ceipts serve God, feare God, love God, and God will blesse you, as either hearts can wish, or your your desire. friends This was his grave and godly advise, whose counsel I would have you all to follow. LORD BACON (A. D. 1561-1626.) FRANCIS BACON, who received the title of Baron Verulam in 1618, and that of Viscount St. Albans in 1621, but who is commonly called Lord Bacon, was born in London in 1561. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, who held the great seal of England during the first twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at Gray's Inn; was attached for a time to the English embassy in France; was admitted to the bar in 1582; entered Parliament two years later; became solicitor-general in 1607, attorney-general in 1613, lord-keeper (his father's office) in 1617, and lord chancellor in 1618. He was removed from the latter office, on a charge of receiving bribes, in 1621. His great work, on method in scientific investigation, the "Novum Organum, was published in 1620. His "Essays," which are the most popular of his writings, had first appeared more than twenty years previously. Macaulay's estimate of Bacon, in his famous essay reviewing Montagu's edition of Bacon's works, commends itself to most minds as just. Of his genius and his philosophy he says: "What we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect which, without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science- all the past, the present, and the future, all the errors of two thousand years, all the encouraging signs of the passing times, all the bright hopes of the coming age. Cowley, who was among the most ardent, and not among the least discerning followers of the new philosophy, has, in one of his finest poems, compared Bacon to Moses standing on Mount Pisgah. It is to Bacon, we think, as he appears in the first book of the Novum Organum,' that the comparison applies with peculiar felicity. There we see the great law-giver looking round from his lonely elevation on an infinite expanse; behind him a wilderness of dreary sands and bitter waters in which successive generations have sojourned, always moving, yet never advancing, reaping no harvest and building no abiding city; before him a goodly land, a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. While the multitude below saw only the flat, sterile desert in which they had so long wandered, bounded on every side by a near horizon, or diversified only by some deceitful mirage, he was gazing, from a far higher stand, on a far lovelier country following with his eye the long course of fertilizing rivers, through ample pastures, and under the bridges of great capitals measuring the distances of marts and havens, and portioning out all those wealthy regions from Dan to Beersheba." But on the character of Lord Bacon, the grave judgment pronounced by Macaulay is as follows: "The moral qualities of Bacon were not of a high order. We do not say that he was a bad man. He was not inhuman or tyrannical. He bore with meekness his high civil honors, and the far higher honors gained by his intellect. He was very seldom, if ever, provoked into treating any person with malignity and insolence. No man more readily held up the left cheek to those who had smitten the right. No man was more expert at the soft answer which turneth away wrath. He was never accused of intemperance in his pleasures. His even temper, his flowing courtesy, the general respectability of his demeanor, made a favorable impression on those who saw him in situations which do not severely try the principles. His faults were we write it with pain-coldness of heart and meanness of spirit. He seems to have been incapable of feeling strong affection, of facing great dangers, of making great sacrifices. His desires were set on things below." LORD BACON'S PRECEPTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE. (From "The Advancement of Learning," book viii.) The things necessary for the acquisition of fortune, are neither fewer nor less difficult nor lighter than those to obtain virtue; and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician, as to be truly moral. But the handling hereof concerns learning greatly, both in honour and substance. . . Not however that learning admires or esteems this architecture of fortune otherwise than as an inferior work. For no man's fortune can be an end worthy of the gift of being that has been given him by God; and often the worthiest men abandon their fortunes willingly, that they may have leisure for higher pursuits. But nevertheless, fortune as an instrument of virtue and merit deserves its own speculation and doctrine. To this doctrine are attached certain precepts, some summary, and some scattered or various; whereof the former relate to the just knowledge of ourselves and others. Let the first precept then (on which the knowledge of others turns) be set down as this: that we obtain (as far as we can) that window which Momus required; who seeing in the frame of man's heart such angles and recesses found fault that there was not a window to look into its mysterious and tortuous windings. This window we shall obtain by carefully procuring good information of the particular persons with whom we have to deal. . . . Next to the knowledge of others comes the knowledge of self. And here, we must use even greater care in gaining good and accurate information touching ourselves, than touching others; since the oracle "know thyself" is not only a rule of universal wisdom, but has a special place in politics. . . . Men ought therefore to take an accurate and impartial survey of their own abilities, virtues, and helps; and again, of their wants, inabilities, and impediments; making the account in such a manner that the former are always estimated rather more, and the latter rather less than they really are. From this examination they should frame the following considerations. First, to consider how their natural and moral constitution sort with the general state of the times; which if they find agreeable and consonant, then in all things to give themselves more scope and liberty, and indulge their dispositions; but if there be anything differing and discordant, then in the whole course of their life to be more close, retired, and reserved. . . . Secondly, to consider how their nature sorts with the professions and courses of life which are in use and repute, and whereof they have to make election; so that if their profession is not already determined, they may make choice of that which is most fit and agreeable to their disposition; but if they have already entered on a path of life for which they are not naturally suited, that they may leave it the first opportunity, and adopt a fresh profession. . Thirdly, to consider how they sort with their equals and rivals, whom they are like to have as competitors in their fortune; and to take that course of life wherein there is the greatest scarcity of distinguished men, and they themselves are likely to be most eminent. Fourthly, to consider their own nature and disposition in the choice of their friends and dependences. For different natures require different kinds of friends to some is suited such as are solemn and silent; to others such as are bold and arrogant, and so on. : Fifthly, to take especial heed how they guide themselves by examples, and not vainly to endeavour to frame themselves upon other men's models; as if what is open to others must needs be open to them, not at all reflecting how far the nature and character of their models may differ from their own. . But it is not enough for a man only to know himself; for he should consider also of the best way to set himself forth to advantage; to disclose and reveal himself; and lastly, to turn and shape himself according to occasion. Now for the first we see nothing more usual than for the |