A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON FAME. THE poets make Fame a monster; they describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously; they say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks up so many ears, This is a flourish: there follow excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going; that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds; that in the day-time she sitteth in a watch-tower, and flieth most by night; that she mingleth things done with things not done; and that she is a terror to great cities: but that which passeth all the rest is, they do recount that the earth, mother of the giants that made war against Jupiter, and were by him destroyed, thereupon in anger brought forth Fame; for certain it is that rebels, figured by the giants, and seditious fames' and libels, are but brothers and sisters, masculine and feminine; but now if a man can tame this monster, and bring her to feed at the hand, and govern her, and with her fly' other ravening3 fowl and kill them, it is somewhat worth. But we are infected with the style of the poets. To speak now in a sad1 and serious manner, there is not in all the politics a place less handled, and more worthy to be handled, than this of fame; we will therefore speak of these points; what are false fames, and what are true fames, and how they may be best discerned," how fames may be sown and raised, how they may be spread and multiplied, and how they may be checked and laid dead, and other 1 Fames. Reports; rumours. See page 139. 2 Fly. To fly at ; to attack. Fly everything you see, and censure it freely.'-Ben Jonson. 3 Ravening. Ps, xxii. 13. 5 'A sad wise valour is the brave complexion That leads the van.'-Herbert. Grave. Discerned. Distinguished. Then shalt thou return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.'-Mal. iii. 18. 1 3 things concerning the nature of fame. Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to move the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy.* Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment; and it is a usual thing with the bashaws to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, King of Persia, post apace out of Grecia,' by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart the Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are, the less they need to be repeated, because a man meeteth with them everywhere; wherefore, let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs themselves. 1 As. That. See page 23. 5 8 9 2 Undid. Ruined. (Not so frequently used in this sense as are the other tenses of the verb 'to undo.') 'Where, with like haste, through several ways they run, 8 Tacit. Hist. ii. 80. Tacit. Ann. i. 5. Apace. Speedily. 4 Cæs. de Bel. Civ. i. 6. 'Ay, quoth my Uncle Glo'ster, Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace; And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast, Because sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make haste.'-Shakespere. 7 Grecia. Greece. Through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.'-Dan. xi. 2. 8 Athwart. Across. Execrable shape! That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance 9 Vid. Herod. viii. 108, 109. ANNOTATIONS. [This Essay is reckoned a fragment, as it is supposed Bacon must have written much more on the subject: but it is complete as far as it goes; and there are many of the other Essays that would have borne to be much enlarged.] 'Fame is of that force as there is scarcely any great action. wherein it hath not a great part, as meeteth with them everywhere.' a man By 'fame,' Bacon means what we call 'report,' or 'rumour, or the French on dit. One remarkable instance of the effects produced by rumours might be added to those Bacon mentions. When Buonaparte's return from Elba was plotted, his partisans went all about France, pretending to seek to purchase land; and when in treaty for a field, and seemingly about to close the bargain, they inquired about the title; and when they found, as they generally did, that it was land which had been confiscated at the Revolution, they broke off at once, declaring that the title was insecure thus spreading throughout France the notion that the Bourbons meditated the resumption of all those lands-the chief part of France-to restore them to the former owners. And thus, most of the proprietors were eager for their downfall. : 6 Some remarks on political predictions, already made in my notes on the Essay Of Prophecies,' might come in under this head. 'Let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames as they have of the actions and designs themselves.' The necessity of this watchfulness from the effects produced by them seems to have been recognised at a very early period in our legislative history. We have before noticed a statute respecting them made in the reign of Edward the First. It enacts that 'forasmuch as there have been oftentimes found in the country Devisors of Tales, whereby discord [or occasion] of discord hath arisen many times between the King and his people, or great men of this realm; for the damage that hath and may thereof ensue; it is commanded, that from henceforth none be so hardy to tell or publish any false news or tales, whereby discord, or [matter] of discord or slander may grow between the King and his people, or the great men of the realm; and he that doth so shall be taken and kept in prison, until he hath brought him into the Court which was the first which did speak the same.'-3 Edw. I. Stat. Westmonast. 1, c. xxxiv. The framing and circulating of 'politic fames' might have been set down by Bacon as one of the points of cunning. THE PRAISE OF KNOWLEDGE. SILENCE were the best celebration of that which I mean to commend; for who would not use silence, where silence is not made? and what crier can make silence in such a noise and tumult of vain and popular opinions? My praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is the man, and the knowledge of the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The mind itself is but an accident to knowledge, for knowledge is a double of that which is. The truth of being, and the truth of knowing, is all one; and the pleasures of the affections greater than the pleasures of the senses. And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the pleasures of the affections? Is it not a true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is no satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of all perturbations? How many things are there which we imagine not! How many things do we esteem and value otherwise than they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, these vain imaginations, these be the clouds of error that turn into the storms of perturbation. Is there any such happiness as for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have the prospect of the order of nature, and the error of men? Is this but a vein only of delight, and not of discovery?—of contentment, and not of benefit? Shall we not as well discern the riches of nature's warehouse as the benefit of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall we not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities? But shall I make this garland to be put upon a wrong head? Would any body believe me if I should verify this, upon the knowledge that is now in use? Are we the richer by one poor invention, by reason of all the learning that hath been these many hundred years? The industry of artificers maketh some small improvement of things invented; and chance sometimes, in experimenting,' maketh us to stumble upon some 1 1 Experiment. To make experiments. 'Francisco Redi, by experimenting found that . . . ?—Ray. |