prudence, as the first of all the moral virtues, and that most
necessary to those of his profession, was that which shone in him
the most brightly. His profound wisdom can be most readily seen in
his books, and his matchless fidelity in the signal services that he
continuously rendered to his Prince. Never was there man who so
loved equity, or so enthusiastically worked for the public good as
he; so that I may aver that he would have been much better suited to
a Republic than to a Monarchy, where frequently the convenience of
the Prince is more thought of than that of his people. And I do not
doubt that had he lived in a Republic he would have acquired as much
glory from the citizens as formerly did Aristides and Cato, the one
in Athens, the other in Rome. Innocence oppressed found always in
his protection a sure refuge, and the position of the great gave
them no vantage ground before the Chancellor when suing for justice.
"Vanity, avarice, and ambition, vices that too often attach
themselves to great honours, were to him quite unknown, and if he
did a good action it was not from the desire of fame, but simply
because he could not do otherwise. His good qualities were entirely
pure, without being clouded by the admixture of any imperfections,
and the passions that form usually the defects in great men in him
only served to bring out his virtues; if he felt hatred and rage it
was only against evil-doers, to shew his detestation of their
crimes, and success or failure in the affairs of his country brought
to him the greater part of his joys or his sorrows. He was as truly
a good man as he was an upright judge, and by the example of his
life corrected vice and bad living as much as by pains and
penalties. And, in a word, it seemed that Nature had exempted from
the ordinary frailities of men him whom she had marked out to deal
with their crimes. All these good qualities made him the darling of
the people and prized by the great ones of the State. But when it
seemed that nothing could destroy his position, Fortune made clear
that she did not yet wish to abandon her character for instability,
and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long prosperous. It
thus came about that amongst the great number of officials such as a
man of his position must have in his house, there was one who was
accused before Parliament of exaction, and of having sold the
influence that he might have with his master. And though the probity
of Mr. Bacon was entirely exempt from censure, nevertheless he was
declared guilty of the crime of his servant and was deprived of the
power that he had so long exercised with so much honour and glory.
In this I see the working of monstrous ingratitude and unparalleled
cruelty--to say that a man who could mark the years of his life
rather by the signal services that he had rendered to the State than
by times or seasons, should have received such hard usage for the
punishment of a crime which he never committed; England, indeed,
teaches us by this that the sea that surrounds her shores imparts to
her inhabitants somewhat of its restless inconstancy. This storm did
not at all surprise him, and he received the news of his disgrace
with a countenance so undisturbed that it was easy to see that he
thought but little of the sweets of life since the loss of them
caused him discomfort so slight." Thus ended this great man whom
England could place alone as the equal of the best of all the
previous centuries."
PETER BOENER, who was private apothecary to Bacon for a time, wrote in
1647 a Life, of portions of which the following are translations:--
"But how runneth man's future. He who seemed to occupy the highest
rank is alas! by envious tongues near King and Parliament deposed
from all his offices and chancellorship, little considering what
treasure was being cast in the mire, as afterwards the issue and
result thereof have shown in that country. But he always comforted
himself with the words of Scripture--nihil est novi; that means
'there is nothing new.' Because so is Cicero by Octavianus;
Calisthenes by Alexander; Seneca (all his former teachers) by Nero;
yea, Ovid, Lucanus, Statius (together with many others), for a small
cause very unthankfully the one banished, the other killed, the
third thrown to the lions. But even as for such men banishment is
freedom--death their life, so is for this author his deposition a
memory to greater honour and fame, and to such a sage no harm can
come.
* * * * *
"Whilst his fortunes were so changed, I never saw him--either in
mien, word or acts--changed or disturbed towards whomsoever; _ira
enim hominis non implet justitiam Dei_, he was ever one and the
same, both in sorrow and in joy, as becometh a philosopher; always
with a benevolent allocution--_manus nostrae sunt oculatae, credunt
quod vident_.... A noteworthy example and pattern for everyone of
all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness, and patience."
FRANCIS OSBORN, in his "Advice to a Son," writes:--
"And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible ever) can direct
me towards an example more splendid in this kind, than the Lord
Bacon Earl of St. Albans, who in all companies did appear a good
Proficient, if not a Master in those Arts entertained for the
Subject of every ones discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the
least affectation of Flattery or Hyperbole, That his most casual
talk deserveth to be written, As I have been told his first or
foulest Copys required no great Labour to render them competent for
the nicest judgments. A high perfection, attainable only by use, and
treating with every man in his respective profession, and what he
was most vers'd in. So as I have heard him entertain a Country Lord
in the proper terms relating to Hawks and Dogs. And at another time
out-Cant a London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself,
but gratifie such as taught him; who looked upon their Callings as
honoured through his Notice; Nor did an easie falling into Arguments
(not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an
ornament in Him: The ears of the hearers receiving more
gratification, than trouble; And (so) no less sorry when he came to
conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt him. Now this
general Knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his wit, and
dignifi'd by so Majestical a carriage he was known to own, strook
such an awful reverence in those he question'd, that they durst not
conceal the most intrinsick 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. the meanest Manufacturers were an
usual Argument: And, as I have heard, did in this Baffle, the Earl
of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen &c. 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."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MISSING FOURTH PART OF "THE GREAT INSTAURATION."
It has been urged by critics that Bacon, whilst professing to take all
knowledge for his province, ignored one-half of it--that half which was
a knowledge of himself; that to him the external world was everything,
the internal nothing. All that Nature revealed was external; nothing
that was internal was of much importance.
It must be remembered that all that we have of Bacon's was written as he
was passing into the "vale of life." Of his early productions nothing
has come down to the present times under his own name. The following
extracts from his acknowledged works establish two facts:--(1) That the
foregoing criticism is unfounded, for he placed the study of man's mind
and character above all other enquiries. (2) That he had prepared
examples, being "actual types and models, by which the entire process of
the mind and the whole fabric and order of invention from the beginning
to the end in certain subjects and those various and remarkable should
be set, as it were, before the eyes." Where are these works to be found?
Bacon never tires of quoting from the Roman poet the line--
"Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,"
which, in an Elizabethan handwriting, may be seen in a contemporary
volume thus rendered--
"He of all others fittest is to write
Which with some profit allso ioynes delight."
He repeats in different forms, until the reiteration becomes almost
tedious, the following incident:--
"And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say, of the expedition of the
French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to
marke up their lodgings not with weapons to fight; so we like
better, that entry of truth, which comes peaceably where the Mindes
of men, capable to lodge so great a guest, are signed, as it were,
with chalke; than that which comes with Pugnacity, and forceth
itselfe a way by contentions and controversies."
The same idea is embodied in the following example of the antitheta:--
"A witty conceit is oftentimes a convoy of a Truth which otherwise
could not so handsomely have been ferried over."
In the "Advancement of Learning," Lib. II., again the same view is
insisted on:--
"Besides in all wise humane Government, they that sit at the helme,
doe more happily bring their purposes about, and insinuate more
easily things fit for the people, by pretexts, and oblique courses;
than by downe-right dealing. Nay (which perchance may seem very
strange) in things meerely naturall, you may sooner deceive nature,
than force her; so improper, and selfe impeaching are open direct
proceedings; whereas on the other side, an oblique and an insinuing
way, gently glides along and compasseth the intended effect."
One other fact must be realised before the full import of the quotations
about to be made can be appreciated. In the "Distributio Operis"
prefixed to the "Novum Organum" the following significant passage
occurs[55]:--
"For as often as I have occasion to report anything as deficient,
the nature of which is at all obscure, so that men may not perhaps
easily understand what I mean or what the work is which I have in
my head, I shall always (provided it be a matter of any worth) take
care to subjoin either directions for the execution of such work,
or else a portion of the work itself executed by myself as a sample
of the whole: thus giving assistance in every case either by work
or by counsel."
In the "Advancement of Learning," Book II., chap. i., it is written:
"That is the truest Partition of humane Learning, which hath
reference to the three Faculties of Man's soule, which is the feat
of Learning. History is referred to Memory, Poesy to the
Imagination, Philosophy to Reason. By Poesy, in this place, we
understand nothing else, but feigned History, or Fables. As for
Verse, that is only a style of expression, and pertaines to the Art
of Elocution, of which in due place."
"Poesy, in that sense we have expounded it, is likewise of
Individuals, fancied to the similitude of those things which in
true History are recorded, yet so as often it exceeds measure; and
those things which in Nature would never meet, nor come to passe,
Poesy composeth and introduceth at pleasure, even as Painting doth:
which indeed is the work of the Imagination."
And in the same book, Chapter XIII.:--
"Drammaticall, or Representative Poesy, which brings the World upon
the stage, is of excellent use, if it were not abused. For the
Instructions, and Corruptions, of the Stage, may be great; but the
corruptions in this kind abound, the Discipline is altogether
neglected in our times. For although in moderne Commonwealths,
Stage-plaies be but estimed a sport or pastime, unlesse it draw
from the Satyre, and be mordant; yet the care of the Ancients was,
that it should instruct the minds of men unto virtue. Nay, wise
men and great Philosophers, have accounted it, as the Archet, or
musicall Bow of the Mind. And certainly it is most true, and as it
were, a secret of nature, that the minds of men are more patent to
affections, and impressions, Congregate, than solitary."
The third chapter of Book VII. of the "De Augmentis" is devoted to
emphasising the importance of a knowledge of the internal working of the
mind and of the disposition and character of men. The following extracts
are of special moment:--
"Some are naturally formed for contemplation, others for business,
others for war, others for advancement of fortune, others for love,
others for the arts, others for a varied kind of life; so among the
poets (heroic, satiric, tragic, comic) are everywhere interspersed,
representations of characters, though generally exaggerated and
surpassing the truth. And this argument touching the different
characters of dispositions is one of those subjects in which the
common discourse of men (as sometimes, though very rarely, happens)
is wiser than books."
The drama as the only vehicle through which this can be accomplished at
once suggests itself to the reader. But in order to emphasize this point
he proceeds--
"But far the best provision and material for this treatise is to
be gained from the wiser sort of historians, not only from the
commemorations which they commonly add on recording the deaths of
illustrious persons, but much more from the entire body of history
as often as such a person enters upon the stage."
Bacon becomes still more explicit. He continues:--
"Wherefore out of these materials (which are surely rich and
abundant) let a full and careful treatise be constructed. Not,
however, that I would have their characters presented in ethics (as
we find them in history, or poetry, or even in common discourse) in
the shape of complete individual portraits, but rather the several
features and simple lineaments of which they are composed, and by
the various combinations and arrangements of which all characters
whatever are made up, showing how many, and of what nature these
are, and how connected and subordinated one to another; that so we
may have a scientific and accurate dissection of minds and
characters, and the secret dispositions of particular men may be
revealed; and that from a knowledge thereof better rules may be
framed for the treatment of the mind. And not only should the
characters of dispositions which are impressed by nature be
received into this treatise, but those also which are imposed upon
the mind by sex, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by
beauty and deformity and the like; and again, those which are
caused by fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches,
want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity and the like."
Shortly after follows this remarkable pronouncement.
"But to speak the truth the poets and writers of history are the
best doctors of this knowledge,[56] where we may find painted forth
with great life and dissected, how affections are kindled and
excited, and how pacified and restrained, and how again contained
from act and further degree; how they disclose themselves, though
repressed and concealed; how they work; how they vary; how they are
enwrapped one within another; how they fight and encounter one with
another; and many more particulars of this kind; amongst which this
last is of special use in moral and civil matters; how, I say, to
set affection against affection, and to use the aid of one to
master another; like hunters and fowlers who use to hunt beast with
beast, and catch bird with bird, which otherwise perhaps without
their aid man of himself could not so easily contrive; upon which
foundation is erected that excellent and general use in civil
government of reward and punishment, whereon commonwealths lean;
seeing these predominant affections of fear and hope suppress and
bridle all the rest. For as in the government of States it is
sometimes necessary to bridle one faction with another, so is it in
the internal government of the mind."
In his "Distributio Operis" Bacon thus describes the missing fourth part
of his "Instauratio Magna":--
"Of these the first is to set forth examples of inquiry and
invention[57] according to my method exhibited by anticipation in
some particular subjects; choosing such subjects as are at once the
most noble in themselves among those under enquiry, and most
different one from another, that there may be an example in every
kind. I do not speak of these precepts and rules by way of
illustration (for of these I have given plenty in the second part
of the work); but I mean actual types and models, by which the
entire process of the mind and the whole fabric and order of
invention from the beginning to the end in certain subjects, and
those various and remarkable, should be set as it were before the
eyes. For I remember that in the mathematics it is easy to follow
the demonstration when you have a machine beside you, whereas,
without that help, all appears involved and more subtle than it
really is. To examples of this kind--being, in fact, nothing more
than an application of the second part in detail and at large--the
fourth part of the work is devoted."
The late Mr. Edwin Reed has, in his "Francis Bacon our Shakespeare,"
page 126, drawn attention to a remarkable circumstance. In 1607 Bacon
had written his "Cogitata et Visa," which was the forerunner of his
"Novum Organum." It was not published until twenty-seven years after his
death, namely, in 1653, by Isaac Gruter, at Leyden. In 1857 Mr. Spedding
found a manuscript copy of the "Cogitata" in the library of Queen's
College at Oxford. This manuscript had been corrected in Bacon's own
handwriting. It contained passages which were omitted from Gruter's
print. Spedding did not realise the importance of the omitted passages,
but Mr. Edwin Reed has made this manifest. The following extract is
specially noteworthy, the portion printed in italics having been omitted
by Gruter:--
"... So he thought best, after long considering the subject and
weighing it carefully, first of all to prepare _Tabulae Inveniendi_
or regular forms of inquiry; in other words, a mass of particulars
arranged for the understanding, and to serve, as it were, for an
example and almost visible representation of the matter. For
nothing else can be devised that would place in a clearer light
what is true and what is false, or show more plainly that what is
presented is more than words, and must be avoided by anyone who
either has no confidence in his own scheme or may wish to have his
scheme taken for more than it is worth.
"_But when these Tabulae Inveniendi have been put forth and seen, he
does not doubt that the more timid wits will shrink almost in
despair from imitating them with similar productions with other
materials or on other subjects; and they will take so much delight
in the specimen given that they will miss the precepts in it.
Still, many persons will be led to inquire into the real meaning
and highest use of these writings, and to find the key to their
interpretation, and thus more ardently desire, in some degree at
least, to acquire the new aspect of nature which such a key will
reveal. But he intends, yielding neither to his own personal
aspirations nor to the wishes of others, but keeping steadily in
view the success of his undertaking, having shared these writings
with some, to withhold the rest until the treatise intended for the
people shall be published._"
Now what conclusions may be drawn from the foregoing extracts? Bacon
attached the greatest importance to the consideration of the internal
life of man. He affirms that dramaticall or representative poesy, which
brings the world upon the stage, is of excellent use if it be not
abused. The discipline of the stage was neglected in his time, but the
care of the ancients was that it should instruct the minds of men unto
virtue, and wise men and great philosophers accounted it as the musical
bow of the mind. He has devoted the fourth part of his "Instauratio
Magna" to setting forth examples of inquiry and invention, choosing such
subjects as are at once the most noble in themselves and the most
different one from another, that there may be an example in every kind.
He is not speaking of precepts and rules by way of interpretation, but
actual types and models by which the entire process of the mind, and the
whole fabric and order of invention, should be set, as it were, before
the eyes.
Not only should the characters of dispositions which are impressed by
nature be received into this treatise, but those also which are imposed
upon the mind by sex, by age, by region, by health and sickness, by
beauty and deformity, and the like; and, again, those that are caused by
fortune, as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want,
magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, and the like.
_The fourth part of Bacon's "Great Instauration" is missing._ The above
requirements are met in the Shakespeare plays. Could the dramas be more
accurately described than in the foregoing extracts?
From a study of the plays let a list be made out of the qualifications
which the author must have possessed. It will be found that the only
person in whom every qualification will be found who has lived in any
age of any country was Francis Bacon. Any investigator who will devote
the time and trouble requisite for an exhaustive examination of the
subject can come to no other conclusion.
One cannot without feeling deep regret recognise that we have to turn to
a foreigner to give "reasons for the faith which we English have in
Shakespeare." It was a German, Schlegel, who discovered the great
dramatist, and to-day we must turn to his "Lectures on the Drama" for
the most penetrating description of his plays. The following is a
translation of a passage which in describing the plays almost adopts the
words Bacon uses in the foregoing passages as to the scope and object of
the fourth part of his "Great Instauration."
"Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent for the delineation
of character as Shakespeare's. It not only grasps the diversities of
rank, sex, and age, down to the dawnings of infancy; not only do the
king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, the sage and the idiot
speak and act with equal truth; not only does he transport himself to
distant ages and foreign nations, and portray in the most accurate
manner, with only a few apparent violations of costume, the spirit of
the ancient Romans, of the French in their wars with the English, of the
English themselves during a great part of their history, of the Southern
Europeans (in the serious part of many comedies), the cultivated society
of that time, and the former rude and barbarous state of the North; his
human characters have not only such depth and precision that they cannot
be arranged under classes, and are inexhaustible, even in conception;
no, this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the
magical world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghost, exhibits before
us his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries, peoples the air with
sportive fairies and sylphs; and these beings, existing only in
imagination, possess such truth and consistency that even when deformed
monsters like Caliban, he extorts the conviction that if there should be
such beings they would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries
with him the most fruitful and daring fancy into the kingdom of nature;
on the other hand, he carries nature into the regions of fancy, lying
beyond the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing
the extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of in such intimate
nearness."
"If Shakespeare deserves our admiration for his characters he is equally
deserving of it for his exhibition of passion, taking this word in its
widest signification, as including every mental condition, every tone
from indifference or familiar mirth to the wildest rage and despair. He
gives us the history of minds, he lays open to us in a single word a
whole series of preceding conditions. His passions do not at first stand
displayed to us in all their height, as is the case with so many tragic
poets who, in the language of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal
style of love. He paints, in a most inimitable manner, the gradual
progress from the first origin. 'He gives,' as Lessing says, 'a living
picture of all the most minute and secret artifices by which a feeling
steals into our souls; of all the imperceptible advantages which it
there gains, of all the stratagems by which every other passion is made
subservient to it, till it becomes the sole tyrant of our desires and
our aversions.' Of all poets, perhaps, he alone has portrayed the mental
diseases--melancholy, delirium, lunacy--with such inexpressible, and in
every respect definite truth, that the physician may enrich his
observations from them in the same manner as from real cases."
FOOTNOTES:
[55] A Translation by Spedding, "Works," Vol. IV., p. 23.
[56] The knowledge touching the affections and perturbations which are
the diseases of the mind.
[57] Tabulae inveniendi.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON.
To attempt anything of the nature of a review of Bacon's acknowledged
works is a task far too great for the scope of the present volume. To
attempt a survey of the whole of his works would require years of
diligent study, and would necessitate a perusal of nearly every book
published in England between 1576 and 1630. Not that it is suggested
that all the literature of this period was the product of his pen or was
produced under his supervision, but each book published should be read
and considered with attention to arrive at a selection.
There has been no abler judgment of the acknowledged works than that
which will be found in William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the Literature of
the Age of Elizabeth." Lecture VII. commences with an account of the
"Character of Bacon's Works."
It may not, however, be out of place here to try and make plain in what
sense Bacon was a philosopher.
In Chapter CXVI. of the "Novum Organum" he makes his position clear in
the following words:--
"First then I must request men not to suppose that after the
fashion of ancient Greeks, and of certain moderns, as Telesius,
Patricius, Severinus, I wish to found a new sect in philosophy. For
this is not what I am about; nor do I think that it matters much to
the fortunes of men what abstract notions one may entertain
concerning nature and the principles of things; and no doubt many
old theories of this kind can be revived, and many new ones
introduced; just as many theories of the heavens may be supposed
which agree well enough with the phenomena and yet differ with
each other.
"For my part, I do not trouble myself with any such speculative and
withal unprofitable matters. My purpose on the contrary, is to try
whether I cannot in very fact lay more firmly the foundations and
extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man ...
I have no entire or universal theory to propound."
So the idea that there was what is termed a system of philosophy
constructed by Bacon must be abandoned. What justification is there for
calling him the father of the Inductive Philosophy?
It is difficult to answer this question. Spedding admits that Bacon was
not the first to break down the dominion of Aristotle. That followed the
awakening throughout the intellectual world which was brought about by
the Reformation and the revival of learning. Sir John Herschel justifies
the application to Bacon of the term "The great Reformer of Philosophy"
not on the ground that he introduced inductive reasoning, but because of
his "keen perception and his broad and spirit-stirring, almost
enthusiastic announcement of its paramount importance, as the Alpha and
Omega of science, as the grand and only chain for linking together of
physical truths and the eventual key to every discovery and
application."
Bacon was 60 years of age when his "Novum Organum" was published. It was
founded on a tract he had written in 1607, which he called "Cogitata et
Visa," not printed until long after his death. He had previously
published a portion of his Essays, the two books on "The Advancement of
Learning" and "The Wisdom of the Ancients." Just at the end of his life
he gave to the world the "Novum Organum," accompanied by "The
Parasceve." Certainly it was not understood in his time. Coke described
it as only fit to freight the Ship of Fools, and the King likened it
"to the peace of God which passeth all understanding." It is admittedly
incomplete, and Bacon made no attempt in subsequent years to complete
it. It is a book that if read and re-read becomes fascinating. Taine
describes it as "a string of aphorisms, a collection as it were of
scientific decrees as of an oracle who foresees the future and reveals
the truth." "It is intuition not reasoning," he adds. The wisdom
contained in its pages is profound. An understanding of the
interpretation of the Idols and the Instances has so far evaded all
commentators. Who can explain the "Latent Process"? But the book
contains no scheme of arrangement. Therein is found a series of
desultory discourses--full of wisdom, rich in analogies, abundant in
observation and profound in comprehension. From here and there in it
with the help of the "Parasceve" one can grasp the intention of the
great philosopher.
In Chapter LXI. he says:--"But the course I propose for the discovery of
sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of
wits, but places all wits and understandings on a level." How was this
to be accomplished? By the systemization of labour expended on
scientific research. A catalogue of the particulars of histories which
were to be prepared is appended to the "Parasceve." It embraces every
subject conceivable. In Chapter CXI. he says, "I plainly confess that a
collection of history, natural and experimental, such as I conceive it,
and as it ought to be, is a great, I may say a royal work, and of much
labour and expense."
In the "Parasceve" he says:--"If all the wits of all the ages had met or
shall hereafter meet together; if the whole human race had applied or
shall hereafter apply themselves to philosophy, and the whole earth had
been or shall be nothing but academies and colleges and schools of
learned men; still without a natural and experimental history such as I
am going to prescribe, no progress worthy of the human race could have
been made or can be made in philosophy and the sciences. Whereas on the
other hand let such a history be once provided and well set forth and
let there be added to it such auxiliary and light-giving experiments as
in the very course of interpretation will present themselves or will
have to be found out; and the investigation of nature and of all
sciences will be the work of a few years. This therefore must be done or
the business given up."
To carry out this work an army of workers was required. In the
preparation of each history some were to make a rough and general
collection of facts. Their work was to be handed over to others who
would arrange the facts in order for reference. This accomplished,
others would examine to get rid of superfluities. Then would be brought
in those who would re-arrange that which was left and the history would
be completed.
From Chapter CIII. it is clear that Bacon contemplated that eventually
all the experiments of all the arts, collected and digested, _should be
brought within one man's knowledge and judgment_. This man, having a
supreme view of the whole range of subjects, would transfer experiments
of one art to another and so lead "to the discovery of many new things
of service to the life and state of man."
Nearly three hundred years have passed since Bacon propounded his
scheme. The arts and sciences have been greatly advanced. They might
have proceeded more rapidly had the histories been prepared, but since
his time there has arisen no man who has taken "all knowledge to be his
province"--no man who could occupy the position Bacon contemplated.
The method by which the induction was to be followed is described in
Chapter CV. There must be an analysis of nature by proper rejections
and exclusions, and then, after a sufficient number of negatives, a
conclusion should be arrived at from the affirmative instances. "It is
in this induction," Bacon adds, "that our chief hope lies."
Bacon's new organ has never been constructed, and all wits and
understandings have not yet been placed on a level.
We come back to the mystery of Francis Bacon, the possessor of the most
exquisite intellect that was ever bestowed on any of the children of
men. As an historian, he gives us a taste of his quality in "Henry VII."
In the Essays and the "Novum Organum," sayings which have the effect of
axioms are at once striking and self-evident. But he is always
desultory. In perceiving analogies between things which have nothing in
common he never had an equal, and this characteristic, to quote
Macaulay, "occasionally obtained the mastery over all his other
faculties and led him into absurdities into which no dull man could have
fallen." His memory was so stored with materials, and these so diverse,
that in similitude or with comparison he passed from subject to subject.
In the "Advancement of Learning" are enumerated the deficiencies which
Bacon observed, _nearly the whole of which were supplied during his
lifetime_.
The "Sylva Sylvarum" is the most extraordinary jumble of facts and
observations that has ever been brought together. It is a literary
curiosity. The "New Atlantis" and other short works in quantity amount
to very little. Bacon's life has hitherto remained unaccounted for. In
the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to offer an intelligible
explanation of the work to which he devoted his life, namely, to supply
the deficiencies which he had himself pointed out and which retarded the
advancement of learning.
Hallam has said of Bacon: "If we compare what may be found in the sixth,
seventh, and eighth books of the 'De Augmentis,' and the various short
treatises contained in his works on moral and political wisdom and on
human nature, with the rhetoric, ethics, and politics of Aristotle, or
with the historians most celebrated for their deep insight into civil
society and human character--with Thucydides, Tacitus, Phillipe de
Comines, Machiavel, David Hume--we shall, I think, find that one man may
almost be compared with all of these together."
Pope wrote: "Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps
any other country, ever produced." If an examination, more thorough than
has hitherto been made, of the records and literature of his age
establishes beyond doubt the truth of the suggestions which have now
been put forward, what more can be said? This at any rate, that to him
shall be given that title to which he aspired and for which he was
willing to renounce his own name. He shall be called "The Benefactor of
Mankind."
APPENDIX.
Sir Thomas Bodley left behind him a short history of his life which is
of a fragmentary description. One-fourth of it is devoted to a record of
how much he suffered in permitting Essex to urge his advancement in the
State. The following is the passage:--
"Now here I can not choose but in making report of the principall
accidents that have fallen unto me in the course of my life, but
record among the rest, that from the very first day I had no man
more to friend among the Lords of the Councell, than was the Lord
Treasurer Burleigh: for when occasion had beene offered of
declaring his conceit as touching my service, he would alwaies tell
the Queen (which I received from her selfe and some other
ear-witnesses) that there was not any man in _England_ so meet as
myselfe to undergoe the office of the Secretary. And sithence his
sonne, the present Lord Treasurer, hath signified unto me in
private conference, that when his father first intended to advance
him to that place, his purpose was withall to make me his
Colleague. But the case stood thus in my behalf: before such time
as I returned from the Provinces united, which was in the yeare
1597, and likewise after my returne, the then Earle of _Essex_ did
use me so kindly both by letters and messages, and other great
tokens of his inward favours to me, that although I had no meaning,
but to settle in my mind my chiefest desire and dependance upon the
Lord _Burleigh_, as one that I reputed to be both the best able,
and therewithall the most willing to worke my advancement with the
Queene, yet I know not how, the Earle, who fought by all devices to
divert her love and liking both from the Father and the Son (but
from the Sonne in speciall) to withdraw my affection from the one
and the other, and to winne mee altogether to depend upon himselfe,
did so often take occasion to entertaine the Queene with some
prodigall speeches of my sufficiency for a Secretary, which were
ever accompanied with words of disgrace against the present Lord
Treasurer, as neither she her selfe, of whose favour before I was
thoroughly assured, took any great pleasure to preferre me the
sooner, (for she hated his ambition, and would give little
countenance to any of his followers) and both the Lord _Burleigh_
and his Sonne waxed jealous of my courses, as if under hand I had
beene induced by the cunning and kindnesse of the Earle of _Essex_,
to oppose my selfe against their dealings. And though in very truth
they had no solid ground at all of the least alteration in my
disposition towards either of them both, (for I did greatly respect
their persons and places, with a settled resolution to doe them any
service, as also in my heart I detested to be held of any faction
whatsoever) yet the now Lord Treasurer, upon occasion of some
talke, that I have since had with him, of the Earle and his
actions, hath freely confessed of his owne accord unto me, that his
daily provocations were so bitter and sharpe against him, and his
comparisons so odious, when he put us in a ballance, as he thought
thereupon he had very great reason to use his best meanes, to put
any man out of hope of raising his fortune, whom the Earle with
such violence, to his extreame prejudice, had endeavoured to
dignifie. And this, as he affirmed, was all the motive he had to
set himselfe against me, in whatsoever might redound to the
bettering of my estate, or increasing of my credit and countenance
with the Queene. When I hae thoroughly now bethought me, first in
the Earle, of the slender hold-fast that he had in the favour of
the Queene, of an endlesse opposition of the cheifest of our
Statesmen like still to waite upon him, of his perillous, and
feeble, and uncertain advice, as well in his owne, as in all the
causes of his friends: and when moreover for my selfe I had fully
considered how very untowardly these two Counsellours were affected
unto me, (upon whom before in cogitation I had framed all the
fabrique of my future prosperity) how ill it did concurre with my
naturall disposition, to become, or to be counted either a stickler
or partaker in any publique faction, how well I was able, by God's
good blessing, to live of my selfe, if I could be content with a
competent livelyhood; how short time of further life I was then to
expect by the common course of nature: when I had, I say, in this
manner represented to my thoughts my particular estate, together
with the Earles, I resolved thereupon to possesse my soule in peace
all the residue of my daies, to take my full farewell of State
imployments, to satisfie my mind with that mediocrity of worldly
living that I had of my owne, and so to retire me from the Court,
which was the epilogue and end of all my actions and endeavours of
any important note, till I came to the age of fifty-three."
The experience of Bodley and Bacon appears to have been identical. It
certainly materially strengthens the case of those who contend that
Bacon's conduct to Essex was not deserving of censure on the ground of
ingratitude for favours received from him.
The words which Robert Cecil addressed to Bodley, namely, that "he had
very great reason to use his best meanes, to put any man out of hope of
raising his fortune whom the Earle with such violence, to his extreame
prejudice had endeavoured to dignifie," would with equal force have been
applied to Bacon's case. The drift of Bodley's account of the matter
points to his feeling that Essex's conduct had not been of a
disinterested character, and suggests that he felt the Earle had been
making a tool of him.
The effect of this was that Bodley adopted the course which Bacon
threatened to adopt when refused the office of Attorney-General,
solicited for him by Essex--he took a farewell of State employments and
retired from the Court to devote himself to the service of his "Reverend
Mother, the University of Oxford," and to the advancement of her good.
To this end he became a collector of books, whereas Bacon would have
become "some sorry book-maker or a true pioner in that mine of truth
which Anaxagoras said lay so deep."
ROBERT BANKS AND SON, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET.
[Illustration:_ Figure VI._]
[Illustration: _Figure VII._]
[Illustration: _Figure VIII._]
[Illustration: _Figure IX._]
[Illustration: _Figure XX._]
[Illustration: THE XXXVIII. BOOKE.
THE ARGVMENT
_Marfisa doth present herselfe before
King Charles, and in his presence is baptized:
Astolfo doth Senapos sight restore,
By whom such hardie feats are enterprised,
That Agramant therewith molested sore
Is by Sobrino finally aduised,
To make a challenge on Rogeros hed,
To end the troubles that the warre had bred._
_Figure XIII._
_Figure XIV._]
[Illustration: _Figure X._]
[Illustration: _Figure XV._]
[Illustration: _Figure XI._]
[Illustration: _Figure XII._]
[Illustration: _Figure XXI._
THE GENEALOGIES RECORDED IN THE SACRED SCRIPTVRES,
ACcording to euery FAMILY and TRIBE.
WITH
The Line of our Sauiour IESVS CHRIST obserued from _Adam_
to the blessed VIRGIN MARY.
_By_
I. S.
CVM PRIVILEGIO.]
[Illustration: _Figure XVI._]
[Illustration: _Figure XVII._]
[Illustration: _Figure XVIII._]
[Illustration: _Figure XIX._]
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
3. Long "s" has been modernized.
4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest
paragraph break.
5. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the chapters
in which they are referenced.
6. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version
these letters have been replaced with transliterations.
7. Certain words use oe ligature in the original.
8. The following misprints have been corrected:
"obain" corrected to "obtain" (page 27)
"Shakespere" corrected to "Shakespeare" (page 39)
"Bodly" corrected to "Bodley" (page 85)
"Shakepeare's" corrected to "Shakespeare's" (page 107)
"commenceed" corrected to "commenced" (page 108)
"Proecepta" corrected to "Praecepta" (page 135)
"deficiences" corrected to "deficiencies" (page 191)
"numercial" corrected to "numerical" (footnote 35)
9. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in
spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Francis Bacon, by William T. Smedley