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less idleness, in what he uttered," is quite as true of him as a writer. And besides all this he had that mysterious gift to which M. Charles de Rémusat assigns the first place among the causes of his influence in the world, the quality which he calls greatness, and supposes to reside rather in the manner than in the thought. But whence the manner? I should myself say from the moral character, taking it to be the companion and expression of a certain consciousness of moral elevation. But whatever it is and whencesoever it comes, its office and effect is to command respect both for the speaker and the subject. And whatever may be the value of Bacon's other contributions to science, there is probably no single man whose writings have done so much to dignify the pursuit, or to encourage the hopes and exalt and purify the aims of the pursuers.

But when I attribute to a consciousness of moral elevation that "greatness" in Bacon which (though they would differ as to its nature) most people feel; I am not to be understood as assuming to decide the question as to his moral worth. That same sense of moral superiority, carrying with it that same impression of greatness, may be found in conjunction with moral qualities of the worst kind; nor does the respect which it commands necessarily imply either sympathy or approval. Whether (in the phrase of the debating society) "the character of Bacon was deserving of the approbation of posterity " is a question which posterity must settle for itself. But I think it may be left to the debaters. To form a true conception of the kind of man he was, is of some consequence; for without that we cannot know what respect is due to his opinions. If his objects were all personal and worldly, his opinions were those of a man who considered all things with reference to himself, and not to truth and the good of men. But being once agreed as to what he was, it matters little whether we think him better than our

selves, or worse, or much the same. Upon that point we shall always differ, accordingly as we rate higher the virtues in which he excelled or those in which he was deficient. The men upon whom posterity pronounces a unanimous verdict for bad or for good are the men about whose lives little is known. Those whose record is full enough to enable us to follow them through their week-day work are subjects of dispute, just like contemporary public men, every one of whom has both admirers and depreciators. Bacon's record is unusually full, and as his life presented to himself many doubtful problems for action, it has left to us many questionable actions for criticism; and among them not a few which he would not himself have repeated or attempted to justify. One thing, however, must be admitted to his advantage. Of the contemporaries whose opinion of him is known to us, those who saw him nearest in his private life give him the best character. I have quoted Toby Matthew's, written in 1618, when he had known him intimately for twenty years. Dr. Rawley's is familiar to everybody. That of Sir Thomas Meautys reveals itself still more expressively in the devotion of his life. Ben Jonson, who had seen something of him off the stage, though we do not know how much, after recording his impression of the "greatness which he could not want" (by which, however, he may possibly have meant only the greatness of intellectual power), adds the significant and affecting remark, that in the days of his adversity he "could never condole in a word or syllable to him as knowing that no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather serve to make it manifest." And to these testimonies we may now add that of Peter Böener, his domestic apothecary and secretary, who concludes his notice with a wish that a statue were erected to his memory, not as the projector of the Great Instauration of the sciences or author of the "No1 Above p. 526.

vum Organum," but in acknowledgment of his moral vir tues. "Therefore it is a thing to be wished (he having died on the 9th of April, 1626, aged sixty-six years) that a statue in honor of him may be erected in his country, as a memorable example to all of virtue, kindness, peacefulness, and patience." 1

Though these are partial witnesses, their partiality, being above all suspicion of interested motives, is itself a fact which deserves to be put in evidence. But if Bacon himself had been called on to pronounce judgment on himself, I fancy that he would have been content with some such character as Sir Henry Taylor puts into the mouth of Isaac Comnenus, describing his own:

"Yet is he in sad truth a faulty man.

In slavish, tyrannous, and turbulent times

He drew his lot of life, and of the times

Some deep and bloody stains have fallen upon him.

But be it said he had this honesty,

That undesirous of a false renown

He ever wished to pass for what he was ;

One that swerved much and oft, but, being still

Deliberately bent upon the right,

Had kept it in the main ; one that much loved

Whate'er in man is worthy high respect,

And in his soul devoutly did aspire

To be it all; yet felt from time to time

The littleness that clings to what is human,

And suffered from the shame of having felt it.” ↑

1 Athenæum, June 10, 1871.

2 Isaac Comnenus, end of Act 3.

INDEX.