defence of one most eloquent and accomplished Trimmer.

The volume before us reminds us now and then of the "Life of Cicero." But there is this marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and therefore resorted to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts. Mr. Montagu's faith is sincere and implicit. He practises no trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the facts before us in the full confidence that they will produce on our minds the effect which they have produced on his own. It is not till he comes to reason from facts to motives, that his partiality shows itself; and then he leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work pro ceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many actions, which, if any man but Bacon had committed them, nobody would have dreamed of defending-actions which are readily and completely explained by supposing Bacon to have been a man whose principles were not strict, and whose spirit was not high

towards those great men with whose minds he holds daily communion. Yet nothing can be more certain than that such men have not always deserved, in their own persons, to be regarded with respect or affection. Some writers, whose works will continue to instruct and delight mankind to the remotest ages, have been placed in such situations, that their actions and motives are as well known to us as the actions and motives of one human being can be known to another; and unhappily their conduct has not always been such as an impartial judge can contemplate with approbation. But the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as boundless, and a zeal as unscrupulous, as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political factions. The most overwhelming proofs are rejected; the plainest rules of morality are explained away; extensive and important portions of history are completely distorted; the enthusiast misrepresents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, and confounds right and wrong with all-actions which can be explained in no other the dexterity of a Jesuit-and all this only in order that some man who has been in his grave for ages may have a fairer character than he deserves.

Middleton's "Life of Cicero" is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the doctor brought to the examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and learned man, though

"So wary held and wise

way, without resorting to some grotesque hy pothesis for which there is not a title of evi dence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's opinion, more probable than that his hero should ever have done any thing very wrong.

This mode of defending Bacon seems to us by no means Baconian. To take a man's character for granted, and then from his character to infer the moral quality of all his actions, is surely a process the very reverse of that which is recommended in the Novum Organum. Nothing, we are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu to depart so far from his master's precepts, except zeal for his master's honour. We shall follow a different course. We shall attempt, with the valuable assistance which Mr. Montagu has afforded us, to frame such an account of Bacon's life as may enable our readers cor. rectly to estimate his character.

That, as't was said, he scarce received It is hardly necessary to say that Francis For gospel what the church believed," Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had a superstition of his own. The great held the great seal of England during the first Iconoclast was himself an idolater. The great twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. The Avvorata del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no fame of the father has been thrown into shade small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athana- by that of the son. But Sir Nicholas was no sius to a place in the Calendar, was himself ordinary man. He belonged to a set of men composing a lying legend in honour of St. whom it is easier to describe collectively than Tully! He was holding up as a model of separately; whose minds were formed by one every virtue a man whose talents and acquire- system of discipline; who belonged to one ments, indeed, can never be too highly extol- rank in society, to one university, to one party, led, and who was by no means destitute of to one sect, to one administration; and who amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was resembled each other so much in talents, in under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a opinions, in habits, in fortunes, that one cha craven fear. Actions for which Cicero him-racter, we had almost said one life, may, to a self, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse an shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolution which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make out something which may look like a

considerable extent, serve for them all.

They were the first generation of statesmen by profession that England produced. Before their time the division of labour had, in this respect, been very imperfect. Those who had directed public affairs had been, with few ex ceptions, warriors or priests: warriors whose rude courage was neither guided by science nor softened by humanity; priests whose learning and abilities were habitually devoted

The statesmen of whom we speak passed their youth surrounded by the incessant din of theological controversy. Opinions were still in a state of chaotic anarchy, intermingling, It is needless to relate how dexterously, how separating, advancing, receding. Sometimes resolutely, how gloriously, they directed the the stubborn bigotry of the Conservatives politics of England during the eventful years seemed likely to prevail. Then the impetuous which followed; how they succeeded in unitonset of the Reformers for a moment carried ing their friends and separating their enemies; all before it. Then again the resisting mass how they humbled the pride of Philip; how made a desperate stand, arrested the move- they backed the unconquerable spirit of Coment, and forced it slowly back. The vacilla- ligni; how they rescued Holland from tyrantion which at that time appeared in English ny; how they founded the maritime greatness legislation, and which it has been the fashion of their country; how they outwitted the artful to attribute to the caprice and to the power of one or two individuals, was truly a national vacillation. It was not only in the mind of

would justly bring on a statesman of our time | perhaps contained in the motto which Si censures of the most serious kind. But when Nicholas Bacon inscribed over the entrance of we consider the state of morality in their age, and the unscrupulous character of the adversaries against whom they had to contend, we are forced to admit, that it is not without reason that their names are still held in veneration by their countrymen.

There were, doubtless, many diversities in their intellectual and moral character. But there was a strong family likeness. The constitution of their minds was remarkably sound. No particular faculty was pre-eminently developed; but manly health and vigour were equally diffused through the whole.

his hall at Gorhambury-Mediocria firma. This maxim was constantly borne in mind by him. self and his colleagues. They were more solicitous to lay the foundations of their power deep, than to raise the structure to a conspi cuous but insecure height. None of them aspired to be sole minister. None of them provoked envy by an ostentatious display of wealth and influence. None of them affected to outshine the ancient aristocracy of the king. dom. They were free from that childish love of titles which characterized the successful courtiers of the generation which preceded them, and that which followed them. As to money, none of them could, in that age, justly be considered as rapacious. Some of them would, even in our time, deserve the praise of

the state was incorruptible. Their private morals were without stain. Their households were sober and well governed.

They were men of letters. Their minds were by nature and by exercise well-fashioned for speculative pursuits. It was by circumstances rather than by any strong bias of inclination, that they were led to take a promi-eminent disinterestedness. Their fidelity to nent part in active life. In active life, however, no men could be more perfectly free from the faults of mere theorists and pedants. No men observed more accurately the signs of the times. No men had a greater practical acquaintance with human nature. Their policy was generally characterized rather by vigilance, by moderation, and by firmness, than by invention or by the spirit of enterprise.

They spoke and wrote in a manner worthy of their excellent sense. Their eloquence was less copious and less ingenious, but far purer and more manly than that of the succeeding generation. It was the eloquence of men who had lived with the first translators of the Bible, and with the authors of the Book of Common Prayer. It was luminous, dignified, solid, and very slightly tainted with that affectation which deformed the style of the ablest men of the next age. If, as sometimes chanced, they were under the necessity of taking a part in those theological controversies on which the dearest interests of kingdoms were then staked, they acquitted themselves as if their whole lives had been passed in the schools and the

convocation.

There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the court and of the multitude. No intrigue, no combination of rivals, could deprive them of the confidence of their sovereign. No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled their names with any odious grievance. Their power ended only with their lives. In this respect their fate presents a most remarkable contrast to that of the enterprising and brilliant politicians of the preceding, and of the suc ceeding generation. Burleigh was minister during forty years. Sir Nicholas Bacon held the great seal more than twenty years. Sir Thomas Smith was Secretary of State eighteen years; Sir Francis Walsingham about as long. They all died in office, and in the full enjoyment of public respect and royal favour. Far different had been the fate of Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk, Somerset, and Northum berland. Far different also was the fate of Essex, of Raleigh, and of the still more illusrious man whose life we propose to consider.

The explanation of this circumstance is

Among these statesmen Sir Nicholas Bacon was generally considered as ranking next to Burleigh. He was called by Camden, "Sacris conciliis alterum columen;" and by George Buchanan,

"Diu Britannici

Regni secundum columen."

mother of Francis Bacon, was Anne, one of The second wife of Sir Nicholas, and the the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook—a man of distinguished learning, who had been tutor to Edward the Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid

considerable attention to the education of his

daughters, and lived to see them all splendidly and happily married. Their classical acquire ments made them conspicuous even among the women of fashion of that age. Katherine, who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin hoz ameters and pentameters which would appear with credit in the Muse Etmenses. Mildred, the wife of Lord Burleigh, was described by Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar among the young women of England, Lady ther of Francis Bacon, was distinguished both Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, the meas a linguist and as a theologian. She corres ponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologia from the Latin, so correctly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration. She also translated a series of sermons on fate and freewill from the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochine. This fact is the more curious, as Ochino was

one of that small and audacious band of Ita

lian reformers-anathematized alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by Rome

-from which the Socinian sect deduces its origin.

Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly cultivated mind after the fashion of her age. But we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded into the belief, that she and her sisters were more accomplished women than many who are now living. On this subject there is, we think, much misapprehension. We have often heard men who wish, as almost all men of

* Strype's Life of Parker.

changed, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possess. ed by mankind, has been constantly falling They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy couid Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift without Edipus and Medea, while he pos sesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious irony of Plate, he may find some compensation in that of Pascal. If he is shut out from Nephelococcygia, he may take refuge in Lilliput. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards those great nations to which the human race owes art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, when we say, that the stock bequeathed by them to us has been so carefully improved that the accumulated interest now exceeds the principal. We believe that the books which have been written in the languages of western Europe, during the last two hundred and fifty years, are of greater value than all the books which, at the beginning of that period, were extant in the world. With the modern languages of Europe English women are at least as well acquainted as English men. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey and those of an accomplished young woman of our own time, we have no hesitation in awarding the superiority to the latter. We hope that our readers will pardon this digression. It is long; but it can hardly be called unseasonable, if it tends to convince them that they are mistaken in thinking that their great-great-grandmothers were superior women to their sisters and their

Bense wish, that women shou!! be highly educated, speak with rapture of the English ladies of the sixteenth century, and lament that they can find no modern damsel resembling those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which tells how meekly and bravely the first great martyr of intellectual liberty took the cup from his weeping jailer. But surely these complaints have very little foundation. We would by no means disparage the ladies of the sixteenth century or their pursuits But we conceive that those who extol them at the expense of the women of our time forget one very obvious and very important circumstance. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin could read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which possessed any thing that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. England did not yet possess Shakspeare's plays, and the Faerie Queen; nor France Montaigne's Essays; nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking round a well-furnished library, how few English or French books can we find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth received their education. Chaucer, Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated or classically educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one of the ancient languages no person could then have any clear notions of what was passing in the political, the literary, or the religious world. The Latin was in the six-wives. teenth century all and more than all that the Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir French was in the eighteenth. It was the lan- Nicholas, was born at York House, his father's guage of courts as well as of the schools. It residence in the Strand, on the 22d of January, was the language of diplomacy; it was the 1561. His health was very delicate, and to language of theological and political contro- this circumstance may be partly attributed versy. Being a fixed language, while the living that gravity of carriage, and that love of se. languages were in a state of fluctuation, be- dentary pursuits, which distinguished him from ing universally known to the learned and the other boys. Everybody knows how much his polite, it was employed by almost every writer premature readiness of wit and sobriety of who aspired to a wide and durable reputation. deportment amused the queen; and how she A person who was ignorant of it was shut out used to call him her young Lord Keeper. We from all acquaintance-not merely with Ci- are told that while still a mere child he stole cero and Virgil-not merely with heavy trea- away from his playfellows to a vault in St. tises on canon-law and school divinity-but James's Fields, for the purpose of investi with the most interesting memoirs, state pa-gating the cause of a singular echo which he pers, and pamphlets of his own time; nay, even with the most admired poetry and the most popular squibs which appeared on the fleeting topics of the day-with Buchanan's complimentary verses, with Erasmus's dialogues, with Hutton's epistles.

had observed there. It is certain that, at only twelve, he busied himself with very geni ous speculations on the art of legerdemain― a subject which, as Professor Dugald Stewart has most justly observed. merits much more attention from philosophers than it has ever received. These are trifies. But the eminence which Bacon afterwards attained renders them interesting.

In the thirteenth year of his age he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge. That celebrated school of learning enjoyed the pe culiar favour of the Lord Treasurer and the

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