I. OF TRUTH. To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to Sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of the WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate and would matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that de- face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a light into the face of his chosen. The poet that belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in beautified the sect," that was otherwise inferior to acting. And though the sects of philosophers of the rest, saith yet excellently well:-"It is a pleasthat kind be gone, yet there remain certain discours-ure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed ing wits, which are of the same veins, though thereupon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a be not so much blood in them as was in those of the castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standwhich men take in finding out of truth; nor again, ing upon the vantage ground of truth" (a hill not to that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's be commanded, and where the air is always clear and thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural serene), "and to see the errors, and wanderings, and though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later mists, and tempests, in the vale below: "h so always schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and that this prospect be with pity, and not with swellis at a stand to think what should be in it, that men ing or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to should love lies; where neither they make for pleas- have a man's mind move in charity, rest in proviure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the dence, and turn upon the poles of truth. merchant, but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied light. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy "vinum dæmonum," "e because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, He refers to the sect which followed the doctrines of but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that Epicurus. The life of Epicurus himself was pure and abstemious in the extreme. doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But how-that the aim of all speculation should be to enable men to One of his leading tenets was soever, these things are thus in men's depraved judg- judge with certainty what course is to be chosen in order ments and affections, yet truth, which only doth to secure health of body and tranquility of mind. The judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, this object, has at all periods subjected the Epicurean adoption, however, of the term "pleasure." as denoting which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowl-system to great reproach; which, in fact, is due rather to edge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the Sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense the last was the light of reason: and his He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: "Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all." He probably refers to the "New Academy," a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, "What is truth? Upon which they came to the unsatisfactory conclusion that mankind has no criterion by which to form a judgment. "The wine of evil spirits." d Genesis i. 3: "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul."—Genesis ii. 7. 1 Lucretius, the Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, is alluded to." the conduct of many who, for their own purposes, have taken shelter under the system in name only, than to the tenets themselves, which did not inculcate libertinism. Epicurus admitted the existence of the Gods, but he deprived them of the characteristics of Divinity either as creators or preservers of the world. h Lord Bacon has either translated this passage of Lucretius from memory, or has purposely paraphrased it. The following is the literal translation of the original: Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the dangers of another upon the mighty ocean, when the winds are lashing the main: not because it is a grateful pleasure for any one to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free: 'tis also a pleasant thing to behold the mighty contests of warfare, arrayed upon the plains, without a share in the danger: but nothing is there more delightful than to occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life.' • At the moment when "The Lord God formed man out 15 be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne' saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, saith he," If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man;" surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when "Christ cometh," he shall not "find faith upon the earth."k II.-OF DEATH.a he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make: for they appear to be the same men till the last instant Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment; "Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale." Tiberius in dis simulation, as Tacitus saith of him, "Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant: "Ves pasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool, Ut pute Deus fio:" Galba with a sentence, "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding forth his neck; Septimus Severus in dispatch, "Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum," and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, "qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponit naturæ."m It is as natural to die as to be born: and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time. scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is "Nunc dimittis," when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: "Extinctus amabitur idem.TM III.-OF UNITY IN RELIGION. MEN fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher, and natural man, it was well said, "Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa." Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked This was said as a reproof to his flatterers, and a many to die out of mere compassion to their sover-spirit is not unlike the rebuke administered by Canute to eign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: "Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest." A man would die, though RELIGION being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the may wish to die not only because either he is brave or Tiberius, but not his duplicity." "His bodily strength and vitality were now forsaking his retinue. h"I am become a Divinity, I suppose." "If it be for the advantage of the Roman people, strike."" k"If aught remains to be done by me, dispatch." These were the followers of Zeno, a philosopher of Citium, in Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or trines was the duty of making virtue the object of all cur researches. According to him, the pleasures of the mind were preferable to those of the body, and his disciples riches or poverty, pain or pleasure. were taught to view with indifference health or sickness, i Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French Essayist.School of the Portico," at Athens. The basis of his doc His Essays embrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and entertaining manner, and are replete with remarks indicative of strong native good sense." He died in 1592. The following quotation is from the second book of the Essays, c. 18:-"Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men; it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature: for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God?” k St. Luke xviii. 8: "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?" a A portion of this Essay is borrowed from the writings of Seneca. See his Letters to Lucilius, B. iv. Ep. 24 and 82. b"The array of the death-bed has more terrors than death itself." This quotation is from Seneca. e He probably alludes to the custom of hanging the room in black where the body of the deceased lay, a practice much more usual in Bacon's time than at the present day. d" Reflect how often you do the same things; a man m"Who reckons the close of his life among the boons of nature." Lord Bacon here quotes from memory; the passage is in the tenth Satire of Juvenal, and runs thus:"Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem. Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat Naturæ " "Pray for strong resolve, void of the fear of death, that reckons the closing period of life among the boons of nature." n He alludes to the song of Simeon, to whom the Hel Ghost had revealed "that he should not see death.befor he had seen the Lord's Christ." When he beheld the infant Jesus in the Temple, he took the child in his “ and burst forth into a song of thanksgiving, commereinz. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, ac cording to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy saiva tion."-St. Luke ii. 29. 。 “When dead, the same person shall be beloved." heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any constant belief: for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bounds; and what the means. The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest seandals: yea, more than corruption of manners: for as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humor, so in the spiritual: so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity: and therefore whensoever it cometh to that pass that one saith," Ecce in Deserto," another saith, "Ecce in penetralibus; that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, “ nolite exire,”—“go not out." The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, "If a heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad?" and, certainly, it is little better: when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church, and maketh them "to sit down in the chair of the scorners."d It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library sets down this title of a book, "The Morris-Dance" of Heretics:" for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politicians, who are apt to contemn holy things. pacification is odious. "Is it peace, Jehu ?"—"What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me. Peace is not the matter, but following, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done if the league of Christians, penned by our Saviour himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded: "He that is not with us, is against us;" and again, “ He that is not against us, is with us;" that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and done already; but if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally. .h Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God's church by two kinds of controversies; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, "Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's vesture was of divers colors;" whereupon he saith, "In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit," they be two things, unity and uniformity; the other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over great subtility and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree: and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing; and accepteth of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he givAs for the fruit towards those that are within, it is eth concerning the same; "Devita profanas vocum peace, which containeth infinite blessings; it estab- novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis scientiæ." lisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outward Men create oppositions which are not, and put them peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, into new terms, so fixed as, whereas the meaning and it turneth the labors of writing and reading of ought to govern the term, the term in effect governcontroversies into treatises of mortification and de-eth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or votion. unities: the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance; for all colors will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points. for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate. Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes: for to certain zealots all speech of a "Behold, he is in the Desert."-St. Matthew xxiv. 26. "Behold, he is in the secret chambers."-St. Matthew xxiv. 26. He alludes to 1 Corinthians xiv. 23:-" If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?" Psalm 1.1 "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." This dance, which was originally called the Morisco dance, is supposed to have been derived from the Moors of Spain; the dancers in earlier times blackening their faces to resemble Moors. It was probably a corruption of the ancient Pyrrhic dance, which was performed by men in armor, and which is mentioned as still existing in Greece, in Byron's "Song of the Greek Captive:" "You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet "Attitude and gesture formed one of the characteristics of the dance. It is still practised in some parts of England. Concerning the means of procuring unity, men f 2 Kings ix. 18. He alludes to the words in Revelations, c. iii v. 14, "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful sad true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I will spue thee out of my mouth." Laodicea was a city of Asia Minor. St. Paulestablished the church there which is here referred to. h St. Matthew xii. 30. "In the garment there may be many colors, but let there be no rending of it." k"Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.-1 Tim. vi. 20. He alludes to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, significant of the limited duration of his kingdom. See Daniel ii. 33, 41. must beware that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion: but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword," or like unto it: that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed: "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."n IV. OF REVENGE. REVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law p weed it out: for as for the first wrong, it doth ba offend the law, but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge. a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing n over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardonand Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of a man to pass by an offense." That which is est gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong s sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleas ure, or honor, or the like; therefore why should 1 te angry with a man for loving himself better than me And if any man should do wrong merely out of allnature, why yet it is but like the thorn or briar, whiế prick and scratch, because they can do no other. Th most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then, let a mar take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh this is the more generous; for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, Duke c Florence, had a desperate saying against pertid.ets or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpar donable. "You shall read," saith he, "that we ar commanded to forgive our enemies; but you neve read that we are commanded to forgive our friends' But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: "Sha we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not t content to take evil also?" and so of friends in a What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, or the powder treason of Eng-punish, else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it land? He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people; let that be left unto the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, "I will ascend and be like the Highest;" but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in saying, "I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness:" and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery of people and subversion of states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the like-proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth ness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of the bark of a Christian church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins; therefore it is most necessary that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod, do damn, and send to hell forever those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same; as hath been already in good part done. Surely in councils concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, "Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei: "r and it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less ingenuously confessed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences, were commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends. m Mahomet proselytized by giving to the nations which he conquered the option of the Koran or the sword. n "To deeds so dreadful could religion prompt." The poet refers to the sacrifice by Agamemnon, the Grecian leader, of his daughter Iphigenia, with the view of appeasing the wrath of Diana. • He alludes to the massacre of the Huguenots, or Protestants, in France, which took place on St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, 1572, by the order of Charles IX, and his mother, Catherine de Medici. On this occasion about 60,000 persons perished, including the Admiral de Coligny, one of the most virtuous men that France possessed, and the mainstay of the Protestant cause. p More generally known as "the Gunpowder Plot." q Allusion is made to the "caduceus," with which Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, summoned the souls of the departed to the infernal regions. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."--James i. 20. revenge keeps his own wounds green, which other wise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax; for the death of Henry the Third of France; and many more. Eat in private revenges it is not so; nay, rather vindie tive persons live the life of witches: who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate. V. OF ADVERSITY. It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that, "the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired." ("Bons These words as here quoted, are not to be found in the writings of Solomon, though doubtless the sentiment is b He alludes to Cosmo de Medici, or Cosmo I., chief of and the fine arts. the Republic of Florence, the encourager of literatur e Job ii. 10-"Shall we receive good at the hand of God. and shall we not receive evil?" d By "public revenges," he means punishment awarded by the state with the sanction of the laws. . He alludes to the retribution dealt by Augustus and Antony to the murderers of Julius Cesar. It is related by ancient historians, as a singular fact, that not one of them died a natural death. f Henry III of France was assassinated in 1599, by Jacques Clement, a Jacobin monk, in the frenzy of fanaticism Although Clement justly suffered punishment, the end of this bloodthirsty and bigoted tyrant may be justly deemed a retrioution dealt by the hand of an offended Providence; so truly does the poet say: "neque enim lex æquior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.") | her husband, and dissimulation of her son; attribut Certainly, if miracles be the command over nature, ing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher Tiberius: " and again, when Mucianus encourageth speech of his than the other (much too high for a Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, heathen), "It is true greatness to have in one the "We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augusfrailty of a man, and the security of a God." (Vere tus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius." magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation Dei.") This would have done better in poesy, where or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, transcendencies are more allowed; and the poets, and to be distinguished; for if a man have that peneindeed, have been busy with it; for it is in effect the tration of judgment as he can discern what things thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mys- to be showed at half-lights, and to whom and when tery; nay and to have some approach to the state of a (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Christian, "that Hercules, when he went to unbind Tacitus well calleth them), to him a habit of dissimuPromethus (by whom human nature is represented), lation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or cannot attain to that judgment, then it is left to him pitcher," lively describing Christian resolution, that generally to be close, and a dissembler: for where a saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is waves of the world. But to speak in a mean, the good to take the safest and wariest way in general, virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of ad- like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. versity is fortitude, which in morals is the more he- Certainly, the ablest men that ever were, have had roical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, of certainty and veracity: but then they were like which carrieth the greater benediction, and the horses well managed, for they could tell passing well clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the when to stop or turn; and at such times when they Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the then they used it, it came to pass that the former pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in de- opinion spread abroad, of their good faith and clearscribing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Sol-ness of dealing, made them almost invisible. omon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. VI.-OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it: therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers. Tacitus saith, "Livia sorted well with the arts of Stesichorus, Appollodorus, and others. Lord Bacon makes a similar reference to this myth in his treatise "On the Wisdom of the Ancients "It is added with great elegance, to console and strengthen the minds of men, that This mighty hero (Hercules) sailed in a cup or 'urceus,' in order that they may not too much fear and allege the narrowness of their nature and its frailty; as if it were not capable of such fortitude and constancy; of which very thing Seneca argued well, when he said, 'It is a great thing to have at the same time the frailty of a man, and the security of a God." Funereal airs. It must be remembered that many of the Psalms of David were written by him when persecuted by Saul, as also in the tribulation caused by the wicked conduct of his son Absalom. Some of them, too, though called "The Psalms of David," were really composed by the Jews in their captivity at Babylon; as, for instance, the 137th Psalm, which so beautifully commences, "By the waters of Babylon there we sat down." One of them is supposed to be the composition of Moses. e This fine passage, beginning at "Prosperity is the blessing," which was not published till 1625, twenty-eight years after the first Essays, has been quoted by Macaulay, with considerable justice, as a proof that the writer's fancy did not decay with the advance of old age, and that his style in his latter years became richer and softer. The learned Critic contrasts this passage with the terse style of the Essay of Studies (Essay 50), which was published in 1597. There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self: the first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without obser vation, or without hold to be taken, what he is: th second, dissimulation in the negative; when a ma lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that h is: and the third, simulation in the affirmative; whe a man industriously and expressly feigns and pre tends to be that he is not. For the first of these, secrecy, it is indeed the vir tue of a confessor; and assuredly the secret mat heareth many confessions; for who will open him self to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery, as the more close ait revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a sucketh in the more open; and, as in confession, the many things in that kind; while men rather disman's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of charge their minds than impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say truth), nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as manners and actions, if they be not altogether open. body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's As for talkers, and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal: for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not; therefore set it down, that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral and in this part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's word. many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he For the second, which is dissimulation, it followeth that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree; for men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that without an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his a A word now unused, signifying the "traits" or "fentures." |