Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
_Extremam, ut perhibent, Cœo Enceladoque sororem_
_Progenuit,_
expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual
and open rebels, then the malignity of the people, which is the
mother of rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and
taxations of the State, which is of the same kind with rebellion,
but more feminine. So in the fable, that the rest of the gods
having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus, with
his hundred hands, to his aid; expounded, that monarchies need
not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects,
as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who
will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable, that
Achilles was brought up under Chiron, the centaur, who was part
a man and part a beast, expounded ingeniously, but corruptly by
Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and discipline
of princes to know as well how to play the part of the lion in
violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and
justice. Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather
think that the fable was first, and the exposition then devised,
than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed.
For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled
himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the
stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets; but yet that all
the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure, and not
figure, I interpose no opinion. Surely, of those poets which
are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made
a kind of Scripture by the latter schools of the Grecians), yet
I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no
such inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon
a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm; for he was not
the inventor of many of them.”
In the treatise _De Augmentis_ the same sentiments will be found, with
a slight alteration in the expressions. He says:—
“There is another use of parabolical poesy opposite to the
former, which tendeth to the folding up of those things, the
dignity whereof deserves to be retired and distinguished, as
with a drawn curtain; that is, when the secrets and mysteries of
religion, policy, and philosophy are veiled and invested with
fables and parables. But whether there be any mystical sense
couched under the ancient fables of the poets, may admit some
doubt; and, indeed, for our part, we incline to this opinion, as
to think that there was an infused mystery in many of the ancient
fables of the poets. Neither doth it move us that these matters
are left commonly to school-boys and grammarians, and so are
embased, that we should therefore make a slight judgment upon
them, but contrariwise, because it is clear that the writings
which recite those fables, of all the writings of men, next to
sacred writ, are the most ancient; and that the fables themselves
are far more ancient than they (being they are alleged by those
writers, not as excogitated by them, but as credited and recepted
before) seem to be, like a thin rarefied air, which, from the
traditions of more ancient nations, fell into the flutes of the
Grecians.”
Of this tract, Archbishop Tenison, in his _Baconiana_, says:—
“In the seventh place, I may reckon his book _De Sapientia
Veterum_, written by him in Latin, and set forth a second
time with enlargement; and translated into English by Sir
Arthur Gorges; a book in which the sages of former times are
rendered more wise than it may be they were, by so dexterous an
interpreter of their fables. It is this book which Mr. Sandys
means, in those words which he hath put before his notes on the
Metamorphosis of Ovid. ‘Of modern writers, I have received the
greatest light from Geraldus, Pontanus, Ficinus, Vives, Comes,
Scaliger, Sabinus, Pierius, and the crown of the latter, the
Viscount of St. Albans.’
“It is true, the design of this book was instruction in natural
and civil matters, either couched by the ancients under those
fictions, or rather made to seem to be so by his lordship’s wit,
in the opening and applying of them. But because the first ground
of it is poetical story, therefore, let it have this place till a
fitter be found for it.”
The author of Bacon’s Life, in the _Biographia Britannica_, says:—
“That he might relieve himself a little from the severity of
these studies, and, as it were, amuse himself with erecting a
magnificent pavilion, while his great palace of philosophy was
building, he composed and sent abroad, in 1610, his celebrated
treatise of the Wisdom of the Ancients, in which he showed
that none had studied them more closely, was better acquainted
with their beauties, or had pierced deeper into their meaning.
There have been very few books published, either in this or any
other nation, which either deserved or met with more general
applause than this, and scarce any that are like to retain it
longer, for in this performance Sir Francis Bacon gave a singular
proof of his capacity to please all parties in literature, as
in his political conduct he stood fair with all the parties in
the nation. The admirers of antiquity were charmed with this
discourse, which seems expressly calculated to justify their
admiration; and, on the other hand, their opposites were no
less pleased with a piece from which they thought they could
demonstrate that the sagacity of a modern genius had found out
much better meanings for the ancients than ever were meant by
them.”
And Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, says:—
“In 1610 he published another treatise, entitled, Of the Wisdom
of the Ancients. This work bears the same stamp of an original
and inventive genius with his other performances. Resolving not
to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, men,
according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain
commonplaces, he strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters
into the most secret recesses of this wild and shadowy region, so
as to appear new on a known and beaten subject. Upon the whole,
if we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all
the physical, moral, and political meaning veiled under those
fables of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must
own that it required no common penetration to be mistaken with
so great an appearance of probability on his side. Though it
still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so knowing as
he attempts to show they were, the variety and depth of his own
knowledge are, in that very attempt, unquestionable.”
In the year 1619 this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Gorges.
Prefixed to the work are two letters; the one to the Earl of Salisbury,
the other to the University of Cambridge, which Gorges omits, and
dedicates his translation to the high and illustrious princess the Lady
Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess of Baviare, Countess Palatine of
Rheine, and chief electress of the empire.
This translation, it should be noted, was published during the life of
Lord Bacon by a great admirer of his works.
The editions of this work with which I am acquainted are:—
Year. Language. Printer. Place. Size.
1609 Latin, R. Barker, London, 12mo.
1617 ” J. Bill, ” ”
1618 Italian, G. Bill, ” ”
1619 English, J. Bill, ” ”
1620 ” ” ” ”
1633 Latin, F. Maire, Lug. Bat., ”
1634 ” F. Kingston, London, ”
1638 ” E. Griffin, ” Folio.
1691 ” H. Wetstein, Amsterdam, 12mo.
1804 French, H. Frantin, Dijon, 8vo.
NOTICE
OF
FRANCIS BACON.
Francis Bacon, the subject of the following memoir, was the youngest
son of highly remarkable parents. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon,
was an eminent lawyer, and for twenty years Keeper of the Seals and
Privy Counsellor to Queen Elizabeth. Sir Nicholas was styled by
Camden _sacris conciliis alterum columen_; he was the author of some
unpublished discourses on law and politics, and of a commentary on
the minor prophets. He discharged the duties of his high office with
exemplary propriety and wisdom; he preserved through life the integrity
of a good man, and the moderation and simplicity of a great one.
He had inscribed over the entrance of his hall, at Gorhambury, the
motto, _mediocria firma_; and when the Queen, in a progress, paid him
a visit there, she remarked to him that his house was too small for
him. “Madam,” answered the Lord Keeper, “my house is well, but it is
you that have made me too great for my house.” This anecdote has been
preserved by his son,[3] who, had he as carefully retained the lesson
of practical wisdom it contained, might have avoided the misfortunes
and sorrows of his checkered life.
Bacon’s mother, Anne Cooke, was the daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke,
tutor to King Edward the Sixth; like the young ladies of her time,
like Lady Jane Grey, like Queen Elizabeth, she received an excellent
classical education; her sister, Lady Burleigh, was pronounced by Roger
Ascham, Queen Elizabeth’s preceptor, to be, with the exception of Lady
Jane Grey, the best Greek scholar among the young women of England.[4]
Anne Cooke, the future Lady Bacon, corresponded in Greek with Bishop
Jewel, and translated from the Latin this divine’s _Apologia_; a task
which she performed so well that it is said the good prelate could not
discover an inaccuracy or suggest an alteration. She also translated
from the Italian a volume of sermons on fate and freewill, written by
Bernardo Ochino, an Italian reformer. Francis Bacon, the youngest of
five sons, inherited the classical learning and taste of both his
parents.
He was born at York House, in the Strand, London, on the 22d of
January, 1560-61. His health, when he was a boy, was delicate; a
circumstance which may perhaps account for his early love of sedentary
pursuits, and probably the early gravity of his demeanor. Queen
Elizabeth, he tells us, took particular delight in “trying him with
questions,” when he was quite a child, and was so much pleased with the
sense and manliness of his answers that she used jocularly to call him
“her young Lord Keeper of the Seals.” Bacon himself relates that while
he was a boy, the Queen once asked him his age; the precocious courtier
readily replied that he “was just two years younger than her happy
reign.” He is said, also, when very young, to have stolen away from his
playfellows in order to investigate the cause of a singular echo in St.
James’s Fields, which attracted his attention.
Until the age of thirteen he remained under the tuition of his
accomplished mother, aided by a private tutor only; under their care
he attained the elements of the classics, that education preliminary
to the studies of the University. At thirteen he was sent to Trinity
College, Cambridge, where his father had been educated. Here he studied
diligently the great models of antiquity, mathematics, and philosophy,
worshipped, however, but indevoutly at the shrine of Aristotle, whom,
according to Rawley, his chaplain and biographer, he already derided
“for the unfruitfulness of the way,—being only strong for disputation,
but barren of the production of works for the life of man.” He remained
three years at this seat of learning, without, however, taking a degree
at his departure.
When he was but sixteen years old he began his travels, the
indispensable end of every finished education in England. He repaired