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were at hand. In 1621 a parliamentary inquiry was instituted into his conduct as judge, which ended in his condemnation and disgrace, for having received numerous presents or bribes from parties whose cases were brought before him for decision. He fully confessed to the twenty-three articles of fraud, deceit, mal-practice, and corruption which were laid to his charge; and when waited on by a committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire whether the confession was subscribed by himself, he answered, "It is my hand, my act, my heart: I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." He was fined £40,000; sent prisoner to the Tower; and declared incapable of any office or employment in the state. After a short confinement he was released, and in 1625 obtained a full pardon. He died on the 9th of April, 1626.

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The following are the most important works of this wonderful man: 1. His Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral." They were published in 1596, so that Shakspeare, who lived twenty years after, and during which time wrote his best plays, had the benefit of their perusal: and what delight and what profit must such a genius as his have derived from them; for no book contains a greater fund of useful knowledge, or displays a more intimate acquaintance with human life and manners. "It may be read," says the great Scotch philosopher, Dugald Stewart, "from beginning to end in a few hours, and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before."

2. "The Proficience and Advancement of Learning." This forms the first part of his great work afterwards published under the title of Instauratio Scientiarum, "The Reform in the Study of the Sciences." It is divided into two books: the first chiefly considers the objections to learning, and points out the many impediments to its progress: the second, the distribution of know.edge, which he divides into three parts. "The parts of human learning," says he, have reference to the three parts of man's understanding, which is the seat of learning: History to his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason." He gives also a full genealogical table of knowledge, agreeably to this distribution. This is a work of vast learning.

3. His celebrated treatise "Of the Wisdom and Learning of the Ancients." The object of this is to show that all the allegories and fables of antiquity have some concealed meaning, which had never been sufficiently explained. in the interpretation of these ancient mysteries, he has displayed his remarkable sagacity and penetration, besides interspersing throughout various important observations on collateral subjects.

4. The Novum Organum, or "New Instrument," or "Method of Studying the Sciences." This is the great work which has immortalized his name, and placed him at the head of the philosophic world. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle called his philosophical work the "Organum." The "Method" which he adopted in scientific inquiries was rather to frame systems and lay down principles, and then to seek or make things conform thereto. But Lord Bacon, in his New Method," insists upon the duty of carefully ascertaining facts in the first place, and then reasoning upon them towards conclusions. "Man," he says, "who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can act and understand no further than he has, either in operation or in contemplation, observed of the method and order of nature." And again, "Men have sought to make a world from their own conceptions, and to draw from their own minds all the materials which they employed: but if, instead of doing so, bey had consulted experience and observation, they would have had facts

and not opinions to reason about, and might ultimately have arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world." Thus Bacon established the method of Induction' as the only true key to the temple of knowledge, and has therefore been called the Father of the Inductive Phi losophy. The power and compass," says Professor Playfair, “of a mind which could form such a plan beforehand, and trace not merely the outline, but many of the most minute ramifications of sciences which did not yet exist, must be an object of admiration to all succeeding ages." 2

Such is a brief and meagre view of the wonderful intellectual labors of this extraordinary man. He was not insensible of their value, for his las will contains this remarkable passage: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations and to my own country after some time is passed over."

DIVERSE OBJECTS OF MEN TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE.

Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of man. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich store-house for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of

man's estate.

PRESERVATION OF KNOWLEdge.

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; and, for that cause, the industry of man hath framed and made spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools; which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and

1 This is called the Inductive system, from the Latin inductio, "a leading up," from particular facts to general conclusions.

2 The best edition of Bacon is that by Basil Montagu, 17 vols. 8vo, London. It has been reprinted here in three volumes. Read, particularly, a very able article in the "Edinburgh Review," by Me caulay, July, 1837. Read, also, two in the "Retrospective," iii. 141, and iv. 280; also, an article in the third vol. of D'Israeli's “Amenities of Literature;" another, in Hazlitt's "Age of Elizabeth ;” and the work recently published in Dublin, entitled "Selections from Bacon," by Thos. W. Moffett. 3- Who is there, that, upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon, does not instantly recognise every thing of genius the most profound, every thing of literature the most extensive, every thing of dis covery the most penetrating, every thing of observation on human life the most distingushing and refined.”—Burke.

necessity: so 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, conferences, and places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools for the receipt and comforting the same.

PLEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE.

The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature; for shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasure, and that it was the novelty which pleased and not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy; but of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and therefore appeareth to be good, in itself simply, without fallacy or accident.

THE USES OF KNOWLedge.

Learning taketh away the wildness, and barbarism, and fierceness of men's minds: though a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the kind, 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 all things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed in his heart, "I know nothing." Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, "It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice, hat the old tales went of." So certainly, if a man meditate upon

1 A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no rude surfelt reigns.-CoиUS.

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the universal 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 mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperiections of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day, and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken; and went forth the next day, and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead; and thereupon said, " Yesterday I saw a fragile thing broken, to-day I have seen a mortal thing die." And therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes, and the conquest of all fears together.

It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, sometimes purging the ill humors, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping the digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like; and therefore I will conclude with the chief reason of all, which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that most pleasant life, which consists in our daily feeling ourselves to become better. The good parts he hath, he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them: the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and color them, but not much to amend them: like an ill mower, that mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas, with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employ. ment thereof.

STUDIES.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the piots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience-for natural abilities are like natural

plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict 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 few 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. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

THE END OF KNOWLEDGE.

It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism; but a further proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion: for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence, then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair. To conclude, therefore, 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 be too well studied in the Book of God's word, or in the Book of God's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men enleavor an endless progress, or proficiency 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.

THE IMMORTALITY OF LITERARY FAME.

Let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is immortality or continuance: for to this tendeth genera

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