and more suitable to his scholar's profession, to have written the book in Latin or Greek. A young man destined for the service of the state, as Bacon was, found Latin the language of diplomacy and official business. With a Latin training like this, possessed of an unusually bright mind, and a scholar by instinct, Bacon remained throughout his life singularly in touch with the great Roman writers.

It is a matter of common observation that the English language from century to century swings like a great pendulum to and fro between its two elements, Teutonic and Romance. In Elizabeth's time the two forces were probably nearer equilibrium than they have ever been, before or since. This is why the Authorized Version of the Bible, and Shakspere's plays, and Bacon's Essays are the great conservators of the English speech. The bones of English are in them, and in good style, as in good portraiture or good sculpture, the bones underneath must show. Of the three, Bacon is consciously the most Latinized. For this reason, if one wishes to learn something of the Latin in English, either its prevalence or its stylistic effect, Bacon is the best English classic to study. Apart. from the general question of style already discussed, Bacon's Latinity shows itself in the Essays mainly in his Latin paraphrases, in the use of English words in their Latin senses (thinking in Latin), in the frequent quotation of Latin proverbs, and even of a Latin pun. Any one of Bacon's Latin paraphrases will illustrate what a hold on

the English language it is to have Latin for a second vernacular. One of the most remarkable examples is the summing up of Livy's comment on Scipio Africanus Major at the end of the essay Of Youth and Age,-"Livy saith, in effect, Ultima primis cedebant," 'the last fell short of the first.' Bacon's three Latin words, recollected from Ovid, condense fourteen of Livy's and Livy furnished not one of the three. An interesting variation between Bacon's Latin and that of his original occurs at the close of the essay Of Cunning. Quoting Proverbs xiv. 8,-"The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit," from his recollection of the Vulgate, he writes, "Salomon saith, Prudens advertit ad gressus suos: stultus divertit ad dolos." The Vulgate reads, Sapientia callidi est intelligere viam suam: et imprudentia stultorum errans. Here Bacon says in nine Latin words what the Vulgate says in ten, and all of his words are different but one, and that one appears in a different form. It is illuminating to observe the master of a great language wielding another great language and so moulding it to his will as to compel it to assume new and strange forms.

There is no surer test of command over a foreign language than appreciation of its wit. "Caesar did himself infinite hurt in that speech-Sylla nescivit literas, non potuit dictare,'" says Bacon, writing on so serious a subject as Of Seditions and Troubles. The pun here is of that subtle sort that cuts both ways when the edges meet, like the blades

of a pair of sharp scissors. If Caesar did not utter this one, it is worthy of him. Bacon thought so, too, and recorded Caesar's witticism among his Apophthegmes New and Old, with the regret expressed in the preface,-"It is a pitie his Booke is lost: for I imagine they were collected, with Judgement and Choice."

All his life Bacon was a collector of pointed sayings, not only apothegms but proverbs. In part this was a personal inclination towards the simplest and clearest expression of thought, in part it was the Elizabethans cultivating brevity as the soul of wit. Numerous books of "prittie conceites" and many strings of proverbs attest their fondness for short, pithy sayings, grave and gay. "I hold the entry of commonplaces to be a matter of great use and essence in studying," says Bacon. The habit of jotting down ideas on all sorts of subjects, and in the fewest possible words, explains in some measure how Bacon came by that characteristic of his style which makes so many of his sentences represent the compressed essence of things. Sometimes the thought is so packed that the language may fairly be said to give way, the sentence, like an ill-constructed building, being unable to bear the pressure put upon it; for example, "but if the force of custom, simple and separate, be great, the force of custom, copulate and conjoined and collegiate, is far greater,". Of Custom and Education. A similar expression, packed to the point of clumsiness, is "but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, lxxxvii

joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress it," Of Friendship. The whole essay Of Studies illustrates this manner of composition. .The aphoristic sentences are simply packed closely one upon another, like gold sovereigns in a bag. The separate pieces of money have the continuity of being coin of the realm, but by the theory of chances they might be packed in an infinite variety of ways. In form, the essay is crude, styleless; in effect, it is direct, keen as a rapier's thrust.

Besides translated proverbs, Bacon quotes proverbs in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. And always, as he puts it, the proverb "pierces the knot in the business." Compare Cor ne edito, 'eat not the heart,' Of Friendship; In nocte, consilium, 'the night brings counsel,' as we say colloquially, sleep over it, Of Counsel; Beaucoup de bruit, peu de fruit, 'much bruit, little fruit,' Of Vain-Glory; Mi venga la muerte de Spagna, "let my death come from Spain,' for then it will be sure to be long in coming," Of Dispatch. This same essay contains the well-known English proverb, 'the more haste, the less speed,' in the form of Bacon's apothegm about his diplomatic chief, Sir Amias Paulet, who was wont to say, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner. But the bulk of proverbs in English throughout the Essays are quoted from the wisdom of the Bible, both the old Testament and New.

The Bible is directly quoted in thirty-four of the fifty-eight essays, and if to these thirty-four essays

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there is added those in which Bacon's language echoes Biblical thought, the number would be considerably greater. Bacon's familiarity with the Bible was great and at the same time catholic in its range. The only parts of it that did not occur to him for apt quotation were the books dealing with Jewish ceremonial law, the minor prophets, and the general epistles. The reading is more inclusive, but it is not unlike the list of books Ruskin gives in Praeterita as those his mother required him largely to commit to memory, while he read the Bible through every year from Genesis to the Apocalypse. "Once knowing," says Ruskin, "the 32d of Deuteronomy, the 119th Psalm, the 15th of 1st Corinthians, the Sermon on the Mount, and most of the Apocalypse, every syllable by heart, and having a way of thinking with myself what words meant, it was not possible for me, even in the foolishest times of youth, to write entirely superficial or formal English." It cannot be said that Bacon's literary style owes as much to the Bible as that of Ruskin, a conscious stylist, but in the Bible he undoubtedly found that union of naturalness and dignity which is so inimitably his own. It has been suggested as one explanation of the noble English of the Bible that the translators of the Authorized Version had been brought up in the old religion, and that in consequence their English unconsciously caught and retained something of the music of the Latin service, as they had often heard it reverberating from hymn and chant through the lofty arches and down the long aisles lxxxix