4 o 4*°.* ^v^ ♦* ** <- <<4 o V ^° &. * o H o 5 <2* ^ <, **, sir 33£ "Vavrf by RtfM c //v///^/./^ Vaam •. vaton %rtd PREFACE. Anxious that the public should acquire, within a desirable compass, all that could be considered generally and eminently interesting throughout his Lordship's voluminous works, it has been the labour of the Editor to collect , as it zoere at one view, the opinions of that illustrious zoriter. The task, though voluntarily imposed and cheer- fully accomplished, has proved great. Amply, hozoever, zeill the Editor feel compensated, if by this means his Author become more extensively and beneficially studied ; if doctrines of such intrinsic worth, and bearing the stamp of so exalted an authority, penetrate into all conditions of mankind, and are received in proportion to their desert; if vanity is corrected, scepticism reformed^ and virtue established. To the higher classes, in seminaries of educa- tion ; to young men, entering on the arduous responsibility of human life ; and to those whose minds are unhappily undecided on subjects of the deepest importance, this Publication is earnestly recommended. As a compendium of first prin- ciples, perhaps it will be found inestimable. P. L. C. Avct. 26, 1803. MEMOIRS OF LORJD BtACOJV* RANCIS BACON, afterwards baron of Vera- „ lam, and viscount St. Alban's, was the } 7 ounger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, by his second wife Anne, ■ daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Giddy Hail in the county of Essex. He was born at York House in the Strand, on the 22d of January, 15(J0-1. At a period when the disposition is most suscep- tible of impressions which generally continue through life, Francis enjoyed advantages almost peculiar. His mother, a lady of uncommon erudition, sound judgment, and great piety, directed her whole atten- tion to the formation of his infant mind ; while his father, who soon perceived in this son the opening of extraordinary mental powers, omitted no means o f invigorating and improving his talents. These paren- tal assiduities were attended with the happiest suc- cess. Even queen Elizabeth, who was no flatterer, b often vi MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. often noticed Francis, calling him " her young Lord Keeper," in reference to the abilities which he ap- peared to inherit from his father, who was Keeper of the seals during the first twenty years of her reign, an office which he discharged with great cre- dit to himself, and satisfaction to bis sovereign. 1 here is an anecdote recorded of Francis, about this time, which must have confirmed the fond presen- timents of those who were the most inteiested in his welfare. Beung asked his age, by the Queen, he instantly replied — " that he was just two years younger than her Majesty's happy reign !" About the age of sixteen he quitted Trinity Col- lege, where under Dr. Whitgifr, afterwards archbi- shop of Canteihury, he had made astonishing pro- gress in the sciences; and was sent from thence to Fans, under the direction of Sir Amias Powlet, the English ambassador; su( h was the mode of instruc- tion then adopted with those who were destined to occupy important public situations; and when at thirty years of age, a man was supposed to be young enough to enter on the great duties of a statesman. The ambassador felt, however, so much confidence in Francis, that he entrusted him with a secret mis- sion to his sovereign, in the performance of which he acquired additional reputation. It was during this interval that young Bacon vent, red to investigate the defects of the Aristotelian philosophy ; which he then censured, as a system calculated to breed logical contention, without conferring on man any signal or benericial discoveries. His u Succinct View of the State of Europe, " written on his leturn from France, at the age of 19, and his Essay on Travelling/ re- main honourable evidences of the use to which he devoted the advantages he had derived from the fondness of a discerning parent. Soon, however, was he about to experience, in the loss-of his father, all the bitterness of early disap- pointment, MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. vu pointment, and lasting regret. Sir Nicholas Paeon died suddenly, on February the 20th, 1579, and before he had completed the arrangements for the future independence of his favourite son. Perceiving the rapid advancement of Francis's mind, and aware how necessary it was, for the perfection of such ta- lents, that they should be exempted from pecuniary embarrassment, he had set apart certain property for this purpose ; but this, owing to his premature decease, became divided with the remaining family estate, in which Francis possessed a fifth only. Compelled by this event to return from France, he had resorted to the study of the law, and entered himself at Gray's Inn. Flere he erected an elegant building, long distinguished by the appellation of Lord Bacon's lodgings; and here' he laid, in his treatise ' entitled u The Greatest Birth of Time/' displaying the outline of his " Instauration of the Sciences," the foundation of that philosophy which he afterwards so nobly reared. lie was ever much attached to Gray's Inn, where, in his 28th year, he filled the office of Reader to that 'Society ; about which time he was named by the Queen, her Counsel learned in the Law Extraordinary. Other obstacles than those originating in the loss of his father, now impeded the progress of Mr. Bacon: he had to contend with that envy and ma- lice which are commonly, and sometimes success- fully, exerted against genius and merit. Those who were naturally considered as his friends, uneasy at the superiority of his acquirements, laboured se- cretly to retard his progress ; while his parliamentary opposition to the court, strengthened the prejudices against him which were constantly infused into the mind of Elizabeth.* Me was hardly more fortunate b 2 in * He was chosen a member for Middlesex, in the Parliament that met in February, 1592-3. viii MEMOIRS OF LORD EICON". in attaching himself to the Earl of Essex, of whom the Queen was extremely jealo\is» and therefore par- ticularly suspicious of such as were recommended to her by that nobleman. Notwithstanding the nature of. his qualifications, it is therefore by no means sur- prising that the most he could obtain was the rever- sion of Register of the Court of Star-Chamber, worth nearly 1 6*001. a year, but which did not fall into his hands till many years afterwards : and a grant of Twickenham Park, with its Garden of Para- dise, which he undersold at 1801. made to him by Essex out of his private estate, as some immediate compensation for the unsuccessfulne&S of his appli- cations to the Queen. He who claims the conside- ration of society, must come prepared to contend for that which always will awaken the vigilance of observation, and the asperity of opposition. But this struggle, though it could not effectually subdue the fortitude of a great man, seems so far to have depressed the temper of Mr. Bacon, that, in a letter to the earl of Essex, he entreated permission to travel.* Whether the measure was merely pro- posed * To my Lord of Essex. It may please your good Lordship, I am very sorry her majesty should take my motion to travel in offence. But surely, under her majesty's royal correction, it is such an offence as it should be an offence to the sun, when a man, to avoid the scorching heat thereof, flieth into the shade. And your lordship may easdy think, that having now these twenty years (for so long it is, and mere, since I went with Sir Jkmyas Paulet into France, from her majesty's royal hand) made her majesty's service the scope of my life ; I shall never rind a greater grief than this, relinquere amorem primum. But since, principia actionum sunt tanlum in nostra potestate, I hope tier Majesty of her clemency, yea and justice, will pardon me and not force me to pine here with melancholy. For though mine heart be good, yet mine eyes will be sore ; so as I shall have no pleasure to look abroad: and if I should otherwise be affected, her MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. 1* posed in order to rouse the attention of bis sove- reign, cannot perhaps be ascertained : it met, how- ever, with a decided negative "from the queen, who doubtless foresaw of what impoit the presence of such a jx rson might prove to her affairs, and who could not wish .that the friend and counsellor of Essex should be absent, at a time when his infor- mation and talents were like!}- to be called into action. There is no circumstance in the life of Bacon 0:1 which animadversion has so freely expatiated, as on the part he shortly afterwards acted in the disgrace of Essex, by the publication entitled, " A Decla- ration of the Treasons of Robert Earl of Essex," which was considered as the manifesto of the court against that unhappy peer. Ingratitude is perhaps a vice too warmly stigmatized, to admit often of a dispassionate judgment ; while the pride of one de- scription of men appears always interested to over- estimate the benefits which they confer. It seems, after all, rather hard that any individual, though under extensive obligation to another, must partici- pate in the errors and vices of his benefactor, espe- cially if he should have been the first to warn that friend of the effects of his misconduct; that he must openly excuse what he cannot even privately exte- nuate, and submit himself to the severity of conse- quences which, had his advice been adopted, it would have been effectually prevented. Doubtless it is to be regretted that Bacon accepted any public concern b 3 in her majesty in her wisdom will but think me an impudent man, that would face out a disgrace. Therefore, as I have ever found you my good lord and true friend, so I pray open the matter so to her majesty, as she may discern the necessity of it, without adding hard conceit to her rejection ; of which, I am sure, the latter I never deserved. Thus, &c. This letter was written about the year 1508. x MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. In the condemnation of the ear] : that he became, though with the view of eventually serving his friend, and from a superior sense of duty to his queen, an active participator in a scene of which he should have remained the passive spectator; thereby in- curring that weight of obloquy by which his charac- ter has so long been depreciated.* Whatever * The following passages, selected from different parts of Lord Bacon's writings, will throw considerable light on the connection between his Lordship and the Earl of Essex. Too much pains cannot be taken to elucidate a transaction about which so much prejudice has unjustly been raised against his lords .up. Suspecting Essex to have depreciated him, &c. he writes thus to Lord Howard (the admiral under Elizabeth) — "For my Lord Essex, I am not servile to him, having regard to mv supe- rior's duty. I have been much bound unto him. And, on the other side, I have spent more time and more thoughts about his well doing than ever 1 did about mine own, I pray God that you his friends, amongst you, be in the right. For my pan, 1 have deserved better than to have my name abjected to envy, or my life to a ■niffi.ans violence But I have the privy -coat of a good conscience. I am sure these courses and bruits hurt my lord more than all." Oct. 4, 1596. He reminds Essex of his former advice, coun- sels him to win the queen, and not offend her by aspiring at too much greatness and an over-bearing disposition, or after mili- tary eminence — to shew no avidity for emolument in chusing for himself places of great profit— to avoid popularity — and to practise economy, to which the queen was much attached, in his own estate. Recounting, in his praise of queen Eliza- beth, the fate of her most remarkable enemies, Lord B. observes — " 1 may not mention the death of some that occur lo mind : but still", methinks, they live that should live, and they die that should die." This passage appears to glance at the fate or the queen of Scots and Essex. " The truth is, that the issue of all his (the earl's) dealing grew to this, that the queen, by some slackness of my lord's as I imagine, liked him worse and worse, and grew more in- censed towards him. Then she, remembering belike the conti- nual and ineessant and confident speeches and courses that I had held on my lord's side, bscame utterly alienated from me, N and for the space of at least three months would not so much as look MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xi Whatever advantages might have ensued From this instance of his complaisance to the crown, they were rendered abortive by the death of Elizabeth ; who died on the 94th of Maroh, l603, about a year after the decapitation of Essex, filled with regret at his fate. Though seriously occupied in the study of juris- prudence, and occasionally engaged in transactions of state, Mr. Bacon, far from neglecting the prose- b 4 cution look on me, but turned away from me with express and pur- pose-like discountenance wheresoever she saw me ; and at such time as I had desired to speak with her about law business, ever sent me forth very slight refusals. Insomuch as it is most true, that, immediately after new year's tide, I desired to speak with her, and being admitted to her, I dealt with her plainly ; and said, — tc Madam, I see you withdraw your favour from me, and now I have lost many friends for your sake, 1 shall lose you too : you have put me like one of those the French call enfdns perdus, who serve on foot before horsemen, so have you put me into matters of envy without place or strength ; and I know, at chess, a pawn before the king is ever much played upon. A great,, many love me not, because they think I have been against my lord of Essex ; and you love me not, because you know I have been for him ; yet will I never repent me that I nave dealt in sim- plicity of heart towards you both, without respect of cautions to myself; and therefore vivus vidensque pereo if I do break my neck, I shall do it in a manner as Mr. Dorrington did it, who walked on the battlements of the church many days, and took a view and survey where he should fall. And so, Madam," said I, " I am not so simple but that 1 take a prospect of mine overthrow, only I thought I would tell you so much, that you may know that it was faith, and not folly, that brought me into it : and so I will pray for you." Upon which speeches of mine, uttere I with some passion, ic is true her majesty was ex- ceedingly moved; and accumulated a number of kind and gra- cious words upon me, and willed me to rest upon this — Gratia men svfficit, and a number of other sensible and tender words and demonstrations, such as more could not be : but as touch- ing my lord of Essex, never burn quidem. Whereupon I departed, resting then determined to meddle no more in the matter; as that which i saw would overthrow me, and not be able to do him any good," Bacon's Apology, in certain Impu- tations concerning the late Earl of Esstx* xii MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. cation of those studies which have conferred immor- tality on his name, published in 1597, the first part of his " Essays on Counsels, Civil and Moral/' Some time in the preceding year, he had completed his u Maxims on the Law ;" a work on which he justly prided himself, and which has been esteemed the most judicious and satisfactory on the subject. But the pressure of his circumstances did not permit ,him calmly to pursue his favourite objects ; and he was induced to speculate on an advantageous match, as the means of extricating himself from his embar- rassments. He accordingly directed his attention to the daughter of Sir Thomas Cecil, then relict of Sir William Hatton. The design, however, did not succeed: and it is remarkable, that the lady after- wards married his great rival and antagonist, lord Coke. This miscarriage augmented his distresses to such a degree, that he was shortly after arrested for 3001. on his return from transacting some important avocations at the Tower; an event of which his enemies appear maliciously to have availed them- . selves in order to disgrace him publicly. His conduct in parliament continued all this while unexceptionably popular. His " Praise of Eliza- beth," published in reply to a book which appeared in l605 against that queen, was also highly extolled, although (says the writer, in a letter to a friend on the subject) iC 1 freely confess myself not a disinte- rested man." With the accession of James I. the hopes of Mr. Bacon appear to have brightened. In a letter to his friend Matthews,* there are the following observa- tions. — " I have many comforts and assurances; but in my own opinion the chief is, the canvassing world * Son of Dr. Toby Matthews, bishop of Durham, and arch- bishop of York. MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xiii world is gone, and the deserving world is come." It appears- that his early proffers of service had been favourably eceived by the new sovereign, who knighted him, at Whitehall, on the 23d of January, l603. But distinction, though pleasing, and per- haps the prelude to riches, is not property. Favour had yet to screen him from the importunity of credi- tors, for he was again arrested, even at the very moment of his exaltation. August 24th, 16 04, being first appointed one cf his Majesty's Co nsel learned in the Law, with a fee of 401. a year, he at length obtained a trant of 601. a year, in acknowledgment of special services ren- dered by him and his brother Anthony.. In the year }605 appealed the first part of the author's great work, in tfc 1 he two Books of Francis Bacon of the. Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human ; to the King/' This work derived much advantage, from ihe assistance of the learned Bishop Andrews,* who appears to have considerably facilitated the literary labours of its author. Hitherto, however, Sir Francis had found, on, the whole, but little occasion of self-congratula- tion. — " I see well (he observes, in a letter to lord Burleigh) that the Bar will be my bier ; as I must and will use it, rather than my estate or re- putation shall decay." Still disappointed in the expectation of emolument, he was compelled to resume his matrimonial projects. What he had in vain sought for within the circle of the court, he acquired with less difficulty from the city; and about the year l60rj, at the age of forty, he was married to Alice, daughter of Benedict Barnham, Esq. alderman of London, with whom he received a plentiful fortune, but no accession to his happiness. b.5 By * Bishop of Ely, and of Winchester ; a prelate whose pea *ras employed in the refutation of Bellarmine, *iv MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. By a letter to the chancellor Egerton, it appears that this union had been formed under his Lordship's auspices,, who probably used similar representations with those made by the earl of Essex when the treaty was in agitation between Mr. Bacon and lady Mat ton. This, it is evident, produced consequences which might easily have been predicted. Taught to' consider their new relation as a rising man, and per- ceiving his progress by no means answerable to the expectations which had been raised, the friends of Mrs. Bacon, unable to conceal the effect of their dis- appointment, expressed themselves in a way not very likely to promote the welfare of her for whom they appeared most solicitous; especially as she was allied to a husband who never seems to have been particu- larly sensible to the endearments of domestic inter- course, and who had entered into the engagement under inducements which are not imagined to con- tribute to matrimonial felicity. Formed on such principles, and in such circumstances, it cannot be surprisii g if his marriage, far from augmenting the number of his satisfactions, even embittered his usual enjoyments. At length, however, his unwearying diligence in the service of the grown, and his incessant applica- tions and remonstrances to friends in power, pro- cured him the office of Solicitor-General; with an express stipulation, that he should succeed, on the first vacancy, to the Attorneyship. Amidst this professional career, followed by extensive private practice, his attention to literature remained undi- verted, and his ardour unabated. In 16 10 appeared the treatise " Of the Wisdom of the Ancients," which was much admired, lie possessed at this period an income of 50001. a year; a reputation that could no longer be disputed ; and was rapidly advancing in the estimation of his sovereign. On the 5?th of October l6l3 7 he was raised to the sta- tion MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xr tlon of Attorney-Genera], Such was the regard with wr&db he was contemplated by the Commons, an.i so heartily did they coincide in his promotion, that they allowed him to retain his seat in the house as a mark oi' their personal respect, though ie had been vacated by his acceptance of the oflice to which he was just appointed. The duties of Attorney-General, however odious in their popular exertion, must necessarily insure the approbation and patronage of the government, whan ably and faithfully discharged. Ok this cir- cumstance no man was more fully apprised than Sir Francis Ba on, nor perhaps any one better qualified to avail himself of it to the utmost extent. His par.t in the trial of the Earl of Somerset, appears to have been of the most confidential description - and he acquitted himself so well in this delicate transaction* as to place him on a very intimate footing with king James. Wheu, therefore, he ap- plied himself to Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buck- ingham, who succeeded Somerset in the reign of favounteism, it could not proceed from any neces- sity on his part foi securing the countenance of the new statesman, in order to establish his own interest with the rnonaich. Even his advice to Viiiiers had more of instruction than supplication ; it was rather the language of a man who felt his own importance in the common wealth, than of one anxious to have his consequence ascertained : it was the fair tender on terms honourable to both parties, of that assist- ance, tor which inexperience and insecurity could ne- ver have been too grateful. Since a favourite was necessary to a prince, it remained for wisdom to consider how such an engine might become subser- vient to the general interest of that community over which he seemed destined to preside. June 9th, l6l6, Sir Francis Bacon was sworn of the Privy-Council. Perhaps his progress was not a b 6 littl* xvi MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON, little accelerated, and his spirits invigorated, by the disgrace of lord Coke, who had unhappily involved himself in a jurisdictionary dispute with the Chan-> eery, and incurred the king's displeasure. That- a high degree of animosity subsisted between these illustrious individuals is evident from the letter writ- ten by Sir Francis to lord Coke, during his banish- ment from court ; a letter, in which the former has displayed an acrimonious littleness utterly unworthy of himself, and which scarcely any provocation could justify on such an occasion. This situation of affairs, together with the chancellor's illness, encou- raged Sir Francis to apply for the expected succes- sion to the seals.* In the hands of Buckingham his suit became successful ; and on Egerton's voluntary resignation, March 7th, l6'l6-7 ? the Seals were de- livered to him, with the title of Lord Keeper, an office now rendered equivalent 'to that of chan- cellor. Writing to the Duke of Buckingham, May 7th, 1617, he says — " Yesterday I took my place in Chancery, which I hold only from the king's grace and favour, and your constant friendship. There was much ado, and a great deal of world : but this matter of pomp, which is Heaven to some men, is Hell to me, or purgatory at least. It is true, I was * When lord B. accepted the Solicitor's place, he had condi- tioned that his preferment should be progressive. Feb. 9, 1615 5 he writes thus to James — " My lord chancellor's sickness falleth Out duro tempore. I have always known him a wise man, and of just elevation for monarchy ; but your Majesty's service must not be mortal. And if you lose him, as your iMajesty hath now of late purchased many hearts by depressing the wicked ; so God doth minister unto you a counterpart to do the like, by jaising the honest ! Having procured the chancellor's recom» mendation, as the fittest per on to succeed him ; lord B. observes in a letter to the king, dated February 12, 1615, " Your wor- thy chancellor (Egerton), I fear, goeth his last day." He then makes a direct tender of himself, as his successor : offering to give up his place of Attorney General, worth 6000I. a year, and las place in the Star Chamber, worth I600I, a y«ar. MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xvii I was glad to see that the King's choice was so gene- rally approved/' Sir Francis Bacon made an admi- rable address, on taking his seat in Chancery. Lord Coke had not remained an indifferent spec- tator of these transactions. Anxious, by regaining, the favour of the court, to rival, if not impede his antagonist, he now eagerly embraced an alliance with Sir John Villiers, brother of Buckingham, who for- merly had sued for the daughter of lord Coke, and been disdainfully repulsed. His lordship at length perceived the broad road to distinction, which he sought in a manner that must have been sufficiently mortifying to his high and contumacious temper, and with an assiduity that could not have been ex- ceeded by the veriest dependant on power. Bacon, who had irritated James by -his patriotic though respectful opposition to the match agitated between the English and Spanish courts, angered the favour- ite also by his remonstrances on this between the families of Coke and -Villiers. Apologizing to Buck- ingham, " I did ever foresee/' he observes, " that this alliance would go near to lose me your lordship^ I hold so dear ; and that was the only respect parti- cular to myself that moved me to be as I was, till I heard from you. But I will rely upon your con- stancy, arid my own deserving, and the firm tie we have in respect of the King's service." Whatever reflections may occur on the meanness of intrigue, and the instability of human prosperity, these con- cessions appear to have satisfied the parties to whom they were directed ; for on the 4th of January, 1618, he was declared chancellor.* On the 11th of Jul/ * To the Earl of -Buckingham. On being declared Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, March 7th, 1616-17. My dearest Lord, It is both in cares and kindness, that small ones float up to *hc tongue, and great ones sink down into the heart in silence. Therefore xviii MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. July following, he was created Baron of Vernlam ; as the preamble declares, in consideration of the eminent services which he had rendered the state. While chancellor he procured York House, in the Strand, Therefore I could speak little to your lordship to day, neither bad I fit time : but I must profess thus much, that in this day's wcik you art the truest and perfectest mirror and example of firm and generous friendship tnat ever was in court. And I shall count every day lost, wherein I shall not either study your well doing in thought, or do your name honour in speech, or perform you service indeed. Good, my lord, account and ac- cept me Your most bounden And devoted friend and servant of all men living, Fr. Bacon, C. S, How honourably and sincerely lord Bacon had studied the wr 1 a:: of the duke of Buckingham may be seen from the fol- io in letter, which he wrote 10 him on sending him his pa- te tj aigust 12, 1616, and which may be considered as a com- penufum of the advice which he had uniformly given him. . *' 1 aid not see but you may think your private tortunes esta- blished : and therefore it is now time that you should refer your actions chiefly to the good of your sovereign and your country. It is the life of an ox or beast always to eat, and ne- ver to exercise ; but men are born (especially christian men) not to cram in their fortunes, but to exercise their virtues, &c. And in this dedication of yourself to the public, I recommend unto you, principally; that which I think -vas never done since, I was born ; and which not done, hath bred almost a wilder- ness and solitude in the king's service : which is, that you coun- tenance, and encourage, and advance able and virtuous men, in ail kinds, degrees and professions. For in the time of some late great c unsell rs, when they bear sway, able men weie by design and of purpose suppressed ; and though now choice goeth better both in church and commonwealth, yet money, and turn-s rving, and cunning canvasses, and importunity prevail too much In places of moment, rather make able and honest men yours, than advance those that are otherwise be- cause they are yours. As for cunning and corrupt men, you must, I know, sometimes use them ; but keep them at a distance, and let it appear that you make use of them, rather than that they lead you. Above all, depend wholly next to God, upon th* MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xix Strand, for his residence ; he was attached to it as the place of his nativity, and afterwards quitted it, in his misfortunes, with evident regret. Here he celebrated his birth day, with great magnifi- cence, m l6'20, when he completed his 60t% year. in the October of l620 his Lordship presented to the King the " Novum Organum," or second part of bis Grand Instauration of the Sciences, in which after enumerating defects, he exhibits a new lo^ic for the better conduct of the understanding. It is how- ever singular, that he whoso much deprecated syllo- gism, should continually have adopted the syllogistic form of composition. The " Novum Organuirr" is distinguished as being twelve times re-writ ten ; it's auchor making it a practice to revise and correct it once a year, during twelve years ; thus exceeding even the injunction of the poet. Dissat is taction had been so plainly expressed against the proceedings of Buckingham, that it was deemed prudent to exercise every precaution in con- vening the representatives of the country. Lord Vorulam, from his experience, his talents, autl his influence, was earnestly looked up to )jy the court, at whose desire he was much concerned in the assembling of the parliament which met in 1620-] ; on the 27 th of Januar-, in which vear he had been raised to the dignity of Viscount Saint Al- ton's in the county of llertioid, with a pension from the customs. His enemies, however, had not been inactive; much odium had been attached to him for his the king ; and be ruled, as hitherto you have been, by his in- structions : for that's best tor yourself. For the king's care and thoughts concerning you, are according to the thoughts of a great king ; whereas your thoughts concerning yourself are, and ought to be, according to the rhojgnts of a modest man. But let me not weary you. The sum is, that you think goodness the best part of greatness ; and that you remember whence your rising comes, and make return accordingly." xx MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. his docility towards the Favourite ; though his cor- respondence demonstrates that he was far from being so practicable as was then believed. Going early into the discussion of grievances, circumstances were unfortunately discovered, by the house, tending to impeach the chancellor's integrity. This enquiry commenced on the 12th of March, \62l ; on the 19th accusations of corruption were exhibited against his Lordship, when a letter from him was presented to the peers b} T the Duke of Buckingham ; other complaints Jpemg preferred on March 21, another letter, throwing himself on the generosity and feel- ings of nobility, was delivered from his Lordship by the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles i. on the 24th of April: and in the beginning, of May; notr withstanding every measure us§d to abate the vio- lence of proceeding, he received his bitter sentence from that very parliament to whose formation he had largely contributed.* James is reported to have shed tears, on learning the chancellor's disgrace ; who appears in some measure to have been the scapes- goat of Buckingham: nor does it seem to have been jn the King's power, circumstances considered, to have afforded him protection, without rekindling the public * Upon the charges brought against him in parliament, lord Bacon addressed a letter to the lords dated Mar. 19th, 1621,. praying their justice. On the 24th of April, his lordship sent in his submission to the peers, dated April 22 ; which was noti- fied to the house by the Prince of Wales ; this being not deemed full enough, another, entitled a humble con ession and sub- mission of me the lord chancellor, was received on 29th of April. On the 3d of May, the chancellor declining to at- tend, on account of sickness, the peers proceeded to the fol- lowing judgment. — " That the Lord Viscount St. Alban, Lord Chducehor of England, shall undergo a fine and ransom of 40,0001. that he shall be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasuie: that he shall for ever be uncapable of any efftce, place, or employment in the state or common- wealth : that MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xxi public jealousy. It was not the time for judgment to be stayed, when his arm was raised, and the peo- ple were calling aloud for its operations. His lord- ship had indeed the misfortune to feel the full weight of that resentment which ought to have been divided among many. There is ample reason to confide in the truth of the chancellor's statement, — that he had accepted money for the expediting only, never for the perversion of justice ; since not one of his decrees were at any time reversed !-* What that he. shall never sit in parliament, nor come within the verge of the court." The severity of this judgment was thought ne- cessary to appease the irritation of the lower house against the court, though, no doubt, it was in a great meas: re procured by the intrigues of the chancellor's enemies, many of whom were then in power : it was excused, by those who had voted for it, on the ground that they had left him in good hands, meaning those of the king, who could at any time mitigate or even re- deem the sentence, while public justice was fully satisfied in the punishment of so great a man. * The following reflections on his adversity will be found un-" commonly interesting. It will be seen in what manner a great mind, instead of bending before the moral tempest, continued high and erect. They are consolations indeed worthy of reli- gion and philosophy. " It is a good sound conclusion, that if our betters have sus- tained the like events, we have the less cause to be grieved. In this kind of consolation I have not been wanting to myself: though, as a christian, I have tasted (through God's great good- ness) of higher remedies. Having, therefore, through the va- riety of my reading, set before me many examples both of ancient and latter times; my thoughts, I confess, have chiefly stayed upon three particulars, as the most eminent and the most resembling. All three, persons that had held chief place of authority in their countries ; all three ruined, not by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence, as delinquents aud criminals : all three famous writers, insomuch as the remembrance of their calamity is now, as to posterity, but as a little picture of night work, remaining amongst the fair and excellent tables of their acts and works : and all three (if that were any thing to the matter) fit examples to quench any man's ambition xxii MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. What could not prudently be attempted at oner, was gradualH and safely effected. First, his Lord- ship was released from imprisonment ; then, his fine was remitted ; afterwards, October 12th, a warrant was signed For his pardon ; and, lastly, he was per- mitted to return within the verge of the court. By March, 1622, he so far recovered from the immediate effects of his situation, as to publish his " History of Henry VII." which he dedicated to the Prince of Wales. Much ambition of rising; again ; for that they were every one restored with great glory, but to their farther ruin and destruction, end- ing in a violent death. Trie men were Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca; persons that 1 durst not claim affinity with, except the similitude of our fortunes had contracted it. When I had cast mine eyes upon these examples, 1 was carried on farthet to observe how they did bear their fortunes ; and, principally, how they did employ their time, being banished, and disabled for public business ; to the end, that 1 might learn by them, and that they might be as well my counsellors as my comfort- e/s. Whereupon I happened to note how diversely their for- tunes wrought upon them ; especially in that point at which I did most aim, which w>s tbe employing of their times and pens. In Cice;o, I saw that, during his banishment (which was almo-t two years;, he was so softened and dejected, as he v,Vote nothing but a few womanish epistles And yet, in mine opinion he had least reason of the three to be discouraged : for that, althoug i it was judged, andjudged by the highest kind of judgment, in form of a statute or law, that he should be banished, and his whole estate confiscated and seized, and his houses pilled down, and that it should be highly penal for any man to propound a repeal; yet his case, even then, had nu gieat blot of : ignominy, for it was thought but a tempest of popularity which overthrew him. De- mosthenes contrariwise, though his case was foul, being con- demned tor bsibery (and nor simple bribery, but bribery in the nature of treason and disloyal ivj, yet nevertheless took so little knowledge of his fortune, as duiing his banishment be did much busy himself and intermeddle wi h matters of state; and took upon to counsel the state (as if he had been still at the heimj by letters, as appears by some epi>tles of his which are extant. Sene- ca, indeed, who was condemned for many corruptions and ci irnes, and MEMOIRS OF LORD EACON. xxiii Much has been urged on the subject of his Lord- ship's poverty, complaints of which abound in the letters written by him during his humiliation. He However, could not rightly be thought poor who had an income of 250OL a year. But, with diminished means, Loid Baton could not be brought to abate any thing of his accustomed state : he still lived in great splendour ; while his affairs, as they were per- plexed, might alarm him with the apprehension of dying insolvent. His chief difficulty must have con-. sisted in being unable to procure the payment of monies advanced to him by the crown; but in this he was relieved on Buckingham's return from Spam, who effectual!) exerted himself in the business, and to whom the credit of a warm and faithful friend is unquestionably due* The and banished into a solitary island, kept a mean ; and though his pen did not freeze, yet he abstained from intruding into mat- ters of business : but spent his time in writing books of excel- lent argument and use tor all ages ; though he might have made better choice sometimes, of his dedications. These examples confirmed me much in a resolution (where- un?o I was otherwise inclined) to spend my time wholly in writ- ing ; and to put forth that poor talent, or half-talent, or what it is, that God hath given me, not, as heretofore, to particular exchanges, but to banks, or mounts of perpetuity, which wnll not break, (l) — Introduction to the Discourse on a Holy lVar % written in 162-2. * u the Lord Treasurer Marlborough. My Lord, I humbly entreat your Lordship, and (if I may use the word) advise you to make me a better answer. Your Lordship is inter- ested in honour, in the opinion of all them who hear ho.v I am dealt with : if your Lordship malice me for such a cause, surely it was one of thejustest businesses th^t ever was in Chancery. — I will vouch it ; and how deeply 1 was tempted therein, your Lordship knows best. Your Lordship may do well, in this great age Oi yours, to think of your grave, as I do of mine ; and to (1) T he Reader will perceive how seriously this thought is taken up, in Lord Paeon's Pr#y«r. ' _ beware xxiv MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. The pardon of his faithful servant and chancellor was among the last acts performed by king James, who died shortly after. Lord Bacon was summoned to the first parliament of Charles I. but infirmities prevented his taking any share in the representation. It was while labouring under this indisposition, that he received a visit from the marquis D'Eliiat, who had come over with the princess Henrietta .Maria, wife of Charles 1. — " You resemble," said the minister, finding him in bed with the curtains drawn, u the angels: we hear those beings continually talked of, we believe them superior to mankind, and we never have the consolation to see them." — " U the charity of others," replied Lord Bacon, "compare me to an angel, my own infirmities tell me 1 am a man !" Study, anxiety and business had secretly under- mined his health, and .impaired his spirits. The severe winter succeeding the infectious summer of 1625, had also affected him much : yet he revived with the spring of l6 l 26, till he relapsed while try- ing some favourite experiments ; and, after resting about a week at the Earl of Arundel's house in Ilighgate, beware of hardness of heart. And as for fair words, it is a wind by which neither your Lordship, nor any man else, can sail long, Howsoever, I am the man who will give all due re- spects and reverence to your great place, &c. This letter appears to have been written in December, 1624, and as a remonstrance on the difficulties which Lord Ba on ex- perienced in procuring the payment of a warrant ;hat had been issued to him, on land, from the Chancery, at the instance of the Duke of Buckingham. Even this was far from being ' j qual to his Lordship's just expectations. " His Majesty," says the Duke of .Buckingham, in the letter which conveys the grant, (i is but tor the present, he says, able to yield unto the three years' advance ; which if you please to accept, you aie not hereafter the farther off from obtaining some better testimony of his favour, worthier both of him and you, though it can never be aasw^raUle to what my hea* t wishes you." MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xxv ftigligafe, he died there on Raster Day, April 9ih, l6*26, in his 66th year.* He was interred privately in the chapel of S'nnt Michael's Church, near Saint Alban's, within the precincts of Old Veiulam. The spot that contained his remains was obscure and undistinguished, till the gratitude of Sir Thomas Meautys raised a monument to his remembrance. f In person, Lord Bacon is described to have been of the middling stature ; his forehead spacious and open, but from the cast of his disposition and in- tenseness of mental application, early impressed with the characters of age ; his eyes lively and pene- trating ; and his whole appearance generally pleasing. lie had the air of a good man, and soon acquired, with * He had been trying experiments touching the conservation and induration of bodies, and was proceeding from York House to Saint Alban's, when he was so suddenly struck in the sto- mach, as to be compelled to stop at Highgate. — * e As for the experiment itself," says his Lordship, in the last letter he wrote, to the Earl of Arundel, " it succeeded excellently well ; but in, the journey hither I was taken with such a fit of casting, as I knew not whether it were the stone, or some surfeit, or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your Lordship's house, I was not able to go back ; and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me: which, I assure myself, your Lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the bet'er of him for it. For indeed your Lordship's house was happy to me ; and I kiss your noble hands, for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it. — I know how unfit it is for me to write to your Lordship with any other hand than my own ; but, by my troth, my fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I cannot steadily hold my pen." He sickened with a fever, attended with a defluxion on his breast, and, af- ter a week's illness, expired. •f* Sir Thomas Meautys, who was not only his secretary and most faithful servant, but his cousin and heir, and had likewise married his grand neice, erected an elegant tomb of white marble to Lord Bacon's memory, in the chancel of the church. His lord- ship is represented sitting in a chair, in his usual contemplative posture xxvi MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. with those who knew him, the estimation due to a great iman, Mis conversation was various, always adapted to times and persons, and distinguished for facility and propriety. '1 hese excellencies accom- panied him into public, wheie the natural dignity of his aspect, and the gracefulness of his elocution, irresistably commanded the attention and sympathies of his hearers. One of those extraordinary beings who aie alike gifted with the eloquence of the pen and of the tongue, whether he applied his powers to private entertainment, or the instruction and per- suasion of society, he could not fail to obtain an un- common portion of admiration and esteem. Deficient in none of the qualifications necessary to a statesman, and possessing many of them emi- nently, we see him ably tilling, during a series of years, important situations in his country. That such a mind should be compelled to drudge through the usual track towards preferment, may occasion regret ture, one hand supporting his head, and the other hanging over the arm of the chair. Underneath is a latin inscription writtea by the celebrated Sir Henry Wotton, of which the following is a translation : — FRANCIS BACON, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban's ; Or by more conspicuous titles, Of Sciences the Light, of Eloquence the Law, Sat Thus. Who after all Natural Wisdom, And Secrets of Civil Life he had unfolded, Nature's Law fulfilled, Let compounds be dissolved ; In the Year of x>m Lord, M.DC.XXVL Of his Age, LXVI. Of such a Man, That the Memory might Temain, Thomas Meautys, Living his Attendant, Dead his Admirer, Placed this Monument, MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. xxvii regret, but ought not to excite surprise. Superior acquisitions, if u'n facilitated by local influence and local advantages, are the result either of desert or fortune, or a felicitous combination or both. It must not however be concealed, that in his anxiety as a courtier, Bacon sometimes forgot his independence as a man ; that his loyalty occasionally bordered on idolatry. But tins conduct was no' wit!; out its vir- tues. . It gave him an ascendancy with the sovereign, which often enabled him to present advice that would have been rejected from any other, and to obtain a favourable audience. Nothing short of consum- mate political discretion could have acquired what he long enjoyed, the reputation of keeping up a good understanding both with the parliament and the court. He had made dec p observations on human nature; but it may be doubted, whether this knowledge con- tributed to bis interests. Like most who have per- plexed themselves with investigations of this descrip- tion, he often imagined more cunning than actually existed, and was not unfn quently employed in com- batting the phantoms of his own creation. It is the error of men long accustomed to the machinations of the world, to believe that all is insincerity, vexation and vanity, and generally to gather the bitter fruits of their belief. Lord Bacon thought dissimulation in some cases so indipensible, and even justifiable, that he carried it to an extent highly injurious to himself. There is reason for concluding that his ex- treme love of letters was in a great degree affected, in order to cover his ambition as a politician, by inducing an opinion of his real indifference to public employment: yet his enemies successfully retorted, on this very ground, representing him as a man of learning rather than business, and therefore unfitted for those situations to which he secretly aspired. Contem- Xjtviii MEMOIRS OF LORD BACON. Contemplated as a philosopher, his imperfections immediately disappear, or are lost in the lustre of his reputation. What Pope has written of the im- mortal Newton, may with justice be asserted here — (( Nature, and Nature's laws lay hid in night: " God said, let Bacon be! and all was light V But it is not only with reference to philosophy, that we are to consider his Lordship's character. * I am in good hope," he observes, u that when Sir Edward Coke's Reports, and my Rules and Deci- sions shall come to posterity ; there will be (what- soever is now thought) question, who was the greater Lawyer?" Intimately conversant with history, the institutions of society, and the springs of human conduct, he. has evinced, in his History of Henry VII. how truly he was qualified to delineate the views and transactions of mankind. With equal ability he sustained the offices of the essayist, the moralist, and the divine. Whether, indeed, his Lordship be contemplated as a statesman, a philosopher, an his- torian, a lawyer, or a theologian, he is eminently entitled to universal respect and admiration. His Lady, by whom he had no children, and with whom he enjoyed no felicity, survived him upward* of twenty years. VERULAMIANA. MEN, MANNERS, AND LITERATURE. PART. I. VERULAMIANA. ADVERSITY. JL^I OT only knowledge, but also eveiy other gift (which we call the gifts of fortune) have power to puff up earth ; afflictions only level these mole-hills of pride, plough the heart, and make it fit for wisdom to sow her seed, and foi» grace to bring forth her encrease. Happy is' that man therefore, both in regard of heavenly and earthly wisdom, who is thus wounded to be cured; thus broken, to be made strait; thus made acquainted with his own imperfections, that he may be perfected ! God, if we belong to him, takes us in hand; and because he seeth that we have unbridled stomachs, therefore he sends outward crosses, which, while they cause us to mourn, do com- B 2 fort 4 VERULAMlANA. fort us, being assured testimonies of his love that sends them. To humble ourselves there- fore before God, is the part of a christian : but for the world, and our enemies, the counsel of the poet is apt — Tu ne cede malts, sed contra audtntior ito. This is certain, the mind that is most prone to be puffed up with prosperity, is most weak and apt to be dejected with the least puff of adversity. ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is true greatness, to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God. — Vtre magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei. But to speak in a mean : the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is forti- tude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer VERULAMIANA. 5 clearer revelation of God's favour* Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adver- sity is not without comforts and hopes. Cer- tainly virtue is like precious odours, most frag- rant when they are incensed, or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adver- sity doth best discover virtue. ADVICE. The greatest trust between man and: man is the trust of giving counsel. Things will have their first, or second agi- tation ; if they be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be tossed upon the waves #f fortune; and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing, like the reeling of a drunken man. Whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the sudden, the same man is no wiser at fifty years old than he was at thirty, B 3 ABETTING, VEHULAMIANA. ABETTING. Allow there be a conspiracy to murder a man as he journeys by the way; and it be one man's part to draw him forth to that journey by invitation, or by colour of some business; and another takes upon him to dissuade some friend of his whom he had a purpose to take in his company, that he be not too strong to make his defence ; and another hath the part to go along with him, and to hold him in talk till the first blow be given : all these are abettors to this murder, though none of them give the blow, nor assist to give it. He is not the hunter alone, who let slips the dog upon the deer ; but he that lodges the deer, or raises him, or puts him out, or h$ who sets a toil that he cannot escape. ALCHEMY. Sukely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the husbandman, whereof Espp makes the fable, who,, when he died, told his VERULAMIANA. 7 his sons that he had left unto them gold buried under ground in his vineyard ; and they digged over all the ground, and gold they found none, but by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of the vines, they had a great vintage the year following : so the search and stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature, as for the use of man's life. ANGER. To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the stoics. We have better oracles.—- Be angry ; but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. There is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger; how it troubles man's life. And the best time to do this, is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as appears well in the weakness of those in whom it reigns ; children, women, old B 4 folks, • VERULAMIANA. folks, sick folks. No man is angry that feels not himself hurt : and therefore tender and de- licate persons must needs be oft angry ; they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of. There be two things whereof you must have special caution. The one, of extreme bitterness of words ; and that in anger a man reveal no se- crets ; for that makes him not fit for society. The other that you do not peremptorily break off, in any business, in a fit of anger ; but, how- soever you shew bitterness, do not act any thing that is not revocable. The scripture exhorteth us, to possess our souls in patience. Whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul. i ANIMAL FOOD. Carnivorous animals cannot be fed with Jierbage. Hence (though the will of men has a greater influence over their bodies, than in other animals) the order of the Folietani, or leaf-eaters, is said to have dropped upon finding that VERULAMIANA. that leaves or herbage were not capable of nourishing the human body. ANNIHILATION. There is nothing more certain in nature, than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated : as it was the work of the omnipotency of God to make somewhat of nothing, so it requireth the like omnipotency to turn somewhat into nothing. ANTIQUITY. These times are the antient times, when the w r orld is antient ; and not those which we ac- count antient, by a computation backward from ourselves. ANTIENTS AND MODERNS. Some are wrapped up in the admiration of antiquity, others spend themselves in a fondness for novelty 5 and few are so tempered as to hold B 5 a mean, lo VERULAMIANA. a mean, but either quarrel with what was justly asserted by the antients, or despise what is justly advanced by the moderns. And this is highly prejudicial to philosophy, and the sciences ; as being rather an affectation for an- tiquity, or for novelty, than any true judgment: for truth is not to be derived from any felicity of times, which is an uncertain thing > but from the eternal light of nature and experience. APHORISMS. The writing in aphorisms hath many excel- eat virtues, whereto the writing in method doth not approach. First, it trieth the writer, whe- ther he be superficial or solid ; for aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences : for discourse of illustration is cut off, recitals of ex- amples are cut off, discourse of connexion and order is cut off, descriptions of practice are cut off; so there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observa- tion : and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt to write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded, AUTHORITY. VERULAMIANA. U AUTHORITY, Authority is best supported by love aftd fear intermixed. AVIARIES. For Aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as they may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them; that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no foulness appear in the floor of the aviary. BABLERS. 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. B 6 BEAUTY, Ml VERULAMIANA. BEAUTY. Virtue i\s like a rich stone, best plain set: and surely virtue is best in a body that is come* Jy, though not of delicate features ; and that hath rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express > no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man shall see faces, in which, if you examine them part by part, you shall never find a good ; and yet altogether they do well. Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot last \ and for the most part it makes a dissolute Youth, and an Age a little out of countenance : but yet certainly, again, if it light well, it maketh virtues shine, and vices blush. BELIEF, VEHULAMIANA. is BELIEF. There be three means to fortify belief. The first, is experience ; the second, reason ; the third, authority : and that of these which is far the most potent, is authority; for belief up- on reason or upon experience, will stagger. BIOGRAPHY. Histories do rather set forth the pomp of business, than the true and inward resorts there- of. But lives, if they be well written, pro- pounding to themselves a person to represent/ in whom actions both greater and smaller, public and private, have of commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native and lively representation v ELDER AND YOUNGER BROTHERS. Younger Brothers are commonly fortunate; but seldom or never, when the Elder are dis- inherited. BOOKS* / VERULAMIANA. BOOKS. All knowledge is either delivered by teachers, or attained by men's proper endeavours ; and therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth chiefly writing of books', so the relative part thereof concerneth reading of books; whereunto appertain these considera- tions. First, concerning the true correction and editing of authors ; wherein, nevertheless, rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For these critics have often presumed, that that which they understood not was falsely set down. As the priest, who, where he found it written of Saint Paul Danissus est per sportam, mended his book, and made it De missus est per pyrtam, be- cause sportam was & hard word, and out of his reading. Therefore, as it hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are commonly the least correct. The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors, which resteth in anno- tations and commentaries ; wherein it is over usual to blanch the obscure places, aod dis- course VERULAMIANA. t* course upon the plain. The third, is concern- ing the times, which in many cases give great light to true interpretations. The fourth, is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the authors ; that men thereby may make some election unto themselves/ what books to read. And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies, that men may know in what older or pursuit to read. Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books. MULTIPLICITY OF BOOKS. The opinion of plenty is among the causes of want; and the great quantity of books maketh a shew rather of superfluity than lack: which surcharge, nevertheless, is not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more good books, which, as the serpent of Moses^ might devour^e serpents of the enchanters. BOLDNESS, 16 VERULAMfANA, BOLDNESS. Wonderful is the case of boldness in civil business: what first? Boldness. What second and third ? — Boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far. inferior to other parts. But nevertheless it doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot, those that are either shallow in judgment or weak in courage ; which are the greatest part : yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times. Therefore we see it hath done wonders in popular states ; but with senates and princes less: and more ever upon the first entiance of bold persons into action, than soon after ;. for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so there are mountebanks for the politick body- — men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out: nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Ma- homet's miracle* Mahomet made the people believe that he would call an hill to him, and from VERULAMIANA. l? from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled — Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again, — and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, " If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill." So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shame- fully, yet, if they have the perfection of bold- ness, they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado. This is well to be weighed, that boldness is ever blind, for it seeth not dangers and incon- veniencies ; therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution : so that the right use of bold per- , sons is that they never command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others. For in counsel, it is good to see dangers ; and in execution not to see them, except they be Tery great. CELIBACY, The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are IS VERULAMIfcNA. are proper to men : and surely a man shall see that the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, who have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed ; so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. He that hath wife and children, hath givea hostages to fortune ; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Some there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with them- selves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other, that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Some rich foolish covetous men take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. But the most ordinary cause of a single-life is liberty ; especially in certain self- pleasing and humourous minds, who are so sensible of every restraint, that they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried VERULAM1ANA. 19 Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best subjects ; for they are light to run away, and almost all fu- gitives 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 mar- riage, amongst the Turks, maketh the vulgar soldiers more base. Certainly, wife and chil- dren are a kind of discipline of humanity ; and single-men, though they be many times more charitable, because their means are less ex- hausted, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hard-hearted, good to make severe inquisitors, because their tenderness is not so often called upon. COMMON-PLACE BOOKS. I am not igivjrant of the prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing a retardation io VERULAMIANA. retardation of reading, and some sloth or re- laxation of memory. But because it is but a counterfeit thing in knowledge, to be forward and pregnant, except a man be deep and full, I hold the entry of common-places to be a mat- ter of great use and essence in studying, as that which assureth copiousness of invention, and contracteth judgment to a strength. CONCUPISCENCE. Unlawful lust is like a furnace; if you stop the flames altogether, it will quench; but if you give them any vent, it will rage. conversation. It is good in discourse and speech of conver- sation, to vary and intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments ; tales with reasons; asking of questions with telling of opinions ; and jest with earnest : for it is a dull thing to tire, and (as we say now) to jade any- thing too far. He VERULAMIANA. *r He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much ; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh : for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge. Discretion of speech is more than eloquence ; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order. CONTROVERSY. As in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time, and no proceed- ing at all; so in learning, where there is much controversy, there is many times little enquiry. CONSOLATION. Amongst consolations, it is not the least to represent to a man's self like examples of cala- mity ** VERULAMIANA. mity in others. For examples give a quicker impression than arguments ; and, besides, they certify us of that which the Scripture also ten- dereth for satisfaction — that no new thing has happened unto us. This they do the better, by how much the examples are liker in circum- stances to our own case ; and more especially if they fall upon persons that are greater and worthier than ourselves. For as it savoureth of vanity, to match ourselves highly in our own conceit ; so on the other side it is a good sound conclusion, that if our betters have sustained the like events, we have the less cause to be grieved. CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION. Men must know, that in this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and an- gels to be lookers on : neither could the ques- tion ever have been received in the church, but upon this defence, that the monastical life is not simply contemplative, but performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplica* tions, which hath been truly esteemed as an of- fice VERULAMIANA. 2d fice In the church ; or else of writing or taking instructions for Writing concerning the law of God, as Moses did when he abode so long in the mount. So we see Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who was the first contemplative, and walked with God, yet did also endow the church with prophesy, which St. Jude citeth. But for contemplation which should be finished in it- self, without casting beams upon society, as- suredly divinity^ knoweth it not. This decideth the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, who placed felicity in virtue simply or attended, the actions and exercises whereof d<) chiefly embrace and concern so- ciety ; and, on the other side, the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot be served and attended : And the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed virtue in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation ; as if they would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Sa- turn and the first age, when there was no sum- mer nor winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and season : Also Herillus, who placed felicity $4 VERULAMIANA. felicity in extinguishment of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and evil, esteeming things according to the clearness of the desires or the reluctatior* : — all which mani- festly tend to private repose and contentment, and not to point of society. It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which pre-supposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance; as if it were not a thing much more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune. Wherennto the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath signed, that a good, conscience is a continual feast ; shewing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, how- soever succeeding, is a more continual joy to na- ture than all the provision which can be made for security and repose. It censureth likewise that abuse of philo- sophy (which grew general about the time of Epictetus) in converting it into an occupation or profession, —as if the purpose had been not to VERULAMIANA. 25 to resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a particular kind and course of life to that end ; introducing such an health of mind, as was that health of body which Aristotle noteth in Herodicus, who did nothing all liis life long but intend his health : whereas, if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of body is best which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities, so likewise that health of mind is most proper which can go through the greatest temptations and pertur- bations. So as Diogenes's opinion is to be ac- cepted ; who commended not them which ab- stained, but them which sustained, and could refrain their mind in precipitio, and could give unto the mind the shortest stop or turn. Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some of the most antient and reverend philosophers, and philosophical men, who retired too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities and perturbations : whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be such as Gonsalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, etala crassiore; and C not 26 VERULAMIANA. not so fine, as that every thing should catch in it and endanger it. In life there is no man's spirit so soft, hut that lie esteemeth the effecting of somewhat he hath fixed in his desire, more than sensuality* Which priority of the active good is much upheld by the consideration of our state to be mortal and exposed to fortune; which maketli us desire to have somewhat secured and ex* empted from time, which are only our deeds and works. The pre-eminence likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection which is natural in man towards variety and proceed- ing, which in the pleasures of the sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can have no great latitude. But in enterprises^ pursuits and purposes of life there is much variety, whereof men are sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, leintegrations, approaches and attainings to their ends. So as it was well said, Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est. Yet,' that gigantic state of mind which possesseth the troublers of the world, who would have all men happy or unhappy, as they are their friends or enemies, and would give VERULAMIANA. 17 give form to the world according to their own humours — which is the true theomacy — pre- tendeth and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth farthest from the good of society, which we have determined to be the greater. In man, the approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the perfection of his form; the error or false imitation of which good, is, that which is the tempest of human life. CONSENT OR AGREEMENT, Of all characteristics, that is the worst which men take from consent, in matters of the under- standing ; except such as concern religion and politics, which properly go by voices. CREDIBILITY OF SYSTEM. The harmony of a science, supporting each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections. Cf CUSTOM 2S VEUULAMIANA. CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. The thoughts of men are much according to their inclination ; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opini- ons ; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed. Therefore since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavour to obtain good customs. Certainly, custom is most perfect when it begin- neth in young years : this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom. CUNNING OR SELF-POLICY. It is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to understand matters : for many are perfect in mens' humours, that are not greatly capable of the real part of business. It is a point of cunning, to wait upon him with whom you speak with your eye ; for there be many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances : yet this should be done with a demure abasing of your eye some- times. 1 Another VERULAMIANA. 29 Another is, that when you have any thing to obtain of present dispatch, you entertain and amuse the party with whom you deal with some other discourse ; that he be not too much awake to make objections. The like surprise may be made by moving the thing when the patty is in haste, and cannot stay to consider advisedly of vhat is moved. If a man would cross a business, that Le doubts some other would handsomely and effec- tually move; let him pretend to wish it well, and move it himself in such sort as may foil it. The breaking off in the midst of what one was about to say, as if he took himself up,- breeds a greater appetite in him with whom you confer, to know more. And because it works better when any thing seemeth to be gotten from you by question, than if you offer it of yourself, you may lay a bait for a question, by shewing another visage and countenance thau you are wont. In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some whose words are 3*> VERULAMIANA. are of less weight, and to reserve the mor<* weighty voice to come in as by chance. In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of canning to borrow the name of the world ; as to say, u The world says/' or, " There is a speech abroad ." I knew one, who, when he wrote a letter, would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a bye-matter. I knew another who would pass over that which he intended most ; and go forth, and come back again, and speak of it as of a thing that he had almost forgot. Some procure themselves to be surprised at such time, so as it is likely that the party they work upon will suddenly come upon them. It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a man's own name, which he would have another man learn and use, anil thereupon take advantage. It is a way that some men have, to glance and dart at others by justifying themselves by negatives ; as to say, " This / do not." Some VEKULAMIANA 31 Some have in readiness so; many tales and stories, as there is nothing they would insinuate but they can wrap it into- a tale. It is a good point of cunning tor a man to shape the answer he would hav£, in his own words and propo- sitions. It is strange how long some men will he in wait to speak somewhat they desire to say; and how far about they will fetch, and how many matters they will beat over to come near it : it is a thing of great patience, bat yet of much use. A sudden bold, and unexpected question, doth many times surprise a man, and lay him open. Like to him, who having changed his name, and walking in St. Paul's, another sud- denly came behind him and called him by his true name A whereat straitwav he looked back. But these small wares and petty points of cun- ning are infinite, and it were a good deed to make a list of them: for nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise. It is generally better to deal by speech than "by letter ; and by the mediation of a third, than C 4 by 3% VERULAMiANA. by a man's self. Letters are good, when a man would draw an answer by letter back again ; or where it may be clanger to be interrupted, or heard by pieces 5 or when it may serve for a man's justification, afterwards to produce his own letter. To deal in person is good, when a man's face breedeth regard, as commonly with inferiors ; or in tender cases, where a man's eye upon the countenance of him to whom he speak- eth, may give him a direction how far to go : and, generally, where a man will reserve to himself liberty either to disavow or to expound. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends to interpret their speeches ; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. DANCING. Dancing to song is a thing of great state and pleasure. — I understand it, that the song be in quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken music, and the ditty fitted to the device. Several quires placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches, anthem-wise, give great pleasure. The VERULAMIANA. ** The colours that shew best by candle-light, are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green : and ouches or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. Some sweet odours, suddenly coming forth without any drops falling, are in such company (as there is steam and heat) things of great pleasure and refreshment. DEFORMITIES. Deformed persons are commonly even with nature ; for as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature ; being for the most part, as the Scripture saith, void of natural affection, — and so they have their revenge of nature. Cer- tainly there is a consent between the body and the mind ; and where nature erreth in the one, she ventureth in the other. Whosoever hath any thing fixed in his persoYi that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpe- tual spur in himself to rescue and deliver him- self from scorn ; and therefore all deformed persons are extreme bold. Also it stirreth in them industry, and especially of this kind — C 5 to 84 VERULAMIANA. to watch and observe the failings of others,* that they may have somewhat to repay. Again> in their superiors it qnencheth jealousy towards them, .as persons that they think they may at pleasure despise \ and it layeth their compe- titors and emulators asleep, as never believing they should be in possibility of advancement, till they see them in possession. So that, in a great wit, deformity is an advantage towards DELAYS. There is surely no greater wisdom, than well to time the beginnings and outsets of things. Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light: and more dangers have deceived men, than forced them. Nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way,, though they come no- thing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches ; for if a man watch too long, it is odds but he will fall asleep. On the other side, to be deceived by too long shadows (as some have been when the moon was low, and shone on their enemy's back) and so to shoot off before the time ; or to teach dangers to come VERULAMIANA. 3,5 come on, by over-early buckling towards them, ; is another extreme. The helmet of Pluto, which nraketh the poli- tic man go invisible, is seaesy in the council, and celerity in the execution, for when things are once come to the execution there is no secresy comparable to celerity ; like the motion of a; bullet in the air, which flieih so swift as it out- runs the eye. DEDICATIONS* The modern dedications of books and writ- ings, as to patrons, is not to be commended, for books, such as are worthy the name of books, ought to have no patrons but truth and reason. And the antient custom was, to dedir- cate thein only to private and equal friends ; or to entitle the books with their names \ or if to kings and great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper for. Net that I can tax or condemn the application of learned men to men in fortune. For the an- swer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in mockery, ••' How it came to pass, that philosophers were the followers of rich C 6 men 36 VERULAMIANA. men, and not rich men of philosophers." He answered soberly, and yet sharply — " because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not." Of the like nature was the answer which Aristrippus made, when having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet; whereupon Dionysius staid, and gave him the hearing, and granted it : afterwards some person, tender on the be- half of philosophy, reproved Aristippus, that he could offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet. But he answered — <€ It was not his fault, but the fault of Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet." Neither was it ac- counted weakness, but discretion in him that would not dispute his best with Adrianus Cesar; excusing himself, " That it was reason to yield to him who commanded thirty legions." These and the like applications, and stooping to points of necessity and convenience, are to be accounted submissions to the occasion, and not to the person* BISPATCH. VflRULAMlANA. 37 DISPATCH. Affected Dispatch is one of the most dan- gerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion ; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of diseases. And as in races it is not the large stride or high lift, that makes the speed ; so in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of too much at once procureth dispatch. I knew a wise man, who had it for a b} T e-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, " Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner. " Long and curious speeches are as fit for dis- patch, as a robe or mantle with a long train is for a race. Above all things, order and distribution in singling out parts is the life of dispatch. To chuse time, is to save time; and an unseason- able motion is but beating the air. DISPOSITION &S VERULAMIANA. DISPOSITION OR NATURE. Nature is often hidden, sometimes over- come, seldom extinguished. Force make th na- ture more violent in the return ; doctrine and discourse maketh nature less importunate, but custom only doth alter and subdue nature. He tbatseeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great, nor too small tasks ; for the first will make him dejected by often failings, and the second will make him a small proceeder though by often prevailings. Neither is the antientrule amiss, to bend Nature, as a wand, to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right ; understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice. But let no man trust his victory over his nature too far; for nature will lie buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation. Like as it was with iEsop's dam- sel, turned from a cat to a woman: who sat very demurely at the board's end, till a mouse ran before her. Therefore let a man either avoid the occasion altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may he little moved by it. A man's nature is best perceived in private- ness, for. there is no affectation ; in passion, for that VERULAMIANA. 3$ that putteth a man out of his precepts : and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him. A man's nature runs either to herbs, or weeds : therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other. 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 politi- cians that are the great dissemblers. For, if a man have that penetration of judg- ment as to discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to Be shewed at half-lights ; and to whom and when (which, indeed, are arts of state and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them); to brim, a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him,, generally, to be close and a dis- sembler. As in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart ; so 40 VERULAMIANA. so secret men come to knowledge of many things in that kind, while men rather discharge their minds, than impart their minds. Besides, to say truth, nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body ; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, if they be not al- together open. Therefore set it down that an ha- bit of secresy is both politic and moral. He that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree. For men are too cunning to suf- fer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret without swaying the ba- lance 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 shew an inclination one way ; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivocations, or oracu- lous speeches, they cannot hold out long. So that no man can be secret, except he give him- self a little scope of dissimulation ;. which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secresy. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion ; secresy in habit ; VERULAM1ANA. habit ; dissimulation in seasonable use ; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy. JDREAMS AND OMENS. I would have it thoroughly enquired, whe- ther there beany secret passages of sympathy between persons of near blood ; as, parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, hus- bands, wives ? There be many reports in his- tory, that upon the death of persons of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, that, being in Paris, and my father dying in London, I had a dream, (which I told to divers English gentlemen) that my father's house in the country was plaistered all over with black mortar. Next to those that are near in bloody there may be the like passage and instincts of nature between great friends and enemies : and sometimes the revealing is unto another person, and not to the party him- self. I remember that Philip Commines, a grave writer, rcporteth — that the Archbishop of Vienna, a reverend prelate, said one day, after mass, to Louis the eleventh of France, u Sir, your mortal enemy is dead j? what time Duke Charles 42 VERULAMIANA. Charles of Burgundy was slain at the battle of Granson, against the Swiss. duels. When revenge is once extorted out of the magistrate's hands, contrary to God's ordinance —Miki vindicta y €go retribuam; and every man shall bear the sword, not to defend, but to as- sail ; and private men begin once to presume to give law to themselves, and to right their own wrongs ; no man can foresee the dangers and inconveniences that may arise and multiply thereupon. So that the state by this means shall be like to a distempered and imperfect body, continually subject to inflammations and convulsions. It is a miserable effect, when young men full of toward ness and hope, such as the poets call aururtcjilii, sons of the morning, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends consist- ed], shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain manner: but much more it is. to be deplor- ed when so much noble and genteel blood shall be spiit upon such follies, as, if adventured in the field, in service of the king and realm, were abk VERULAMIANA. 43 able to make the fortune of a clay, and to change the fortune of a kingdom. Men have almost lost the true, notion and understanding of fortitude and valour. For fortitude distinguisheth of the grounds of quarrels, whether they be just ; and not only so, but whether they be worthy; and setteth a better price upon lives than to bestow them idly. A man's life is not to be trifled away : it is to be offered up and sacrificed to honourable services, public merits, good causes, .and noble adventures. I find in Scripture, that Cain enticed his brother into the field and slew him treache- rously ; but Lamech vaunted of his manhood, that he would kill a young man, if it were to his hurt: I see no difference between an insidious" murder, and a braving or presumptuous murder, but the difference between Cain and Lamech. Greece and Rome were the most valiant and generous nations of the world ; and yet they had not this practice of duels, nor any thing that bare shew thereof: and surely they would have had it, if there had been any virtue in it. It is also memorable, that is reported touching the censure of the Turks of these duels. There was. 44 VERULAMIANA. was a combat of this kind performed by twr/ persons of quality of the Turks, wherein one of them was slain; the other party being brought before the counsel of Bashaws, the reprehension was in these words. — u How durst you under* take to fight one with the other? Are there not Christians enough enough to kill ? Did you not know that which soever of you should be slain, the loss would be the Great Seignior's r" So as we may see that the most warlike nations, whether generous or barbarous, have ever de- spised this wherein men now glory* I should think, that men of birth and quality will leave the practice when it begins to be vili- fied ; and comes so low as to barber-surgeons and butchers, and s^ch base mechanical per- sons. Lastly, I have a petition to the nobles and gentlemen of England ; that they would learn to esteem themselves at a just price. Their blood is not to be spilled like water, or a vile thing: therefore they should rest per- suaded that there cannot be a form of honour, except it be upon a woithy matter. EDUCATION VERULAMIANA. 45 EDUCATION. The culture and manu**ance of minds in youth hath such a forcible, though unseen ope- ration, as hardly any length of time or conten- tion of labour can countervail it afterwards. EGOTISM. The coming in a man's own name, without regard of antiquity or fraternity, is no good sign of truth ; although it be joined with the fortune and success of an cum recipittis. EGYPTIANS. It was no wonder that the Egyptians who conferred divinity and consecration upon the inventors of things, had more images of brutes than men : for brutes by their natural instinct, made many discoveries ; whilst men, with their discourses and rational conclusion, made few or none, ELOQUENCE. 4$ VERULAMIANA.? ELOQUENCE. It was great injustice in Plato, though spring- ing out of a just hatred of the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric but as a voluptu- ary art ; resembling it to cookery, that did mar wholesome meats, and help unwholesome, by variety of sauces, to the pleasure of the taste* For we see that speech is much more conver- sant in adorning that which is good; than in co- louring that which is evil ; for there is no man but speaketh more honestly than he can do.or think: and it was excellently noticed by Thu- cydides in Cleon, that because he used to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever inveighing against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man can speak fair of courses sordid and base. And as Plato said elegantly, "that Virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection ;" so, seeing that she cannot be shewn to the sense by cor- poral shape, the next degree is, to shew her to the imagination by lively representation : for to shew her to reason only in subtlety of argu- ment was si thing ever derided in Chrysippus, and VERULAMIANA. . 4? and many of the Stoics ; who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp disputations and con- cIusions> which have no sympathy with the will of mail. If the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient to reason, there should be no great use of persuasions and insinuations to the will more than of naked propositions and proofs : but in re- gard of the continual mutinies and seditions of the affections, reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasion did not prac- tice and win the imagination from the affection's part, and contract a confederacy between 4he reason and imagination against the affections ; for the affections themselves carry ever an ap- petite to good, as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the pre- sent ; reason beholdeth the future, and sum of time. And therefore, the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly van- quished : but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath made things future and remote appear as present, then, upon the revolt of the imagination, reason prevaileth. ENEMIES. VERULAMtANA, ENEMIES. Trust not a reconciled enemy ; but think the peace is but to secure you for further ad- vantage, or expect a second and a third en- counter ; the main battle, the wings are yet un- broken ; they may charge you at an instant, or death before them. Walk therefore circum- spectly. ENQUIRY. The two ways of contemplation are not un- like the two ways of action, commonly spoken of by the antients ; — the one, plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable ; the other, rough and troublesome in the en- trance, but after awhile fair and even. So it is in contemplation. If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts ; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. ENVY, .- VERULAMIANA. 40 ENVY. There are none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and env}\ The;; 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 which conduce to fascina- tion, if any such thing there be. We see like- wise, that the Scripture calleth envy an evil eye; and the Astrologers call the evil influences of the stars, evil aspects ; so lhat still there seem- eth to be acknowledged in the act of envy, an, ejaculation, or irradiation of the eye. 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 whoever wanteth the one,, will prey upon the other; and whoever, is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's for- tune. D A man 50 VERULAMIANA. A man that is busy and inquisitive, is com- monly envious. For envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep at home. Men of noble birth are noted to be envious to- wards new men when they rise : for the dis- tance is altered ; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that, when others come on, they think them- selves go back. Deformed persons, and eunuchs, and old men, and bastards, are envious : for he that cannot possibly mend his own case, will do what he can to impair another's. The same is the case of men that rise after calamities and misfor- tunes ; for they are as men fallen out with the times, and think other men's harms a redemp- tion of their own sufferings. They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity and vain-glory, are ever envious; for they cannot want work : it being impossible but that many, in some one of those things should surpass them. Near VERULAMIANA. su Near kinsfolk, and fellows in office, and those that have been bred together, are more apt to envy their equals when they are raised. For it doth upbraid unto them their own fortunes, and poinleth at them, and cometh oftener into their remembrance, and incurreth likewise more the notice of others; and envy ever redoubleth from speech and fame. Persons of eminent virtue when they are ad- vanced are less envied. For their fortune seem - eth but due unto them ; and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where th^re is no comparison, no envy; and therefore kings are not envied, but by kings. Persons of no- ble blood are less envied in their rising; for it seemeth but right done to their birth : besides, there seemeth not much added to their fortune ; and envy is as the sun-beams, which beat hotter upon a bank, or steep rising-ground, than upon a flat. And, for the same reason, those that are advanced by degrees, are less envied than those that are advanced suddenly. Those that have joined with their honour, great trayels, cares, or D 2 perils, 52 VERULAMIANA. perils, are less subject to envy : for men think that they earn their honours hardly, and pity them sometimes ; and pity ever healeth envj\ But this is to be understood of business that is laid upon men, and not such as they call unto themselves : for nothing increaseth envy more, than an unnecessary and ambitious ingrossing of business. Above all, those are most subject to envy, who carry the greatness of their fortunes in an insolent and proud manner ! being never well hnji while they are shewing how great they are, either by outward pomp, or by triumphing over all opposition or competition : whereas wise men will rather do sacrifice to envy, in suffering themselves sometimes to be crossed and over- borne, in things that do not much concern them. Love and envy make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so con- tinual. Envy is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved ; for which cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is called the envious man, that sowtth tares amongst the reheat by VERULAMIANA, 53 by night, as it always cometh to pass that envy worketh subtily, and in the dark, and to the prejudice of good things. ERROR. It is a thing that may touch a man with a religious wonder, to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very same in divine and hu- man truth ; for as in divine truth man cannot endure to become as a child, so, in human, they reputed the attending to inductions as if it vvere u second infancy or childhood. %/ A cripple in the right way, may beat a racer- in the wrong one. Nay, the fleeter and better the racer is, who hath once missed his way, the iarther he leaveth it behind. EXPENDITURE. Riches are for spending, and spending for "honour and good actions. Certainly if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenees ought to be but to the half of his receipts ; and if D 3 he H VERULAMIANA. ire tfiink to wax rich, but lo the third part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence .-alone, but doubting to bring them- selves into melancholy, in respeet they shall find it broken. But wounds cannot be cured without searching. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expence, to be as saving again in some other. For he that is plentiful in expences of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay. A man ought warily to begin charges, which,, once begun, w r ill continue; but in matters that return not, he may be more magnificent. Cer- tainly, who hath an estate to repair may not despise small things : and, commonly, it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges, than t>a stoop to petty gettings. THE FALL. By the fall, man at once forfeited his inno- eency and his dominion over the creatures, though both of them are, in some measure, re- coverable VERULAMIANA. 5> eoverable even in this life : the former by reli- gion and faith ; the latter,, by arts and sciences For the world was not made absolutely rebel- lious bv the curse; bet in virtue of iff at denun- eiation — " in ike sweat of thj/ brow thou slialt eat thy bread" it is, at length, not by disputes and indolent ceremonies, but by various real labours subdued, and brought in some degree to afford the necessaries of life. FATHERS.. If a father breed his son well, or allow him- well while he liveth, but leave him nothing at bis death, whereby both he and his children and his children's children may be the better/ surely the care and piety of a father is not in him complete. favours. Deeds are not such assured pledges, as that they may be trusted without a judicious consi- deration of their magnitude and nature: the Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be D 4 bought. 56 VERULAMIANA. bought and sold, when he is better used tha*i he was wont to be, without manifest cause. For small favours they do but lull men asleep, both- as to cauti&n and as to industry. FLATTERY. If he be an ordinary flatterer, he will have certain common attributes which may serve every man ; if he be a cunning flatterer, he will follow the arch-flatterer, which is a man r s self, and wherein a man thinketh best of him- self a flatterer will uphold him most; but if he be an impudent flatterer^ wheiein a man is con- scious to himself that he is most defective, that will the flatterer entitle him to per force. It is flattery to praise* in absence,, that is, when either the virtue is absent or the occasion is absent, and so the praise is not natural but forced, either in truth or in time. But let Cicero be heard in his oration, pro Marccllo, which is nothing but an excellent table of Ce- sar's virtue, and made to his face; besides the example of many other excellent persons, and 2 we VKRULAMIANA. 5? we will never doubt, upon a full occasion, to give just praises to present or absent. FOLLOWERS AND SUITORS. Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he makes his wings shorter. I reckon to be costly, not them alone which charge the purse, but which are wearisome and importunate in suits.— Ordinary followers ought to challenge no higher. conditions than countenance, recommendation, and protection from wrongs. Factious follow- ers are worse to be liked ; which follow not upon affection to him with whom they range themselves, but upon discontentment conceived against some other, whereupon commonly en- sueth that ill intelligence that we many times see between great personages. Likewise glo- rious followers, who make themselves as -ti lim- pets of the commendation of those they follow, are full of inconvenience : for they taint busi- ness through want of secrecy; and they export honour from a man, and make him a return in envy. There is a kind of followers, likewise^ D 5 which 58 VERULAM1ANA. which are dangerous, being indeed spies; who enquire the secrets of the house, and bear tales of them to others. Surely there is in some sort a right in every suit; either a right of equity, if it be a suit of controversy, or a right of desert, if it be a suit of petition. If affection lead a man to favour - the wrong side in justice, let him rather use his countenance to compound the matter than to carry it. If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert, let him do it without de- praving or disabling the better deserver. Suitors are so distasted with delays and abuses, that plain dealing in denying to deal in suits at first,, and is reporting the success barely,, and challenging no more thanks than one hath deserved, is grown not only honourable but gracious. Secresy in suits is a great mean of obtaining ;- for voicing them to be in forwardness may dis- courage some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others. But timeing of the suit is the jprincipal ; timeing, I say,, not only in re- spect VERULAMIANA. 59 spectof the person that should grant it, but in respect of those which are likely to cross it. The reparation of a denial is sometimes equal to the first grant ; if a man shew himself neither dejected nor discontented- Nothing is thought so easy a request, to a great person, as his letter; and yet, if it h> not in a good cause, it is so much out of his reputation. There is little friendship in the world; and least of all between equals, which was wont to. be magnified. That which is, is between supe- rior and inferior, whose fortunes may compre- hend the one or the other,. FORCIVENESS. Generous and magnanimous minds are rea- diest to forgive;' and it is a weakness and impo- tency of mind to be unable to forgive. DO FORTUNE. <50 VEEULAMIANA. FORTUNE. It cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much to fortune : favour, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue. But chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands. Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. Fortune is to be honoured and respected, if it be but for her daughters, Confidence and Reputation. For these two felicity breedeth : the first, within a man's self j the latter, m others towards him. FRIENDS. Every honest man, that hath his heart well planted, will forsake his king rather than for- sake God, and forsake his friend rather than forsake his king; and yet will forsake any earthly commodity, and his ow r n life in some cases, ra- ther than forsake his friend. A good VERULAMIANA. *i A good sure friend is a better help, at a pineh r than all the stratagems and policies of a man's own wit. FRENCH AND SPANIARDS. It hath been an opinion,, that the French are wiser than they seem,, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. FRIENDSHIP. A principal fruit of friendship is the case and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body, and it is not much otherwise in the mind : you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain ; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, 62 VERULAMIANX counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.' The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true ;-'• Cor Tie edito — eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want true friends to open themselves unto are canibals of their own hearts. But one thins; is most admirable, that, this communicating of a man's self to his friend worts two contrary ef- fects ; for it recloubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. _ For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but hejoyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship indeed maketh a fair dav in the affections, from stornl and tempests ; but it maketh day-light in the understanding, cut of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend ; but before it come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught VERULAMIANA. 63 fraught with many thoughts, his wits and un- derstanding do clarify and break up in the com- municating and discoursing; with another. — he tosseth his thoughts more easily, he marsh alleth them more orderly, he seethhow the}' look when they are turnecf into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse, than by a day's meditation. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts ta pass in smother. The light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer* than that which cometh from his own understanding and judg- ment ; which is ever infused and drenched in* his affection and customs. The calling of a man's self to a strict account, is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes im- proper for our ease : but the best receipt, (best,. I say, to work, and best to take) is the admoni- tion of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many r especially of the greater sort, do commit, for want 64 VERtfLAMIANA. want, of a friend to tell them of them ; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes can see no more than one ; or that a gamester seeth always more than a look- er-on ; or that a man in anger is as wise as he^ that hath said over the four and twenty letters ;: or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest ; and such, other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But, when all is done, the help of good counsel is that that setteth business strait. Men have their time, and die many times mi desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a. child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath two lives as it were in his desires. IIosv many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeli- ness, say or do. himself: A man can scarce allege his own merits with modestly, much less extol them ; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But VERULAMIANA. 6$ But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouthy which are blushing in a man's own. A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father \ to his wife, but as a husband ; to his enemy, but upon terms : whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. Where a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend, he may quit the stasre. FUTURITY, It pleaseth God sometimes, in order to make men depend upon him the more, to hide from them the clear sight of future events ; and to make them think that full of uncertainties which proveth certain and clear ; and sometimes 013/ the other side, to cross men's expectations, and to make them full of difficulty and perplexity in that which they thought easy and assured* GAMING. There is a folly very usual ; for gamesters $re apt to imagine, that some that stand by them bring them ill luck, GABDSNS, «6 VERULAM1ANA. GARDENS. Hod Almighty first planted a garden, artel indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; without which, palaces and buildings are but gross handy works : And a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy men come to build stately, sooner than to gar- den finely; as if gardening were the greater perfection. GENERALITIES. It is the nature of the mind of man, to the. extreme prejudice of knowledge, to delight in the spacious liberties of generalities, as in a Champain region, and not in the inclosures of particularity. GENERAL SYMPATHIES, OR DESIRES. The delight which men have hi popularity, fame, honour, submission, and subjection of othec VERULAMIANA. 67 oilier men's minds, wills or affections, seemeth to be a thing in itself, without contemplation of consequences, grateful and agreeable to the nature of man. This thing* surely, is not with- out some signification ; as if all spirits and souls of men came forth out of one divine limbus : else, why should men be so much affected with that which others think or say ? The best temper of minds desireth good name and true honour : the lighter, popularity and applause : the more depraved, subjection and tyranny ; as is seen in great conquerors and troublers of the world ; but still more in arch- heretics, for the introducing of new doctrines is an affectation of tyranny over the under- standings and beliefs men. GESTURES. Gestures are as transitory as hieroglyphics; and are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in that they abide not : but they have evermore, as well as the other, an affinity with the things signified. Periander, being consulted 68 VERULAMIANA. consulted with how to preserve a tyranny newlv usurped, bade the messenger attend and report what he saw him do, and went into his garden and topped all the highest flowers ; signifying, that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and grandees. GOODNESS. Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination. This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the character of the deitj' ; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. Errors indeed in this virtue of goodness or charity may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, Tanio buon cite veil nientt .— So good, that he is good for nothing. And one of the doctors of Italy had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, that the christian faith had given up good men in prey to those that $re tyran- nical and unjust; which he spake, because in- deed VERULAMIANA. 69 deed there was never law, or sect, or opinion, that did so much magnify goodness as the chris- tian religion doth : therefore, to avoid the scan- dal and the danger both, it is right to take knowledge of the errors of an habit so excel- lent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies ; for that is but facility or softness, which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou Esop's cock a c;em, who would be better pleased, and happier, if he had a barley-corn. The example of God teacheth the lesson truely, he sendcth his rain, and maketh his sun to shine upon the just and the unjust; but he doth not rain wealth, nor shine honour and virtues upon men equally. Common benefits are to be communicated to all, but peculiar benefits with choice. And beware how, in making the portraiture, thou breakest the pattern ; for divinity maketh the love of our- selves the pattern, the love of our neighbours but the portraiture. Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me. But sell not all thou hast, except thou come and follow me ; that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou mayst do as much good with little means as $& VERULAMIANA. as with great : for, otherwise, in feeding the streams thou driest the fountain. If a man be gracious and courteous to stran- gers, it shews he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shews that his heart is like the noble tree, that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily pardons and remits offences, it shews that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for small benefits, it shews that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash. But, above all, if he have Saint Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema from Christ for the salvation of his brethien ; it shews much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ himseif. GRAMMAR. Man still striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions of which by his fault he has been VERULAMIANA. 71 been deprived : and as he hath striven against the first general eurse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse, which was the con- fusion of tongues, by the art of grammar; whereof the use, in a mother-tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more, but most in such fo^ reign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to be learned tongues. The duty of it is of two natures : the one popular, which is for the speedy and perfect attaining of languages, as well for intercourse of speech as for understanding of authors; the the other philosophical, examining the power and nature of words, as they are the footsteps and prints of reason. HEALTH. There is wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic ; a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health. For it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good parti- I cularly 72 VERULAMIAKA. cularly and fit for thine own body. But it is a safer conclusion to say — '* This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it ;" than this — " I find no offence of this,, therefore I may use it." For strength of nature in youth passeth over many excesses, which are owing a man till his age. To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed, at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind ; avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inward, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhila- rations in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights rather than surfeit of them ; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties ; studies that fill the mind with illustrious and splendid objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be strange for your body when you shall need it. If you make it too familiar, it will work no ex- traordinary effect when sickness cometh. Despise VERULAMIANA. ?* Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it. Those that put their bodies to endure in health, may in most sicknesses which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet and ten- dering. Use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise. HONOUR AND REPUTATION. The winning of honour is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth without disadvan- tage. If a man perform that which hath not been attempted before, or attempted and given over ; or hath been atchieved, but not with so good circumstance ; he shall purchase more honour than by effecting a matter of greater difficulty or virtue, wherein he is but a follower. If a man so temper his actions as is in some -one of them he doth content every faction or com- .fenaation of people, the music will be the fuller, E A man *4 VERULAMIANA. A man is an ill husband of his honour, that entereth into any action, the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honour him. Let a man contend to excel any competitors of his in honour, in out-shooting them, if he can, in their own how. Discreet followers and servants help much to reputation. Envy, which is the can- ker of honour, is best extinguished by declaring a man's self, in his ends, rather to seek merit than fame; and by attributing a man's successes • rather to divine providence and felicity, than to his own virtue or policy.. HOUSES. Houses are built to live in, and not to look on ; therefore let use be preferred before uni- formity, except where both may be had. He that builds a fair house upon an ill scite, com- mitteth himself to prison. For bowed-windows, I hold them of good use, (in cities, indeed, upright do better in re- spect of uniformity towards the street) for they VERULAMUN-V. 53 be pretty retiring places for conference; and, besides, they do both keep the wind and sua off! HISTORIES. Of histories we may find three kinds, memo- rials, perfect histories, and antiquities. Memorials, or preparatory historv, are of two sorts; whereof the one may be termed com- mentaries, and the other registers. Commen- taries are they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions, without the mo- tives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts, the occasions, and other passes of action : for this is the true nature of a commen- tary; though Cesar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name or a commentary to the best history in the vorld. Registers are collections of public acts as decrees of council, judicial proceedings, del c arations and letters of state, .oratjons and the iike, without a perfect continuance or contex- fm of the thread of the narration. E a Antiquities ?<3 VERULAMIANA. Antiquities, or remnants of history, are when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private re- cords and evidences, fragments of stories, pas- sages of books that concern not story, and the ]ike, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time. History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three kinds, according to the ob- ject which it propoundeth or pretendeth to re- present : for it either represented! a time, or a person, or an action. The first, we call chro- nicles ; the second, lives ; and the third, narra- tions or relations* Of these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind of his- tory, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity. Narrations and relations of actions, as the War of Peleponnesus, the Expedition of Cyrus Minor, the Conspiracy of Cataline, cannot but be more purely and exactly true than histories of times, because they may chuse an argument comprehensible TERULAMIANA. 77 comprehensible within the notice and instruc- tions of the writer :.. whereas he that under- taketh the story of a time, especially of any kngth, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces which he must be forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture. For antiquity is like fame, caput inter nubila condit; her head is muffled from, our sights There is yet another partition of history, annals and journals : appropriating to the for- mer, matters of state ; and to the latter, acts and accidents of a meaner nature. It doth not a little embase the authority of an history, to intermingle matters of triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of novelty, with matters of state. EPITOMES OF HISTORY. As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed ; as those that have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent his- E 3 lories. ■7» VERULAMIANA. tories, and wrought ihem into base and unpro- liable dregs. IMITATION. Tiiehe is in men, and other creatures, a pre- disposition to imitate. We see how ready apes and monkeys are to imitate all motions of man: and no man dotli accompany with others, but he learneth, ere he is aware, some gesture, or voice, or fashion of another. IMPOSSIBILITY. Those things are to be held possible, which may. be done by some person, though not by every one ; and which may be done by many, though not by any one ; and which may be done in succession of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man's life • and which may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavour. v INCLINATIONS, VERULAM1ANA, t9 INCLINATIONS. Sometimes it cometh to pass, that men's inclinations are opened more in a toy, than in a serious matter- IRRESOLUTION. As the covetous man will enjoy nothing, because he will have his full store and possi- bility to enjoy the more ; so by this reason a man should execute nothing, because he would be still indifferent, and at liberty to execute any thing. JESTING. As for jest, there be certain things that ought to be privileged from it; namely, religion, mat- ters of state, and any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity. And, generally, men ought to find the differ- ence between saltness and bitterness. Certainly E 4 he ** VERTJXAMIANA. he that hath a satirical vein, as he mal'eth others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory. IMPEDIMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE. He that delivereth knowledge, desireth to deliver it in such form as may be soonest be- lieved, and not as may be easiest examined. He that receiveth knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant search, and so rather not to doubt than not to err. Glory maketh the author not to lay open his weakness 5 and sloth maketh the disciple not to know his strength. Then begin men to aspire to the se- cond prizes ; to be a profound interpreter and commentator, to be a sharp champion and de- fender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succes- sion of wits, whereby the patrimony of aH knowledge goeth not on husbanded or improved, but wasted and decayed. For knowledge is like a water, that will never rise again higher than the level from which it fell. However VERULAM1ANA. si However governments have several forms, sometimes the government of one, sometimes of few, sometimes of the multitude ; yet the state of knowledge is ever a democracy, and that prevaileth which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of the people. Monarchies incline wits to profit and pleasure; commonwealths, to glory and vanity. Univer- sities incline wits to sophistry and affectation ; cloisters, to fables and unprofitable subtlety ; studies at large, to variety : and it is hard to say, whether, mixture of contemplations with an active life, or retiring wholly to contempla- tions,, do disable and hinder the mind more. LEARNING VINDICATED AND ASSERTED. It was not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, a knowledge by the light whereof, man did give names unto other crea- tures in paradise, as they wiere brought before him, according unto their properties, which gave occasion to the fall ; but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in E b man 12 VERULA.MIANA. man to give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon God's commandments, which was the form of the temptation. Neither is it any quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of man to swell ; for nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man, but God, and the contemplation of God: and therefore Solomon, speaking of the princi- pal senses of inquisition, the eye and the ear, affirmeth that the eye is never satisfied with see- ing, nor the ear with hearing ; and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than tlie content* If then such be the capacity and receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest that there is no danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, lest it should make it swell or out- compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true cor- rective thereof, hath in it some nature of ve- nom or malignity, and some effect of that ve- nom, which is ventosity or swelling. This cor- rective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is charity : If J spake, saith VEEULAMIANA. 83 s&ith Saint Paul, with the tongues of men and angels, and had not charity, it were but as a tinkling cymbal ; not but that it is an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and an- gels, but because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred to the good of men and man- kind, it hath rather a sounding and unworthy glory, than a meriting and substantial virtue. There is no vexation or anxiety of mind which \ resulteth from knowledge, otherwise than merely by accident ; for all knowledge, and wonder, which, is the seed of knowledge, is an impres- sion of pleasure in itself; but when men fall to framing conclusions out of their knowledge, applying it to their particular, and ministering to themselves thereby weak fears or vast desires, then groweth that carefulness and trouble of mind which is spoken of : for then knowledge is no more Lumem siccum optima anima,. but it becometh Lumen madidum or macerutum, be- ing steeped and infused in the humours of the affections. And if any man shall think, by view and inquiry into these sensible and mate- rial things, to attain that light whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, E .6 then «4 VERULAMIANA. then indeed is he spoiled by vain philosophy r for the contemplation of God's creatures and works produceth, having regard to the works and creatures themselves, knowledge ; but hav- ing regard to God, no perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge. Let no man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety^ or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far, or to be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works,— Divinity or Philosophy ; but ra- ther let them endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both : only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling ; to use, and not to ostentation ; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together. LEARNING NOT CONDUCIVE TO IDLENESS If any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body, or softness of spi- rit, and not of learning : well may it be, that such VERULAMIANA. **■■ such a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to learning ; but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his nature. POVERTY OF THE LEARNED. It is the case of learned men usually to Be- gin with little, and not to grow rich so fa&t a^ other men, by reason they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase. The feli- city and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since turned to rudeness and barba- rism, if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility and honour of life- Neither can this point otherwise be. For learning endueth men's minds with a true sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and creation ; so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and ordainment : --whereas the corrupter sort of mere politicians, who have not their thoughts esta- blished by learning in the love and apprehension of S6 VEttULAMIANA. of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes ; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save themselves- in the cockboat of their own fortune. Whereas men that feel the weight of duty, and know the limits of self love, use to make good their places and duties though with peril. And if they stand in seditious or violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many times both adverse parties do give to honesty, than any versatile advantage of their, own carriage. LEARNING, MORAL AND PERSONAL. Learning taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and 1 difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reason on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration of any thing, which is the root of all weakness: for VERULAMIANA. »7 for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great. For no- velty, no man that wadeth in learning or con- templation thoroughly but will find that printed in his heart — Nil novi super terrain. And for magnitude — if a man meditate upon the uni- versal frame of nature ; the earth, with men upon it, (the divineness of souls excepted) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitl- gatexh fear of death, or adverse fortune ; which are two of the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners. It were too long to go over the particular re- medies which learning cloth minister to all the diseases of the mind. The unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that snavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meli- erem. The good parts he hath^ he will learn to shew to the full, and use them dextrously, but not much to encrease them : the fault he hath he will leaxn how to hide and colour^ but not much •*■ VERULAMIANA. much to amend them. Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever inter- mix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. From moral virtue, let us pass-on to matter of power and commandment; and consider, whether in right reason there be any compar- able to that wherewith knowledge in vesteth and crowneth man's nature. The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will : for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself ; and there is no power on earth; which setteth up a throne, or chair of state, in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogi- tations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning. As for fortune and advancement, it was well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings, than either Sylla or Cesar or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses or donatives and distribution of lands to so many legions. And in case of sovereignty we VERULAMIANA. *$ we see, that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath berni in some competition with empire. Again, for the pleasure and delight of know- ledge and learning, it far surpasseth all othe? in nature. We see, in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used their verdure departeth, which sheweth well they are but de- ceits of pleasures, and not pleasures ; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and therefore it appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Let us conclude with the dignity and excel- lency of knowledge and learning, in that where- unto man's nature doth most aspire, immor- tality or continuance : for to this tendeth gene- ration and raising of houses and families ; to this, tend buildings, foundations and monu- ments ; to this, tendeth the desire of memory, fame and celebration, and in effect the strength of $o VERULAMIANA. of all other human desires. We see then, hovr far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. The images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrongs of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images ; because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in suc- ceeding ages. LEGACIES. A gbeat estate left to an heir, is as a lure t© all the birds of prey round about him to seize on him ; if he be not the better stablished in years and judgment. Likewise glorious gifts and foundations, are like sacrifices without salt ; and but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrify and corrupt inwardly. Defer not charities till death : for certainly if a man weigh rightly, he that doth so, is ra- ther liberal of another mau's, than of his own. YERULAMIANA. *i PUBLIC LETTERS. Such letters as are written from wise men* are of all the words of man, in ray judgment* the best ; for they are more natural than ora- tions and public speeches, and more advised than conferences or present speeches. So again, letters of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them, are of all others the besfe instructions for history, and, to a diligent rea- der, the best histories in themselves. RESTORATION OF LITERATURE. It was the Christian church, which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians from the north west, and the Saracens from the east, did pre- serve, in the sacred lap and bosom thereof, the precious relics even of heathen learning, that had otherwise been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been. I^TLENESfc ** VERULAMIANA. tlTTtENESS. Little minds, though never so full of vir- tue, can be but a little virtuous. LOYALTY. The natural instinct of loyalty, when fury is- over, doth ever revive in the hearts of subjects of any good blood or mind. LOVE., It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis mag*, num alter alttri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel be- fore a little idol, and make himself subject, though not of the mouth, as beasts are, yet of the eye, which was given him for higher pur- poses. It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion; and how it braves the nature and value of things by this — that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but VERULAMIANA. 9S but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase ; for whereas it hath been well said, that tha arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flat- terers have intelligence, is a man's self, cer- tainly the lover is more. For there never was a proud man thought so absurdly w r ell of him- self, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, " that it is impossible to love, and to be wise." Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved ; but to the loved most of all, ex- cept the love be reciprocal. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reciprocral, or with an inward and se- cret contempt : by how much the more men ought to beware of this passion, which los- eth not only other things, but itself. This passion hath its floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity, and great adversity ; both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore shew it to be the child of folly. Nuptial love maketh mankind ; friendly love perfecteth it ; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it. 2 THE 94 YERULAMIANA, THE LYE. It would have been thought a madness- among the ancient law-givers, to have set a punishment upon the lye given ; which in effect is but a word of denial, a negative of another's saying. Any lawgiver, if he had been asked the question, would have made Solon's answer, That he had not ordained any punishment for it, because he never imagined the world would have been so fantastical as to take it so highly. As for words of reproach and contumely (whereof the lye was esteemed none) it were incredible, but that the orations themselves are extant, what extreme and exquisite reproaches were tossed up and down in the senate of Rome and the places of assembly, and the like in Greece: and yet no man took himself fouled by them ; but took them but for breath, and the style of an enemy, and either despised them or returned them, but no blood was spilled among them. MACHIAM*. YERULAMIANA. 03 MACHIAVEL1A* We are much beholden to Machiavel, and others, who write what men do, and not what they ought co do : for it is not possible to join terpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent ; his baseness arid going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting and the rest, that is, all forms and natures of evil, for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil : for men of corrupted minds pre-suppose that ho- nesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men's exterior language. So that, except you can make them believe that you know the ut- most reaches of their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality. MAGNANIMITY. VERULAMIANA. MAGNANIMITY. Magnanimity consisteth in contempt of peril, in contempt of profit, and in meriting of the times wherein one liveth. MAN. The mind is the man; and the knowledge of the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge : wherein many things are reserved, which kings with their treasures cannot buy, nor with their forces command ; their spies and intelligencers can give no news of them ; their seamen and discoverers cannot sail where they grow. All knowledge is to be limitted by religion, and tQ be referrecUo use and action. MAPS. I would not willingly imitate those that de- scribe maps, who when they come to some far countries, VERULAMIANA. 97 countries, whereof they have no knowledge, set do there. set down how there be great wastes and desarts MARRIAGE. It were great reason, that those that have children should have the greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must trans- mit their dearest pledges. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands. Chaste women are often proud and forward, as presum- ing upon the merit of their chastity. It is one" of the best bonds, both of chastity and obe- dience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses ; compa- nions for middle-age ; and old men's nurses. Yet he was reputed one of the wise men, who made answer to the question, when a man F should 3* YERULAMlANA. should marry ? — « A young man not yet, an old 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 husbands kindness, when it comes - 7 or, that the wives take a pride in their patience* MEANS NOT JUSTIFIED BY THE END. There are a number of cases of comparative duty ; amongst which, that of all others is the most frequent, where the question is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small injustice? but the reply is good, Auctorem present is justicw habes, sponsor em futura non habes ; men pursue things which are just in present, and leave the future to the Divine Providence. MEMORY. Since young men may be happy by hope, why should not old men, and sequestered men, by remembrance ? KNOWLEDGE YERULAMIANA. 99 KNOWLEDGE OF MEN, Weakness and faults are best known from enemies, virtue and abilities from friends, cus- toms and times from servants, conceits and opi- nions from familiar friends. General fame is light, and the opinions conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful. But the soundest dis- closing and expounding of men is, by their natures and ends; wherein the weakest sort of men are best interpreted by their natures, and the wisest bv their ends. MENTAL FRIVOLITIES. I make no more estimation of repeating a great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes extemporaneously, or the mak- ing of a satirical simile of every thing, or the turning of every thing to a jest, or the falsifying or contradicting of every thing by cavil, or the like (whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great copia, and such as by device and prac- F 8 tice 100 VERULAMIANA. tice may be exalted to an extreme degree of wonder) ; than I do of the tricks of tumblers, funambuloes, baladines ; the one being the same in the mind, that the other is in the body ; matters of strangeness without worthiness. DECEPTIONS OF MIND. The mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true inci- dence ; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced. To the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the affirma- tive or active to effect more than the negative or privative. So that a few tjmes hitting or presence, countervails oft-times failing or ab- sence : as was well answered by jDiagoras to him that shewed him, in Neptune's temple, the great number of pictures of such as had escaped shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying, f na- ture, but shew some sparkles of liberty, spirit and edge i which kind of fortified carriage, « with VERULAMIANA. tt3 with a ready rescuing of a man's self from scorns, is sometimes of necessity imposed upon men by somewhat in their person or fortune \ but it ever succeedcth with good felicity. Another precept of this knowledge is, by all possible endeavour to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion. Men are where they were, when occasions turn ; and therefore of Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he addeth that he had versatile ingenium. And thereof it cometh that those grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves, and cannot make departures, have more dignity than felicity. But from whatsoever root or cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudical ; and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our mind concentric and volubile with the wheels of fortune. Another part of this knowledge is, the ob~ serving a good mediocrity in the declaring or not declaring a man's self. Another precept is, to accustom our minds to judge of the propor- tion or value of things, as they conduce and G3 are 124 VERULAMIANA. are material to our particular ends ; and that to do substantially, and not superficially. As foi the true marshaling of men's pursuits towards fortune, as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus. First the amendment of their own minds ; for the removing the impedi- ments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune, then the obtaining fortune will re- move the impediments of the mind. In the second place I set down wealth and means, which, I know, most men would have placed first, because of the general use which it bear- eth towards all variety of occasions. But, it may be truly affirmed, that it is not monies that are the sinews of fortune, but it is the sinews and steel of men's minds, wit, courage, auda- city, resolution, temper, industry, and the like. In the third place I set down reputation, because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which, if they be not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered ; it being extreme hard to play an after-game of reputation. Lastly, I place honour, which is more easily won by any of the other three, much more by all', than any of them can be purchased by honour. To conclude this precept, as there is order and pri- 1 ority TERtilrAMlANA. . 125 ority in matter, so is there in time, the prepos- terous placing whereof is one of the commonest errors; while men fly to their ends, when they should intend their beginnings. Another precept of this knowledge is, not to embrace any matters which do occupy too great a quantity of time. Another precept of this knowledge is, to imitate nature, which doth nothing in vain ; which surely a man may do if he well interlace his business, and bend not his mind too much upon that which he principally intendeth. Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man's self peremptorily in any thing, though it seem not liable to accident, but ever to have a window to fly out at, or a door- way to retire by ; following the wisdom in the ancient fable of the two frogs, who consulted when their plash was dry whither they should go, and the one moved to go down into a pit because it w r as not likely the water would dry there, but the other answered — et True, but if it do, how shall we get out again ? Another precept of this knowledge is, that ancient pre- cept of Bias, construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but only to caution and mode- G 3 ration. >}6 VERULAM1ANA. ration, Et tuna ianquam immicmfuturm, et odi tanquam amaturus : for it utterly betrayeth all utility for men to embark themselves too far into unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens and childish and humoursome envies or emu- lations. ^ But it must be remembered, all this while, that the precepts which we have set down are of that kind which may be counted and called bona arte*. Men ought to look up to the Eter- iial Providence and Divine Judgment, which often subverteth the wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according to that scripture — He Jiath conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a rain thing. And although men should refrain themselves from injury and evil arts, yet this incpssanfand Sabbathless pursuit of -a man's for- tune leaveth not that tribute which we owe to God of our time, who, w r e see, demandetb a tenth of our substance, but a seventh, which is more strict, of our time : and it is to small pur- pose to have an erected face towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth, eating dust, as doth the serpent. And if any man flatter himself that he will employ his for- tans VERULAM1ANA. 1.37 tune well, though he should obtain it ill ; these compensations and satisfactions are good to be used, bujt never good to be proposed. Let men rather build upon that foundation which is a corner-stone of divinity and philosophy, wherein they join close. For divinity saith, Primum quccrite rtgnum Dei, et ista omnia adjhientur vohis; and Philosophy saith, Primum qucerite bona animiy ctztera aut auderunt, aid non obe- runt. And although the human foundation hath somewhat of the sands, yet the divine foundation is upon the rock. RETENGE. In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy ; but in passing it over he is supe- rior : for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, it is the glory of a man to pass by an offence. That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wfse men have enough to do with things present and to come : therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake ; but thereby G4 to *2d VERULAMIANA. to purchase himself profit,, or pleasure, or ho- nour, or the like. Therefore, why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me ? And if any man should do wrong out of ill nature, Why ? — yet it is but like the thorn, or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious and neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. " You shall read (said he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends !" But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune — • u Shall we (saith he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also ?" And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth re- venge, keeps his own wounds green ; which, otherwise would heal, and do well. Vindicative persons live the life of witches, who as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunately. KICKES. VERULAMIANA. 129 RICHES. I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue. The Roman word is better, impe- dimenta. For as the baggage is to an army, so are riches to virtue. It cannot be spared, nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it, sometimes, loseth or disturbeth the victory. The personal fruition, in any man, cannot reach to feel great riches : there is a custody of them ; or a power of dole and donative of them, or a fame of them; but no solid use to the ow r ner. Great riches have sold more men than they have bought. Seek not proud riches; but such as thou - may st get justly, use soberly, distribute cheer-* fully, and leave contentedly. Yet have no ab- stract or friarly contempt of them. The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul. Parsimony is one of the best, and G 5 yet 330 VETtULAMIAtfA. yet is not innocent : for it witholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. It was truly observed by one, That himself came very hardly to a little riches, and very easily to great riches. Be not penny-wise : riches have wings; ai*I sometimes they fly away of themselves ; some- times they must be set flying to bring in more* He thatresteth upon gains certain, shall hardly grow to great riches. And he that puts all upon adventures doth sometimes break, and come to poverty: it is good, therefore, to guard adven- tures with certainties that may uphold losses. Believe not much them which seem to despise riches: for they despise them that despair of them \ and none worse when they come to them* SCEPTICISM. It is better to know so much as is necessary, antJ yet not think ourselves to know all ; than to VERULAMIANA. 131 to think that we know all, and yet remain igno- rant of that which is necessary. SELF CONCEIT. It was prettily devised by Esop — The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot- wheel, and said, " What a dust do I raise." So are there some vain persons, who, whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little a hand in it ; think it is they that carry it. They that are glorious must needs be factious ; as all bravery stands upon compa- rison. They must needs be violent, to make good their own vaunts : neither can they be se- cret, and are therefore not effectual ; but accord* ing to the French proverb, Beaucoup dc bruitj peu dc fruit — much bruit, little fruit. self-love. Divide with reason, between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, — especially to thy king and G6 country. 133 VERULAMIANA. country. It is a poor centre of a man's actions — Himself. It is right earth. For that only stands upon its own centre : whereas all things which have affinity with the heavens, move upon the centre of another that they benefit. Wisdom for a man's self, is in many branches thereof a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, which shed tears when they would devour. But that which especially to be noted is, that those who (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui umantes sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their times sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end them- selves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune,, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. SELF RESPECT. The reverence of a man's self is, next reli- gion, the chiefest bridle of all vices. SOLITUDE^ VERULAMIANA, 133 SOLITUDE. It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together, in a few words, than in that speech — " Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a God." For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and averseness from society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast ; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation ; as in divers of the antient hermits, and holy fathers- of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not com- pany, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk is but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The latin adage meeteth with it a little ' 7 Magna civitas, magna solitude. But we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends ; without which the world is but a wil- derness, SOPHISM 134 VERULAMIANA. SOPHISM. As many substances in nature, which are solid, do putrefy and corrupt into worms ; so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby : but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh the web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit. NATURE OF THE SOUL. As the substance of the soul, in the creation, was not extracted out of the mass of heaven and earth, by the benediction of a producat, but VERULAMIANA. 1S5 but was immediately inspired from God ; so it is not possible that it should be, otherwise than by accident, subject to the laws of heaven and earth, which are the object of philosophy : and therefore the true knowledge of the nature and state of the soul, must come by the same inspi- ration that gave the substance. SOUNDS CONDUCIVE TO REPOSE. Tones are not so apt altogether to procure sleep, as some other sounds ; as the wind, the purling of water, humming of bees, and a sweet voice of one that readeth. The cause whereof is, that tones, because they are equal and slide not, do more strike and direct the sense than the others : and over-much attention hindereth sleep. STUDIES. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in dis- course ; 136 VERULAMIANA. course f and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience : for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need prun- ing by study ; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Read not to con^ tradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed* and some ie\v to be chewed and digested : that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. If a man write little, her had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had ne'ed have much cunning to seem to know what he doth not. Histories make men wise; Poets, witty; the Mathematics, subtle ; Natural Phi- losophy, deep ; Moral Philosophy, grave ; Logic and Rhetoric, able to contend. Crafty men contemn studies ; simple men admire them ; and wise men use them. For they teach not their VERULAMIANA. 13? their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. There be chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain, which are either false or frivolous ; those which either have no truth, or no use : and those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or curious ; and curiosity is either in matter or words. So that in reason, as well as in experience, there fall out to be these three distempers of learning: the first, fantastical learning ; the second, con- tentious learning ; and the last, delicate learn- ing: vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations. YEHEMENCY OF STYLE. Bitter and earnest writing must not hastily be condemned : for men cannot contend coldly and without affection, about things which they hold dear and precious. SUFFICIENCY. J38 VERULAMIANA, SUFFICIENCY. If a man cntereth into an high imagination that ha can compass and fathom all accidents; and ascribeth all successes to his drifts and reaches ; and the contrary to his errors and sleepings : it is commonly seen that the evening fortune of that man is not prosperous. TIMIDITY AND COVETOUSNESS. A timorous man is everybody's; a covetous man is his own. TRUTH AND FALSHOOD. Certainly there be who delight in giddi- ness, an(t count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in act-* ing. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth ; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts : that doth bring lies into favour : but VERULAM1ANA. 13* but a natural, though corrupt, love of the lie itself, A mixture of a lie cloth ever add plea- sure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flatter- ing 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 fa- thers, in great severity, called poesy vinun rfc- monum— 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, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt. Howsoever these things are in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth— that the enquiry of truth, which is the love- making or wooing of it,— the knowledge 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 sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed im VEkULAMIANA. breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then, he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breathed and inspired light into the face of his chosen. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. It will be acknowledged, even by those who practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature ; and that the mix- ture of falshood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the bet* ter, 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 be found false and perfidious. TRAVELLING. Travel in the younger sort is a part of edu- cation ; in the elder, a part of experience. The VERULAMIANA. 141 The things to be seen and observed are, the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to embassadors: the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of con- sistories ecclesiastic : the churches and monas- teries, with the monuments which are therein extant: the walls and fortifications of cities and towns ; and so the havens and harbours ; anti- quities and ruins: libraries; colleges; deputa- tions, and lectures, where any are : shipping and navies : houses, and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities : armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, ware-houses : exercises of horsemanship^ fencing, training of soldiers, and the like : comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons resort : treasuries of jewels and robes, cabinets and rareties. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not be put in mind of them ; yet are they not to be neglected, If you will have a young man put into little room, and in short time to gather much, this you must do; first, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth, Then he must I** VERULAMIANA. must have such a servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country. Let him carry with him also some card or book describing the country where he travelleth, which will be a good key to his en- quiries. Let him keep also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town ; more or less^ as the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of a town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaint- ance. Let him sequester himself from the com- pany of his countrymen, and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth. Let him, upon his re- moves from one place to another, procure re- commendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth ; that he may use his favour in those things which he desireth to see or know. As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travelling, that which is most of all profit- able is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men of embassadors ; for so in travel- ling in one country, he shall suck the experience of many, Let him also see and visit eminent persona TERULAMIANA. 14J persons in all kinds, who are of great name abroad; that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided. And let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons, for they *vill engage him into their own quarrels* When a traveller retumeth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled alto-' gether behind him ; but maintain a correspon- dence, by letters, with those of his acquaintance who are of most worth. And let his travel ap- pear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture ; and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers, than forward to tell stories: and let it appear that he doth not change his.country's manners for those of foreign parts ; but only prick in some flowers, of that which he hath learned abroad, into the customs of his own country* UNDER- ,144 VERULAMIANA. UNDERSTANDING, Men have a certain pride of the understand- ing, as well as of the will ; especially men of an elevated genius. WISHES. As it asketh some knowledge, to demand a question not impertinent; so it requireth some sense, to make a wish not absurd. That which men desire should be true, they are most inclined to believe. LONGEVITY OF WOMEN. Generally exercise, if it be much, is no friend to the prolongation of life 5 and it is one cause why women live longer than men, because they stir less. WORDS. ysHUIAMIANA. 14* WORDS, Although we think we govern our words yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightity entangle and pervert the judgment : so as it is almost necessary in all controversies and disputations to imitate the wisdom of the mathematicians, in setting down, in the very beginning, the definitions of our words and terms, that others may know how we accept and understand them, and whether they concur with us or no. For it cometh to pass, for want of this, that we are sure to end where we ought to have begun, which is in question' and differences about words. Words are generally imposed according to vulgar conceptions, and divide things by lines or distinctions most apparent to the under- standing of the multitude; and when a more acute understanding, or observation, would place these lines according to nature, words cry out, and forbid. And as there are things which, H through 1*5 VERULAMIANA. through want of being observed, remain without names; so there are names coined upon phan- tastical conceits, and having no things corres- ponding unto them. THE WORLD. Men have got a fashion now-a-days, that two or three busy-bodys will take upon them the name of the world, and broach their own conceits, as if it were a general opinion. THE WILL. The will of man is that which is most mail- able and obedient, as it is that which admitteth most medicines to cure and alter it. The most sovereign of all is religion ; which is able to change and transform it in the deepest and most inward inclinations and motions : next to that, is opinion and apprehension ; whether it be in- fused by tradition and institution, or wrought in by disputation and persuasion : the third, is example ; which transformed! the will of man into VERULAMUNA. 14? into the similitude of that which is most fami- liar towards it: the fourth is, when one affection is healed and corrected by another ; as when cowardice is remedied by shame and dishonour, or sluggishness and backwardness by indigna- tion and emulation : and lastly, when all these means, or any of them, have new framed or formed human will, then doth custom and ha- bit corroborate and confirm all the rest. There- fore it is no marvel, though this faculty of the mind, (will and election) which inclineth affec- tion and appetite, these being but the inceptions and rudiments of will, may be so well governed and managed. The intellectual powers have fewer means to work upon them, than the will or body of man ; but the one that prevaileth, which is exercise, worketh more forcibly in them than in the rest. SEEMING WISE. As the apostle saith of godliness, having & shew of godliness, hut denying the pozoer thereof; so certainly there are in point of wisdom and H 2 sufficiency*, «4i VERULAMIANA. sufficiency, who do nothing or little very scr- lemnly. It is a ridiculous thing, and fit for a satire to persons of judgment, to see what shifts these formalists have, and what prospec- tives to make superficies seem body that hath depth and bulk. There is no decaying mer- chant, or inward beggar, hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth, -as these empty persons have to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming-wise men may make shift to get opinion ; but let no man chuse them for employment ; for certainly you had better take for business a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal. YOUTH AND AGE. A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that haj>- peneth rarely. General^, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. Natures that have much heat, and great and \iolent desires and perturbatiotfs, are not ripe for TERULAMIANA. 1*0 for action till they have passed the meridian of their years. But reposed natures may do well in youth. The errors of young men are the ruin of business ; but the errors of aged men amount but to this — that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of actions, embrace more than they can hold ; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which, doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or re- tract them ; like an unready horse, that will nei- ther stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a me- diocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to compound employments of both: for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have ih£ pre-eminence ; as age hath for the politic. H3 The 15G VKRtiLAMlANA. The more a man drinketh of the world, tfrg more it intoxicateth ; and age doth profit'rather in the powers of the understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections. There be some that have an over-early ripeness in their vear>s; which fatleih betimes, VERULAMIANA. POLITICS. PART II. VERULAMIANA. ADMINISTRATION OF EMPIRE* HE answer of Appolbnius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction, Vespasian asked him, what was Nero's overthrow? He answered: •—Nero could touch and tune the harp well; but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, sometimes to let them down too low-.. And certain it is> that nothing de-> stroyeth authority so much as the unequal and^ untimely interchange of power, pressed too far. and relaxed too much. The wisdom* of all these latter times> in* princes' affairs,, is rather fine deliveries, and^ shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to< keep them, aloof. But this is but to try masteries H5' withi 154 VERULAMIANA. with fortune: and let men beware, bow they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be pre* pared ; for no. man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are many and great ; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is the solecism of power, to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the sieau. ALLEGIANCE. Allegiance is of a greater extent and dimen- sion than laws, or kingdoms, and cannot consist by the laws merely ; because it began before laws, it continuetb after laws, and it is in vigour where laws are suspended and have not their force. That it is more antient than law, ap- peareth by that kings were more antient than law-givers ; that the first submissions were sim- ple, and upon confidence to the person of kings ; and that the allegiance of subjects to hereditary monarchies can be no more said to consist by laws, than the obedience of children to parents. That allegiance continueth after laws, I will • only VERUIAMIANA. I" only put the case— That if a King of England should be expulsed bis kingdom, and some par- ticular subjects should follow him in flight or exile into foreign parts, and any of them should- there conspire his death ; upon his recovery of his kingdom, such a subject might by the law of England be proceeded with for treason com- mitted and perpetrated at what time he had no kingdom; and in a place where the law did not bind. That allegiance is in vigour and force where the power of law hath a cessation, ap- peared! notably in time of wars; for silent leges inter anna. And yet the sovereignty and impe- rial power of the .king is sovfar from being then extinguished or suspended, that contrariwise it is raised and made more absolute : for then he" may proceed, by his supreme authority, and martial law, without; observing formalities of the laws of his kingdom. Therefore whosoever speaketh only of laws, and the king's power by laws, and the subjects obedience or allegiance to laws, speaketh but one half of the crown. A man's allegiance must be independant. and; certain, fiot; dependant and conditional* H6 AMBITION* isfc YERULAMTANA* AMBITION. .Ambition is like choler,, which fa an humour that maketh men active, earnest, full of ala- crity, and stirring, if it be not stopped; But if it be stopped and cannot have its way,, it becometfe adusV and thereby malign and veneinous. Good commanders in the war&musfc be taken,, be they never so ambitious : for the use of their service dispenseth with the rest; and to take a soldier without ambition, is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use of ambitious men in be- ing screens to princes, in matters of danger and envy y for no man will take that part, except he be like a seeled dove, that mounts and mounts because he cannot see about him. There is use also of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness of any subject that overtops. A prince may animate and inure some meaner persons, to be as it were scourges to ambitious men. As for the pulling of them down, if the affairs require it, and.that it may not be done with VERULAMIANA. 16* with safety suddenly, the only way is the inter- change continually of favours and disgraces ; whereby they may not know what to expect, and be as it were in a wood. There is less clan- ger of them, if they be of mean birth, than if they be noble - r and if they be rather h^rsh of nature, than gracious and popular ; and if they be rather new raised, than grown cunnings audi fortified in their greafeness-,. He that is used to go forward, antl findfcth a stop, falleth out of his own favour, and is sot the thing he was. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men, hath a great task ; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst cyphers, is the decay of a whole age. Honour hath three things in it : the van- tage ground to do good - r the approach to kings and principal persons ; and the raising of a man's fortunes. He that hath the best of these inten- tions, when he aspireth, is an honest man : and that prince who can discern of these inten- tions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. 2 ANNEXATIONS,. 1S8 VERULAMIANA. ANNEXATIONS. In conquest it is commonly seen, although the bulk and quantity of territory be increased, yet the strength of kingdoms is diminished, as well by the wasting of the forces of both par- ties in the conflict, as by the evil coherence of the nation conquering and conquered, the one being apt to be insolent, and the other discon- tented ;■ and so both full of jealousies and dis- cord. Where countries are annexed only by acts of state and submissions, such submissions are commonly grounded upon fear, which is no good author of continuance, besides the quar- rels and revolts which do ensue upon conditional and articulate subjections. CANALS.. A very great help unto trade are navigable rivers; they are so many indraughts to attain wealth ; wherefore by art and industry let them he made ; but let them not be turned to private profit. CONSCIENCIES. VETtULAMIANA. 15tf CONSCIENCIES., Causes of conscience, when they exceed their bounds, and prove to be matter of faction, lose their nature : and sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish the practice or contempt, though coloured with the pretences of con- science and religion. COLONIZATION. I like a plantation in a pure soil ; that is., w T here people are not displanted to the end to plant in others* For else it is rather an extir- pation, than a plantation. It is a shameful and unblessed thing, to take the scum of people, and wicked and condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant : and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation ; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation. J6o VERULAMIANA. plantation. When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women, as well as with men ; that the plantation may- spread into generations, and not beeven pieced from without. Let not the government of the plantation depend upon too many counsellors and under- takers in the country that planteth ; but upon a temperate number : and let those be rather no- blemen and gentlemen, than merchants ; for they look ever to the present gain. If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly and graciousl} r , with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not win their favour by helping them to invade their enemies; but for their defence it isnot amiss. And send, oft, of them over to the country that plants ; that they may see a better condition than their own, andi commend it when they return. It is the sinfullest thing in the world to for- sake and destitute a plantation once in forward- ness ; for, besides the dishonour, it is the guilti- ness of blood of many considerable persons. council,. VERULAMIANA. 161 COUNCIL, In other confidencies men commit the parts of life — their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair ; but to such as they make their counsellors, th£y commit the whole : by how much the more are they obliged to all faith and integrity. Princes are not bound to communicate all matters with all counsellors, but may extract and select. Neither is it necessary that he that consulted what he should do, should declare what he will do. But let princes beware that the unsecretins: of their affairs come not from themselves. And as for cabinet councils, it may be their motto— Plenus rimarum sum : one futile person that maketh it his glory to tell, will do more hurt than many who know it their duty to conceal. It is true, there be some affairs which require extreme secresy, which will hardly go beyond one or two persons be- sides the king,: neither are those councils un- prosperous ; for, besides the secresy, they com*. * monly *tf2 VERULAMIANA. taonly go on constantly in one spirit of direction Vithout distraction. The majesty of kings is rather exalted than diminished when they are in the chair of coun- sel : neither was there ever prince bereaved of his dependaneies by his council, except where there hath been either an over-greatness in one counsellor, or an over-strict combination in di- vers ; which are things soon found and remedied. There be, that are in nature, faithful and sin- cere^ and plain and^ direct ; not crafty and in- volved : let princes, above all, draw to them* selves such natures. Besides, counsellors are not commonly so united, but that one coun- sellor keepeth centinel over another ; so that if any do counsel out of faction, or private ends, it commonly comes to the king's ear. It is in vain for princes to take counsel concerning mat- ters, if they take no counsel likewise concerning persons: for all matters are as dead images ; and the life of the execution of affairs resteth in the good choice of persons. The true composition of a counsellor is rather to be skilful in his master business, than in his nature j. VERULAMIANA. 16* liature ; for then he is like to advise him, and not to feed his huiiioui*. It is of singular use to' princes, if they take the opinions of their coun- sel hoth separately and together: for private opinion is more free, but opinion before others is more reverent. A long table, and a square table, or seats about the walls, seem things of form, but are things of substance : for at a long table, a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the busi- ness ; but in the other form, there is more use of the counsellors' opinions, that sit lower. It was truely said, optimi consiliarii mortui; books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch* Therefore it is good to be conversant in them^ especially the books of such as themselves have been actors upon the stage. LAWS OF ENGLAND. Let the rule of justice be the Laws of the Land ; an impartial arbiter between the king and his people, and between one subject and another. tCt VERULAMIANA. another. I shall not speak superlatively of them, lest I be suspected of partiality, in re- gard of my own profession: but this I may truly say, They are second to none in the christian world. They are the best, the equal- lest in the world, between prince and people ; by which the king hath the justest prerogative, and the people the best liberty : and if at any time there be an unjust deviation, Hominis est vicium, non professionis. Let no arbitrary power be intruded ; the people of this kingdom love the laws thereof: and nothing will oblige them more, than a confidence of the free enjoy* ing of them. What the nobles once said in parliament, Nolumus leges Angli& mutari ! is imprinted in the hearts of all the people. ENVY AND DETRACTION.^ This envy, being in the Latin Invidia, goeth in the modern languages by the name of discon- tentment. It is a disease, in a state, like to infection ; for as infection spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it — so when envy is gotten once into a state, it traduceth even the best VERULAMIANA. t6» best actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill odour : and therefore there is little won by- intermingling of plausible actions : for that doth argue but a weakness and fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more; as it is likewise usual in infections, which if you fear them, you call thein upon you. Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon principal officers or ministers, rather than upon \ings and states themselves. But this is a sure rule, that if the envy upon the minister be great, when the cause for it in him is small — or, if the envy be general in a manner upon all the mini- sters of a state, then the envy, though hidden, is truly upon the state itself. FACTIONS. When factions are carried too high, and too violently, it is a sign of weakness in princes : and much to the prejudice both of their autho- rity and business. The lower and weaker fac- tion is the firmer in conjunction : and it is often seen) that a few that are stiff do tire out a greater number that are more moderate, FAVOURITES, IH v"ERULAMIANA. FAVOURITES. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon the fruit of friendship; so great, as they purehase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. ' For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their sub- jects and servants, cannot gather this fruit : ex^ cept,. to make themselves capable thereof, they raise some persons to be as it were companions, and almost equals * with themselves; which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The mo- dern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes, as if it were, mat* ter of grace or conversation : but the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the x knot. And we see plainly, that this hath been done, not by weak and pas- sionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned ; who have often times- joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner. VERULAMIANA. I67 manner, using the word which is received be- tween private men. It is counted by some a weakness in princes to have favourites ; but it is of all others, the best remedy against ambitious great ones. For, when the way of pleasing and displeasuring lie th by the favourite, it is impossible any other should be over-great. FOUNDING OF KINGDOMS. As in arts and sciences, to be the first inventor is more than to illustrate or amplify; as in the works of God, the creation is greater than the preservation ; and as in the works of nature, the birth and nativity is more than the contir nuance : so in kingdoms, the first foundation or plantation is of more noble dignity and merit than all that followeth. GOVERNMENT. Goves^ment is a part of knowledge secret and retired, in both these respects in which things Ifii VERULAMIANA. things are deemed secret ; for some things are secret because they are hard to know, and some because they are not fit to utter : we see, all governments are obscure and invisible. The government of God over the world is hidden> insomuch as it seemeth to participate of much irregularity and conftision : the government of the soul in moving the body is inward and pro- found, and the passages thereof hardly to be reduced to demonstration. Even unto the gene- ral rules and discourses of policy and govern- ment, there is due a reverend and reserved handling. But, contrariwise, in the governors towards the governed all things ought, as far as the frailty of man permitteth, to be manifest and revealed. So unto princes and states, the na- tures and dispositions of the people, their con- ditions and necessities, their factions and com- binations, their animosities and discontents ought to be, in regard of the variety of their intelligence, the wisdom of their observations, and the heighth of the station where they keep centinel, in great part clear and transparent. All VERULAMIANA C m All those who have written of laws, have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make imaginary laws for imaginary com- monwealths ; and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high. For the lawyers, they write accord- ing to the states in, which they live, what is re- ceived law, and not vhat ought to be law; for the wisdom of a law-maker is one, and that of a lawyer is another. There are in nature cer- tain fountains of justice, whence all civil law* are derived but as streams^: and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils through which they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions and governments where they are planted, though they proceed from the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of a law- maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the wise application thereof. HONOURS. The true marshaling of the degrees of sove- reign honour are these. In the first place, are I conditorei 170 VERULAMIAttA. conditores imperiorum — -founders of states and commonwealths/ In the second place, are legislators — lawgivers ; which are also called second founders, or perpttui principes, — ^because they govern by their ordinances, after they are gone. In the third place, are liber atores or salva tores — such as compound the long miseries of civil wars, or deliver their countries from servitude to strangers or tyrants. In the fourth place, are propagatores or propugnatorts imperii -—Such as in honourable wars enlarge their terri- tories, or make noble defence against invaders. In the last place, are patres patricd — who reign justly, and make the times good wherein they Jive. There is an honour, likewise, which may be ranked amongst the greatest, which hap- peneth rarely; that is, of such as sacrifice themselyes to death or danger, for the good of their country. INNOVATIONS. It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit. And those things which have long gone together, 3 are ¥«£RULAMiANA. l/l are, as it were, confederate within themselves : whereas new things piece not so well; but though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity. Besides, they are like strangers, more admired and less fa- voured. All this is true, if time stood still ; which, contrariwise, moveth so round, that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation : and they that reverence too much old times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good therefore, that men, in their innovations, w T ould follow the example of time kself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, -and by -degrees scarce to be perceived : for, otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlooked for ; and even it mends some, and impairs others. - It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident : and well to be aware, that it be the reformation that draweth on the change ; and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation. And lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a -suspect: and, as the Scripture saith, that zee make a stand upon the antient tvay, and then look I 2 about 173 VERULAMIANA. about us, and discover zchat is the strait and right zoay, and so to walk in it. INVENTIONS. The introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors ; but conferred only heroical ho- nours upon those who deserved well in civil affairs. The benefits of inventions may extend to all mankind, but civil benefits only to parti- cular countries or seats of men ; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time. Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force and perturbation, whilst inventions spread without doing injury, or causing disturbance. It may not be amiss to distinguish three kinds, and as it were degrees of ambition in mankind ; first, such as desire to aggrandize their private power in their own country, which is the most vulgar VE-RULAM1ANA* i73 vulgar and degenerate : secondly, such as en* deavour to enlarge the power and empire of their country in respect of others, which is more noble, though not less selfish : but if an}' should strive to restore and enlarge the power and empire of mankind over the universe of things,, this ambition is, without dispute^ more solid and majestic than the others, Dis.eovenes nre like new creations* and imitatfotti of the divine works, JUSlCATtiHB. Jubois ought to mmgmhQv that their office kju$ dicer?; md not Jin dan j to interpret law, and not to make law or give law. Judges ought to he more karnacl than witty, more reverand than plausible,, and more advised than confidant. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. Cursed, saith the law, is he that rem&veth the land-mark. — The mislayer of a stone is to blame; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of land-marks, when he defineth amiss of lands and property. One foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul I 3 examples* 174 VERULAMIANA. examples. For these do but corrupt the stream : the other corrupteth the fountain. The princi- pal duty of a judge is to suppress force and fraud ; whereof force is more pernicious when it is open., and fraud when it is close and disguised. Add thereto contentious suits, which ought to be spewed out as the surfeit of courts. A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence as God useth to prepare his way, by raising Tallies and taking down hills: so when there appeareth on either side an high hand, violent prosecution, cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a judge seen, to make inequality equal, that he may plant his judgment as upon an even ground. Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse tor- ture than the torture of law r s : especially in case of laws penal they ought to have care, that that which was meant for terror be not turned into rigour ; and that they bring not upon the peo- ple that shower whereof the scripture speakcth, pluet super eos laqueos, — for penal law r s, pressed, are a shower of snares upon the people. In causes of life and death, judges ought, as far as the law permitteth, in justice to remember mercy ; VERULAMIANA. 3 75 mercy ; and to cast a severe eye upon the exam- ple, but a merciful eye upon the person. The parts of a judge in hearing are four : to direct the evidence ; to moderate length, repe- tition, or impertinency of speech ; to recapi- tulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said ; and to give the vale or sentence Whatsoever is above these, is too much, and proceedeth either of glory and willingness to speak, or of impatience to hear, or of shortness of memory, or of want of a staid and equal attention. It is a strange thing to see that the boldness of advocates should prevail with judges ; whereas they should imi- tate God in whose seat they sit, who represseth the presumptious, and giveth grace to the mo- dest. But it is more strange, that judges -should have noted favourites ; which cannot but cause multiplication of fees, and suspicion of bye- ways. There is due from the judge to the advo- cate some commendation and gracing, where causes are weil handled and fair pleaded. Theic is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advocates, where there appeared! cunning counsel, gross neglect, slight information, indis- I 4 creet i;t> VERULAMIANA. erect pressing, or an over-bold defence. And let not the counsel at the bar chop with the judge; nor wind himself into "the handling of the cause anew, after the judge hath declared his sentence. The place of justice is an hallowed place.; and therefore not only the bench, but the foot- pace and precincts, and purprise thereof ought to be preserved without scandal and corruption. For certainly grapes, as the Scripture saith, mil not be gathered of thorns or thistles : nei- ther can justice yield her fruit with sweetness, amongst the briars and brambles of catching and holding clerks and ministers. Judges ought above all to remember the con- clusion of the Roman twelve tables—- Saluspo- puii suprema lex; and to know that laws, ex- cept they be in order to the end, are but things captious, and oracles, not well inspired. There- fore it is a happy thing in a state, when kings and states do often consult with judges ; and again, when judges do often consult with the king and state : the one, when there is matter of law intervenient in business of state ; the other, VERULAMIANA, 177 other, when there is some consideration of state inter venient in matter of law. For, many times, the things deduced to judgment, may be maim and tuum, when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of state. Let not judges also he so ignorant of their own right, as to think there is not left them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws. JUDGES. A popular judge is a deformed thing : and plaudits are fitter for players than for magi- strates ; Do good to the people, love them and give themjustice ; but let it be nihil hide expec- tanttSy looking for nothing, neither praise nor profit. The lines and portraitures of a good judge. He should draw his learning out of his books, and not out of his brain : and continue the studying of books, and not spend on upon the old stock. He should mix well the freedom of his own opinion with reverence for the opinion I"5 of 17S VERULAMIANA. of his fellows. He should fear no man's face; and yet not turn stoutness into bravery. He should be truly impartial, and not so as men may see affection through a fine carriage. He should not affect the opinion of pregnancy and expedition, by an impatient and catching hear- ing of the counsellors at the bar : but his speech should be with gravity, as one of the sages of the law ; and not talkative, nor with imperti- nent flying out to shew learning. He should be a light to jurors, to open their eyes, but not a guide to lead them by the noses. His hands, and the hands of his hands (I mean those about him) must be clean ; and uncorrupt from gifts, from meddling in titles, and from serving of turns, be they of great ones or small ones, He must contain the jurisdiction of the court within the ancient merestones, without removing the mark. Lastly, he must carry such a hand over his ministers and clerks, as that they may rather be in awe of him, than presume upon him. Judges must be men of courage, fearing God, and hating covetousness : an ignorant man can- not, a coward dares not be a good judge. Judges must he as chaste as Caesar's wife; nei- ther VERULAM1ANA. I7t iher to be, nor to be suspected to be unjust : the honour of the judges, in their judicature, is the king's honour, whose person they represent. TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND STATES There is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of a state. The kingdom of heaven is compared not to any great kernel or nut, but to a grain of mustard seed ; which is one of the least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily to get up and spread. So are these states great in territory, and yet not apt to enlarge or, command; and some that have but a small dimension of stem, and yet apt to be the foun- dations of great monarchies. Walled towns, stored arsenals and armouries, goodly races of horse, chariots of war, ele- phants, ordnance, artillery, and the like: — all this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike. Nay number in armies importeth I 6 not no VEROLAMiANit not much, where the people is of weak cou- rage ; foxy as Virgil saitb, it never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be. Neither is money the sinews- of war, as it is trivially said ^ where the sinews of mens arms, in base and effemi- nate people, are failing. For Solan said well to Crsesus, when in ostentation he shewed him his gold, u Sir, if any other eome that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold." Neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should ever become valiant and martial. It is true, that taxes levied by consent of the state do abate men's courage less. Let states, that aim at greatness, take. heed how thek nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast : for that raaketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and a baseswain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's labourer. By all means it is to be procured, that the trunk of Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy fee great enough to bear the branches and the boughs ; VEHULAM1ANA. i« boughs ; that is, that the natural subjects of the crown or state bear a sufficient proportion to the stranger subjects whom they govern. There- fore «11 states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers, are fit for empire. . For to think that a handful of people can, with the greatest courage and policy in the world, em- brace too large extent of dominion ; it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. It is certain that sedentary and within-door arts, and delicate manufactures that require rather the finger than the arm, have in their na- ture a contrariety to a military disposition. Leave those arts chiefly to strangers, (which, for that purpose, are the moie easily to be re-, ceived) and contain the principal bulk of the vulgar natives within these three kinds, tillers of the ground, free servants, and handycrafts men of strong and manly hearts, as smiths, masons, carpenters, &c. not reckoning professed soldiersr To be master of the Sea, is an abridgment, or quintessence, of all monarchy. He that commands J 8* VERULAMIANA. commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will, Whereas those that be strongest by land, are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. — - Surely, at this day, with us of Europe, the van- tage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Bri- tain) is great : both because most of the king- doms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and because the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary to the command of the seas. But, above all, for empire and greatness, it importeth most that a nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study, and occupation. It is enough to point at it, that no nation that doth not directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths. And, on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that pro- fession do wonders ; and those that have pro- fessed arms but for an age, have notwithstand- ing commonly attained that greatness, in that VERULAMIANA. 183 age, which maintained them long after, when their profession and exercise of arms had grown to decay. First therefore, let nations that pretend to greatness have this — that they be sensible of wrongs, either upon borderers, merchants, or politic ministers ; and that they sit not too long upon a provocation. Secondly, let them be pressed,, and ready to give aids and succours to their confederates, as it ever was with the Ro- mans. Let it suffice, that no state expect to be great that is not awake upon any just occasion of arming. No body can be healthy without exercise, neither natural body nor politic : and certainly, to a kingdom or state, a just and honourable war is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever ; but a foreign war h like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health. For in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate and manners cor- rupt. But however it be for happiness, without all question, for greatness it maketh to be, still ibv the most part, in arms : and the strength of a veteran in VERULAMIANA. a veteran army (though it be a changeable busi- ness) always on foot, is that which commonly giveth the law, or at least the reputation, amongst all neighbour states. The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory and honour which reflected upon men from the wars in anti- ent time. There be now, for martial encou- ragement, some degrees and orders of chivalry, which nevertheless are conferred promiscuously upon soldiers, and no soldiers; and some re- membrance perhaps upon the escutcheon, and some hospitals for maimed soldiers and such like things. But in antient times, the trophies erected upon the place of victory ; the funeral laudalives and monuments for those that died in the wars; the crowns and garlands personal ; the style of emperor, which the great kings of the world afterwards borrowed; the triumphs of the generals upon their return ; the great do- natives and largesses upon the disbanding of the armies ; — were things able to inflame all men's courages : but above all, that of the triumph, among the Romans, was not pageants or gau- dery, but one of the wisest and noblest insti- tutions VERULAMJANA. 185 iutions that ever was. For it contained three things, — honour to the general ; riches to the treasury, out of the spoils ; and donatives to the army. To conclude.— No man can, hy care taking (as Scripture saith) add a cubit to his stature, in this little model of a man's body : but in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes, or states, to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms. For by introducing such ordinances, constitutions and customs, as we have now touched, they- may sow greatness to their posterity and suc- cession. KNOWLEDGE NOT INIMICAL TO GOVERNMENTS That learning should undermine the rever- ence of laws and government,' is surely a mere depravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of obe- dience should be a surer obligation, than duty taught and understood ; it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide, than a seeing man can by a light. Learning doth make the 3 86 VERULAMIANA. the minds of men gentle, generous/ maniable and pliant to government ; whereas ignorance maketh them churlish, thwarting and mutinous : and the evidence of time doth clear this asser- tion, considering that the most barbarous, rude and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions and changes. The merit of learning in repressing the incon- veniences which grow from man to man, is not much inferior to that of relieving the necessities which arise from nature : which merit was ad- mirably set forth by the antients in that feigned relation of Orpheus' theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting their seve- ral appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening to the airs and accords of the harp, the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature. Herein was aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge : which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of VKRULAMIANA. l«7 of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained : but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anar- chy and confusion. KINGS. A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour : but withal told him, he should die like a man ; lest he should be proud and flat- ter himself, that God hath with his name im- parted unto him his nature also. A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day ; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made. He must make religion the rule of govern- ment, and not to balance the scale ; for he that casteth religion in only to make the scales even, hi^ own weight is contained in those characters He «8 VERULAMIANA. — He is found io$ fight, his kingdom shall be taken from him. He must be able to give counsel himself, but not rely thereupon. *Be is the fountain of honour, which should not run with a waste pipe, lest the courtiers sell the watery and then, as papists my of their holy wells, it loses the virtue, He is the life of the law, not only as he is hx forjuem, himself, but because he animateth the dead letter, making it active towards all his sub- jects. A wise king must do less in altering his laws than he may ; for new government is ever dangerous. *© v Bounties and magnificence are virtues very regal, but a prodigal Icing is nearer a tyrant than a parsimonious one ; for store at home draweih not his contemplations abroad, but want sup- plied) itself of what is next, and many times the next way. A king, VERULAMIANA, ' , 8Q A king, when he presides in council, let him beware how he opens his own inclinations too much, ,„ that which he propounded : for else counsellors will but take the wind of him, and instead of giving free counsel, sing him a song of Placebo. ° His greatest enemies are his flatterers • for though they ever speak on his side, yet their words still make against him. It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire, and many things to fear : and yet that commonly is the case of kings, who, being at the highest, want matter of desire' which makes their minds more languishing; . and have many representations of perils and shadows, which make their minds the less clear. Hence it comes, likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys: sometimes, upon a building- sometimes, upon erecting of an order; some- tunes upon the advancing of a person; some- times, in obtaining excellency in some art or feat of the hand. The a 90 VE11UJLAMIANA, The love which a king oweth to a weal public, should not be restrained to any one particular. As he must always resemble him whose great name he beareth, and that, as in manifesting the sweet influence of his mercy on the severe stroke of his justice sometimes — so in this, not to suffer a man of death to live : for besides that the land doth mourn, the restraint of justice towards sin doth more retard the affection of love, than the extent of mercy doth inflame it. That king which is not feared, is not loved. As he is of the greatest power, so he is sub- ject to the greatest cares. Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have much veneration, but no rest. He that honoureth them not is next an atheist, wanting the fear of God in his heart. LAWS. VERULAMIANA. 191 LAWS. If any of the meaner sort of politicians who are sighted only to see the worst things, think that laws are but cobwebs, and that good princes will do well without them, and bad ones will not stand much upon them, the discourse is neither good nor wise. For certain it is, that good laws are some bridle to bad princes, and as a very wall about government. And if ty- rants sometimes make a breach into them, yet they mollify even tyranny itself, as Solon's laws did the tyranny of Pisistratus : then commonly they get up again, upon the first advantage of better times. The laws of most kingdoms and states have been like buildings of many pieces, and patched up from time to time according to occasions, without frame or model. LEARNING AND ARMS. Experience doth warrant that, both in per- sons and times, there hath been a meeting and concur- i&2 VERULAMIANA. currence in learning and arms ; flourishing and excelling in the same men, and the same ages. Neither can it otherwise be. For as in man, the ripeness of strength of the body and mind com- eth at much about an age, save that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more early; so, in states, arms and learning — whereof the one corresponded to the body, the other to the soul of man — have a concurrence or near se- quence in times* LEARNED STATESMEN. It is almost without instance contradictory, that ever any government was disastrous that was in the hands of learned governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary with politicians to extenuate and disable learned men by the name of pedants, yet in the records of time it appeareth, in many particulars, that the go- vernments of princes in minority (notwithstand- ing the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled the govern- ments of princes of mature age; even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is, 2 that VERULAMIANA. 10* that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of pedants. LIBELS. Libels are generally the gusts of liberty of speech restrained, and the females of sedition. It is not the interlacing of your " God for- bid !" that will salve seditious speeches. Should I say to you, for example, u If these times were like some former times of king Henry Eight, or some other times, (which God forbid) Mr. J. S. it would cost you your life :" I am sure "you would not think this to be a gentle warning, but rather that I incensed the court against you. And this I would wish both you and all to take heed of; how you speak seditious matter in parables, or by tropes or examples. There is a thing in indictment called an inu- en do : you must beware how you beckon or make signs upon the King in a dangerous sense. literary 194 VERULAMIANA. LITERARY FOUNDATIONS. As water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort and sustain itself: so this excellent li- quor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, confer- ences, and places appointed; as universities, colleges and schools, for the receipt and com- forting of the same. LUXURY. Let the vanity of the times be restrained, which the neighbourhood of other nations has induced ; and we strive apace to exceed our pattern : let vanity in apparel, and which is more vain, that of the fashion, be avoided. I have heard that in Spain, whom in this I wish we might imitate ; they do allow the players 1 and VBRULAMIANA. 195 and courtezans the vanity of rich and costly clothes; but to sober men and matrons they permit it not, upon pain of infamy,, — a severer punishment to ingenuous natures than a mulct* The excess of diet in costly meats and drinks, fetched from beyond seas, should be avoided : wise men will do so without a law ; F would there might be a law to restrain fools. The ex- cess of wine costs the kingdom much, and re- turns little but surfeits and diseases. Were we as wise as we easily might be, within a year or two at the most, (if we would needs be drunk with wines) we might be drunk at half the cost. MONARCHY. It is evident that all other commonwealths, monarchies only excepted, do subsist by a law precedent. For where authority is divided amongst many officers, and they annual, or temporary, and not to receive their authority but by election, where certain persons only have voice to that election, and the like, — these of necessity do presuppose a law precedent, written or unwritten, to guide and direct them: Kt but 196 VERULAMIANA. but in -monarchies, especially hereditary, when several families or lineages of people do submit themselves to one line, imperial or royal, the submission is more natural and simple, which by laws subsequent is perfected and made more formal. That this is so, it appeareth notably in two things ; the platforms and patterns which are found in nature of monarchies, and the ori- ginal submissions, their motives and occasions. The platforms are three. The first is that of a father, or chief of a family ; who, governing over his wife by prerogative of sex, over his children by prerogative of age, ar^d because he is author unto them of being, and over his ser- vants by prerogative of virtue and providence, is a very model of a King. And therefore Ly- curgus, when one counselled him to dissolve the kingdom, and to establish another form of state, answered — " Sir, begin to do that which you advise first at home in your own house." No- ting, that the chief of a family is as a king; and that those who can least endure kings abroad can be content to be kings at home. The VERULAMIANA. *07 The second platform is that of a shepherd and his flock ; which, Xenophon saith, Cyrus had ever in his mouth. For shepherds are not ■ owners of the sheep ; but their office is to feed and govern : no more are kings proprietors' or owners of the people, God being sole owner of the people ; but the office of kings is to go- vern, maintain and protect people : and it is not without a mystery that the first king insti- tuted by God, David, (for Saul was but mi untimely fruit) was translated from a shepherd. PsaL 78. The third platform is the government of God himself over the world, whereof lawful monarchies are a shadow. And therefore both amongst the heathen and amongst the christians, the word sacred hath been attributed unto kings, because of the conformity of a monarchy with a divine majority ; never to a senate or people. Other states are the creatures of law ; this state only subsisteth by nature. For the original submissions, they are four. The first is paternity or patriarchy; when a family growing so great as it could not contain K 3 itself 19« TERULAMIANA. itself within one habitation, some branches of the descendants were forced to plant themselves into new families, which second families could not, by a natural instinct and inclination, but bear a reverence and yield an obedience lo the eldest line of the antient family from which they were derived. The second is the admiration of virtue or gra- titude towards merit; which is likewise natu- rally infused into all men. Of this Aristotle putteth the case well, when it was the fortune of some one man, either to invent some arts of excellent use towards man's life ; or to congre- gate people, that dwelt scattered, into one place, where they might cohabit with more comfort; or to guide them from a more barren land to a more fruitful : upon these deserts, and the admiration of them, people submitted them- selves. The third, which was the most usual of all, was conduct in war, which even in nature in- duceth as great an obligation as paternity. For as men owe their life and being to their parents in regard of generation, so they owe that also to VERULAMIANA. 199 to saviours in the wars jp regard of preservation. Therefore we find in chap. 8 of the book of Judges, ver. 22 — Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, " Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son's son also : for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian" And so we read when it was brought to the ears of Saul that the people sang in the streets, Saul hath killed his thousand, and David his ten thou- sand of enemies ; he said straightways, u What can he have more but the kingdom?' For who- soever hath the military dependence, wants lit- tle of being king* The fourth is an enforced submission, which is conquest, whereof it seemed .Nimrod was the first precedent, of whom it is said ht began to be a mighty one in the earth : he zcas a mighty hunter before the Lord. And this likewise is upon the same root, which is the saving or gift as it were, of life and being: for the conqueror hath power of life and death over his capiives . and therefore when he giveth them themselves, he may reserve, upon such a gift, what service and subjection he will. All these four submis- K 4 sions 200 VERULAMIANA. sions are evident to be natural, and more anti" ent than law. Law, no doubt,, is the great organ by which the sovereign power doth move,, and may be truly compared to the sinews in a natural body, as the sovereignty may be compared to the spi- rits : for if the sinews be without the spirits, they are dead and without motion ; if the spi- rits move in weak sinews, it causeth trembling. So the laws, without the king's power, are dead; and the king's power, except the laws be corro- borate, will never move constantly, but be full of staggering and trepidation. But towards the King himself the law doth a double office or iperation. The first is to define his title : as, in our law, That the kingdom should go to the issue- female ; That it shall not be departable amongst daughters ; That the half-blood shall be respected ; and other points differing from common inheritance. The second is to make the ordinary power of the King more definite or regular. Although the King, in his person, be solutus legibus ; yet his acts and grants are limited by law, and we argue them every day. VERULAMIANA. *?i But, r demand, do these offices or operations , of law evacuate or frustrate the original sub* mission, which was natural ? Or, shall it be said that all allegiance is by law ? No more than it can be said that potestas patris, the power of the father over the child is by law : though the law of some nations has given fa* thers power to put their own children to death : others, to sell them thrice; others, to disinherit them by testament at pleasure, and the like/ Yet no man wiil affirm that the obedience of the child is by law, because laws, in some points, do make it more positive : And even so it is of allegiance of subjects to hereditary monarchs; which is corroborated and confirmed by law, but is the work of the law of nature. There- fore you shall find the observation true, and almost general in all states, that their law-giv- ers were long after their first kings, who go* verned for a time by natural equity without' law. Theseus was long before Solon in Athens ; Eurytion and Sons were long before Lycurgus in Sparta; Romulus was long before the De- cemviri, in Rome; and even amongst ourselves there were more ancient kings of the Saxons. yet the laws run under the name of Edgar's K 5 laws. 202 VERULAMIANA. laws. I will conclude this point with the style which divers acts of Parliament do give untd the King, terming him very effectually and truly " Our natural sovereign leige Lord." And as it was said by a principal Judge, that he would never allow that Queen Elizabeth (I re- member it for the efficacy of the phrase) should be a statute Queen, but a common-law Queen : so, surely, I shall hardly consent that the King shall be called only our rightful sovereign or our lawful sovereign ; but our natural liege sove- reign, as acts of parliament speak. For, as the common-law is more worthy than the statute- law, so tfye law of nature is more worthy than them bp.tb. Other states have curious frames, soon put out of order : and they that are made fit to last, are not commonly fit to grow or spread ] and, contrariwise, those that are made fit to spread and enlarge, are not fit to continue and endure. But monarchy is like a work of nature, well composed both to grow and to continue. The schools may dispute it, but time hath tried it. MINISTERS, VKRULAMIANA. 303 MINISTERS. Kings cannot possibly see all things with their own eyes, nor hear all things with their own ears ; they must commit many great trusts to their ministers. They must be answerable to God Almighty, to whom they are but ser- vants, for their actions and for their negligent omissions: but the Ministers of Kings, whose eyes and ears and hands they are, must be an- swerable to God and man for a breach of their duties, in violation of their trusts, whereby they betray them. NOBILITY, A monarchy, where there is no nobility at all, is ever a pure and absolute tyranny: for nobility attempers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people somewhat aside from the line* royal. A great and potent nobility addeth ma- jesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power ; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but ^j K 6 presseth 204 VERULAMIANA. pressetli their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty? rior for justice; and yet maintained in that height as the in- solency of inferiors may be broken upon them> before it come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. Certainly, kings that have able men of their nobility, shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide into their business : for people naturally bend to them, as born in some sort to command. It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay; how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time ? — for new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobilitv i& the act of time. PEACE, That prince, or state, offends as much against justice and against reason, which omit- teth a air occasion of making an honourable and safe peace, as that which rashly and cause- lessly moveth an unjust war. But though wars 2 he VERULAMIANA. 205 be diseases, yet I think it better to endure some sickness, than to venture upon every medicine. It is no cure to bring a state from a doubtful war to an unsafe treaty : it is no more than to put a feverish body out of a hot fit into a cold. -As an unskilful physician may, by working a natural body with his medicines, bring it from a tertian or quartan fever to an hectic ; an im- provident statesman may, with conditions or treaty, so disarm a state of the friends, reputa- tion and strength it hath, that the cure will prove far worse than the disease. Therefore it is not the name of war or peace, but the cir- cumstances and conditions of either of them, that should make us fly the one, or embrace the other. Princes or states, when they enter into con- sideration of their own affairs, may dispose themselves to peace, for utility, conveniency, or necessity : For utility if they can get advan- tage : for conveniency, if peace be fittest to conserve them in the state they are : for neces- sity, when they have no longer the means to make war. All states do stand as much by reputation, as by strength. POPULATION. $06 VERULAMIANA. POPULATION. Generally it is to be provided, that the population of a kingdom (especially if it be not mown down by wars) do not exceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain it. Nei- ther is the population to be reckoned only by number : for u smaller number, that spend more and cam less, do wear out a state sooner than a greater number that live lower, and ga- ther more. PREDICTIONS. My judgment is, that state prophecies or predictions ought all to be despised, and ought to s^rve but for winter-talk by the fireside. Though, when I say despised, I mean it as for belief: for, otherwise, the spreading or publish- ing of them is in no sort to be despised ; for they have done much mischief. And I see many severe laws A made to repress them. That VERULAMIANA. 20r That which hath given them grace, and some credit, consisteth in three things. — First, that men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss ; as they do also, generally, of dreams. The second is, that probable conjectures, or obscure traditions, many times, turn themselves into prophecies: while the nature of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretel that which indeed they do but collect. The third and last is, that almost all of them (being infinite in number) have been impos- tures ; and by idle and crafty brains merely con- trived and feigned, after the event was past. PREROGATIVE AND LIBERTY. The king's sovereignty, and the liberty of parliament, are as the two elements or principles of this state ; which, though the one be more active, the other more passive, yet they do not cross or destroy, but strengthen and maintain the one the other. Take away liberty of parli- ament, the griefs of the subjects will bleed in- wards : sharp and eager humours will not eva- porate ; and then they must esulcerate, and so may SOS VERULAMIANA. may endanger the sovereignty itself. On the other side, if the king's sovereignty receive diminution, or any degree of contempt ; with us that are born under an hereditary monarchy, €0 as that the motions of our state cannot work in any other frame or engine, it must follow that we shall be a meteor or corpus impafecte mistum, which kind of bodies come speedily to confusion and dissolution. PREROGATIVE AND LAW. The king's prerogative and the law are not two things; but the king's prerogative is law^ and the principal part of the law, the first-born or pars prima of the law : and therefore in con- i&rving or maintaining that, we can serve and maintain the law. There is not in the body of man one law of the head, and another of the body^ but all is one entire law. pRiyy VERULAMIANA. 205» PRIVY COUNCILS. All kings, though they be gods on earth, yet they are gods of earth, frail as other men : they may be of extreme age ; they may be in- disposed in health; they may be absent. In these cases, if their councils may not supply their persons, to what infinite accidents are they exposed ? Nay more, sometimes in policy kings will not be seen, but cover themselves with their council : and if this be taken from them, a great part of their safety is taken away. For the other point, that of weakening their council, they are nothing without the king : they are no body politic ; they have no coin- mission under seal. So if you begin to distin- guish and disjoin them from the king, they are corpus opacum; for they have lumen de I amine. By distinguishing you extinguish the principal engine of the sU'e PROPERTY, ilO VERULAMIANA. PROPERTY. Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the treasure and monies in estate be not gathered into few hands. For otherwise a state may have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is like muck, not good except it be spread. This is done chiefly by suppressing, or at least keeping a strait hand upon the de- vouring trades of usury, engrossing, great pas- turages, an VERULAM1ANA. MARTYRDOM, For Martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles ; because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature. NATURAL THEOLOGY. Natural Theology is that knowledge, or rudiment of knowledge, concerning God, which may be obtained by the contemplation of his creatures; which knowledge may be truly termed divine in respect of the object ; and natural in respect of the light. The bounds of this know- ledge ^re, that it sufficetb to convince atheism, but not to inform religion : because no light of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God. By the contemplation of na- ture, to induce and enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to demonstrate his power, provi- dence and goodness, is an excellent argument. But, on the other side, out of the contem- plation of nature, or ground of human know- ledges, ledges, to induce any verity or persuasion con- cerning the points of faith, is in my judgment not safe. The heathen themselves conclude as much, in that excellent and divine fable of the golden chain, — " That men and gods were not able to draw Jupiter dovn to the earth ; but contrariwise, Jupiter was able to draw them up to heaven." So as we ought not to attempt to draw down, or submit the mysteries of God to our reason ; but, contrariwise, to raise and ad- vance our reasoa to the divine truth. Hereunto I have digressed, because of the extreme prejudice which both religion and phi- losophy have received, and may receive, by being commixed together; as that which un-' doubtedly will make an heretical religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy. NON-RESIDENCE. For iron-residence, except it be in ease of necessary absence, it seemeth an abuse drawn out of covetousness and sloth : that men should live of the flock which they do not feed, or of thr sltar at which they do not serve, is a thing that *«63 VERULAMIANA. that can hardly receive just defence; and to exercise the office of a pastor, in matter of the word and doctrine, by deputies, is a thing not warranted. PARADISE. After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us that man was placed in the gar* den to work therein ; which work, so appointed to him, could be no other than work of contem- plation — that is, when the end of work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity: for there being then no reiuctation of the crea- ture, nor sweat of the brow, man's employment jnust of consequence have been matter of de- light in the experiment, and not matter of la- bour for the use. Again, the first acts which man performed in Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of knowledge , the view of creatures, and the imposition of names. PREACHING. YERULAMIANA. 263 PREACHING. If a preacher preach with care and meditation (I speak not of the vain scholastical manner of preaching 1 ; but soundly indeed, ordering the matter he handleth distinctly, for memory, deducting and drawing it down for direction,' and authorising it with strong proofs and war- rants) it is censored as a form of speaking not Jbecoming the simplicity of the gospel, and they refer it to the reprehension of Saint Paul, of the enticing speech of maris wisdom. ; Now for their own manner of preachings what is it ? Surely they exhort welJ, and work compunction of mind, and bring men well to the question Viri,fratres, quidfaciemus ? But that is not enough, except they resolve the question. They handle matters of controversy weekly, and as before a people that will accept of any thing. In doctrine of manners there is little but generality and repetition. The word (the bread of life) they toss up and down ; they break it not : they draw not their directions down ad casus comcientw, that a man may be *<54 VERULAMIANA. be warranted in his particular actions whe- ther they be lawful or not ; neither indeed are many of them able to do it, what through want of grounded knowledge, what through want of study and time. It is a compendious and easy thing to call for the observation of the sabbath day, or to speak against unlawful gain : but what actions and works may be done upon the sabbath, and what not : and what courses of gain are lawful, and in what cases; — to set this down, and to clear the whole with good distinc- tions and decisions, is a matter of great know- ledge and labour, and asketh much meditation and conversing in the Scriptures, and other helps which God hath provided and preserved for instruction. They forget that there are sins on the right hand as well as on the left : and that the word is double-edged, and cutteth on both sides ; m well the profane transgressions, as the super- stitious observances. Who doubteth but that it is as unlawful to shut where God hath opened as to open where God hath shut ; to bind where God hath loosed, as to loose where God hath bound ! In this kind of zeal they have pro- nounced VERULAMIANA. 2C5 nounced generally, and without difference, all untruths unlawful : notwithstanding that the midwives are directly reported to have been blessed for their excuse to the Egyptians ; that Rahab is said by faith to have concealed the spies; that Solomon's selected judgment pro- ceeded upon a simulation ; and that our Saviour, the more to touch the hearts of the two disciples, made as if he would have passed Emmaus. Far- ther, I have heard some sermons of mortification, I think, with very good meaning, but apt to breed in men rather weak opinions and per- plexed despairs, than the filial and true repent- ance which is sought. Another point of great inconvenience and peril is to entitle the people to hear controversies, and all kinds of doctrine. They say no part of the council of God is to be suppressed, nor the people defrauded ; so that the difference which the Apostle maketh be- tween milk and strong meat is confounded : and his precept, that the weak be not admitted unto questions and controversies, taketh no place- But, most of all is to be suspected their man- ner of handling the Scriptures : for whilst they seek express Scripture for every thing, and have N deprived '26S VERULAMIANA. deprived themselves and the church of a special help and support by embasing the authority of the fathers, they resort to naked examples, con- ceited inferences and forced allusicttis, such as do mine into all certainty of religion. Where? soever, they find in the Scriptures the word spo- ken of, they expound it of preaching; and they have made it, in a manner, of the essence of the- sacrament of the Lord's supper to have 4 sermon precedent : they have, in a sort, anni- hilated the use of liturgies and forms of divine service, although the house of God be denomi- nated principally domits orationis, a house of prayer, and not a house of preaching. As for the life of the good monks and hermits in the primitive church, I know they will condemn a man as half a papist ; if he should maintain it as otherwise than profane, because they heard no sermons. In the mean time, what preach, ing is or who may be said to preach, they move no question : but (as far as I see) every man that presumeth to speak in chair is accounted a preacher. All these errors and mis-proceedings they fortify and intrench by an addicted respect to their own opinions, and an impatience to hear contradiction or argument ; yea, I know some of VERULAM1ANA. 267 of them who would think it a tempting of God to hear or read what may be said against them. God forbid, that every man who can take unto himself boldness to speak an hour together in a church upon a text, should be admitted for a preacher, though he mean never so well. I know there is a great latitude in gifts, and a great variety in auditors and congregations ; but ytt so as there is below which you ought not to descend. For you must rather leave the ark to shake as it shall please God, than put unworthy hands to hold it up. When we are in God's temple, we are warned rather to put our hands upon our mouth, than to offer the sacrifice of fools. And surely it may be justly thought, that amongst maiiy causes of atheism, as schisms and controversies, profane scoflings in holy matters, and the like ; it is not the least, that divers do adventure to handle the word of God who are unfit and unworthy. Herein I would have no man mistake me, as if I did extol cu- rious and affected preaching ; which is as much on the other side to be disliked, and biecdeth atheism and scandal as well as the other: for who would not be offended at one that cometh N 2 into 26s VERULAMIANA. into the pulpit, as if he came upon the stage to play parts or prizes ? PROPHECY. Divine prophecies being of the nature of their Author,, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accom- plishment throughout many ages ; though the height of fulness of them may refer to some one age. SUPERSTITION. It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him : tot the one is unbelief, the other is con- tumely ; and certainly superstition is the re- proach of the Deity. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral vir- tue, VKRULAM1ANA. 209 tue, though religion were not : but superstition dismounts all these, and directs an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. The master of superstition is the people : and in all super- stition wise men follow fools ; and arguments are fitted to practice., in a reversed order. The causes of superstition are, pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies -.excess of outward and pharisaical holiness : over-great reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the church : the stratagems of prelates for their own ambi- tion and lucre: the favouring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gates to conceits and novelties: the taking an aim at divine mat- ters by human, which cannot but breed a mix-" ture of imaginations : and lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities and disasters. There is a superstition in avoiding superstition ; when men think to do best, if they go farthest from the superstition formerly received : there- fore care should be had that the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the reformer. N 3 TYTHES. *?o VfiRULAMIANA. TYTHES. It is a constitution of the divine law, from which human laws cannot derogate,— that those which feed the flock, should live of the flock; that those who serve at the altar should live at the altar ; that those who dispense spiritual things, should reap temporal things : of which also it is an appendix, that the proportion of this maintenance be not small or necessitous, but plentiful and liberal. I must confess (let me speak it with reverence) that all the parlia- ments since 27 and 31 of Henry 8th, who gave away impropriations from the church, seem to nie to stand in a sort obnoxious ; and obliged to God, in conscience, to do somewhat for the church, to reduce the patrimony thereof to a competency. For since they have debarred Christ's wife of a great part of her dowry, it were reason they made her a competent jointure. OF VE.RU L AMI ANA, OF fcNITY, The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The rea- son vvas, because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies., than in any constant belief. Heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals ; yea, more than corruption of manners. For as in the natural body, a wound, or solution of continuity, is worse than a corrupt humour ; 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 pass that one saith — ecce in desserto ; and another saith — ecce inpenetralibus : 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 exirc— go not out. It is but a light thing to be vouched in so seri- ous a matter, but yet it expresseth well the de r N 4 formity •.: 2?2 * VERULAM1ANA. formity : — There is a master of scoffing who in bis catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, " The Morris-dance of Heritiques." For indeed every sect of them hath a diverse posture or cringe by themselves ; which cannot but move derision in worldling and depraved politicians, who- are apt to con- temn holy things, As for the fruit of unity towards those that are within, it is peace; which containeth infi- nite blessings : It established! faith, it kindletk chanty ; the outward peace of the church dis- tilleth into peace of conscience ; and it turneth the labours of writing and reading of contro- versies, into treatises of mortification and de- votion. To certain zealots, all speech of pacification is odious. Peace is not the matter, but follow- ing, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodi- ceans, and lukewarm persons., think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcile- ments; as if they would make an arbitriment between God and man. Both these extremes are VERULAMIANA. 273 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. Men ought to take heed of rending God's church by two kinds of controversies. The one is, when the matter of the point contro- verted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by con- tradiction. They be two things, Unity and Uniformity. The other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but is driven to an overgreat subtil ty and obscurity; so that it becometh a thing rather ingenious than substan- tial. A man that is of judgment and under- standing shall sometimes hear ignorant men dif- fer, 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 think that God above, who knows the heart, doth not N-5 discern. S74 VERULAMIANA, discern that frail men, in some of their contra- dictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both ? \ There be also two false peaces, or unities ; the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance ; for all colours will agree in the dark : the other when it is pieced up on a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points. For truth and falshood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebu- chadnezzar's image ; they may cleave, but they will not incorporate. There be two swords amongst christians, the spiritual and temporal ; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of re- ligion . 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 sangui- nary 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 authorise conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword into VERULAMIANA. 275 into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God. GOOD WORKS. It was truly said — tarn sunt mores quidam schismatici, quam dogmata schismatica ; there be as well schismatical fashions as opinions. There are who have impropriated to themselves the names of zealous, sincere and reformed j as if all others were cold minglers of holy things and profane, and friends of abuses. Yea, be a man endued with great virtues, and fruitful in good works, yet if he concur not with them, they term him, in derogation, a civil and mo- ral man, and compare him to Socrates, or some heathen philosopher ; whereas the wisdom of the Scriptures teacheth us otherwise : namely, to judge and denominate men religious accord- ing to their works of the second table ; because those of the first are often counterfeit, and prac- tised in hypocrisy. Saint John saith, that a man doth vainly boast of loving God zokom he never saw, if he love not his brother whom he N 6 hath *7$ VERULAMIANA. hath seen: and Saint James saith, This is true religion, to visit the fatherless and the widow. So as that which is with them but philosophical and moral, is, in the apostle's phrase, true reli- gion and Christianity- VICISSITUDES OF THINGS. Solomon saith, There is no nezo thing upon the earth: so that as Plato had an imagination that all knowledge was but remembrance, so Solomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty i% but oblivion^ The great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion are two — deluges and earthquakes. The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions : for those orbs rule in men's minds most. When the religion formerly received is rent by dis- cords, and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal, and withall the times be stupid, ignorant and bar- barous, VERULAMIANA. 377 barous, you may doubt the springing up of a new sect ; if then, also, there should arise any extravagant and strange spirit, to make himself author thereof. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not ; for it will not spread. The one is, the supplanting, or the opposing of authority established : for nothing is more popu- lar than that. The other is^ the giving licence to pleasures and a voluptuous life. The changes and vicissitudes in wars are many ; but chiefly in three things : — in the seats or stages of the war ; in the weapons} and in the manner of the conduct. Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be sure to have wars. When there be great shoals of people, which go on to populate without foreseeing means of life and sustentation, it is of necessity that once in an age or two they discharge a portion of their people upon other nations; which the antient northern people w r ere wont to do by lot, casting 27S VERULAMIANA. casting lots what part should stay at home, ami what should seek their fortunes. When a warlike state grows soft and effemi- nate .they may be sure of a war. For, com- monly, such states are grown rich in the time of their degenerating; and so the prey inviteth,. and their decay in valour encourageth a war. In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning ; and then both of them together, for a time : in the de- clining age of a state, mechanical arts and mer- chandise. Learning hath its infancy, when it is bat beginning and almost childish ; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile ; then its strength of years, when it is solid and re- duced ; and lastly its old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust. But it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy. APPENDIX TO VEMUJLAMIANA. APOPHTHEGMS. 1HE book of deposing king Richard the second, and the coming in of Henry the fourths supposed to be written 03 7 Doctor Hayward, who was committed to the Tower for it, had much incensed queen Elizabeth ; and she asked Mr. Bacon, being then of her learned council, te Whether there were any treason contained in it?" Who, intending to do him a pleasure, and to take off the queen's bitterness with a merry conceit, answered ; " No, madam, for treason I cannot deliver opinion that there is any, but very much felony ." The queen apprehending 3 it 280 APPENDIX. it gladly, asked, "How? and wherein?" Mr. Bacon answered, u Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tarittiir." Queen Elizabeth being to resolve upon a great officer, and being hy some, that canvassed for others, put in some doubt of that person whom she meant to advance, called for Mr. Bacon ; and told him, " She was like one with a Jan- thorn seeking a man ;" and seemed unsatisfied in the choice she had of a man for that place. Mr. Bacon answered her, " That he had heard that in old time there was usually painted on the church walls the day of doom, and God sitting in judgment, and Saint Michael by him, with a pair of balances; and the sou!, and the good deeds in the one balance ; and the faults and the evil deeds in the other : and the soul's balance went up far too light. Then was our lady painted with a great pair of beads, who cast them into the light balance, and brought down the scale: so (he said) place and autho- rity, which were in her majesty's hands to give, were like our lady's beads, which though men, through any imperfections, were too light be- fore, APPENDIX. 381 fore, yet when they were cast in, made weight competent/' There were fishermen drawing the river at Chelsey ; Mr. Bacon came thither by chance, in the afternoon, and offered to buy their draught : they were willing. He asked them, what they would take ? They asked thirty shil- lings. Mr. Bacon offered them ten. They re- fused it. " Why then," saith Mr. Bacon, " I will be only a looker on." They drew, and eatched nothing. Saith Mr. Bacon, " Are not you mad fellows now, who might have had an angel in your purse, to have made merry withal, and to have warmed you thoroughly, and now you must go home with nothing." " Aye but," saith the fishermen, " we had hope then to make a better gain of it." Saith Mr. Bacon, " Well, my masters, then I will tell you, hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper." A lady walking with Mr. Bacon in Gray's Inn walks, asked him, Whose that piece of ground lying next under the walls was ? He answered, u Theirs." Then she asked him, If those fields beyond the walks were theirs too? He an- swered, 2S2 APPENDIX. swered, « Yes, Madam, those are ours, as you are ours, to look on, and no more/' His lordship, when he was newly made lord Keeper, was in Gray's Inn walks with Sir Wal- ter Raleigh : one came and told him, that the earl of Exeter was above. He continued upon occasion, still walking a good while. At last, when he came up, my lord of Exeter met hijti> and said ; My lord, I have made a great ven- ture, to come up so high stairs, being a gouty man." His lordship answered ; " Pardon me, my lord, I have made the greatest venture of all, for I have ventured upon your patience." When Sir Francis Bacon was- made the king's attorney, Sir Edward Coke was put up, from being lord Chief Justice of the common pleas, to be lord Chief Justice of the king's bench ; which is a place of greater honour, but of less profit : and, withal, was made privy counsellor. After a few days, the lord Coke meeting with the king's attorney, said unto him ; " Mr. At- torney, this is all your doing: It is you that have made this stir." Mr. Attorney answered ; " Ah ! my lord, your lordship all this while bath APPENDIX. 2 S3 hath grown in breadth ; you must needs now grow in height^ or else you would he a monster." One clay queen Elizabeth told Mr. Bacon, that my lord of Essex, after great protestation of penitence and affection, fell in the end but upon the suit of renewing his farm of sweet wines. He answered, " I read that in nature, there be two kinds of motions or appetites in sympathy ; the one as of iron to the adamant, for perfection ; the other, as of the vine to the stake, for ostenta- tion : that her majesty was the one, and his suit the other." Mr. Bacon, after he had been vehement in parliament against depopulation and inclosures;- and that, soon after, the queen told— that she had referred the hearing of Mr. Mills's cause to certain counsellors and judges; and asked him how he liked of it ? answered ; " Oh ma- dam ! my mind is known ; I am against all inclosures, and especially against inclosed jus- tice." When Sir Nicholas (the lord Keeper) lived, every room in Gorhambury was seived with a pipe 284 APPENDIX. pipe of water from the ponds, distant about a mile off. In the life time of Mr. Anthony Bacon, the water ceased. After whose death, his lordship coming to the inheritance, could not recover the water without infinite charge. When he was lord chancellor, he built Verulatn house, close by the pond-yard, for a place of privacy when he was called upon to dispatch any urgent business. And being asked why he built that house there ; his lordship answered, ** that since he could not carry the water to his bouse,, he would carry his house to the water*" 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 burden, he could very willingly for- bear 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, who would needs leave the world, and acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days solitarily ; and would enjoy no more comfort : and commanded them, upon his APPENDIX. 285 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, in- cited 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 fn the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese." So he applied the fable after his witty manner. In 1588, when the queen went from Temple- bar along Fleet-street, the lawyers were ranked pn one side, and the companies of the city on the other. Said Mr. Bacon to a lawyer who stood next to him : " Do but observe the cour- tiers : if they bow r first to the citizens, they are in debt; if first to us, they are in law." , After the queen (Elizabeth), says lord Bacon, had denied me the solicitor's place, for which the earl of Essex had been a long and earnest suitor on my behalf, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond to Twickenham park, where he brake with me and said — " Mr. Bacon, the queen hath denied me the place for you, and hath placed another : I know you are the least part 2§r APPENDIX. part of your own matter; but you fare ill be- cause you have chosen me for your mean and dependance. You have spent your time and -thoughts in my matters: I die (these were his very words) if I do not somewhat towards your fortune ; you shall not deny to accept a piece of land, which I will bestow upon you." My answer, I remember, was — that for my fortune., it w r as no great matter ; but that his lordship's offer made me call to mind what was wont to be said, when I was in France, of the duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his estates into obli- gations. " Now, my lord," said I, " I would not have you imitate his course, nor turn your estate thus by great gifts into obligations; for you will find many bad debtors." He bade me take no care for that, and pressed it ; where- upon I said — " My lord, I see I must be your homager, and hold land of 3 T our gift ; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law ? Always it is with a saving of his faith to the king and his other lords ; and therefore, my lord, I can be no more yours than I was, and it must be with the antient savings : and if I grow to be a rich man, you will give me leave to APPENDIX. *&7 to give it back again to some of your unrewarded followers." Essex had a settled opinion that the queen could be brought to nothing but by a kind of necessity and authority ; and I well remember (says lord Bacon) when by violent courses at any time he had got his will,, he would ask me — " Now, Sir, whose principles be true ?" And I would again say to him — " My lord, these courses be like to hot waters, they will help at a pang; but if you use them you shall spoil the stomach, and you shall be fain still to make them stronger and stronger, and yet in the end they will lessen their operation/' But this dif- ference bred, in process of time, a disconti- nuance of privateness between his lordship and myself; as it is the manner of men seldom to communicate where they think their course is not approved. Soon after the death of a great officer, who was judged no advancer of the king's matters, the king said to his solicitor Bacon, who was his kinsman, " Now tell me truly, what say you of your cousin that is gone ?" Mr, Bacon an- swered^ 28S APPENDIX, swered, Sir, since your Majesty doth charge me, I'll e'en deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him, as if I were to write his story. I do think he was no fit coun- sellor to make your affairs better : but yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse/' The king said, " On my so'l, man, in the first thou speakest like a true man, and in the latter like a kinsman," Count Gondomar sent a compliment to my lord St. Albans, wishing him a good Easter. My lord thanked the messenger, and said, " he could not at present requite the count better than in returning him the like ; that he wished his lordship a good Passover." Sir Francis Bacon was wont to say of an an- gry man who suppressed his passion, a that he thought worse than he spake :" and of angry man that would chide, " that he spoke worse than he thought." He was wont also to say, " that power in an ill man was like the power of a black witch ; he could do hurt, but no good with it." And he APPENJMX. «d§ he would add, " that the magicians could turn water into blood, but could not turn the blood into water again." When Mr. Attorney Coke, in the exchequer, gave high words to Sir Francis Bacon, and stood much upon his higher place ; Sir Francis said to him, " Mr. Attorney, the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I shall think of it; and the more, the less." Sir Francis Bacon coming into the earl of Arundel's garden, where there were a great number of ancient; statues of naked men and women, made a stand, and, as astonished, cried out, " The resurrection." Sir Francis Bacon (who was always for mode- rate counsels) when one was speaking of such a reformation of the church of England as would in effect make it no church; said thus to him, €t Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of Eng- land; and if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; but he were a strange aculist who would pull out the eye." 290 AFPEKD1X. He was wont to sav, " that those who left useful studies for useless scholastic speculation^ were like the Oiympick gamesters, who ab- stained from necessary labours, that they might be fit for such as were not so." " The empirical philosophers (he would also observe) are like to ants; they only lay up and use their store: the rationalists are like the spi- elers ; they spin all out of their own bowels. But give me a philosopher, who like the bee hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own virtue." His lordship, who was not over-hasty to raise theories, but proceeded slowly by experiments, was wont to say to some philosophers who would not go his pace — -" Gentlemen, nature is a labyrinth; in which the very haste you move with, will make you lose your way." When speaking of the Dutch he would say — " that we could not abandon them for our safety, nor keep them for our profit." Th« APPENDIX. 291 The same lord, when a gentleman seemed not much to approve of his liberality to his retinue, answered — cc Sir, I am ail of a piece ; if the head be lifted up, the inferior parts of the body must too." Lord Bacon was wont to commend the advice of the plain old man at Buxton, who sold be- soms. A proud lazy young fellow came to him for a besom upon trust; to whom the old man said— " Friend, hast thou no money? borrow of thy back, and borrow of thy belly, they'll never ask thee again, I shall be dunning thee every day !" His lordship, when he had finished his col- lection of Apophthegms, concluded thus. — €£ Come, now, all is well : they say he is not a wise man, who will lose his friend for his wit ; but he is less a wise man, who will lose his friend for another man's wit." O 2 LORD LORD BACON's CONFESSION OF FAITH. J[ BELIEVE that nothing is without begin- ning but God ; no nature, no matter, no spirit, but one, only, and the same God. That G^d, as he is eternally almighty, only wise, only good in his nature ; so he is. eternally Father* Son and Spirit, in persons, I believe that God is so holy, pure, and jea- lous, as it is impossible for him to be pleased in any creature, though the work of his own hands ; so that neither angel, man, nor world, could stand, or can stand, one moment in his eves, without beholding the same in the face of a medi- APPENDIX. 593 a mediator: and therefore, that before him, with whom all things are present, the Lamb of God was slain before all worlds ; without which eternal counsel of his, it was impossible for him to have descended to any work of crea- tion. But he should have enjoyed the blessed and individual society of three persons in God- head, for ever. But that, out of his eternal and infinite good- seas and love purposing to become a Creator, and to communicate to his creatures, he or- dained in his eternal counsel, that one person of the Godhead should be united to one nature, and to one particular of his creatures ; that so, in the person of the Mediator, the true ladder' might be fixed, whereby God might descend to bis creatures, and his creatures might ascend to God : so that God, by the reconcilement of the Mediator, turning his countenance towards his creatures (though not in equal light and degree), made way unto the dispensation of his most holy and secret will ; whereby some of his creatures might stand, and keep their state ; others might possibly fail, and be restored r and others might O 3 fall -94 APPENDIX. fall and not be restored to their estate, but yet remain in being, though under wrath and cor- ruption : all with respect to the Mediator ; which is the great mystery and perfect centre of all God's ways with his creatures, and unto which all his other works and wonders do but serve and refer, That he chose (according to his good plea- sure) man to be that creature, to whose nature .the person of the eternal Son of God should be united ; and amongst the generations of men, elected a small flock, in whom (by the partici- pation of himself) he purposed to express the riches of his glory : all the ministration of an- gels, damnation of devils and reprobates^ and universal administration of all creatures, and dispensation of all times, having no other en tj, but as the ways and ambages of God, to be further glorified in his Saints, who are one with their head the Mediator, who is one with God. That by the virtue of this his eternal counsel he condescended of his own good pleasure, and according to the times and seasons to himself known, APPENDIX. 2Sw known, to become a Creator; and by his eter- nal Word created ail things; and by his eternal Spirit doth comfort and preserve them. That he made all things in their first estate good, and removed from himself the beginning of all evil and vanity into the liberty of the creature; but reserved in himself the beginning of all restitution to the liberty of his grace: using, nevertheless, and turning the falling and defection of the creature (which to his pre- science was eternally known) to make way to his eternal counsel touching a Mediator, and the work he purposed to accomplish in him. That God created Spirits, whereof some kept their standing, and others fell. He created heaven and earth, and all their armies and ge- nerations ; and gave unto them constant and everlasting laws, which we call nature : ; which is nothing but the laws of the creation ; which laws, nevertheless, have had three changes or times, and are to have a fourth or last. The fef&t, when the matter of heaven and earth was created without forms ; the second, the interim of perfection of every day's work ; the third, 4 by 2Sd APPENDIX. by the curse, which notwithstanding was no new creation ; and the last, at the end of the world, the manner whereof is not yet fully re- vealed : so as the laws of nature, which now remain and govern inviolably till the end of the world, began to be in force when God first rested from his works, and ceased to create ; hut received a revocation, in part, by the curse ; since vhieh time they change not* That notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating since the first sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil his divine will in all things, great and small, sin- gular and general, as fully and exactly by pro- vidence, as he could by miracle and new crea- tion ; though his working be not immediate and direct, but by compass ; not violating nature, which is his own law upon Ahe creature. That at the first the soul of man was not pro- duced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God. So that the ways and proceedings of God with spirits are not in- luded in nature, — that is, in the laws of hea- ven and earth ; but are reserved to the law of his appendix. m his secret will and grace : whereha God worketk still, and resteth not from the work of redemp- tion, as he resteth from the work of creation ; but contiiiueth working till the end of the world :-«— what time, that work also shall be accomplished, and an eternal sabbath shall en- sue. Likewise* that whenever God doth tran- scend the law of nature by miracles (which may ever seem as new creations), he never cometh to that point or pass - r but in regard of the work of redemption, which is the greater, and whesetQ all God's signs and miracles do refer. That God created man in hit own. image, h* a reasonable soul, in innocency, in free-will, and ia sovereignty : that he gave him a law and com-' piandinent, which it wa-i in his power to keep^ but he kept it not : That man made a total de- fection from God, presuming to imagine that the- commandments and prohibitions of God were not the rule* of good and evil, but that good $nd evil had their own principles and beginnings^ and lusted after the knowledge of those imagined feginning^ to the end, to depend no more upon God's will revealed, but upon himself and hi* own light, as a ©od 5 than th@ which timm €0^14 P#4 t>e a sin more opposite to the whole O & law 2gi APPENDIX. law of God: that yet, nevertheless, this great sin was not originally moved by the malice of man, but was insinuated by the suggestion and instigation of the devil ; who was the first de- fected creature, and fell of malice, and not bv temptation. That upon the fall of man, death and vanity entered by the justice of God ; and the image of God in man was defaced ; and heaven and earth, which were made for man's use, were subdued to corruption by his fall: but then, that instantly and without intermission of time, after the word of God's Jaw became, through the fall of man, frustrate as to obedience, there succeeded the greater word of the promise; that the righteousness of God might be wrought by faith. That as well the law of God as the word of his promise, endure the same for ever : but that they have been revealed in several manners, according to the dispensation of times. For the law was first imprinted in that remnant of light of nature which was left after the fall, being sufficient to accuse: then, it was more 3 manifestly APPENDIX. 299 manifestly expressed in the Written law; and was yet more opened by the prophets : and lastly it was expounded in the true perfection by the Son of God, the great Prophet, and perfect in- terpreter, as also fulfiller of the law. That, like- wise, the word of the promise was manifested and revealed, — first, by immediate revelation and in*- spiration ; after by figures, which were of two natures: the one, the rites and ceremonies of the law ; the other, the continual history of the old world, and church of the Jews, which though it be literally true, yet it is pregnant of a perpetual allegory and shadow of the work of the redemption to follow. The same pro- mise or evangile was more clearly revealed and declared by the prophets ; and then, by the Soli himself; and lastly by the Holy Ghost, which illuminateth the church to the end of the world. That in the fulness of trme, according to the promise and oath, of a chosen lineage de- scended the blessed seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and Saviour of the world ; who was conceived by the power and over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost, and took flesh of the Virgin Mary. O 6 That W& APPENDIX. That the Ward did not only take flesh, or was joined to flesh, but was made flesh, though without confusion of substance or nature : so as the eternal son of God, and the ever blessed Son gf Mary was one person ; so one, as the blessed virgin may be. truly and catholickly called Deipara, the mother of God ; so one, as there is no unity in universal nature, not that of the soul and body of man, so perfect ; for the three heavenly unities (whereof that is the second-} exceed all natural unities, — that h to say, the unity of the three persons in Godhead, the unity of God and man in Christy and the unity of Christ and the Church ; the Holy Ghost be- ing the worker of both these latter unities. For by the Holy Ghost was Christ incarnate and quickened in flesh ; and by the Holy Ghost is man regenerate and quickened in spirit. That Jesus, the Lord, became in the flesh a sacrificer, and a sacrifice for sin ; a satisfaction and price to the justice of God; a meriter of glory, ^nd the kingdom ; a pattern of all righte- ousness ; a preacher of the word which himself was; a finisher of the ceremony; a corner- atone, to remove the separation between Jew and APPENDIX, HI and Gentile ; an intercessor for the church ; a lord of nature, in his miracles ; or conqueror of death and the power of darkness-, in his resurrection : and that he fulfilled the whole counsel of God, performing all his sacred offices, and anointing on earth ; accomplished the whole work of the redemption and restitu- tion of man, to $ state superior to the angels (whereas the state of man by creation was infe- rior) ; and reconciled and established all things according to the eternal will of the Father. That in time Jesus the Lord was born in th$ days of Herod, and suffered under the govern* ment of Pontius Pilate, being deputy of tht Romans, and under the high priesthood of Caiaphas, and was betrayed by Judas, one of the twelve apostles ; and was crucified at Hieru-* sulam : and after a true and natural death, ancj his body laid in the sepulchre, tfee third day he raised himself from the bonds of death, and arose and shewed himself to mapy ehosen wit- nesses, by the space of divers days ; and at the end of those days, in the sight of many §&pende$ k*toheaven,\vhefe becommttetkfekintejrce&sio*^ ?nd S<*1 APPENDIX. and shall from thence, at the day appointed, come in greatest glory to judge the world. That the sufferings and merits of Christ, as they are sufficient t6 do away the sins of the whole world, so they are only effectual to those which are regenerate by the Holy Ghost, who breatheth where he will of free grace, which grace, as a seed incorruptible, quickeneih the spirit of man, and conceiveth him a new son of God and member of Christ : so that, Christ having man's flesh, and man -having Christ's spirit, there is an open passage and mutual impu- tation, whereby sin and wrath was conveyed to Christ from man, and merit and life is conveyed to man from Christ. Which seed of the Holy Ghost first figureth in us the image of Christ slain or 'crucified, through a lively faith ; and then reneweth in us the image of God in holi^ ness and charity : though both imperfectly, and in degrees far differing 'even in God's elect, as well in regard of the fire of the spirit, as of the illumination thereof, which is more or less in a large proportion, as in the church before Christ; which yet, nevertheless, was partaker of one and APPENDIX. 303 and the same salvation with us, and of one and the same means of salvation with us. That the work of the Spirit, though it be not tied to any means inheaven or "earth, -yet it is ordinarily dispensed by the preaching of the word ; the administration of the -sacraments ; the covenants of the-fathers upon the children, prayer, reading; the censures of the church; the society of the godly ; the cross and afflic- tions ; God's benefits; his judgments upoa others; miracles; the contemplation of his creatures: All which (though some 1 be more principal, God useth as the means of .vocation and conversion of his elect ; not derogating from his power to call immediately by Iris grace, and at all hours and moments of the day (that is, of man's life), according to his good pleasure. That the word of God, whereby his will is revealed, continued in revelation and tradition until Moses ; and that the Scriptures were from Moses's time to the time of the apostles and evangelists, in whose age, after the coining of the Holy Ghost, the teacher of all truth, the book 504 APPENDIX. book of the Scriptures was shut and closed, so as not to receive any new addition ; and that the church hath no power over the Scriptures, to teach or command any thing contrary to the written word, but is as the ark wherein the ta-. bles of the first testament were kept and pre- served, — that is to say, the church hath onJj T the custody and delivery over of the Scriptures committed unto the s^rae ; together with the jjo* ierpretation of them, but such only as is con- ceived from themselves. That there is an universal or catholic church of God, dispersed over the face of the earth, which is Christ's spouse, and Christ's body - r being gathered of the fathers of the old world,, of the church of the Jews, of the spirits of the faithful dissolved, and the spirits of the faithful militant, and of the names } 7 et to be born, which are already written in the book of life That there is also a visible church, distinguished by the outward works of God's covenant, and the receiving of the holy doctrine, with the use of the mysteries of God, and the invocation and sancti&catioa $f his bcty name. Iha* there is ait? APPENDIX. 306 also an holy succession in the prophets of the new testament and fathers of the church, from the time of the apostles and disciples who saw our Saviour in the flesh, unto the consummation of the work of the^ministry ; which persons are called from Gbd by gift,' or TnVard' anointing, and the vdcdtibti- of (3od foltawfed'byan out- ward calling andol*d^n4ti0& 0$ th§ cbufeh. I believe vthat the souls of such as die in the Lord are blessed, and rest from their la- bours, and enjoy the sight of God ; yet so as they ai'e in expectation of a farther revelation of their glory in the last day. At which time all flesh of man shall arise and be changed, and shall appear and receive from Jesus Christ his -eternal judgment; and the glory of the saints shalf then be full; and 1 the kingdom shall be 'given u$ to God the Father : from" which time alP tftings shall continue for ever in that being and state, which then they shall receive. So as there 'are three times (if times they may be called), or parts *•■ of eternity: The first, the time before beginnings, when the Godhead* was* only , v -without the being of any creature ; the second, the time of the mystery, a** APPENDIX, mysterv, which eonti-nueth from the creation to the dissolution of the world ; and the third, the time of the revelations of the sons of God, —which time is the last, and is everlasting without change. A PRAYER PRAYER OR PSALM Made by Lord Bacon. L OST gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter ! Thou, O Lord, soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts: thou acknowledgest the upright of heart; thou judgest the hypocrite; thou ponderest men's thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their intentions as with a line ; vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid from thee. Remember, O Lord ! how thy servant hath walked before thee : remember what I have first sough ti 308 APPENDIX. sought, and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies; I have mourned for the divisions of thy church ; I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanc- tuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, that it may have the first and the latter rain ; and that it might stretch its branches to the seas and the woods. The state and bread of the poor and oppressed, have been precious in mine eyes : I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart ; I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them ; neither hath the sun almost set upon my dis- pleasure ; but I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens;, but have found thee in thy temples ! , , Thousands have been mv sins, and ten thou- sands my transgressions; but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart, through grace, hath been ap unquenched coal upon thine APPENDIX. 3©9 thine altar. O Lord, my strength ! I have since my youth met with thee in all my ways ; by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable chas- tisements, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours have increased upon me, so have thy corrections ; so as thou hast been al- ways near me, O Lord : and ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me ; and when I have ascended before men, I have descended in humiliation before thee. And now, when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy upon me,* and hath humbled me according to thy former loving-kindness ; keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a bastard, but as a child., Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea, earth, heavens, and all these are nothing to thy mercies. Be- sides my innumerable sins, I confess, before thee, that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces ; which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it, as I ought, * Thisl>raycr, therefore, W composed in the year 1621. to 310 APPENDIX. to exchangers, where it might have made best profit, but mispent it in things for which I was least fit : so I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me, Lord, for my Saviour's sake ; and receive me into thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways ! THE THE STUDENT'S PRAYER, By his Lordship. Xo God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications ; that he, remembering the cala- mities of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would please to open to us new refresh- ments out of the fountains of his goodness, for the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are divine, neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, any thing 812 APPENDIX. thing of incredulity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds towards divine mysteries. But rather that, by our mind thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine Oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are Faith's. — Amen. i;-f»i THE WRITERS PRAYER, By his Lordship. X. HOU, O Father! who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship ; be pleased to protect and govern this work, which, coming from thy goodness, returneth to thy glory. Thou, after thou hadst reviewed the works which thy hands had made, beheldedst that every thing was very good ; and thou didst rest with complacency in them. But man, re- flecting on the works which he had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and P could 314 APPENDIX. could by no means acquiesce in them. Where- fore if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy sabbath. We humbly beg, that this mind may be steadfast in us ; and that thou, b} T our hands, and also by the hands of others, on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largess of new alms to the family of mankind.* These things we com- mend to thy everlasting love, by our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us ! — Amen. How fully wis this petition granted to the piety of its author. SUMMARY SUMMARY OF LORD BACON's WILL. Jr IRST, I bequeath my soul and body info the hands of God, by the blessed oblation of my Saviour ; the one at the time of my disso- lution, the other at the time of my resurrection. For m}' burial, I desire it may be in Saint Mi- chael's church near Saint Alban's : there was my mother buried ; and it is the parish church of my mansion-house of Gorhambury, and it is the only christian church within the walls of Old Verulam. I would have the charges of my funeral not to exceed 3001 at the most." P 2 « Por ai«_ APPENDIX, ri For my name am! memory, I leave it t# men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nationt and the next ages." He bequeaths 2401. to the poor of the differ- ent parishes, where he has at any time sojourned in his pilgrimage. — u To the poor of Saint Martin's in the fields, where I was born, and lived in my first and last days/* 401 : to the poor of Saint Michael's near Saint Alban's, where I desire to be buried, because the day of death is better than the day of birth, 50l." He then directs 20l. to be given fox his funeral sermon. Legacies to his relations are next specified, to the amount of 11401. to twenty-five poor Stu- dents (fifteen of Cambridge, and ten of Ox-r .ford) he bequeaths 3001 : to his executors, 1801. in presents of plate : to Dr. Rawleigh, his chap- lain, 1001 : among his different servants, he distributes 40901 : and finally ordains, after due • It therefore appears that he had just left York House in tht Strand, and was on his way to Gorhambury, when he was seized with his illness near Highgate. payment Appendix. -wit payment of his debts, and full performance of the aforesaid legacies, t( That his executors shall employ the surplusage in manner and form following, that is to say — that they purchase therewith so much land of inheritance as may erect and endow two lectures in either of the universities, one of which lectures shall be of natural philosophy, and the sciences in general thereunto belonging; hoping that the stipends or salaries of the lectures may amount to £001. a year for either of them : and for the ordering of the said lectures, and the election of the lecturers from time to time, I leave it to the care of my executors, to be established by the advice of the lords bishops of Lincoln, and Coventry and Litchfield, Nevertheless thus much I do direct, that none shall be lecturer, if he be English, except he be master of arts of seven years standing, and not professed in divinity or law or physic as long as he remains lecturer ; and that it be without difference, whether he be stranger or English : and I wish my Executors to consider of the precedent of Sir Henry SaviPs lectures for their better instruction." I con- .«*• APPENDIX. " I constitute and appoint for my executors of this my last will and testament, my approved good friend the right hon. Sir Humphry Maye, chancellor of his Majesty's duchy of Lancaster, Mr. Justice Hutton, Sir Thomas Crewe, Sir Francis Barneham, Sir John Constable, and Sir Euball Thelwall : and I name and entreat to be one of my supervisors, my most noble, con- stant andAxue friend the Duke of Buckingham, unto whom I do most Iwimbly make this my last request, that he will reach forth his hand of grace to assist the just performance of this my will, and likewise that he will be graciously pleased, for my sake, to protect and help such of my good servants as my executors shall at any time recommend to his Grace's favour; And also I do desire his Grace in all humbleness to commend the memory of my long continued and faithful service unto my most gracious So- vereign, who ever when he was prince w T as my patron, as I shall (who have now, I praise God, one foot in heaven) pray for him while I have fcreath." " And I do most earnestly entreat both my executors and supervisors, that although I know well APPENDIX. 31* well it is matter of trouble and travail unto them, yet, considering what 1 have been, that they would vouchsafe to do this last office to my memory and good name, and to the dis- charge of mine honour and conscience; that all men may be duly paid their own, that my good mind, by their good care, may effect that good work." n Whatsoever I have given, granted, con- firmed, or appointed to my wife, in the former part of this my Will, I do now, for just and great causes, utterly revoke and make void ; and leave her to her right only. Fr. St. Albak. Published the 19th day of December, 1625, in the presence of W. Rawley, Ro. Halpeny,* Stephen Paise,f Will. Atkins,J Thomas Kent, Edward Leggc. * He left him upwards of 4ool. flic left him about 4001 % He left him 3ol. FIJSIS. T. Plummtr, PriaUr, Setthing-lao«. 1 03 79 f'4 ibj.'SQ V . * ► *Sfe* \/ ,^. %/ S^J^' \^\^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. r A* .* V FEB 79 I t #L/ *"„ N. MANCHESTER, ^> « ^*. ^ v INDIANA 46962 J ^ V • Sp^^ » LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 893 528 9 ! : !'.;l-v-" w m il B