NOTE. It is suggested that the student prepare himself for an examination on the following topics of the preceding Sketch :

1. Parentage and birth of Francis Bacon. Evidences of precocious genius. Anecdotes of his boyhood. Character of his mother. His course as a student at Trinity College. His journey to France, and his pursuits while there.

2. His reasons for engaging in the study of the Law. Treatment received from his uncle, Lord Burleigh? What official appointments did Bacon successively receive? Ben Jonson's eulogium upon Bacon? Bacon's connection with Essex, and his dishonorable conduct in reference to him? The occasion of Bacon's wrong-doing in this, and in other instances subsequently? Fischers's admirable analysis of Bacon's character and of his conduct in regard to Essex?

3. What grew out of Burleigh's disparagement of Bacon's legal attainments and capabilities? Bacon's disappointment in a marriage proposal?

4. Bacon's conduct towards King James. The favorable characteristic ascribed to the latter. His favor towards Bacon and others? The employments of Bacon's leisure hours at this period? The scope of his 'Advancement of Learning?' Its effect upon the cause of science in Europe. In what languages did Bacon's Essays appear? What legal work did he prepare, and what reforms in law proceedings did he introduce?

5. What abuse of law and of honor does Macauley charge upon him at this period? In what sense was Bacon before his age, and in what sense behind it? Contrast between Bacon in his library, and Bacon at Whitehall? 6. How Bacon incurred the displeasure of Buckingham? What danger to Bacon, Buckingham's displeasure involved? His bondage to Buckingham? What base and unworthy compliances did he descend to? Dr. Fischer's account of Bacon's corrupt conduct under Buckingham's influence? Whence Bacon's rapacity arose? The enviable outward position of Bacon just before his downfall? His latest honors? His arraignment-his sentence, and his conduct under the circumstances? Was his confession of guilt prompted by penitence? How far the sentence was carried into effect? What is the substance of Montagu's defence of Bacon's character?

7. On going into retirement, what literary works did he execute? Why did he give to most of his works a Latin dress? What imparted dignity to his last years? What mournful consciousness does his last Will discover, and what memorable and oft quoted words does it contain?

8. Bacon's habits of study? What use did he make of books? His favorite Latin author? His acquaintance with Greek authors? His standing as a writer and speaker? To what is his fame, as such, in part attributed? Devey's panegyric? Burke's also?

BACON'S PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS.

Ir does not fall within the scope of the present work to present a full and critical account of these writings, and yet a general notice of them cannot be omitted. The subject has its difficulties, and, to be fully understood, prolonged and careful study must be employed. Some of the best writers differ greatly in their views and estimates; for example, Prof. Kuno Fischer of Heidelberg (in the Philosophy and Times of Bacon), and Mr. Macauley, in his famous Review of Montagu's Edition of Bacon's Works. It must be conceded, that, in the latter, great injustice has been done to the ancient philosophy, and that a far less discriminating and reliable analysis has been given of the Baconian philosophy than may be found in 'Hallam's Literature,' Vol. II, and yet it is a most fascinating production, and an extract will be given hereafter in praise of the grandeur of Bacon's intellect as displayed therein.

HALLAM, after speaking of the favorable reception which Bacon's philosophical writings, immediately after their publication, met with on the continent among scientific men, expresses a doubt whether he was adequately valued by his countrymen in his own time, or in the immediately subsequent period, and then adds:-"Under the first Stuarts, there was but little taste among studious men but for theology, and chiefly for a theology which, proceeding with an extreme deference to authority, could not but generate a disposition of mind, even upon other subjects, alien to the progressive and inquisitive spirit of the inductive philosophy. The institution of the Royal Society, or, rather, the love of physical science out of which that institution arose, in the second part of the seventeenth century, made England resound with the name of her illustrious Chancellor. Few now spoke of him without a kind of homage that only the

greatest men receive. Yet still it was by natural philosophers alone that the writings of Bacon were much studied. The editions of his works, except his Essays, were few; the Novum Organum' never came separately from the English press. They were not even much quoted; for I believe it will be found that the fashion of referring to the brilliant passages of the 'De Augmentis' and the Novum Organum,' at least in books designed for the general reader, is not much older than the close of the last century. Scotland has the credit of having led the way; Reid, Stewart, Robison, and Playfair turned that which had been a blind veneration into a rational worship; and I should suspect that more have read Lord Bacon within these thirty [now sixty] years than in the two preceding centuries. It may be a usual consequence of the enthusiastic panegyrics lately poured upon his name, that a more positive efficacy has been attributed to his philosophical writings than they really possessed; and it might be asked whether Italy, where he was probably not much known, were not the true school of experimental philosophy in Europe; whether his methods of investigation were not chiefly such as men of sagacity and lovers of truth might simultaneously have devised. But, whatever may have been the case with respect to actual discoveries in science, we must give to written wisdom its proper meed. No books, prior to those of Lord Bacon, carried mankind so far on the road to truth; none have obtained so thorough a triumph over arrogant usurpation without seeking to substitute another; and he may be compared with those liberators of nations, who have given them laws by which they might govern themselves, and retained no homage but their gratitude.”

Mr. MACAULEY indulges in a more laudatory and rhetori cal declamation upon the surpassing influence and high character of Bacon as a philosophical writer. One or two paragraphs only will now be introduced :—

"To give to the human mind a direction which it shall retain for ages, is the rare prerogative of a few imperial spirits. It cannot, therefore, be uninteresting to inquire, what was the moral and intellectual constitution which enabled Bacon to exercise so vast an influence on the world. In the temper of Bacon-we speak of Bacon the philosopher, not of Bacon the lawyer and politician-there was a singular union of audacity and sobriety. Closely connected with this peculiarity of Bacon's temper, was a striking peculiarity of his understanding. With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The glance with which he surveyed the intellectual universe resembled that which the archangel, from the golden threshold of heaven, darted down into the new crcation : "Round he surveyed-and well might, where he stood So high above the circling canopy

Of night's extended shade-from eastern point

Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears

Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

Beyond the horizon."

The mode in which he communicated his thoughts was exceedingly peculiar. He had no touch of that disputatious temper which he often censured in his predecessors. He effected a vast intellectual revolution in opposition to a vast mass of prejudices; yet he never engaged in any controversy; nay we cannot at present recollect, in all his philosophical works, a single passage of a controversial character. All those works might with propriety have been put into the form which he adopted in the work entitled Cogitata et Visa: "Franciscus Baconus sic cogitavit." These are thoughts which have occurred to me; weigh them well, and take them or leave them."

"Without disparagement to the admirable treatise, De Augmentis, we must say that, in our judgment, Bacon's greatest performance is the first book of the Novum Organum. All the peculiarities of his extraordinary mind are found there in the highest perfection. Many of the aphorisms, but particularly those in which he gives examples of the

influence of the idola, show a nicety of observation that has never been surpassed. Every part of the book blazes with wit, but with wit which is employed only to illustrate and decorate truth. No book ever made so great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so many prejudices, introduced so many new opinions. Yet no book was ever written in a less contentious spirit. Proposition after proposition enters into the mind, is received not as an invader, but as a welcome friend, and though previously unknown, becomes at once domesticated. But what we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect which, without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science-all the past, the present and the future; all the errors of two thousand years; all the encouraging signs of the passing times; all the bright hopes of the coming age. Cowley, who was among the most ardent, and not among the least discerning followers of the new philosophy, has, in one of his finest poems, compared Bacon to Moses standing on Mount Pisgah. It is to Bacon, we think, as he appears in the first book of the Novum Organum, that the comparison applies with peculiar felicity. There we see the great Lawgiver looking round from his lonely elevation on an infinite expanse; behind him a wilderness of dreary lands and bitter waters in which successive generations sojourned, always moving, yet never advancing, reaping no harvest and building no abiding city; before him a goodly land, a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey."

The train of remark that follows, so far as the influential character of Bacon's philosophical writings is concerned, is not so favorable and ardent as that of Mr. Macauley, but it seems to be more worthy of credit and acceptance. It is from the History of England by Craik and MacFarlane (Vol. III, pp. 611, 612):—

"The originality of the Baconian or Inductive method of philosophy, the actual service it has rendered to science, and