should be like mines, resounding on all sides with new works, and farther progress. And thus it ought to be, according to right reason; but the case, in fact, is quite otherwise. For the abovementioned administration and policy of schools and universities generally opposes and greatly prevents the improvement of the sciences.”

It is not the correctness of these opinions respecting universities, which is now attempted to be investigated. The only object is to explain the similarity of the sentiments in this tract, entitled “ Valerius Terminus," and the “ Novum Organum;" but it seems not undeserving observation that this opinion must have been entertained by him very early in life, probably when resident in Cambridge, which he quitted soon after he was sixteen years of age, when the torpor of university pursuits would ill accord with his active mind, anxious only to invent and advance. At this early period, he, without considering whether universities are not formed rather for diffusing the knowledge of our predecessors, than for the discovery of unexplored truths; without considering the evil of youthful attempts not to believe first what others know, would naturally feel that in the universities of Europe they learn nothing but to believe: first, to believe that others know that which they know not; and after, themselves know that which they know not.” He would naturally enough say, “ They are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal.” But this opinion, thus early impressed upon his mind, seems to have been regulated in the year 1605, when he published the Advancement of Learning, and where, in his tract upon universities, after having enumerated many of their defects, he says, « The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been, or very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already sufficiently laboured or undertaken."1

7.

DE CALORE ET FRIGORE.
This is obviously the rudiment of the Affirmative Table in the Novum Organum.

Ø 8.

6

HELPS FOR INTELLECTUAL POWERS. The tract entitled “ Helps for Intellectual Powers,” was published by Rawley in his Resuscitatio, in 1657.

In a letter from Gruter to Dr. Rawley, dated July 1, 1659, and thanking him for a present of Lord Bacon's Posthumous Works, in Latin, (probably Opuscula cum Vita, published in 1658,) he says, “ one paper I wonder I saw not amongst them, The Epistle of the Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Savil, about the Helps of the Intellectual Powers,' spoken of long ago in your letters under that, or some such title, if my memory does not deceive me. If it was not forgotten and remains among your private papers, I should be glad to see a copy of it, in the use of which, my faithfulness shall not be wanting. But, perhaps, it is written in the English tongue, and is a part of that greater volume, which contains only his English works."9

§ 9.

THE APOPHTHEGMES. In the Advancement of Learning, Bacon divides the Appendices to History into—1. Memorials. 2. Epistles. 3. Apophthegmes. And, after lamenting the loss of Cæsar's book of Apophthegmes, he says, “ as for those which are collected by others, either I have no taste in such matters, or else their choice hath not been happy:" but yet it seems that he had stored his mind with a collection of these · Mucrones Verborum,” as, for his recreation in his sickness in the year preceding his death, he fanned the old, and dictated what he thought worth preservation.

Archbishop Tenison, in his Baconiana, page 47, says,

“ The Apophthegmes (of which the first3 is the best Edition) were (what he saith also of his Essays) but as the Recreations of his other Studies. They were dictated one morning, out of his memory; and if they seem to any, a birth too inconsiderable for the brain of so great a man ; they may think with themselves how little a time he went with it, and from thence make some allowance. Besides, his lordship hath received much injury by late editions, of which some have much enlarged, but not at all enriched the collection; stuffing it with tales and sayings, too infacetious for a ploughman's chimney-corner. And particularly, in the collection not long since published, and call'd The Apoflegms of King James, King Charles, the Marquess of Worcester, the Lord Bacon, and Sir Thomas Afoor; his Lordship is dealt with very rudely. For besides the addition of insipid tales, there are some put in which are beastly and immoral :1 such as were fitter to be joyned to Aretine, or Aloysia, than to have polluted the chaste labours of the Baron of Verulam."

And Stephens, in the preface to the Memoirs, published in 1734, when speaking of Blackburn's edition of Bacon, says,

“Would any one, that had consulted the reputation of the Lord Bacon, or indeed his own, have published several Apophthegmes under his Lordship’s Name, which he himself, as well as Dr. Tenison, allowed to be scandalous and spurious ? Those which his Lordship compiled as an amusement, during his indisposition in the year 1625, were printed in the same year, amounting to the number of two hundred and eighty: And were not reprinted by Doctor Rawley in the first edition of the Resuscitatio in 1657: but, upon the republishing that work, with a dedication to King Charles the Second, the Bookseller contrived to insert them with some alteration and additions ; which, instead of increasing, diminished the value of the whole.”?

This volume contains a copy of the first edition of 1625, with an appendix containing the Apophthegmes, published by Archbishop Tenison in his Baconia. I have, to use Bacon's own words, fanned the collection published under his name, and rejected the spurious additions. They are inserted in a note. 4

The use which Lord Bacon made of these - Mucrones Verborum,” may be seen by comparing Apophthegme 251, with the same anecdote as incorporated in the Advancement of Learning.

10.

6

THE ORNAMENTA RATIONALIA, &c. Are inserted from the Baconiana.—The short notes, of which there is a MS. in the British Museum,5 are taken from the Remains published in 1645.—The Essay on Death, of which there is a Manuscript in the British Museum, is inserted from the Remains.

I know not by what authority this fragment is ascribed to Lord Bacon. It appears not to be in his style ; and, excepting the following passages, I do not find any similarity in this Essay with his general sentiments upon death;

PAGE 133 OF THIS VOLUME. - There is nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die, than the quieted conscience, strengthened with opinion that we shall be well spoken of upon earth by those that are just and of the family of virtue; the opposite whereof is a fury to man, and makes even life unsweet.

“ Therefore, what is more heavy than evil fame deserved? Or, likewise, who can see worse days, than he that yet living doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation."

PAGE 12 OF THIS VOLUME, 6 A mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolours of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, Nunc dimittis,' when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations." 1 Ex. gr. Apotheg. 183, 184. 9 But note that this edition was published in 1661, during Rawley's life, who died in 1667.

: Amongst the Apophthegmes inserted in the note, the following, which, from its internal evidence, I can scarcely think spurious, would have admirably illustrated Bacon's favourite opinion, that all men should be engaged in active life ; that, in this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

" When his Lordship was newly advanced to the Great Seal, Gondomar came to visit him : My Lord said, “That he was to thank God and the King for that honour; but yet, so he might be rid of the burthen, he could very willingly forbear the honour. And that he formerly had a desire, and the same continued with him still, to lead a private life. Gondomar answered, that he would tell him a tale, 'Of an old rat that would needs leave the world : and acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days solitary; and would enjoy no more comfort: and commended them upon his high displeasure, not to offer to come in unto him. They forbore two or three days; at last, one that was more hardy than the rest, incited some of his fellows to go in with him, and he would venture to see how his father did; for he might be dead. They went in, and found the old rat sitting in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese.' So he applied the fable after his witty manner.'

• See end of Apophthegmes. * Lansdowne Collection, No. 205, fo. 217. • Harleian, vol. ii. p. 196.

action

the

light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then I. OF TRUTH.

he breathed light into the face of man; and still not What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would

he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of ***

his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that

that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to

excellently well : “ It is a pleasure to stand upon fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of phi

the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a losophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and certain discoursive wits, which are of the same low: but no pleasure is comparable to the stand

to see a battle, and the adventures thereof beveins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only ing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not/ the difficulty and labour which men take in find- to be commanded, and where the air is always ing out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanit imposeth upon men’s thoughts, that doth bring low:")* always that this prospect be with pity,

derings, and mists, and tempests in the vale be- lies in favour, but a natural though corrupt of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move

Love and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love

in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon Butres or where neither they make for pleasure, as

poles of truth. with poets; nor for advantage, as with the mer

To pass from theological and philosophical

truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acchant, but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell 2 this same truth is a naked and open daylight, knowledged even by those that practise it nota that doth not show the masks, and mummeries,

that clean and round dealing is the honour of man's and triumphs of the world, half so stately and nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy daintily as candlelights, Truth may perhaps metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For

in coin of gold and silver, which may make the come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by these winding and crooked courses are the goings day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.

of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice jany man doubt, that if there were taken out of that doth so cover a man with shame as to be men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes,

found false and perfidious; and therefore MonNu false valuations, imaginations as one would, and taigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason,

the like, but it would leave the minds of a number why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy well weighed, to say that a manlieth, is as much

and such an odious charge, saith he, “ If it be and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fatherş, in great severity, called poesy

as to say, that he is brave towards. God, and cinum daemonum,” because it filleth the ima

coward towards men. For a lie facés God, and gination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie.

shrinks from man.” Surely the wickedness of But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that so highly expressed; as in that it shall be the last doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. / But peal to call the judgments of God upon the genera howsoever these things are thus in men's de- tions of men : it being foretold, that when «Christ praved judgments and affections (yet truth, which cometh,” he shall not « find Faith'upon

the earth.” only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of

II. OF DEATH.*

> it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence Men fear death, as children fear to go into of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoy the dark; and as that natural fear in children is ing of it, is the sovereign good of human nature increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, The first creaturd of God, in the works of the the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, days, was the light of the sense: the last was the and passage to another world, is holy and relilight of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since, gious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nais the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed * See note A, at the end of the Essays.

a

ture, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition.

III. OF UNITY IN RELIGION.* You shall read in some of the friars' books of Religion being the chief band of human society, mortification, that a man should think with him- it is a happy thing when itself is well contained self, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's within the true band of unity. The quarrels and end pressed or tortured ; and thereby imagine divisions about religion were evils unknown to what the pains of death are, when the whole body the heathen. The reason was, because the reliis corrupted and dissolved; when many times gion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and death passeth with less pain than the torture of a ceremonies, than in any constant belief: for you limb: for the most vital parts are not the quickest may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when of sense. And by him that spake only as a phi- the chief doctors and fathers of their church were losopher, and natural man, it was well said, the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, “ Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa.” that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worGroans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, ship and religion will endure no mixture nor partand friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, ner. We shall therefore speak a few words conand the like, show death terrible. It is worthy cerning the unity of the church ; what are the fruits the observing, that there is no passion in the thereof; what the bounds; and what the means. mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters The fruits of unity (next unto the well pleasing the fear of death; and therefore death is no such of God, which is all in all) are two; the one toterrible enemy when a man hath so many attend-wards those that are without the church, the other ants about him that can win the combat of him. towards those that are within. For the former, Revenge triumphs over death ; love slights it; it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all honour aspireth to it ; griefflieth to it; fear pre-oc- others the greatest scandals; yea, more than corcupateth it: nay, we read, after Otho the empe- ruption of manners: for as in the natural body a ror had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest wound or solution of continuity is worse than a of affections) provoked many to die out of mere corrupt humour, so in the spiritual: so that nocompassion to their sovereign, and as the truest thing doth so much keep men out of the church, sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and drive men out of the church, as breach of and satiety : Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; unity ; and, therefore, whensoever it cometh to mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam that pass that one saith, “ecce in deserto,” anfastidiosus potest.” A man would die, though he other saith, “ecce in penetralibus;" that is, when were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heri. weariness to do the same thing so oft and over and tics, and others in an outward face of a church, over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little al- that voice had need continually to sound in men's teration in good spirits the approach of death make: cars, “ nolite exire,”—“go not out.” The doctor for they appear to be the same men till the last of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: drew him to have a special care of those without) “Livia, conjugii nostra memor, vive et vale." saith, “If a heathen come in, and hear you speak Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, with several tongues, will he not say that you are “ Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, mad ?" and, certainly, it is little better: when deserebant:" Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon atheists and profane persons do hear of so many the stool, “ Ut puto Deus fio:" Galba with a sen- discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it tence, « Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,” holding doth avert them from the church, and maketh forth his neck: Septimus Severus in despatch, them, “ to sit down in the chair of the scorners." “ Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum,” and the It is but a light thing to be vouched in so serious like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. cost upon death, and by their great preparations There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, of books of a feigned library, sets down this title “qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat of a book, “The Morris-Dance of Heretics;" for, naturæ.” It is as natural to die as to be born ; indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, . and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as pain- or cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move ful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pur- derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who suit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; are apt to contemn holy things. who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and As for the fruit towards those that are within, therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings; that is good, doth avert the dolours of death ; but, it establisheth faith ; it kindleth charity; the outabove all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, ward peace of the church distilleth into peace of “ Nunc dimittis” when a man hath obtained wor- conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing thy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, and reading of controversies into treatises of more that it openeth the good fame, and extmguisheth tification and devotion. envy: “ Extinctus amabitur idem."

66

Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing points : for truth and falsehood, in such things, of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebube two extremes : for to certain zealots all speech chadnezzar's image; they may cleave, but they of pacification is odious. “Is it peace, Jehu ?"- will not incorporate. “What hast thou to do with peace ? turn thee Concerning the means of procuring unity, men behind me.” Peace is not the matter, but fol- must beware that, in the procuring or muniting lowing, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodi- of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deceans and lukewarm persons think they may ac- face the laws of charity and of human society. commodate points of religion by middle ways, There be two swords amongst Christians, the and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, spiritual and temporal; and both have their due as if they would make an arbitrement between office and place in the maintenance of religion: God and man. Both these extremes are to be but we may not take up the third sword, which is avoided; which will be done if the league of Mahomet's sword, or like unto it: that is, to proChristians, penned by our Saviour himself, were pagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persein the two cross clauses thereof soundly and cutions to force consciences; except it be in cases plainly expounded : “He that is not with us is of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of against us ;” and again, “ He that is not against practice against the state; much less to nourish us is with us;" that is, if the points fundamental

, seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; and of substance in religion, were truly discerned to put the sword into the people's hands, and the and distinguished from points not merely of faith, like, tending to the subversion of all government, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to a thing may seem to many a matter trivial, and dash the first table against the second; and so to done already; but if it were done less partially, consider men as Christians, as we forget that it would be embraced more generally.

they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beOf this I may give only this advice, according held the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the to my small model. Men ought to take heed of sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed: rending God's church by two kinds of controver- “Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." sies; the one is, when the matter of the point What would he have said, if he had known of controverted is too small and light, not worth the the massacre in France, or the powder treason of heat and strife about it, kindled only by contra- England ? He would have been seven times more diction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers, epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temChrist's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's poral sword is to be drawn with great circumspecvesture was of divers colours; whereupon he tion in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous saith, “ in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit,” to put it into the hands of the common people; they be two things, unity and uniformity; the let that be left unto the anabaptists, and other fuother is, when the matter of the point controverted ries. It was great blasphemy, when the devil

is great, but it is driven to an over great subtilty said, “I will ascend and be like the Highest;": pand obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather, but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and • ingenious than substantial. A man that is of bring him in saying, “I will descend, and be

judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear like the prince of darkness:” and what is it betignorant men differ, and know well within him- ter, to make the cause of religion to descend to the self, that those which so differ mean one thing, cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, and yet they themselves would never agree: and butchery of people, and subversion of states and if it come so to pass in that distance of judgment, governments? Surely this is to bring down the which is between man and man, shall we not Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in think that God above, that knows the heart, doth the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of not discern that frail men, in some of their con- the bark of a Christian church a flag of a bark of tradictions, intend the same thing and accepteth pirates and assassins; therefore it is most necesof both? The nature of such controversies is ex- sary that the church by doctrine and decree, cellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning princes by their sword, and all learnings, both and precept that he giveth concerning the same, Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod to "devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones damn, and send to hell forever, those facts and falsi nominis scientiæ.” Men create oppositions opinions tending to the support of the same, as which are not, and put them into new terms so hath been already in good part done. Surely in fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern councils concerning religion, that council of the the term, the term in effect governeth the mean- apostle would be prefixed, “ Ira hominis non iming. There be also two false peaces, or unities: plet justitiam Dei;” and it was a notable observathe one, when the peace is grounded but upon an tion of a wise father, and no less ingenujusly implicit ignorance; for all colours will agree in confessed, that those which held and persuaded the dark: the other, when it is pieced up upon a pressure of consciences, were commonly interested direct admission of contraries in fundamental therein themselves for their own ends.

B