the tastes of such wits as are patient to stay the digesting and soluting unto themselves of that which is sharp and subtile. Which was the cause, joined with the love and honour I bear to your lordship, as the person 1 know to have many virtues, and an excellent order of them, which moved me to dedicate this writing to your lordship after the ancient manner: choosing both a friend, and one to whom I conceived the argument was agreeable.

The following introduction to the Colours in the original edition is omitted in the De Augmentis :—

In deliberatives, the point is what is good and what is evil; and of good what is greater, and of evil what is less,

So that the persuader's labour is to make things appear good or evil, and that in higher or lower degree; which as it may be performed by true and solid reasons, so it may be represented also by colours, popularities, and circumstances, which are of such force as they sway the ordinary judgment either of a weak man, or of a wise man, not fully and considerately attending and pondering the matter. Besides their power to alter the nature of the subject in appearance, and so to lead to error, they are of no less use to quicken and strengthen the opinions and persuasions which are true: for reasons plainly delivered, and always after one manner, especially with fine and fastidious minds, enter but heavily and dully; whereas, if they be varied, and have more life and vigour put into them by these forms and insinuations, they cause a stronger apprehension, and many times suddenly win the mind to a resolution. Lastly, to make a true and safe judgment, nothing can be of greater use and defence to the mind than the discovering and reprehension of these colours, showing in what cases they hold, and in what they deceive; which, as it cannot be done but out of a very universal knowledge of the nature of things, so being performed, it so cleareth man's judgment and election, as it is the less apt to slide into any error,

The original Colours are ten in number; in the De Augmentis, besides other alterations, they are arranged in a new order; and two are added,

The following stands Fifth in the De Augmentis, and First in the original publication ;—

Since all parties or sects challenge the pre-eminence of the first place to themselves, that to which all the rest with one consent give the second place, seems to be better than the

others. For every one seems to take the first place out of zeal to itself, but to give the second where it is really due.

So Cicero went about to prove the sect of Academics, which suspended all asseveration, for to be the best. "For," saith he, "ask a Stoic which philosophy is true, he will prefer his own: then ask him which approacheth (next) the truth, he will confess the Academics. So deal with the epicure that will scant endure the Stoic to be in sight of him : so soon as he hath placed himself he will place the Academics next him."

So if a prince took divers competitors to a place, and examined them severally whom next themselves they would rarest commend, it were like the ablest man should have the most second voices.

The fallax of this colour happeneth oft in respect of envy: for men are accustomed, after themselves, and their own fashion, to incline unto them which are softest and are least in their way, in despite and derogation of them that hold them hardest to it. So that this colour of meliority and pre-eminence is a sign of enervation and weakness.

Here is the Seventh of the De Augmentis, and the Fourth of the original edition :

That which keeps a matter safe and entire is good: but what is destitute and unprovided of a retreat is bad. For, whereas, all ability of acting is good, not to be able to withdraw one's self is a kind of impotency.

Hereof Æsop framed the fable of the two frogs that consulted together in the time of drought (when many plashes that they had repaired to were dry) what was to be done; and the one propounded to go down into a deep well, because it was like the water would not fail there;" but the other answered, "Yea, but if it do fail, how shall we get up again?" And the reason is, that human actions are so uncertain and subject to perils, as that seemeth the best course which hath most passages out of it. Appertaining to this persuasion the forms are, you shall engage yourself; on the other side, "tantum, quantum voles, sumes ex fortuna;" i. e. take what lot you will; or, you shall keep the matter on your own hand. The reprehension of it is, that proceeding and resolving in all actions is necessary. For, as he saith well, not to resolve is to resolve, and many times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth as far in some other sort as to resolve. So it is but the covetous man's disease translated in power; for the covetous man will enjoy nothing, be

cause he will have his full store and possibility to enjoy the more; so, by this reason, a man should execute nothing, because be should be still indifferent and at liberty to execute any thing. Besides necessity, and this same "jacta est alea," or once having cast the dice, hath many times an advantage, because it awaketh the powers of the mind and strengtheneth endeavour, " ceteris pares, necessitate certe superiores istis," (which are able to deal with any others, but master these upon necessity).

The following is the Eighth in both publications :

That which a man hath procured by his own default is a greater mischief (or evil); that which is laid on him by others is a lesser evil.

The reason is, because the sting and remorse of the mind accusing itself doubleth all adversity; contrariwise, the considering and recording inwardly that a man is clear and free from fault, and just imputation doth attemper outward calamities. For if the will be in the sense and in the conscience both, there is a germination of it; but if evil be in the one and comfort in the other, it is a kind of compensation. So the poets in tragedies do make the most passionate lamentation, and those that forerun final despair, to be accusing, questioning, and torturing of a man's self.

Seque unam clamat causamque caputque malorum :

She railing doth confess herself to be
The cause and source of her own misery.

And contrariwise the extremities of worthy persons have been annihilated in the consideration of their own good deserving. Besides, when the evil cometh from without, there is left a kind of evaporation of grief if it come by human injury, either by indignation and meditating of revenge from ourselves, or by expecting or fore-conceiving that Nemesis and retribution will take hold of the authors of our hurt; or if it be by fortune or accident, yet there is left a kind of expostulation against the divine powers:

Atque Deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater:

The Gods and cruel stars the mother chargeth.

But where the evil is derived from a man's own fault, there all strikes deadly inwards and suffocateth.

The reprehension of this colour is :

First, in respect of hope; for reformation of our fault is in

nostra potestate, our own power; but amendment of our fortune simply is not. Therefore Demosthenes in many of his orations saith thus to the people of Athens:-" That which having regard to the time past is the worse point and circumstance of all the rest; that as to the time to come is the best. What is that, even this, that by your sloth, irresolution, and misgovernment, your affairs are grown to this declination and decay. For had you used and ordered your means and forces to the best, and done your parts every way to the full, and, notwithstanding, your matters should have gone backward in this manner as they do, there had been no hope left of recovery or reputation. But since it hath been only by your own errors, &c." So Epictetus in his degrees saith, "The worst state of man is to excuse extern things, better than that to accuse any man's self, and best of all to accuse neither."

Another reprehension of this colour is in respect of the wellbearing of evils, wherewith a man can charge no body but himself, which maketh them the less :

Leve fit, quod bene fertur onus:

That burden's light, that's on discreetly laid.

And therefore many natures that are either extremely proud and will take no fault to themselves, or else very true and cleaving to themselves (when they see the blame of anything that falls out ill must light upon themselves), have no other shift but to bear it out well, and to make the least of it; for, as we see, when sometimes a fault is committed, and before it be known who is to blame, much ado is made of it, but after, if it appear to be done by a son, or by a wife, or by a near friend, then it is light made of it: so much more when a man must take it upon himself. And therefore it is commonly seen that women which marry husbands of their own choosing, against their friends' consents, if they be never so ill-used yet you shall seldom see them complain, but set a good face on it.

In the De Augmentis Bacon adds, that he has a great number more of such Colours, which he had collected in his youth, but without their illustrations and elenchi, or refutations; which at the present time he has no leisure to draw up. He thinks it best, therefore, not to produce them in their unclothed condition.

The collection of Colours, or Sophisms, as they are called in the De Augmentis, is followed by a second col

lection of what are called Antitheta Rerum (antithetical statements of things), which is described as pertaining to the promptuary part of Rhetoric. "Our meaning is," says Bacon (to quote Shaw's translation), "that all the places of common use, whether for proof, confutation, persuasion, dissuasion, praise, or dispraise, should be ready studied, and either exaggerated or degraded with the utmost effort of genius, or, as it were, perverse resolution, beyond all measure of truth. And the best way of forming this collection, both for conciseness and use, we judge to be that of contracting and winding up these places into certain acute and short sentences, as into so many clues, which may occasionally be wound off into larger discourses." "Brief and acute sentences," Bacon's own description in the Advancement, "not to be cited, but to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used; supplying authorities and examples by reference."

is

There are forty-seven of these Antitheta in all. In the following specimens Shaw's translation is adopted :

NOBILITY.
For.

Where virtue is deeply implanted from the stock, there can be no vice.

Nobility is a laurel conferred by time.

If we reverence antiquity in dead monuments; we should do it much more in living ones.

If we despise nobility in families, what difference is there betwixt men and brutes?

Nobility shelters virtue from envy, and recommends it to favour.

Against.

Nobility seldom springs from virtue; and virtue seldomer from nobility.

Nobles oftener plead their ancestors for pardon than promotion.

New rising men are so industrious, as to make nobles seem like statues.

Nobles, like bad racers, look back too often in the course.