20. Quickness,-corresponds to vivacity. The adjective quick in the older language meant alive, or lively: "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell."— Psalm lv. 15.

"Not like a corse; or if-not to be buried,
But quick, and in mine arms."

21. Agitation of wit,-exercise of the understanding.

Winter's Tale, iv. 3.

22. A knowledge.-Observe the use of this word in a concrete sense. See Extract from Sidney, Note 1.

23. The strength of the old man's fagot.-An allusion to a well-known fable. See Babrii Fabulae, 47

24. "He impairs the weight of things by little niceties of words."

25. "They impair the solidity of the sciences by little niceties of questions."

26. "Having her fair loins encircled with barking monsters."-For the story of Scylla, see Ovid's Metam., xiv. 59.

27. "These are the words of idle old men."

28. Great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark keeping.-Very ready to enter upon questions and discussions, and made bold and eager by the very obscurity and retirement in which their lives were passed: "The Earl of Antrim, who was naturally a great undertaker, and desired nothing so much as that the King should believe him to be a man of interest and power in Ireland ."—Clarendon, book viii. In the expres

sion, Fierce with dark keeping, there seems to be an allusion to the effect of darkness and confinement in increasing the fierceness of some animals.

29. Inquisition,-a searching into. Exactly like the Latin inquisitio: "Inprimisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio atque investigatis."-Cicero, De Officiis, i. 4.

30. Of all the rest the foulest.-This is commonly regarded as incorrect in point of grammar, the more accurate form being, Fouler than all the rest; the peculiarity of idiom has, however, the sanction of some of the best of our older writers. We may refer to the well-known passage in Milton:

"Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve."

Paradise Lost, iv. 322.

The same mode of construction is found in Greek and Latin; thus in Homer, Achilles is said to be ωκυμορώτατος αλλων. - Ι., 1. 505.

31. The truth of being and the truth of knowing, &c.-The truths themselves that exist, being direct emanations from the source of truth, are compared to rays of light issuing directly from the sun: the knowledge of these truths in the mind of man resembles the same rays as seen reflected from some other object. As the reflected ray is the representation of the direct ray, so knowledge is the representation (imago) of truth."

32. "Avoid an inquisitive man, for the same is a tattler."

33. Fame,-reports. See Fragment of Essay on Fame.

34. "They at once feign and believe fiction."-Tacitus, Hist., 1. 51.

35. On the other sake ;-i.e., on the other account; with a view to exhibit the character of those marvellous stories. Sake is derived from the Saxon sacu, which means contention, and thence a cause or suit at law. Thus, for any one's sake came to mean, for any one's

cause.

36. Pretendeth,-aims or designs:

"For love of you, not hate unto my friend,
Hath made me publisher of this pretence."

Two Gentlemen of Verona, ili. 1.

87. Reduce, Latin, reducere, to bring back:

38. Leeseth.

"Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again,

And make poor England weep in streams of blood."

Richard III., v. 2.

This word is sometimes taken to mean lose, but it seems more probable that it is loose, being identical with the Saxon form lysan or leasun, and used here as the Latin solvere sometimes is, in the sense of dissolve.

2. Sileni.-The silenus most famous in ancient legend was the attendant of Bacchus, represented as an old man, bald-headed, drunken (titubantem annis vinoque-Ovid, Metam. xi. 90), riding on an ass.

3. Catched. This form of conjugation is not uncommon in writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They use it indifferently with the strong conjugation caught: "I saw him run after a gilded butterfly; and when he had caught it he let it go again; and after it again; and over and over he comes, and up again; catched it again. -Coriolanus, i. 3.

4. Confused seeds of things.-This expression is borrowed from the Epicurean philosophy. Lucretius frequently has the phrase, "Semina rerum.' ." See book i. 49-56.

5. The motion of the seven planets.--Bacon's words here savour a little of the old astrology, which attributed to the positions and motions of the planets a direct influence on earthly things. Seven planets only were known to the ancients, and these were spoken of allegorically as the seven strings of Apollo's lyre; a figure that resembles the comparison to the seven reeds of Pan's pipe. Hence, in reference to Herschel's discovering an eighth planet, Campbell says: "Or yield the lyre of heaven another string."Pleasures of Hope.

6. "The girl in her own person is the least part of herself,"-meaning that she is so made up and disguised by art.

7. A sagacious experience and general knowledge of nature.—This exactly expresses Bacon's own views of philosophical inquiry, as set forth in all his writings. The very first axiom of the Novum Organum may be quoted in illustration of it: "Homo, naturae minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturae ordine, re vel mente observaverit; non amplius scit aut potest;"-"Man, the minister and interpreter of nature, is able to use and to understand her just so far as he has tested her course by experiment and observation; beyond that he knows nothing, and can do nothing."

་་

SIR WALTER RALEGH.

THE FLOURISHING ESTATE OF THEBES.

SECTION I.

1. All respects withstanding the commodity of Sparta,— all considerations opposed to the interests of Sparta:

2. Afflicting.-Used in the sense of the Latin affligere, to weaken or impair: "Is primus dies Othonianas partes adflixit."-Tacitus, History, ii. 33.

3. Estates,-states

"Which would be so much the more dangerous
By how much the estate is yet ungoverned."

Richard III., ii. 1.

SECTION II.

1. Garboils, disturbances or tumults (Ital. garbuglio):

"Look here, and, at thy sovereign leisure, read
The garboils she awaked.

Antony and Cleopatra, i. 3.

2. Impeachment,-hinderance or check (Fr. empecher, to hinder). This is the original meaning of the word: "A defluxion on my throat impeached my utterance."-Howell, Familiar Letters.

"Tell thy king I do not seek him now,

But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment."

Henry V., iii. 6.

SECTION III.

1. Defaced,-effaced or destroyed. See Bacon, Atheism, Note 13.

2. Impeach.-See Section ii., Note 2.

3. Disable the society,- enfeeble the association:

1. Purchase of a great estate,-the acquisition of a great state or position. Purchase (Lat. perquisitio) originally meant an acquiring. Thus, in law, title by purchase is defined by

Blackstone to be "The possession of lands and tenements which a man hath by his own act and agreement, or by the devise or gift of his ancestor, and not by mere descent from any of his ancestors or kindred." "Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling."-As You Like It, iii. 2.

2. Discussed.-Used here in its Latin sense of shaken to pieces, or broken up. Livy has it exactly in the same connection: "Ita, quod maxime volebant, discusso Boeotico concilio, Peloponnesum proficiscuntur."-Lib. xlii. 44.

"That all regard of shame she had discusst,

And meet respect of honour put to flight."

Spenser, Fairy Queen, Book III., i. 48.

3. But for that, -as well because. See Extract from Sidney, Note 9.

4. Subject-The singular form here, instead of the plural, must be explained by supposing that Ralegh regarded the word as an adjective rather than a noun, and standing elliptically for his subject people, or those subject to him.

SECTION V.

1. Without Peloponnesus,-outside of (extra Peloponnesum).
2. Taking truce:

"With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all the day."

King John, iii. 1.

3. In which regard,-in consideration of which. 4. Enlarged,-set at liberty:

Uncle of Exeter,

Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That railed against our person."

Henry V., ii. 2.

5. Communicate with,-share with: "No church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only."-Phil. iv. 15.

SECTION VI.

1. Out of distance, -out of reach. Distance here does not mean remoteness, but the position in which any one stands opposite to his antagonist in combat: "We come to see thee fight; to see thy pass, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance."- Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 3.

2. Recover, regain:

"The forest is not three leagues off;

If we recover that we're sure enough."

Two Gentlemen of Verona, v. 1.

"I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues, off and on, by this light."-Tempest, iii. 2.

3. Society. See Note 3, Section iii.

SECTION VII.

1. Compounding,-composing.

2. Battle.-Used formerly for a division of an army; somewhat in the sense of battalion: "They say that the king divided his army into three battles, whereof the vaunt-guard only, well strengthened with wings, came to fight........ the other two battles remaining out of action."- Bacon, History of Henry VII., p. 22, ed. 1676.

"You said the enemy would not come down,
But keep the hills and upper regions:

It proves not so; their battles are at hand."

3. Indifferent,-equally fair for both sides. See Bacon, On Simulation, Note 14.

4. Which to have lost was held a great dishonour.—A story is told of a Spartan mother who, when sending her son to battle, said to him, as she presented him with his father's shield, H Tav η ETTɩ TAV,—i. e., "Either bring this back or come back upon it." The classical scholar will also remember Horace's account of his flight from Philippi: "Parmulâ non bene relictâ."-Ode II. vii. 10.

5. Private conversation,—private habits of life. See Bacon, Of Friendship, Note 2.

SECTION VIII.

1. Naturals,-natives: "Oppression in many places wears the robes of justice, which, domineering over the naturals, may not spare strangers."― Ralegh.

2. Voluntary,-volunteer:

"Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,

With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,-
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,

Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here."

King John, ii. 1.

JOHN MILTON.

1. Beatific vision. This term was applied by the Fathers and Schoolmen to the sight of the glory and majesty of God enjoyed by the angels and the spirits of the just, and constituting a large portion of their happiness in heaven. Thus Milton in his description

of Mammon:

".... For e'en in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than ought divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beatific."

Paradise Lost, i. 680.

He is

2. How they dealt with the good Osiris.--Osiris was a famous deity of the Egyptians. said to have been in reality an Egyptian prince, who was a civilizer and reformer of his subjects, teaching them agriculture and the arts, and giving them good and just laws. On his return from a distant expedition, he was murdered by his brother Typhon, who had excited seditions against him. Typhon is reported to have cut the body of Osiris into pieces, and to have divided it amongst his fellow-conspirators. Isis, the wife of Osiris, revenged her husband's death, collected the scattered fragments of his corpse, and paid divine honours to his memory. The story of Osiris is told by Plutarch. 3. Feature,-form, or figure (Old Fr. faiture, Lat. factura):

"So scented the grim feature, and upturned
His nostril wide into the murky air,

Sagacious of his quarry from so far."

Paradise Lost, x. 279.