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 imitate God, in whose seat they sit, who represseth the presumptuous and giveth grace to the modest. But it is more strange that judges should have noted favourites, which cannot but cause multiplication of fees and suspicion of ways. There is due from the judge to the advocate some commendation and gracing where causes are well handled and fair pleaded, especially towards the side which obtaineth not; for that upholds in the client the reputation of his counsel, and beats down in him the conceit of his cause. There is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advocates, where there appeareth cunning counsel, gross neglect, slight information, indiscreet 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; but on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party to say, his counsel or proofs were not heard....

From the Fifty-seventh, "Of Anger," which first appeared in 1625, we extract a single paragraph :

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it, which is a thing easily done if a man will give law to himself in it.....

The Fifty-eighth, "Of the Vicissitude of Things,” was another of those added by the author to his last edition. It begins thus:

:

Solomon saith, There is no new 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 is but oblivion.'*

...

*A little lower down comes à sentence which in Mr. Montagu's and most of the common editious stands :-" As for Conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy." In the edition of Bacon's works in 2 vols. 8vo., Lond. 1843, it is given:-" As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do merely dispeople and destroy." Both these

And it is thus wound up :

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 declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning hath its infancy when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; 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. As for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and therefore not fit for this writing.

Two Essays are commonly added in the modern impressions; the one entitled "A Fragment of an Essay on Fame;" the other, "Of a King." The Fragment on Fame was first published in 1657 by Dr. Rawley in the first edition of the Resuscitatio, and there can be no doubt of its authenticity. The following is the latter part of it, being about the half of what we have :

Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius, by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to remove the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations, by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continual giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment. And it is a usual thing with the bashaws, to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Grecia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his

The true

readings are equally inconsistent with the context. reading may be gathered from the Latin:-Illae populum penitus non absorbent aut destruunt; that is, "they do not merely [for altogether, completely] dispeople or destroy."

bridge of ships which he had made athwart the Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are the less they need to be repeated, because a man meeteth with them everywhere: therefore let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs themselves.

Rawley notes that "the rest was not finished." In a copy of the second edition of the Resuscitatio (1661) in the British Museum we find a MS. note in an old hand stating that the Essay is continued in another piece contained in that collection, entitled "The Image (or Civil Character) of Julius Cæsar;" but this appears to be a mere fancy, and a mistaken one. The piece on Julius Cæsar was written by Bacon in Latin, from which what is given in the second and third editions of the Resuscitatio is a translation by Rawley; and there is no probability that it was designed to have any connexion with this English Essay on Fame.

The Essay "Of a King" was first published along with another tract entitled "An Explanation what manner of persons those should be that are to execute the power or ordinance of the King's prerogative," in 1642, in a 4to. pamphlet, in which both are attributed to Bacon; and the Essay and Explanation were reprinted in the volume called The Remains, 1648, and in the re-impression of that volume in 1656 with the new title of The Mirror of State and Eloquence. But they are not included in any of the three editions of the Resuscitatio (1657, 1661, 1671); nor are they noticed by Tenison in the Baconiana (1679). The external evidence therefore is unfavourable to the authenticity of the Essay; for the collection called The Remains is of no authority. The style and manner of thinking, however, are, at least in some places, not unlike Bacon, although the formal division into numbered paragraphs (which may have been the work of a transcriber) is peculiar. The following paragraphs, for instance, might very well have been written by Bacon:

1. A king is a mortal god on earth, into 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

flatter himself, that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also.

2. Of all kind of men, God is the least beholden unto them; for he doth most for them, and they do ordinarily least for Him.

1

3. 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.

12. That king which is not feared is not loved; and he that is well seen in his craft, must as well study to be feared as loved; yet not loved for fear, but feared for love.

We may here also mention a somewhat longer piece, entitled "An Essay on Death," commonly printed, in the complete editions of Bacon, among what are called his Theological Works. The only authority for attributing it to Bacon is that of the Remains (1648), in which volume it first appeared. It is a composition of considerable beauty, but not in his manner. In the common collection of the Essays, it may be remembered, there is one on Death (the second), first printed in

1612.

It will be admitted by all that these Essays of Bacon's do at least, as he himself 66 of them, says come home to men's business and bosoms." They are full of that sort of wisdom which is profitable for the guidance of life, and to which every reader's experience of himself and of others responds. This they are, it is needless to say, without having anything of vulgarity or triviality; on the contrary, nearly every thought is as striking for its peculiarity and refinement as for its truth. But, with all their combined solidity and brilliancy, they are not much marked by any faculty of vision extending beyond actual humanity. Their pervading spirit, without being either low or narrow, is still worldly. It is penetrating and sagacious, rather than either far-seeing or subtle. The genius displayed in them is that of oratory and wit, rather than that of either metaphysics or the higher order of poetry. The author has a greater gift of looking into the heart of man than into the heart of things. He is observant, reflective, ingenious, fanciful, and, to the measure that all that allows, both eloquent and wise

but, it may be from the form or nature of such compositions not admitting of it, he can hardly be said to be in these Essays very eminently either capacious or profound.

Of its kind, however, though that kind may not be the highest, the writing is wonderful. What a spirit of life there is in every sentence! How admirably is the philosophy everywhere animated and irradiated by the wit; and how fine a balance and harmony is preserved between the wit and the sense, the former never becoming fantastic any more than the latter dull! The moral spirit, too, though worldly, is never offensively so; it is throughout considerate, tolerant, liberal, generous; and, if we have little lofty indignation, we have as little violence, or bitterness, or one-sidedness. It is not a morality with which any tendency to enthusiasm or fanaticism in such matters will sympathize; but yet it is not wanting either in distinctness or in elevation, any more than in a reasonable charity. Prudence is no doubt a large ingredient; but principle is by no means absent. Nor does much appear to be introduced in these Essays for mere effect. At any rate, the quantity of idea, of one sort or another, in proportion to the space, is almost without example, at least with so little apparent forcing or straining, so easy and smooth a flow. Brilliant as the light is, it is so managed as to fall softly upon the eye, to satisfy rather than to dazzle. One new or uncommon thought is presented after another in more rapid succession than in almost any other book; and yet the mind of the reader is neither startled nor fatigued, so consummate is the rhetorical art. Our review has necessarily been confined to a series of selections or samples; for, with such compactness everywhere, analysis or abridgment was impossible. But, although many things are left unnoticed in our abstract, we have endeavoured to make it comprehend the portion of each Essay which, admitting of being detached from the rest (always of course an indispensable condition), seemed the most remarkable.