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him by way of comparison (whose judgment may well be trusted), That the Earl of Salisbury was an excellent speaker, but no good penman; that the Earl of Northampton (the Lord Henry Howard) was an excellent penman, but no good speaker; but that Sir Francis Bacon was eminent in both.

I have been induced to think, that if there were a beam of knowledge derived from God upon any man in these modern times, it was upon him. For though he was a great reader of books, yet he had not his knowledge from books, but from some grounds and notions from within himself; which, notwithstanding, he vented with great caution and circumspection. His book of Instauratio Magna2 (which in his own account was the chiefest of his works) was no slight imagination or fancy of his brain, but a settled and concocted notion, the production of many years' labour and travel. I myself have seen at the least twelve copies of the Instauration, revised year by year one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame thereof, till at last it came to that model in which it was committed to the press; as many living creatures do lick their young ones, till they bring them to their strength of limbs.

In the composing of his books he did rather drive at a masculine and clear expression than at any fineness or affectation of phrases, and would often ask if the

1i. e. not from books only: Ex libris tamen solis scientiam suam deprompsisse haudquaquam concedere licet.

2 For Instauratio Magna in this place, and also for Instauration a few lines further on, the Latin version substitutes Novum Organum. Rawley, when he spoke of the Instauration, was thinking, no doubt, of the volume in which the Novum Organum first appeared, and which contains all the pieces that stand in this edition before the De Augmentis.

meaning were expressed plainly enough, as being one that accounted words to be but subservient or ministerial to matter, and not the principal. And if his style were polite, it was because he would do no otherwise. Neither was he given to any light conceits, or descanting upon words, but did ever purposely and industriously avoid them; for he held such things to be but digressions or diversions from the scope intended, and to derogate from the weight and dignity of the style.

He was no plodder upon books; though he read much, and that with great judgment, and rejection of impertinences incident to many authors; for he would ever interlace a moderate relaxation of his mind with his studies, as walking, or taking the air abroad in his coach,2 or some other befitting recreation; and yet he would lose no time, inasmuch as upon his first and immediate return he would fall to reading again, and so suffer no moment of time to slip from him without some present improvement.

His meals were refections of the ear as well as of the stomach, like the Noctes Atticæ, or Convivia Deipnosophistarum, wherein a man might be refreshed in his mind and understanding no less than in his body. And I have known some, of no mean parts, that have professed to make use of their note-books when they have risen from his table. In which conversations, and otherwise, he was no dashing man, as some men

3

1 The Latin version adds: Siquidem apud nostrates eloquii Anglicani artifex habitus est.

2 In the Latin version Rawley adds gentle exercise on horseback and playing at bowls: Equitationem, non citam sed lentam, globorum lusum, et id genus exercitia.

3 The word dash is used here in the same sense in which Costard uses it in Love's Labour's Lost: "There, an't please you; a foolish, mild man; an

are, but ever a countenancer and fosterer of another man's parts. Neither was he one that would appropriate the speech wholly to himself, or delight to outvie others, but leave a liberty to the co-assessors to take their turns. Wherein he would draw a man on and allure him to speak upon such a subject, as wherein he was peculiarly skilful, and would delight to speak. And for himself, he contemned no man's observations, but would light his torch at every man's candle.

His opinions and assertions were for the most part binding, and not contradicted by any; rather like oracles than discourses; which may be imputed either to the well weighing of his sentence by the scales of truth and reason, or else to the reverence and estimation wherein he was commonly had, that no man would contest with him; so that there was no argumentation, or pro and con (as they term it), at his table or if there chanced to be any, it was carried with much submission and moderation.

I have often observed, and so have other men of great account, that if he had occasion to repeat another man's words after him, he had an use and faculty to dress them in better vestments and apparel than they had before; so that the author should find his own speech much amended, and yet the substance of it still retained;1 as if it had been natural to him to

honest man, look you, and soon dashed:" Rawley means that Bacon was not a man who used his wit, as some do, to put his neighbours out of countenance: Convivantium neminem aut alios colloquentium pudore suffundere gloriæ sibi duxit, sicut nonnulli gestiunt.

1 This is probably the true explanation of a habit of Bacon's which seems at first sight a fault, and perhaps sometimes is; and of which a great many instances have been pointed out by Mr. Ellis;;-a habit of inaccurate quotation. In quoting an author's words, especially where he quotes them merely by way of voucher for his own remark, or in acknowledgment 4

VOL. I.

use good forms, as Ovid spake of his faculty of versifying,

"Et quod tentabam scribere, versus erat."

When his office called him, as he was of the king's council learned, to charge any offenders, either in criminals or capitals, he was never of an insulting and domineering nature over them, but always tenderhearted, and carrying himself decently towards the parties (though it was his duty to charge them home), but yet as one that looked upon the example with the eye of severity, but upon the person with the eye of pity and compassion. And in civil business, as he was counsellor of estate, he had the best way of advising, not engaging his master in any precipitate or grievous courses, but in moderate and fair proceedings: the king whom he served giving him this testimony, That he ever dealt in business suavibus modis; which was the way that was most according to his own heart. Neither was he in his time less gracious with the subject than with his sovereign. He was ever acceptable to the House of Commons 1 when he was a mem

of the source whence he derived it, or to suggest an allusion which may give a better effect to it, he very often quotes inaccurately. Sometimes, no doubt, this was unintentional, the fault of his memory; but more frequently, I suspect, it was done deliberately, for the sake of presenting the substance in a better form, or a form better suited to the particular occasion. In citing the evidence of witnesses, on the contrary, in support of a narrative statement or an argument upon matter of fact, he always very careful.

1 The Latin version adds, in quo sæpe peroravit, non sine magno applausu; a statement of the truth of which abundant evidence may be found in all the records which remain of the proceedings of the House of Commons. The first parliament in which he sate was that of 1584: after which he sate in every parliament that was summoned up to the time of his fall.

As an edition of Bacon would hardly be complete unless it contained Ben Jonson's famous description of his manner of speaking, I shall insert it here"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was

ber thereof. Being the king's attorney, and chosen to a place in parliament, he was allowed and dispensed with to sit in the House; which was not permitted to other attorneys.

And as he was a good servant to his master, being never in nineteen years' service (as himself averred) rebuked by the king for anything relating to His Majesty, so he was a good master to his servants, and rewarded their long attendance with good places freely when they fell into his power; which was the cause that so many young gentlemen of blood and quality sought to list themselves in his retinue. And if he were abused by any of them in their places, it was only the error of the goodness of his nature, but the badges of their indiscretions and intemperances.

This lord was religious: for though the world be apt to suspect and prejudge great wits and politics to have somewhat of the atheist, yet he was conversant with God, as appeareth by several passages throughout the whole current of his writings. Otherwise he should have crossed his own principles, which were, That a little philosophy maketh men apt to forget God, as attributing too much to second causes; but depth of philosophy bringeth a man back to God again. Now I full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end." -Discoveries: under title Dominus Verulamius.

1 Gratis, in the Latin version; i. e. without taking any money for them; an unusual thing in Bacon's time, when the sale of offices was a principal source of all great men's incomes.

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