Of all the productions in the English | to make them not vulgar but of a nature language, Bacon's Essays contain the most matter in the fewest words. He intended them to be "as grains of salt, which should rather give an appetite than offend with satiety;" and never was the intention of an author more fully attained. There were none, he says, of his works which had been equally "current" in his own time; and he expressed his belief that they would find no less favor with posterity, and "last as long as books and letters endured." Thus far his proud anticipa tion has been verified. They have been held to be oracles of subtle wisdom by the profoundest intellects which have flourished since, and few in any depart ment have risen to the rank of authorities with mankind who had not themselves been accustomed to sit at the feet of Bacon. His own account of the scope of his Essays is, that "they handled those things wherein both men's lives and persons are most conversant," while in the selection of his materials he "endeavored

whereof much should be found in experience, and little in books; so as they should be neither repetitions nor fancies." This is the cause of their great success. They treat of subjects which, in his wellknown phrase, "come home to men's business and bosoms;" and the reflections which he offers upon these topics of universal concern are not obvious truisms, nor hackneyed maxims, nor airy speculations, but acute and novel deductions drawn from actual life by a vast and penetrating genius, intimately conversant with the court, the council-table, the parliament, the bar-with all ranks and classes of persons; with the multitudinous forms of human nature and pursuits. The larger part of the Essays on Building, Gardens, and Masques set aside, there is only here and there a sentence of his lessons which has grown out of date. The progress of events has not rendered them obsolete; their continuous currency through two centuries and a half has not rendered them commonplace. In this they differ from his system of inductive philosophy, to which he justly owes so much of his fame. The triumph of his principles of scientific

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are usually more in vogue than the best works of past generations, which, unless they are introduced afresh to the world, remain to the majority little more than a name. Notwithstanding Mr. Hallam's assertion that it would be derogatory to any one of the slightest claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the Essays of Bacon, we believe that they are much less studied than formerly. No one was likely to have greater weight in calling back to them the attention of the public, than Archbishop Whately, who is uni

investigation has made it unnecessary to revert to the reasoning by which they were established; and he might have adopted, says Archbishop Whately, the exclamation of some writer engaged in a similar task: "I have been laboring to render myself useless," The application of the remark is happy, but the origin of it was different. On the admission of the Cardinal Dubois into the French Academy, Fontenelle, referring to his constant intercourse with the young king, Louis XV., observed, with more gracefulness than truth: "It is known that in your daily con-versally known to be a sagacious observer, versation with him you left nothing untried to render yourself useless." The pearls of cultivated minds are cast in vain before dull understandings. A Dutch publisher imagined that useless must be an error of the press, and substituted useful.

Dr. Johnson approved the conciseness of Bacon's Essays, and thought the time might come when all knowledge would be reduced to the same condensed form. To this there are strong objections. Circumstances are like the boughs and leaves of a tree, which give life and ornament to the stem; nay more, though single aphorisms may cling to the mind, few things are so quickly forgotten as a series of them. Details always assist the memory, and are often essential to it: they also help the understanding. Archbishop Whately truly observes of Bacon's maxims, that repeated meditation discloses applications of them which had been previously overlooked. Few persons are capable of the continuous reflection required for this purpose, or, reflecting, would have the acumen to discriminate the bearings of a comprehensive proposition. Examples to illustrate the principles are a necessary aid to ordinary minds, and may afford assistance to the greatest. Diderot used to allege of himself that he had not sufficient understanding to apply subtle remarks which were unaccompanied by instances. The pregnant meaning of Bacon's Essays has been lost upon thousands for want of a commentary; and we have long been of opinion, that to elucidate them would be one of the most useful tasks that could be undertaken. The republication of the choice productions of an old writer by a modern editor of note, has the advantage, in addition to the intrinsic value of the annotations, of attracting readers. The newest books, however brief their day,

an acute thinker, and a man of independent mind, who, if his own judgment were not convinced, would not swear by the words of any master. Even after the tributes of Burke and Johnson, and the inferior authority of Dugald Stewart, his testimony to the depth and wisdom of Bacon's maxims, and his habit of appending to them the illustrative observations sug gested by his experience, or which he met with in his reading, must add to our faith in their superlative excellence. His edition is not precisely of the kind which was required. The notes are too lengthy and discursive, and should have been framed a little more upon the model of the text. That they sometimes seem superfluous, is an objection of less force, since it is nearly inseparable from the nature of the task. All men have not an equal degree of familiarity with the same truths; and what is novel to one is hackneyed to another. It is here as with jests, which each person calls new or old according as they are new or old to him. Pascal conceived that every possible maxim of conduct existed in the world, though no individual can be conversant with the entire series; and we are apt to imagine that those rules must be the tritest with which we ourselves have been longest acquainted, and those most momentous which we have chanced to see exemplified in our own experience. Whoever reads the comment of Archbishop Whately must expect to come upon truths which were known to him before, but he will certainly meet with more which are attractive both by their novelty and their intrinsic importance. Many shrewd observations are made, many fallacies exposed, and many interesting circumstances related. The notes alone have the value of a distinct work, and have afforded us too much pleasure and instruction to permit us to quarrel with the di