for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children : and I think the despising of marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity: and single men, though they be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust,' yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, Vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati." Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she thinks her husband wise, which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses, so as a man may have a quarrel3 to marry when he will; but yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry-' A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.' It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience; but this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own chusing, against their friends' consent; for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

4

1 Exhaust. Exhausted.

"The wealth

Of the Canaries was exhaust, the health

Of his good Majesty to celebrate.'-Habington.

2. He preferred his old woman to immortality.'-Plut. Gryll. 1.

* Quarrel. A reason; a plea. (Perhaps, from Quare, wherefore, used in law for a plea in trespass.) Or perhaps this oldest use of it for reason or plea, is the original meaning of querela, retained in querulous-putting forth a pitiful plea. 'He thought he had a good quarrel to attack him.'-Holinshed.

Thales. Vid. Diog. Laert. i. 26.

ANTITHETA ON WIFE AND CHILDREN.

PRO. 'Charitas reipublicæ incipit a familia. 'The love of country has its rise in family affection.

CONTRA.

'Qui uxorem duxit, et liberos suscepit, obsides fortunæ dedit.

'He that has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune.'

'Brutorum eternitas soboles; virorum fama, merita, et instituta.

The perpetuation of brutes is offspring; but that of man is their glory, their deserts, and their institutions.'

'Economicæ rationes publicas plerunque evertunt.

'Family considerations often overthrow public ones.'

ANNOTATIONS.

It is remarkable that Bacon does not at all advert to the notion of the superior holiness of a single life, or to the enforced celibacy of the Roman-Catholic clergy.

It is hardly necessary to remark-much less to prove-that, even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary from day to day, and not to be enforced by a life-long vow or rule. For in this case, even though a person should not repent of such a vow, no one can be sure that there is not such repentance. Supposing that even a large majority of priests, and monks, and nuns, have no desire to marry, every one of them may not unreasonably be suspected of such a desire, and no one of them, consequently, can be secure against the most odious suspicions. It has been alleged, in reply to this, that the like reasoning would apply to the case of the marriage contract, since no one can be sure that a married couple may not repent of their union. To the most rightminded persons, the answer would at once occur, that there is a wide difference between any merely human institution, and one that has an express divine sanction: what God hath joined together, let not Man put asunder.' This distinction, however, would not be recognised by those who put the decrees of a (supposed) infallible Church on a level with Scripture. But even these may perceive that the permanence of the marriage-tie

is necessary for the due care of offspring-for the comfort of married life itself-and for the morality and welfare of society. And that there is no such necessity for the enforced celibacy of the clergy, is proved, not only by the experience of all Churches except that of Rome, but by the admission of that very Church itself; since it dispenses with the rule in favour of the clergy of the Eastern Churches.

No doubt there are many Roman-Catholic clergymen (as there are Protestant) who sincerely prefer celibacy. But, in the one case we have a ground of assurance of this, which is wanting in the other. No one can be sure, because no proof can be given, that a vow of perpetual celibacy may not some time or other be a matter of regret. But he who continues to live single while continuing to have a free choice, gives a fair evidence of a continued preference for that life.'

Accordingly, many of the most intelligent of the RomanCatholic laity are very desirous of having the law of celibacy removed. It is not reckoned an article of the faith, but merely a matter of discipline. And accordingly, those of the Greek and Armenian Churches who have consented to acknowledge Romish supremacy, have been allowed to retain their own practice as to this matter; the Armenian Church allowing the marriage of their priests, and the Greek Church requiring the parish priests to be married.

When this was urged by an intelligent Roman-Catholic layman, to the late Archbishop Murray, he replied that but few Armenian priests do avail themselves of their privilege. This, answered the other, is a strong reason on my side; for the

1 It is worth observing, by the way, that if any one should maintain that enforced celibacy of the clergy is essential to such an unrestricted intercourse as is, on religious grounds, desirable between the pastor and the females of his flock, and should allege that a clergyman to whom marriage is permitted could not have any confidential communication with them, for fear of exciting rumours of some matrimonial designs-if any one should maintain this, he would hardly be thought serious. He would be answered-if, indeed, he were considered worth an answerthat the reasonable inference is the very opposite. Any groundless rumours of a tender attachment between parties who were free to marry, would be put an end to by their not marrying. But if their marriage were prohibited by law, it would be necessary to avoid any such intimacy as might possibly lead to the existence, or to the suspicion, of that sort of attachment which would naturally lead to matrimony. But it is remarkable that many persons to whom all this is quite clear, yet use, in a precisely parallel case, the very same kind of reasoning which, in this case, they would deride.—See Remains of Bishop Copleston, p. 42.

advantage which you think there is in an unmarried priesthood is secured in a great majority of instances, with the very great additional advantage that their celibacy is there understood to be completely voluntary.

But doubtless the Romish hierarchy have been much influenced by the consideration which Bacon mentions, that 'single men are the best servants.' It was wished to keep the clergy, who are the employed servants of the Roman Church, as distinct as possible from the Body of the people.

In the Greek Church, though every parish priest must be a married man, the bishops never are, being always taken from among the monks. The result of this is (1.) that the parish priests, since they cannot rise any higher, are regarded as an inferior order of men; and, according to the testimony of all travellers, are a very low set. And (2.) the bishop who has to govern, through the medium of the priests, all the parishes of his diocese, is necessarily a person destitute of all experience. It is as if the command of a fleet were given (as is sometimes done by the Russians) to a military officer.

A parish priest in the Greek Church, if his wife dies, is permanently suspended. For none can officiate who is not married; and he is not allowed to marry again. It is thus they interpret, as some Protestant divines also have done (besides Doctor Primrose), the rule that he is to be the husband of one wife.'

The rule is manifestly and confessedly of doubtful interpretation; some understanding it of a prohibition merely of polygamy; and others, as relating merely to conjugal fidelity. This last has more to be said in its favour than would appear from our translation, on account of the double meaning in the original Tuvn and also of Avŋp in Greek, and Vir in Latin.

It has been urged against this interpretation, that such a rule would have been superfluous; but surely the same might be said against the rule that the deacon should be 'no striker,' and 'not given to much wine.'

ESSAY IX. OF ENVY.

HERE be none of the affections which have been noted to

TH

fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy; they both have vehement wishes, they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions, and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects, which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing there be. We see, likewise, the Scripture calleth envy an evil eye, and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars evil aspects, so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation' or irradiation of the eye; nay, some have been so curious as to note, that the time when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph, for that sets an edge upon envy; and, besides, at such times, the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the blow.

But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit place), we will handle what persons are apt to envy others; what persons are most subject to be envied themselves; and what is the difference between public and private envy.

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon

1 Ejaculation. The act of throwing or darting out. 'Which brief prayers of our Saviour (Matt. xxvi. 39) are probably such as we call ejaculation--an elegant similitude from the shooting or throwing out a dart or arrow.'-South.

'Its active rays ejaculated thence,

Irradiate all the wide circumference.'-Blackmore.

2 Curious. Subtle ; minutely inquiring; accurate; precise. Both these senses embrace their objects with a more curious discrimination.'—Holden. ‘Having inquired of the curiousest and most observing makers of such tools.'-Boyle. 'For curious I cannot be with you.'—Shakespere.

Ingenious.

To devise curious works.'-Exodus xxxv. 32.

* Curiosities. Niceties. Equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.'-Shakespere.

4 Handle.

To treat; to discuss.

'He left nothing fitting for the purpose

Untouched or slightly handled in discourse.'-Shakespere. Who. He who. Who talks much, must talk in vain.'-Gay.