Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
[59] “Livia, mindful of our union, live on, and fare thee well.”—_Suet.
Aug. Vit._ c. 100.
[60] “His bodily strength and vitality were now forsaking Tiberius, but
not his duplicity.”—_Ann._ vi. 50.
[61] This was said as a reproof to his flatterers, and in spirit is not
unlike the rebuke administered by Canute to his retinue.—_Suet. Vespas.
Vit._ c. 23.
[62] “I am become a Divinity, I suppose.”
[63] “If it be for the advantage of the Roman people, strike.”—_Tac.
Hist._ i. 41.
[64] “If aught remains to be done by me, dispatch.”—_Dio Cass._ 76, _ad
fin._
[65] These were the followers of Zeno, a philosopher of Citium, in
Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or “School of the Portico,” at
Athens. The basis of his doctrines was the duty of making virtue the
object of all our researches. According to him, the pleasures of the
mind were preferable to those of the body, and his disciples were
taught to view with indifference health or sickness, riches or poverty,
pain or pleasure.
[66] “Who reckons the close of his life among the boons of nature.”
Lord Bacon here quotes from memory; the passage is in the tenth Satire
of Juvenal, and runs thus:—
“Fortem posce animum, mortis terrore carentem,
Qui spatium vitæ extremum inter munera ponat
Naturæ”—
“Pray for strong resolve, void of the fear of death, that reckons the
closing period of life among the boons of nature.”
[67] He alludes to the song of Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost had
revealed, “that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s
Christ.” When he beheld the infant Jesus in the temple, he took
the child in his arms and burst forth into a song of thanksgiving,
commencing, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”—_St.
Luke_ ii. 29.
[68] “When dead, the same person shall be beloved.”—_Hor. Ep._ ii. 1,
14.
[69] “Behold, he is in the desert.”—_St. Matthew_ xxiv. 26.
[70] “Behold, he is in the secret chambers.”—_Ib._
[71] He alludes to 1 Corinthians xiv. 23: “If, therefore, the whole
church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and
there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not
say that ye are mad?”
[72] Psalm i. 1: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel
of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the
seat of the scornful.”
[73] This dance, which was originally called the Morisco dance is
supposed to have been derived from the Moors of Spain; the dancers in
earlier times blackening their faces to resemble Moors. It was probably
a corruption of the ancient Pyrrhic dance, which was performed by
men in armor, and which is mentioned as still existing in Greece, in
Byron’s “Song of the Greek Captive:”—
“You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet.”
Attitude and gesture formed one of the characteristics of the dance. It
is still practised in some parts of England.—_Rabelais, Pantag._ ii. 7.
[74] 2 Kings ix. 18.
[75] He alludes to the words in Revelation, c. iii. v. 14, 15, 16: “And
unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things
saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the
creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor
hot.—I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Laodicea was a city of Asia
Minor. St. Paul established the church there which is here referred to.
[76] St. Matthew xii. 30.
[77] “In the garment there may be many colors, but let there be no
rending of it.”
[78] “Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science,
falsely so called.”—1 _Tim._ vi. 20.
[79] He alludes to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, significant of the
limited duration of his kingdom.—See _Daniel_ ii. 33, 41.
[80] Mahomet proselytized by giving to the nations which he conquered,
the option of the Koran or the sword.
[81] “To deeds so dreadful could religion prompt.” The poet refers
to the sacrifice by Agamemnon, the Grecian leader, of his daughter
Iphigenia, with the view of appeasing the wrath of Diana.—_Lucret._ i.
95.
[82] He alludes to the massacre of the Huguenots, or Protestants, in
France, which took place on St. Bartholomew’s day, August 24, 1572,
by the order of Charles IX. and his mother, Catherine de Medici. On
this occasion about 60,000 persons perished, including the Admiral De
Coligny, one of the most virtuous men that France possessed, and the
main stay of the Protestant cause.
[83] More generally known as “The Gunpowder Plot.”
[84] Isa. xiv. 14.
[85] Allusion is made to the “caduceus,” with which Mercury, the
messenger of the Gods, summoned the souls of the departed to the
infernal regions.
[86] “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”—_James_
i. 20.
[87] He alludes to Cosmo de Medici, or Cosmo I., chief of the Republic
of Florence, the encourager of literature and the fine arts.
[88] Job ii. 10.—“Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall
we not receive evil?”
[89] By “public revenges,” he means punishment awarded by the state
with the sanction of the laws.
[90] He alludes to the retribution dealt by Augustus and Anthony to the
murderers of Julius Cæsar. It is related by ancient historians, as a
singular fact, that not one of them died a natural death.
[91] Henry III. of France was assassinated in 1599, by Jacques Clement,
a Jacobin monk, in the frenzy of fanaticism. Although Clement justly
suffered punishment, the end of this bloodthirsty and bigoted tyrant
may be justly deemed a retribution dealt by the hand of an offended
Providence; so truly does the Poet say:—
“neque enim lex æquior ulla
Quam necis artifices arte perire suâ.”
[92] Sen. Ad Lucil. 66.
[93] Ibid. 53.
[94] Stesichorus, Apollodorus, and others. Lord Bacon makes a similar
reference to this myth in his treatise “On the Wisdom of the Ancients.”
“It is added with great elegance, to console and strengthen the minds
of men, that this mighty hero (Hercules) sailed in a cup or ‘urceus,’
in order that they may not too much fear and allege the narrowness
of their nature and its frailty; as if it were not capable of such
fortitude and constancy; of which very thing Seneca argued well, when
he said, ‘It is a great thing to have at the same time the frailty of a
man, and the security of a God.’”
[95] Funereal airs. It must be remembered that many of the Psalms of
David were written by him when persecuted by Saul, as also in the
tribulation caused by the wicked conduct of his son Absalom. Some of
them, too, though called “The Psalms of David,” were really composed
by the Jews in their captivity at Babylon; as, for instance, the 137th
Psalm, which so beautifully commences, “By the waters of Babylon there
we sat down.” One of them is supposed to be the composition of Moses.
[96] This fine passage, beginning at “Prosperity is the blessing,”
which was not published till 1625, twenty-eight years after the first
Essays, has been quoted by Macaulay, with considerable justice, as a
proof that the writer’s fancy did not decay with the advance of old
age, and that his style in his later years became richer and softer.
The learned critic contrasts this passage with the terse style of the
Essay of Studies (Essay 50), which was published in 1597.
[97] Tac. Ann. v. 1.
[98] Tac. Hist. ii. 76.
[99] A word now unused, signifying the “traits,” or “features.”
[100] A truth.—_A. L._ II. xxiii. 14.
[101] Proverbs x. 1: “A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish
son is the heaviness of his mother.”
[102] Petted—spoiled.
[103] This word seems here to mean “a plan,” or “method,” as proved by
its results.
[104] Ends in.
[105] There is considerable justice in this remark. Children should be
taught to do what is right for its own sake, and because it is their
duty to do so, and not that they may have the selfish gratification of
obtaining the reward which their companions have failed to secure, and
of being led to think themselves superior to their companions. When
launched upon the world, emulation will be quite sufficiently forced
upon them by stern necessity.
[106] “Select _that course of life_ which is the most advantageous;
habit will soon render it pleasant and easily endured.”
[107] His meaning is, that if clergymen have the expenses of a family
to support, they will hardly find means for the exercise of benevolence
toward their parishioners.
[108] “He preferred his aged wife Penelope to immortality.” This
was when Ulysses was entreated by the goddess Calypso to give up
all thoughts of returning to Ithaca, and to remain with her in the
enjoyment of immortality.—_Plut. Gryll._ 1.
[109] “May have a pretext,” or “excuse.”
[110] Thales, _Vide_ Diog. Laert. i. 26.
[111] So prevalent in ancient times was the notion of the injurious
effects of the eye of envy, that, in common parlance, the Romans
generally used the word “_præfiscini_,”—“without risk of enchantment,”
or “fascination,” when they spoke in high terms of themselves. They
supposed that they thereby averted the effects of enchantment produced
by the evil eye of any envious person who might at that moment possibly
be looking upon them. Lord Bacon probably here alludes to St. Mark vii.
21, 22: “Out of the heart of men proceedeth—deceit, lasciviousness, an
evil eye.” Solomon also speaks of the evil eye, Prov. xxiii. 6, and
xxviii. 22.
[112] To be even with him.
[113] “There is no person a busybody, but what he is ill-natured too.”
This passage is from the Stichus of Plautus.
[114] Narses superseded Belisarius in the command of the armies of
Italy, by the orders of the Emperor Justinian. He defeated Totila, the
king of the Goths (who had taken Rome), in a decisive engagement, in
which the latter was slain. He governed Italy with consummate ability
for thirteen years, when he was ungratefully recalled by Justin the
Second, the successor of Justinian.
[115] Tamerlane, or Timour, was a native of Samarcand, of which
territory he was elected emperor. He overran Persia, Georgia,
Hindostan, and captured Bajazet, the valiant Sultan of the Turks, at
the battle of Angora, 1402, whom he is said to have inclosed in a
cage of iron. His conquests extended from the Irtish and Volga to the
Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to the Grecian Archipelago. While
preparing for the invasion of China, he died, in the 70th year of his
age, A. D. 1405. He was tall and corpulent in person, but was maimed in
one hand, and lame on the right side.
[116] Spartian Vit. Adrian, 15.
[117] Comes under the observation.
[118] “By a leap,” _i. e._ over the heads of others.
[119] “How vast _the evils_ we endure.”
[120] He probably alludes to the custom of the Athenians, who
frequently ostracized or banished by vote their public men, lest they
should become too powerful.
[121] From _in_ and _video_,—“to look upon;” with reference to the
so-called “evil eye” of the envious.
[122] “Envy keeps no holidays.”
[123] See St. Matthew xiii. 25.
[124] Beholden.
[125] He iniquitously attempted to obtain possession of the person of
Virginia, who was killed by her father Virginius, to prevent her from
falling a victim to his lust. This circumstance caused the fall of the
Decemviri at Rome, who had been employed in framing the code of laws
afterwards known as “The Laws of the Twelve Tables.” They narrowly
escaped being burned alive by the infuriated populace.
[126] “We are a sufficient theme for contemplation, the one for the
other.”—_Sen. Epist. Mor._ 1. 7. (A. L. l. iii. 6.) Pope seems,
notwithstanding this censure of Bacon, to have been of the same opinion
with Epicurus:—
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study for mankind is man.”
_Essay on Man_, Ep. ii. 1. 2.