cept, these vacant spaces of science. This first part he declares to be wanting in the Instauratio. It has been chiefly supplied by the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum; yet, perhaps, even that does not fully come up to the amplitude of his design.

The second part of the Instauratio was to be, as he expresses it, the science of a better and more perfect use of reason in the investigation of things, and of the true aids of the understanding,' the new logic or inductive method in which what is eminently styled the Baconian philosophy consists. This, as far as he completed it, is known to all by the name of the Novum Organum. But he seems to have designed a fuller treatise in place of this; the aphorisms into which he has digested it being rather the heads or theses of chapters, at least in many places, that would have been farther expanded. It is entitled by himself Partis secundæ summa, digesta in aphorismos." See preceding remarks.

"The third part of the Instauratio Magna was to comprise an entire natural history, diligently and scrupulously collected from experience of every kind; including under that name of natural history every thing wherein the art of man has been employed on natural substances, either for practice or experiment; no method of reasoning being sufficient to guide us to truth as to natural things, if they are not themselves clearly and exactly apprehended. It is unnecessary to observe that very little of this immense chart of nature could be traced by the hand of Bacon, or in his time. His Centuries of Natural History, containing about one thousand observed facts and experiments, are a very slender contribution towards such a description of universal nature as he contemplated: these form no part of the Instauratio Magna, and had been compiled before. . .

"The fourth part, called Scala Intellectûs, is also wanting, with the exception of a very few introductory pages. By these tables,' says Bacon, we mean not such examples as we subjoin to the several rules of our method, but types and models, which place before our eyes the entire progress of the mind in the discovery of truth, selecting various and remarkable instances.'

"In the fifth part of the Instauratio Magna. Bacon had designed to give a specimen of the new philosophy which he hoped to raise after a due use of his natural history and inductive method, by way of anticipation or sample of the whole. He calls it Prodromi, sive Anticipationes Philosophiæ Secundæ. And some fragments of this part are published by the names Cogitata et Visa, Cogitationes de Natura Rerum, Filum Labyrinthi, and a few more, being as much, in all probability, as he had reduced to writing. In his own metaphor, it was to be like the payment of interest till the principal could be raised; tanquam foenus reddatur, donec sors haberi possit.

"For he despaired of ever completing the work by a sixth and last portion, which was to display a perfect system of philosophy, deduced and confirmed by a legitimate, sober, and exact inquiry, according to the method which he had invented and laid down. "To perfect this last part is above our powers, and beyond our hopes. We may, as we trust, make no despicable beginnings; the destinies of the human race must complete it; in such a manner, perhaps, as men looking only at the present would not readily conceive. For upon this will depend not only a speculative good, but all the fortunes of mankind, and all their power.' And with an eloquent prayer that his exertions may be rendered effectual to the attainment of truth and happiness, this introductory chapter of the Instauratio, which announces the distribution of its portions, concludes. Such was the temple, of which Bacon saw in vision before him the stately front and decorated pediments, in all their breadth of light and harmony of proportion, while long vistas of receding columns and glimpses of internal splendour revealed a glory that it was not permitted him to comprehend. In the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum, and in the Novum Organum, we have less, no doubt, than Lord Bacon, under different conditions of life, might have achieved; he might have been more emphatically the high-priest of nature, if he had not been the Chancellor of James I.; but no one man could have filled up the vast outline which he alone, in that stage of the world, could have so boldly sketched."

It is proper to refer to Bacon's celebrated division of Human Learning, into the three branches of-1. History; 2. Poetry; and 3. Philosophy; (vide De Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. i.,) connected with-1. Memory: 2. Imagination; and 3. Reason. Bacon's Intellectual Chart has been corrected and improved by his ingenious disciple, D'Alembert. The subject is a tempting one for enlargement, but we have already far exceeded our intended limits, and must refer our reader for information on this and other topics connected with the Baconian philosophy to the 1st and 3d Prel. Diss. to the Encyc. Brit. The names of Stewart and Playfair afford a sufficient guarantee for instruction and entertainment.

Having thus reviewed at some length the principal works of Lord Bacon, perhaps a fitting conclusion to our sketch will be a citation of some opinions, in addition to those we have presented, respecting an author who has been not extravagantly lauded as the "Glory and ornament of his age and nation:"

"Though there was bred in Mr. Bacon so early a dislike of the Physiology of Aristotle, yet he did not despise him with that pride and haughtiness with which youth is wont to be puffed up. He had a just esteem of that great master of learning, greater than that which Aristotle expressed himself towards the philosophers that went before him; for he endeavoured (some say) to stifle all their labours, designing to himself an universal monarchy over opinions, as his patron Alexander did over men. Our hero owned what was excellent in him, but in his inquiries into nature he proceeded not upon his principles. He began the work anew, and laid the foundation of philosophic theory in numerous experiments."-ARCHBISHOP TENISON: Baconia.

George Sandys, the poet and traveller, in his learned notes on his version of Ovid's Metamorphoses, acknowledges himself to be much beholden to the De Sapientia Veterum, and styles the writer the "crown of all modern authors."

"This plan as laid down by him looks liker an universal art than a distinct logic, and the design is too great, and the induction too large to be made by one man, or any society of men in one age, if at all practicable. For whatever opinion he might have of the conclusiveness of this way, one cross circumstance in an experiment would as easily overthrow his induction, as an ambiguous word would disorder a syllogism; and a man needs only make a trial in any part of natural history, as left us by my Lord Bacon, to see how conclusive his induction was like to have been. To say nothing, that notwithstanding his blaming the common logies, as being too much spent in words, himself runs into the fault he condemns: for what else can we make of his Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, For, Theatri; or of his instantiæ, solitariæ, migrantis, ostensivæ, clai destinæ, constitutivæ, &c., but fine words put to express very common and ordinary things?"-BAKER.

Mr. T. B. Macaulay has a criticism upon the Baconian terminology somewhat of the same character as Mr. Baker's, which he thus humorously phrases:

"We are not inclined to ascribe much practical value to the analysis of the inductive method which Bacon has given in the second book of the Novum Organum. It is indeed an elaborate and correct analysis. But it is an analysis of that which we are all doing from morning to night, and which we continue to do even in our dreams. A plain man finds his stomach out of order. He never heard Lord Bacon's name. [He must, indeed, be a "plain man," like Jacob, "dwelling in tents," never to have heard of Lord Bacon.] But he proceeds in the strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the second book of the Novum Organum, and satisfies himself that minced pies have done the mischief. I ate minced pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept awake by indigestion all night.' This is the comparentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenientem. I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well. This is the comparentia instantiorum in proximo quæ notura data privantur. Tate very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening. But on Christmas-day I almost dined on them, and was so ill that I was in some danger.' This is the comparentia instantiarum secundum magis et manus. 'It cannot have been the brandy which I took with them; for I have drunk brandy daily for years without being the worse for it.' This is the rejectio natuarum. Our invalid then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the Vindemiatis, and pronounces that minced pies do not agree with him. We might go on to what are called by Bacon prærogativæ instantiarum. For example: 'It must be something peculiar to minced pies, for I can eat any other pastry without the least bad effect.' This is the instantia solitaria. We might easily proceed, but we have already sufficiently explained our meaning."

nature.

Fur

Now this is all very amusing, but whether it have any other merit, we leave it to the reader to decide. We contend that this devotee to minced pies argues more like a philosopher who had profited by the inductive mode, (although perhaps ignorant of its terminology,) than "plain men who ther, it is not indispensable to a "plain man's" profiting by have never heard of Lord Bacon" are apt to reason. the Baconian system, that he should have heard of Lord Bacon. It is with philosophy as with the light of the sunthousands enjoy its advantages where one understands its The question is whether the reveller in minced pies in the 19th century, be not more favourably situated for the correction of undue indulgence, than was his brother epicure of the 16th century. Or whether a man who was put to bed by minced pies under the Organon of Aristotle, would not suffer a daily repetition of the offence and penalty, instead of reasoning and abjuring, as does Mr. Macaulay's invalid, under the brighter dispensation of the Organon of Bacon. Besides, the whole business of life is not to luxuriate in minced pies: the Mart, the Forum, the Altar, and the Camp, all have their duties and their codes, which, if based upon reason, may be perfected by induction; and unless Mr. Macaulay indited his able essay about Christmas-time, for the January number of the Edinburgh, we cannot conceive how he happened to select so odd an illustration of the instantiarum convenientem. But to be serious we happen to remember a passage of Mr. Hallam's, bearing upon such objections as those advanced by Mr. Baker and Mr. Macaulay; whether meant for these gentlemen or not, we have no means of knowing, but his reflections could not be more to the purpose:

"Those who object to the importance of Lord Bacon's precepts in philosophy, that mankind have practised many of them immemorially, are rather confirming their utility, than taking off much from their originality to any fair sense of that term. Every logical method is built on the common faculties of human nature, which have been exercised since the Creation in discerning, better or worse, truth from falsehood, and inferring the unknown from the known. That men might have done this more correctly, is manifest from the quantity of error into which, from want of reasoning well on what came before them, they have habitually fallen. In experimental philosophy, to which the more special rules of Lord Bacon are generally referred, there was a notorious want of that very process of reasoning which he has supplied.”—Introduction to Lit. Europe, vol. ii.

Bushel, in his Abridgment of Bacon's Philosophical Theory in Mineral Prosecutions, gives a pathetic account of the sad fall of the Lord Chancellor :

"Shortly after the king dissolved the Parliament, but never restored that matchless lord to his place, which made him then to wish the many years he had spent in state policy and law study had been solely devoted to true philosophy: for (said he) the one, at the best, doth but comprehend man's frailty in its greatest splendour; but the other the mysterious knowledge of all things created in the six days' work."

men's whole time, who had studied, and practised, and governed the Common Law, who had always lived in the crowd, and borne the greatest burden of civil business, should yet find leisure enough for these retired studies, to excel all those men who separate themselves for this very purpose? He was a man of strong, vincible, and of this I need give no other proof than his style itclear, powerful imagination; his genius was searching and inself; which, as, for the most part, it describes men's minds as well as pictures do their bodies, so it did his above all men living; the course of it vigorous and majestic; the wit, bold and familiar; the comparisons, fetched out of the way, and yet the most easy; in all, expressing a soul equally skilled in men and nature." "The incomparable Mr. Boyle speaks often of our author in his lustrious, at others, an admirable and excellent, Philosopher, and, which is a higher commendation than any phrase could have expressed, he often imitates him, and professes a desire of treading in his paths. Dr. Power, one of the most active and judicious among the first members of the Royal Society, in a learned treatise of his, places at the head of his chapters the Latin text from the Lord Verulam's works, to shew that all the honour he had claimed was to have prosecuted his views."

"He treasured up nothing for himself or family, but was over indulgent to his servants, and connived at their takings, and their ways betrayed him to that error: they were profuse and expensive,

and had at their command whatever he was master of."

"Who can forbear to observe and lament the weakness and infirmity of human nature? To see a man so far exalted above the common level of his fellow-creatures, to sink so far below it; to see a man who, like Seneca, gave admirable rules for the conduct of life, and condemning the avaricious pursuit after riches, and, what is unlike Seneca, condemning them in his own person, and yet be defiled thereby."-Sephens's Introduction to Bacon's Letters.

"The Chancellor being convicted of bribery, pretends, as if being weary of honour, he would resign his place, being much loaded with calumnies.”—Camden's Annals of King James.

"His great spirit was brought low, and this humiliation might have raised him again, if his offences had not been so weighty as to keep him down.... He was a fit jewel to have beautified and adorned a flourishing kingdom, if his flaws had not disgraced the lustre that should have set him off."-Wilson's Life and Reign of King James.

"The Parliament was prorogued at Easter, from the 27th of March to the 18th of April, the marquis having his eye therein upon the Lord Chancellor, to try if time could mitigate the displeasure, which in both Houses was strong against him."-HACKET: Life of Archbishop Williams.

An eminent authority remarks that

"The Earl of Salisbury was an excellent speaker, but no good penman; Lord Henry Howard was an excellent penman, but no good speaker; Sir Francis Bacon alike eminent for both."-SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Lord Bacon committed his Orations and Epistles to the care of Archbishop Williams, who addressed him as follows: "Your Lordship doth most worthily, therefore, in preserving these two pieces among the rest of those matchless monuments you shall leave behind you; considering that as one age hath not bred your experience, so is it not fit it should be confined to one age, and not imparted to the times to come; for my part therein, I do embrace the honour with all thankfulness, and the trust imposed upon me with all religion and devotion.""

"Your Lordship hath done a great and everlasting benefit to all the children of Nature, and to Nature herself in her utmost extent of latitude, who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I am readier to style your Lordship) never so inward a Secretary of her cabinet."-Letter from Sir Henry Wotton, on receiving a copy of the Novum Organum.

The University of Oxford, shortly after his fall, acknowledged, in the most laudatory terms, the gift of a copy of the De Augmentis Scientiarum:

"Right honourable, and what in nobility is almost a miracle, most learned Viscount! Your honour could have given nothing more agreeable, and the University could have received nothing more acceptable than the Sciences.... She readily acknowledgeth, that though the Muses are born in Oxford, they grow elsewhere: grown they are, and under your pen, who, like some mighty Hercules in learning, have by your own hand, further advanced those pillars in the learned world, which by the rest of that world were supposed immovable."

Mr. Francis Osborn declares that Bacon was

"The most universal genius he had ever seen, or was ever like to see, had he lived ever so long. He was so excellent, so agreeable a speaker, that all who heard him were uneasy if he was interrupted, and sorry when he concluded.... Now this general knowledge he had in all things husbanded by his wit, and dignified by so majestical a carriage, he was known to own, struck such an awful reverence in those he questioned, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic part of their mysteries from him, for fear of appearing ignorant or saucy: all which rendered him no less necessary than admirable at the Council-table, where in reference to impositions, monopolies, &c., where the meanest manufac tures were a usual argument; and, as I have heard, did in this baffle the Earl of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen; yet without any great, (if at all,) interrupting his other studies, as is not hard to be imagined of a quick apprehension, in which he was admirable."-Miscell. Works of Francis Osborn, 1722.

"Pity it was he was not entertained with some liberal salary, abstracted from all affairs both of court and judicature, and furnished with sufficiency both of means and helps for the going on of his design; which, had it been, he might have given us such a body of Natural Philosophy, and made it so subservient to the public good, that neither Aristotle nor Theophrastus amongst the Ancients, nor Paracelsus, or the rest of our latest chymists, would have been considerable.”—DR. PETER HEYLIN: Life of Archb. Laud. Cowley, in his Pindaric on the Royal Society, lauds the "mighty discoveries of the great Lord Bacon.'

"Methinks," says Bishop Sprat in his History of the Royal Society, "in this one man I do at once find enough occasion to admire the strength of human wit, and to bewail the weakness of a mortal condition; for is it not wonderful, that he who had run through all the degrees of that profession which usually takes up

"No trivial passages, [referring to the Life of Henry VII.,] such as are below the notice of a statesman, are mixed with his sage remarks; nor is any thing of weight or moment slubbered over with that careless haste and indifferency which is too common in other writers. No allowances are given to the author's own con

jecture or invention, where a little pains and consideration will

serve to set the matter in its proper and true light. No impertinent digressions, nor fanciful comments distract his readers; but the whole is written in such a grave and uniform style, as becomes both the subject and the artificer."-BISHOP NICOLSON: English Historical Library.

On the other hand, Catherine Macaulay objects to the portraiture of Henry VII., as we have seen, and prefaces her dissent with some very severe strictures on the author:

"Thus ignominious was the fall of the famous Bacon! despicable in all the active parts of life, and only glorious in the contemplative. Him the rays of knowledge served but to embellish, not enlighten; and philosophy itself was degraded by a conjunetion with his mean soul: we are told that he often lamented that ambition and vain glory had diverted him from spending his whole time in the manner worthy of his extensive genius; but there is too much reason to believe, from his conduct, that these sentiments arose from the weight of his mortifications, and not from the conviction of his judgment. He preferred mean applicagrandfather, Henry the Seventh, in an amiable light."—History tions to James, and continued to flatter him so far, as to paint his of England, vol. i.

Rushworth remarks, that

"His decrees were generally made with so much equity, that, though gifts rendered him suspected for injustice, yet never any decree made by him was reversed as unjust."-Collections, vol. i.

The Chancellor made an earnest defence, both when first accused and after sentence. When first suspected, he confidently declares his innocence in a letter to Buckingham:

mind is in a calm; for my fortune is my felicity. I know I have "Your Lordship spoke of Purgatory. I am now in it. But my clean hands and a clean heart; and, I hope, a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest Judge, by such hunting for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the game."

This indignant defence compares strangely with his after confession, and with his letter to the Lords before his formal and detailed acknowledgment. He remarks, that understanding some justification was expected from him, he had

"Chosen one only justification instead of all others; for after the clear submission and confession which he should then make to their Lordships, he hoped he might say, and justify with Job in these words, I have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my fault in my bosom."

Not only so, but when he resigned the seals, he accompanied the act with the pathetic exclamation: "Rex dedit, culpa abstulit!" that is, "The King gave, and my own faults have taken away!"

lieve that Bacon was innocent; that he could have proved Yet Mr. Montagu, with charming naïveté, asks us to behis entire innocence; but was generously willing to sacrifice himself at the command of the King and the favourite. Like the Roman of old, he determined to close the "great gulf fixed" between the throne and the Parliament, by self-immolation. Mr. Montagu is grave; therefore, we presume, serious. We have seen that he defends Bacon's prosecution of Essex by that rule of legal morality which makes the advocate abjure every consideration which may interfere with his official character. He now makes Bacon utter the grossest falsehoods, and expose himself to the merited condemnation of the world for judicial corruption, in order to gratify his King and please the King's favourite. First, he sacrifices his friend to his court brief, and then immolates himself to his King's whim. Verily, the golden rule itself is but selfishness compared to such abnegation! Damon and Pythias will fade in story, and the Suttee pyre hardly arrest the attention of the passing stranger!

Addison, after stating that he would "show that all the

laymen who have exerted a more than ordinary genius in their writings, and were the glory of their times, were men whose hopes were filled with immortality, and the prospect of future rewards, and men who lived in a dutiful submission to all the doctrines of revealed religion,"— goes on to remark:

"I shall in this paper only instance Sir Francis Bacon, a man who, for greatness of genius, and compass of knowledge, .did ho nour to his age and country; I could almost say to human nature itself. He possessed at once all those extraordinary talents which were divided amongst the greatest authors of antiquity. He had the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination."Tatler, No. 267.

Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, asserts that "All his works are, for expression, as well as thought, the glory of our nation and of all latter ages."

Condé de Gondamar wrote him a letter on his fall, in which he assures him of the King of Spain's interposition, if he judged it any way convenient for the restoring of his condition. Stephens's Collection.

Lord Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, received a letter from Italy, in which it was stated that

"Lord Bacon was more and more known, and his books more and more delighted in; so that those men who had more than ordinary knowledge in human affairs, esteemed him one of the most capable spirits of that age."

M. Voiture writes:

"I find every thing perfectly fine that you have sent me of Bacon, but do you not think that Horace, who said, Visum Britannos hospitibus feros,' would be much more astonished to hear a barbarian talk in this manner, and to see that there is not perhaps at this day a Roman who speaks so good Latin as this Englishman? And would not Juvenal say, with greater reason than ever, 'Nunc totus Grajas nostrasque habet orbis Athenas?'"

This compliment of M. Voiture will perhaps recall to some of our readers the epigram with which the learned Grotius honoured John Barclay's classical erudition: it will be found under his portrait prefixed to the "Argenis:" "Gente Caledonius, Gallus natalibus, hic est Romam Romano qui docet ore loqui.'

'A Scot by blood-and French by birth-this man At Rome speaks Latin as no Roman can."" Grotius speaks most favourably also of Bacon's Life of Henry VII., and the learned Conringius fully agrees with this opinion.

Baron Puffendorf commends him in the most exalted terms:

"The late most wise Chancellor of England was the chief writer of our age, and carried as it were the standard that we might press forward, and make greater discoveries in Philosophic matters, than any of which hitherto our schools had rung. So that if in our time any great improvements have been made in Philosophy, there has been not a little owing to that great man.”—Specimen Controvers., cap. i.

Puffendorf's representation of Bacon as a "standardbearer," instantly reminds us of the philosopher's own modest and beautiful comparison. In a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, he remarks that in his book he was "contented to awake better spirits, being himself like a bell-ringer, who is first up to call others to church." To carry on the ecclesiastical simile, as Aristotle has been called the Pope of Philosophy until "a greater arose in his place," we may compare Bacon, not to the bell-ringer in the steeple, but to the Luther in the pulpit, who questioned his infallibility, and struck a fatal blow at the supremacy of that school which "made nothing perfect," though the bringing in of a better system did.

Francis Buddeus styles Bacon a

"New light in Philosophy, one who first united speculation and practice, and opened a passage to those mighty discoveries that have been made since his time."-Compendium Historia Philosophica. Voltaire calls him

"The father of experimental philosophy, owning that what surprised him most was to find the Doctrine of Attraction, which is looked upon to be the foundation of another philosophy, expressly set down in Lord Bacon's, in words not to be controverted or mistaken."

"Bacon was generous, easy, good-natured, and naturally just. But he had the misfortune to be beset by domestic harpies, who, in a manner, farmed out his office; and he had given way to intolerable impositions upon the subject among the masters in Chancery."-GUTHRIE.

So Addison:

demned others for as a judge, which now he came to suffer for as a delinquent. And they were proved and aggravated against him with so many circumstances, that they fall very foully upon him, both in relation to his reception of them, and his expending of them."-Kennet's History of England.

It may be pertinent to remark here that Buckingham's displeasure at the manner in which Williams received his suggestions relative to depending cases in the Court of Chancery, gives reason to fear that the preceding Lord Keeper was more compliant.-Bacon's Letters, by Birch; Hacket's Life of Archbp. Williams. Hume remarks that

"Bacon was a man universally admired for the greatness of his genius, and beloved for the courteousness and humanity of his behaviour. He was the great ornament of his age and nation; and nought was wanting to render him the ornament of human nature itself, but that strength of mind which might check his intemperate desire of preferment, that could add nothing to his dignity, and restrain his profuse inclination to expense, that could be requisite neither for his honour nor entertainment.”—History of Great Britain.

"The great glory of literature in this Island, during the reign of James, was my Lord Bacon. Most of his performances were composed in Latin; though he possessed neither the elegance of that, nor of his native tongue. If we consider the variety of talents displayed by this man-as a public speaker, a man of business, a wit, a courtier, a companion, an author, a philosopherhe is justly the object of great admiration. If we consider him merely as an author and philosopher, the light in which we view him at present, though very estimable, he was yet inferior to his contemporary, Galileo, perhaps even to Kepler. Bacon pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy: Galileo both pointed it out to others, and made himself considerable advances in it."Ibid.

Upon which we have in the British Biography: "Galileo was undoubtedly an illustrious man, and Kepler an admirable astronomer: but though we admit their superiority in astronomy, mechanics, and some particular branches of physical knowledge, it does by no means follow that either of them were

greater philosophers than Bacon. The praise of Bacon is founded not upon his skill in this or that particular branch of knowledge, but on his great and comprehensive understanding, which took in almost the whole extent of universal science. And he was so little indebted to the partiality of his countrymen, that his writings appear, for some time at least, to have been more esteemed and admired in foreign countries than in England."

His eminent French disciple, D'Alembert, by whose means his writings were more widely introduced to the French than they had been previously, cannot sufficiently commend our author:

"On considering attentively the sound, intelligent, and extensive views of this great man, the multiplicity of objects his piercing wit had comprehended within its sphere, the elevation of his style, that everywhere makes the boldest images to coalesce with the most vigorous precision, we should be tempted to esteem him as the greatest, the most universal, and the most eloquent of philosophers. His works are justly valued, perhaps more valued than known, and, therefore, more deserving of our study than eulogium."-An. Reg., vol. xvi.; see the whole of this article.

We consider Mr. Hume to be sufficiently punished. He was the last man to weigh Bacon, who has displayed so little of the spirit of the true philosopher himself. His theory of evidence would never have been allowed to expose his folly to the world, had he understood even the Comparentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenientem. Bacon's genius was indeed comprehensive. Sir John Hawkins states that

"Lord Bacon, in his natural history, has given a great variety of experiments touching music, that show him to have been not

barely a philosopher, an enquirer into the phænomena of sound,

but a master of the science of harmony, and very intimately acquainted with the precepts of musical composition."

Sir John quotes the following remark of Lord Bacon as a proof of his knowledge of the sciences:

"The sweetest and best harmony is when every part or instrument is not heard by itself, but a conflation of them all; which requireth to stand some distance off; even as it is in the mixture of perfumes, or the taking the smells of several flowers in the air."-History of Music. The above authorities, quoted from the Biographia Britannica, should be read at length.

His chaplain tells us that our great philosopher pursued the true plan of acquiring general knowledge: "He would light his torch at every man's candles." We have referred to the graphic picture which Osborn gives us of his puzzling Lord Middlesex at the council-table by his minute Osknowledge of manufactures and the rules of trade. born further tells us :

"I have heard him entertain a country lord in the proper terms relating to hawks and dogs; and at another time out-cant a London chirurgeon."

Pope refers to the precision of Bacon's language:

"Words that wise Bacon or grave Raleigh spake." An English dictionary, Mr. Seward remarks, might be composed from his works; but this compliment is very indefinite, and not one, we think, which Bacon would have coveted. Dugald Stewart remarks, in reference to Bacon's design of classifying the multifarious objects of human knowledge:

"Remember, O Lord! how thy servant hath walked before thee; remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies. I have mourned for the divisions of thy church, I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine, which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first and the latter rain, and that it might stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious in mine eyes; I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart; I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies. I thought not of them, neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been, as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more.

found thee in thy temples.

Bacon, Matthew. New Abridgment of the Law; 6th ed., with considerable additions by C. E. Dodd and Sir Henry Gwillim, Lon., 1832, 8 vols. r. 8vo.

The second American edition of this excellent work was pub. in 1842-1856, in 10 vols; edited by Judge Bouvier of Philadelphia, well known as the author of the celebrated Law Dictionary, and of the Institutes of American Law. See BOUVIER, JOHN.

"This work is probably in more general use in the United States than any other English Abridgment of the Common Law. The various titles being written in the form of dissertations renders See Marvin's Legal Bibl. it quite a law library in itself." Lord Eldon cited Bacon as an authority. Bouvier's edit. has the advantage of a copious index, which renders it of far greater value than any other edition.

“O Lord, my strength! I have since my youth met with thee in all my ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable chastisements, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours have increased upon me, so have thy corrections; so as thou hast been always near me, O Lord! and ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me; and when I have ascended before men. I have descended in humilia. tion before thee. And now, when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy upon me, and hath humbled me ac cording to thy former loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a bastard, but as a child. Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea? Earth. heavens. and all these are nothing to thy mercies. Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee, that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces, which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it, as I ought, to exchangers, where it might have made best profit, but misspent it in things for which I was least fit: so I may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for my Saviour's sake, and receive me unto thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways."

When we admire the vast plans of this great architect, and contrast the magnificent design with the comparatively meagre performance, and then remember that the allurements of ambition, and the seductions of pleasure, were sufficiently strong to tempt from his work the wise master-builder, we feel as we should on beholding the gigantic but unfinished proportions of the castle of some Titan, who had left his labour to chase a butterfly, or, in some flowery grove, had wasted the noontide in inglorious

repose.

A new edition of Bacon's works is being pub. by Long; mans, ed. by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath.

Bacon, Henry, b. 1813, at Boston. Ordained, 1834. Christian Comforter; Teachings and Tendencies of Universalism; Sacred Flora; Memoir of Mrs. C. A. Jerauld; pub. more than 50 tracts and sermons. Ed. Ladies' Repository of Boston 19 years.

Bacon, Jas. A Catechism and Sermon, 1660. Bacon, Jas. 1. The Libertine, 1791. 2. The A. Indian, 1795.

Bacon, John. Con. to Medical Comm. ii. 296, 1774. Bacon, John. Liber Regis, vel Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum; with an appendix, containing proper Directions and Precedents relating to Presentations, Institutions, Inductions, Dispensations, &c., Lon., 1786.

Bacon, John, 1740–1799, an eminent English sculptor, wrote the Disquisition on the Character of Painting and Sculpture, pub. in Rees's edition of Chambers' Dictionary; and assisted Mr. Strutt in his Dict. of Engravers.

Bacon, John, d. 1820, a native of Connecticut. Sermon, 1772. Answer to Huntington, 1781. Speech on the Courts of U.S., 1802. Conjectures on the Prophecies, 1805. Bacon, Leonard, D.D., b. 1802, at Detroit, Mich., where his father was missionary to the Indians, graduated at Yale College, 1820; studied theology at Andover four years, and became pastor of Centre Church, New Haven, Conn., in 1825, which position he still occupies, (1858.) | 1. Select Practical Writings of Richard Baxter, with Life of the Author, New Haven, 1831; 2d ed., 1835, 2 vols. 8vo. 2. A Manual for Young Church-Members, 1833, 18mo. 3. Thirteen Historical Discourses on the Completion of Two Hundred Years from the beginning of the first church in New Haven, 1839. 4. Slavery discussed, in occasional Essays from 1833 to '46, N. York, 1846, 8vo. His numerous contributions will be found in the Chris. Spec., 182239 inclusive, The New Englander, 1843-58 inc., The Independent, 1849-58 inc., of which journal he is one of the editors.

Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the first baronet.

There is in the Additional MS. (in the British Museum. No. 397) a relation of the state of Francis Spira,' which, it is probable, was written by him."-Rose's Biog. Dict.

Bacon, Nathaniel, grandson of Lord Keeper Bacon, has had attributed to him the authorship of An Historical Discourse of Uniformity of the Government of England, 1647-1652. Reprinted in 1672, and in 1682. The publisher was prosecuted and outlawed. The Earl of Chatham, in his letters to his nephew, praises this work highly. Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 1510-1579, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in the reign of Elizabeth, father of Francis Bacon, the illustrious philosopher, was educated at Bene't (now Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. His biography belongs to political, rather than to literary, history. A number of his Speeches are preserved in Collections of MSS., of which Bishop Tanner gives a list. Holinshed ranks him with those who have written something concerning the History of England. Mr. Masters refers to a commentary by Sir Nicholas upon the 12 Minor Prophets. In 1723 was pub. his Right of Succession in the Stuarts, exclusive of Mary Queen of Scots, defended against Sir Anthony Brown.

"I have come to the Lord-Keeper and found him sitting in his gallery alone, with the works of Quintilian before him. Indeed, he was a most eloquent mau, of rare learning and wisdom as ever I knew England to breed."-PUTTENHAM.

Bacon, Phanuel, d. 1783, Rector of Balden, of Magdalen Coll., Oxf., was author of, The Kite, a Poem, (see 2. The Insignificants. 3. The Tryal of the Time-Killers. Gent. Mag., 1758;) 5 dramatic pieces, viz.: 1. The Taxes. 4. The Moral Quack. 5. The Oculist, all, 1757, pub. in a vol., and entitled Humorous Ethics, Ballads, Songs, &c.

Bacon, R. The Labyrinth the Kingdom is in, with a Golden Thread to bring it forth into Light, Liberty, and Peace again, Lon., 1646.

Bacon, R. N. Prize Essay on the Agriculture of Norfolk, Lon., 1846, 8vo.

"This work is much esteemed, and contains the sentiments of a sound, practical judge, and of an enlightened writer."-Donaldson's Agricult. Biography.

Bacon, Robert, 1168?-1248, an eminent English divine, studied at Oxford, where he subsequently read divinity lectures. Dr. Pegge thinks that he was either elder brother, or uncle, of Roger Bacon. The latter is the conjecture of Leland also. He wrote, 1. Glosses on the Holy Scripture. 2. On the Psalter. 3. Discourses. 4. Lectures. Pits, Leland, Hearne, Cave, and other authors, have confounded this Robert Bacon with Roger.

Bacon, Robt. Miscell. Pieces in Verse, Lon., 1790. Bacon, Bakon or Bacun, Roger, 1214-1292, an English monk of the order of St. Francis, was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire. Although living in the century in which a number of great names occur-Thomas Aquinas, Alexander Hales, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, &c.—yet he is certainly second to none, and perhaps deserves to be ranked first. After studying at Oxford, Bacon sought the advantages offered by the University of Paris, then the resort of all desirous of perfecting their education. Here he formed that intimacy with Robert Grosseteste, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, which proved of such service to him in the prosecution of those studies to which he devoted his life. Pegge and Chalmers deny this intimacy. He was also largely indebted to the patronage of Edmund Price Archbishop of Canterbury, William Shirwood, Chancellor of Lincoln, and Richard Fishacre, a celebrated teacher of the sciences. At Paris he took the degree of doctor of theology, after which, whether in France or England is not known, he assumed the monastic