effroyables dequoy nous l'entournons, qui nous font plus de peur qu'elle: une toute nouvelle forme de vivre; les cris des meres, des femmes, et des enfants: la visitation de personnes estonnees et transies; l'assistance d'un nombre de valets pasles et esplorez; une chambre sans jour; des cierges allumez; nostre chevet assiegé de medecins et de prescheurs; somme, tout horreur et tout effroy autour de nous; nous voyla desja ensepvelis et enterrez. Les enfants ont peur de leurs amis mesmes, quand ils les voyent masquez: aussi avons nous. Il fault oster le masque aussi bien des choses que des personnes : osté qu'il sera, nous ne trouverons au dessoubs que cette mesme mort qu'un valet ou simple chambriere passerent dernierement sans peur.'

1. 18. honour aspireth to it] The edition of 1612 adds here— 'delivery from ignominy chooseth it.' It is obvious to remark that, in the interval between the two editions, Bacon had incurred ignominy and had not chosen death. The reading of the earlier edition is kept and somewhat strengthened in the Latin translation of the later onemetus ignominiae eligit.

1. 19. fear pre-occupateth it] Conf. Seneca, Epist. xxiv: "His adjicias et illud . . . . . tantam hominum imprudentiam esse, imo dementiam, ut quidam timore mortis cogantur ad mortem'; and Epist. lxx: 'stultitia est timore mortis mori'; and Lucretius iii. 79-82:

'Et saepe usque adeo, mortis formidine, vitae
Percipit humanos odium lucisque videndae,
Ut sibi consciscant maerenti pectore letum,
Obliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem.'

1. 20. Otho] Vide Tacitus, Hist. ii. 49: 'Quidam militum juxta rogam (Othonis) interfecere se, non noxa neque ob metum, sed aemulatione decoris et caritate principis. Ac postea promisce Bedriaci Placentiae aliisque in castris celebratum id genus mortis'; and Suetonius, Otho, cap. xii: sub finem: 'Multi praesentium militum ..... statim nec procul a rogo vim suae vitae adtulerunt. Multi et absentium adcepto nuntio prae dolore armis inter se ad internecionem concurrerunt.'

P. 14, 1. 3. Seneca adds] These are not the words of Seneca. He quotes them, with approval, from an address, by amicus noster Stoicus, to a young man who had called a council of his friends to decide whether he should put himself to 'Cogita quamdiu jam idem facias. circulum curritur. Mori velle non miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.' 1. 11. Augustus Cæsar-compliment] This is no account of the scene as Suetonius describes it-'Omnibus deinde dimissis, dum

death. The exact words areCibus, somnus, libido: per hunc tantùm prudens, et fortis aut Epist. lxxvii.

advenientes ab urbe de Drusi filia aegra interrogat, repente in osculis Liviae et in hac voce defecit: Livia nostri conjugii memor vive, ac vale.' Augustus, cap. 99. There is something more than compliment here.

1. 12. Tiberius] 'Jam Tiberium corpus, jam vires, nondum dissimulatio deserebat.' Tac. Ann. vi. 50.

1. 14. Vespasian] Ac ne in metu quidem, et periculo mortis extremo, abstinuit jocis.... Prima quoque morbi adcessione, Ut, inquit, puto, Deus fio. Suetonius, Vespasian, cap. 23. 'Eteidŋ te ἐπίστευσεν ὅτι τελευτήσει, ἔφη, Θεὸς ἤδη γίνομαι. Dio Cassius 1xvi. 17. It does not appear that this jest was uttered when Vespasian was dying-Suetonius says expressly prima morbi adcessione.

1. 15. Galba] This is Plutarch's account. 'The traiterous souldiers flew upon him, and gave him many a wound: and Galba holding out his neck unto them, bad them strike hardily, if it were to do their country good.' North's trans. p. 1051. Tacitus and Suetonius speak less certainly. 'Extremam ejus vocem, ut cuique odium aut admiratio fuit, varie prodidere. Alii suppliciter interrogasse quid mali meruisset; paucos dies exsolvendo donativo deprecatum. Plures obtulisse ultro percussoribus jugulum: agerent ac ferirent, si ita e re publica videretur. Non interfuit occidentium quid diceret.' Tac. Hist. i. 41. 'Sunt qui tradant ad primum tumultum proclamasse eum, Quid agitis, commilitones? ego vester sum, et vos mei. Plures autem prodiderunt obtulisse ultro jugulum: et ut hoc agerent ac ferirent, quando ita videretur, hortatum.' Suet. Galba, cap. 20.

1. 16. Septimius Severus] Τό τε σύμπαν οὕτως ἐνεργὸς ἐγένετο, ὥστε καὶ ἀποψύχων ἀναφθέγξασθαι, "Αγετε, δότε εἴ τι πρᾶξαι ἔχομεν. Dio Cass. lxxvi. 17. The same might have been said with equal truth about Vespasian; of whom Dio Cassius records: τῶν δὲ ἰατρῶν ἐπιτιμώντων αὐτῷ ὅτι τῇ τε ἄλλῃ διαίτῃ ὁμοίᾳ νοσῶν ἔχρητο, καὶ πάντα τὰ προσήκοντα τῇ ἀρχῇ ἔπραττε, Τὸν αὐτοκράτορα δεῖ, ἔφη, ἑστῶτα ἀποθνήσκειν. Dio Cass. lxvi. 17.

1. 18. the Stoics bestowed &c.] This is certainly true about Seneca, who returns to the subject again and again with most minute and tedious iteration.

Conf. Montaigne-'À veoir les efforts que Seneque se donne pour se preparer contre la mort; à le veoir suer d'ahan pour se roider et pour s'asseurer, et se debattre si long temps en cette perche, j'eusse esbranslé sa reputation, s'il ne l'eust, en mourant, trez vaillamment maintenue.' Essays, bk. iii. chap. 12. And-' si nous avons sceu vivre constamment et tranquillement, nous sçaurons mourir de mesme. Ils s'en vanteront tant qu'il leur plaira, tota philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est; mais il m'est advis que c'est bien le bout, non pourtant le but, de la vie; c'est sa fin, son extremité, non pourtant son object.' Ibid. Bacon seems to have had this last passage from

с

Montaigne in his mind, and to have taken the quotation in it as further proof of the charge which he brings generally against the Stoics. There is a passage in the De Augmentis, not making any reference to the Stoics by name, but 'otherwise very like the Essay, and clearly founded upon the quotation in Montaigne.-' Mortis formidinem medendo augent. Etenim cum nihil aliud fere vitam humanam faciant quam mortis quandam praeparationem et disciplinam, quomodo fieri possit ut ille hostis mirum in modum non videatur terribilis, contra quem muniendi nullus sit finis?' Works i. 726. The proof is not happily chosen. The quotation is not from Seneca or from any Stoical writer, but from Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 30. It is intended to be a translation from the Phaedo, and its language, however doubtful in itself, does not, as the context shews, bear out the remarks which Montaigne makes upon it. Commentatio mortis is a preparation not for dying but for death, an anticipation and part-accomplishment of the change which will be complete at death. -the final freedom of the soul from the restraints and degradations imposed upon it by the body.

Nor are the Stoics, as a rule, open to the charge which Bacon brings against them in the Essay. When they argue against the fear of death, their drift is the same as Seneca's, but they handle their subject in a more manly and robust style, more briefly and very much more effectively.

1. 20. qui vitam &c.] The correct words are

'Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat
Naturae.'

Juv. Sat. x. 358.

1. 22. to a little infant] Conf. Quarles' Emblems, ii. 13: 'The slender debt to nature's quickly paid,

Discharged, perhaps, with greater ease than made.'

1. 23. He that dies &c.] Conf. 'Celuy qui meurt en la meslee, les armes à la main, il n'estudie pas lors la mort, il ne la sent, ny ne la considere; l'ardeur du combat l'emporte.' Montaigne, Essays, bk. iii. chap. 4.

1. 28. Nunc dimittis] Luke ii. 29.

P. 15, 1. 2. Extinctus &c.] Hor. Epist. bk. ii. 1. 14. So too Ovid, Amores, lib. i. xv. 39:

'Pascitur in vivis livor; post fata quiescit,

Cum suus ex merito quemque tuetur honos.'

III.

OF UNITY IN RELIGION.

RELIGION being the chief band of human society, it is/ a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any constant belief: for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure 10 no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bounds; and what the means.

The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals: yea, more than corruption of manners: for as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt 20 humour, so in the spiritual: so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity and therefore whensoever it

"Of all other affections it is the most importune and continual.' Essay 9.

'In the midst of them all the sun taketh his course, as being the greatest and most puissant of all the rest.' Pliny, Nat. Hist. bk. ii. chap. 6 (Holland's trans.).

For very few there be among them who understand and know the cause of this ceremony, which is of all other the smallest.' Plutarch, Morals, p. 1049 (Holland's trans.).

cometh to that pass that one saith, Ecce in Deserto, another saith, Ecce in penetralibus; that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, nolite exire,-go not out. The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, If a heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad? and certainly 10 it is little better when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion. It doth avert them from the church, and maketh them to sit down in the chair of the scorners.

a light thing to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library sets down this title of a book, The Morris-Dance of Heretics: for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture or cringe by themselves, which cannot but move 20 derision in worldlings and depraved politics, who are apt to contemn holy things.

As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings; it establisheth faith; it kindleth charity; the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing and reading of controversies into treaties of mortification and devotion.