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Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

Francis Bacon

humor, and as Tacitus observes, used his learning to solace or divert himself, and instead of such discourses as give firmness and constancy of mind, read nothing but loose poems and verses.[652] Such learning as this seems to pluck the crowns again from the Muses’ heads, and restore them to the Sirens. The Sirens are said to inhabit certain islands, because pleasures generally seek retirement, and often shun society. And for their songs, with the manifold artifice and destructiveness thereof, this is too obvious and common to need explanation. But that particular of the bones stretching like white cliffs along the shores, and appearing afar off, contains a more subtile allegory, and denotes that the examples of others’ calamity and misfortunes, though ever so manifest and apparent, have yet but little force to deter the corrupt nature of man from pleasures. The allegory of the remedies against the Sirens is not difficult, but very wise and noble; it proposes, in effect, three remedies, as well against subtile as violent mischiefs, two drawn from philosophy and one from religion. The first means of escaping is to resist the earliest temptation in the beginning, and diligently avoid and cut off all occasions that may solicit or sway the mind; and this is well represented by shutting up the ears, a kind of remedy to be necessarily used with mean and vulgar minds, such as the retinue of Ulysses. But nobler spirits may converse, even in the midst of pleasures, if the mind be well guarded with constancy and resolution. And thus some delight to make a severe trial of their own virtue, and thoroughly acquaint themselves with the folly and madness of pleasures, without complying or being wholly given up to them; which is what Solomon professes of himself when he closes the account of all the numerous pleasures he gave a loose to, with this expression: “But wisdom still continued with me.” Such heroes in virtue may, therefore, remain unmoved by the greatest incentives to pleasure, and stop themselves on the very precipice of danger; if, according to the example of Ulysses, they turn a deaf ear to pernicious counsel, and the flatteries of their friends and companions, which have the greatest power to shake and unsettle the mind. But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, is that of Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music of the Sirens; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of sense, not only in power but also in sweetness. FOOTNOTES: [1] By B. Montagu. Appendix, note 3, 1. [2] Baconiana, 201. [3] Bacon’s Apophthegms. [4] It is not surprising that ladies then received an education rare in our own times. It should be remembered that in the sixteenth century Latin was the language of courts and schools, of diplomacy, politics, and theology; it was the universal language, and there was then no literature in the modern tongues, except the Italian; indeed all knowledge, ancient and modern, was conveyed to the world in the language of the ancients. The great productions of Athens and Rome were the intellectual all of our ancestors down to the middle of the sixteenth century. [5] _Prospetto delle Memorie aneddote dei Lincei da_ F. Cancellieri. Roma, 1823. This fact is quoted by Monsieur Cousin, in a note to his _Fragments de Philosophie Cartésienne_. [6] Sir Robert Cecil. [7] Gray’s Inn is one of the four Inns or companies for the study of law. [8] King’s or Queen’s Counsel are barristers that plead for the government; they receive fees but no salary; the first were appointed in the reign of Charles II. Queen’s Counsel extraordinary was a title peculiar to Bacon, granted, as the patent specially states, _honoris causa_. [9] Letter to Lord Burleigh. [10] The Solicitor-General is a law-officer inferior in rank to the Attorney-General, with whom he is associated in the management of the law business of the crown. He pleads also for private individuals, but not against government. He has a small salary, but very considerable fees. The salary in Bacon’s time was but seventy pounds. [11] Bacon was, like other courtiers, in the habit of presenting the Queen with a New Year’s gift. On one occasion, it was a white satin petticoat embroidered with snakes and fruitage, as emblems of wisdom and beauty. The donors varied in rank from the Lord Keeper down to the dust-man. [12] Essays. [13] The Attorney-General is the public prosecutor on behalf of the Crown, where the state is actually and not nominally the prosecutor. He pleads also as a barrister in private causes, provided they are not against the government. As he receives a fee for every case in which the government is concerned, his emoluments are considerable; but he has no salary. His official position secures to him the best practice at the bar. The salary was, in Bacon’s time, but 81_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ per annum; but the situation yielded him six thousand pounds yearly. [14] Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. [15] Essay xvi. [16] Decisions being given against the parties is no proof of uncorruptness; it is always the party who loses his suit that complains; the gainer receives the price of his bribe, and is silent. [17] The exactions of his servants appear to have been very great; their indulgence in every kind of extravagance, and the lavish profuseness of his own expenses, were the principal causes of his ruin. Mallet relates that one day, during the investigation into his conduct, the Chancellor passed through a room where several of his servants were sitting; as they arose from their seats to greet him, “Sit down, my masters,” exclaimed he, “your rise hath been my fall.” [18] Essay xi. [19] Macaulay’s Essays. [20] He was not, as has been erroneously supposed, stripped of his titles of nobility; this was proposed; but it was negatived by the majority formed by means of the bishops. [21] The Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles the First, was before he ascended the throne the patron of Bacon, who said of him in his will, “my most gracious sovereign, who _ever when he was prince_ was my patron.” [22] The Seasons. [23] Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England. [24] Bracton is one of the earliest writers of English law. He flourished in the thirteenth century. The title of his work is _De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ_, first printed in 1569. [25] The woods on his estate of Gorhambury. [26] Of the Interpretation of Nature. [27] Ibid. [28] New Atlantis. [29] Advancement of Learning. [30] Edinburgh Review. [31] Essays. [32] Advancement of Learning. [33] Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. [34] Tattler, No. 267. [35] Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. [36] Montaigne says, in his author’s address to the reader:— “_Ie veulx qu’on m’y veoye en ma façon simple, naturelle et ordinaire, sans estude et artifice; car c’est moi que je peinds._” He says again elsewhere: “_Ie n’ay pas plus faict mon livre, que mon livre m’a faict; livre consubstantiel à son aucteur, d’une occupation propre, membre de ma vie, non d’une occupation et fin tierce et estrangiere, comme touts aultres livres_.” (Livre ii. ch. xviii.) [37] Introduction to the Encyclopædia. [38] Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. [39] Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. [40] No. 267. [41] Essays. [42] He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: “Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.” [43] He probably refers to the “New Academy,” a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, “What is truth?” Upon which they came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that mankind has no criterion by which to form a judgment. [44] Perhaps he was thinking of St. Augustine.—See _Aug. Confess._ i. 25, 26. [45] “The wine of evil spirits.” [46] Genesis i. 3: “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” [47] At the moment when “The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”—_Genesis_ ii. 7. [48] Lucretius, the Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, is alluded to.—_Lucret._ ii. _init._ Comp. _Adv. of Learning_, i. 8, 5. [49] He refers to the sect which followed the doctrines of Epicurus. The life of Epicurus himself was pure and abstemious in the extreme. One of his leading tenets was, that the aim of all speculation should be to enable men to judge with certainty what course is to be chosen, in order to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind. The adoption, however, of the term “pleasure,” as denoting this object, has at all periods subjected the Epicurean system to great reproach; which, in fact, is due rather to the conduct of many who, for their own purposes, have taken shelter under the system in name only, than to the tenets themselves, which did not inculcate libertinism. Epicurus admitted the existence of the Gods, but he deprived them of the characteristics of Divinity, either as creators or preservers of the world. [50] Lord Bacon has either translated this passage of Lucretius from memory or has purposely paraphrased it. The following is the literal translation of the original: “’Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the dangers of another upon the mighty ocean, when the winds are lashing the main; not because it is a grateful pleasure for any one to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free: ’tis also a pleasant thing to behold the mighty contests of warfare, arrayed upon the plains, without a share in the danger; but nothing is there more delightful than to occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life.” [51] Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French Essayist. His _Essays_ embrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and entertaining manner, and are replete with remarks indicative of strong native good sense. He died in 1592. The following quotation is from the second book of the _Essays_, c. 18: “Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is ‘affording testimony that one _first_ despises God, and then fears men;’ it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for, can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God?” [52] St. Luke xviii. 8: “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?” [53] A portion of this _Essay_ is borrowed from the writings of Seneca. See his _Letters to Lucilius_, B. iv. Ep. 24 and 82. [54] “The array of the death-bed has more terrors than death itself.” This quotation is from Seneca. [55] He probably alludes to the custom of hanging the room in black where the body of the deceased lay, a practice much more usual in Bacon’s time than at the present day. [56] Tacit. Hist. ii. 49. [57] Ad Lucil. 77. [58] “Reflect how often you do the same things; a man may wish to die, not only because either he is brave or wretched, but even because he is surfeited with life.”