LiHini l^^^H ^^^^1 1 \ ■ ■ ' ' ' IN ^M uAC > ^ ^^^1 W' ^ 1 ' ^^H 3 3'xi ' 'SBI .: il'"' {| n^v ' •- M . ! 5 ^ 1 1 rn^^^^^^^^^^^^Bi Class Book .fig GopyrightN^. %- CfiHmiGHT DffiPOSm •vii mt General Editor LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B Professor of English in Brown University ADDISON — The Sir Roger De Coverley Pavers — Abbott 35c ADDISON AND STEELE— SeZedions /rom The Tatler and The Spec tator — Abbott 35c ^neid of Virgil — Allinson ,40c BROWNING — Selected Poems — Reynolds 40c BUNYAN — The Pilgrim*s Progress— 'Latham 30c BURKE — Speech on Conciliation with America — Dennet 30c GARLYLE — Essay on Burns — Aiton 25c CHAUCER — Selections — Greenlatv 40c COLERIDGE — The Ancient Mariner \ ^ , ^>r LOWELL-F^ow Of Sir Launfal / ^ voI.-Moody 25c COOPER — The Last of the Mohicans — Lewis 40c COOPER— rfte Spy— Damon 40c DANA — Two Years Before the Mast — Westcott 45c DEFOE — Robinson Crusoe — BLa.sting3 40c Democracy Today — Gauss 40c DE OUINCEY— J'oan of Arc and Selections— Mooby 25c DE QUINCE Y—TTie Flight of a Tartar Tribe— French 25c DICKENS — A Christmas Carol, etc.— Broabvs , 35c DICKENS— A Tale of Two Cities— Baldwin 45c DICKENS — David Copperfield—BAi.DwiN 50c DRYDEN — Palamon and Arcite— Cook 25c EMERSON — Essays and Ad&^esses — Heydrick 35c English Poems — From Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Byron, MACAULAY, Arnold and others — SCUDDER 45c English Popular Ballads— Hart 40c Familiar Letters — Greenlaw 40c FRANKLIN — Autobiography — Griffin 35c GASKELL (Mrs.)— Cran/orcZ— Hancock 35c GEORGE ELIOT— 5iZas Afarner— Hancock 35c GEORGE ELIOT— r^e Mill on the Floss— Ward 45c GOLDSMITH— r/ie Vicar of Watefield— Morton 30c HAWTHORNE— T?ze House of the Seven Gables— Ubrrick 40c UAWTHORNlE^^Twice-Told Tales— HuRRiCK and Bruere 45c HUGHES — Tom Brown's School Days — De Mille 40c IRVING— Lifeof Goldsmith— Krafp 40c IRVING — The Sketch Boot— Krapp 40c IRVING — Tales of a Traveller — and parts of The Sketch Boot — Krapp 45c LAMB — Essays of Elia — Benedict „ 35c LONGFELLOW — Narrative Poems — Powell 40c LOWELL — Vision of Sir Launfal — See Coleridge. MACAULAY — Essays on Addison and Johnson — Newcombb 35c I MACAULAY — Essays on Clive and Hastings — Newcomer 35c MACAULAY — Goldsmith, Frederic The Great, Madame D'Arblay — New- comer 35c MACAULAY — Essays on Milton and Addison — Newcomer 35c MILTON — L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas — Neilson. . . . 30c MILTON — Paradise Lost, Books I and II — Farley 25c Old Testament Narratives — Rhodes 40c PALGRAVE — Golden Treasury — Newcomer 40c PARKMAN — The Oregon Trail — Macdonald 40c POE — Poems and Tales, Selected — Newcomer 35c POPE — Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII. XXIV— Cresst and Moody 25c READE— rAe Cloister and The Hearth— TtH MiLLE 50c RUSKIN — Sesame and Lilies — Linn 25c SCOTT — Ivanhoe — Simonds 45c SCOTT — Quentin Durward — Simonds 45c SCOTT — Lady of the Late — Moody 35c SCOTT — Lay of the Last Minstrel — Moody and Willard ^.,,. 25c SCOTT — Marmion — Moody and Willard 35c SHAKSPERE — The Neilson Edition — Edited by W. A. Neilson, each. 30c As You Lite i: Macbeth Hamlet Midsummer-Night's Dream Henry V Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar The Tempest Twelfth Night SHAKSPEKR^Merchant of Venice— Loyett 30c SOUTHEY— Li/e of Nelson— Westcott -, 40c STEVENSON — Inland Voyage and Travels with a Dontey — Leonard. 35c STEVENSON — Kidnapped — Leonard •. , 35c STEVENSON — Treasure Island — Broadus 30c TENNYSON— Selected Poems — Reynolds 40c TENNYSON — The Princess — Copeland 25c THOREAU—TFaWen— Bowman 45c THACKERAY— Henry Esmond— Phelps 50c THACKERAY— ^n^ZlsA HumoHsts—CvmjiFFE and Watt 30c Three American Poems — The Raven. Snow-Bound, Miles Standish — Greever 25c Types of the Short Story— Heydrick 40c Washington. Webster, Lincoln — Denney 30c SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO : 623 S. Wabash Ave. NEW YORK : 8 Eait 34th Street ESSAYS ENGLISH AND AMERICAN EDITED BY RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, L ELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK ^tx Copyright 1918 By Scott, Foresman and Company NOV -5 1918 ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS CHICAGO. U.S.A. Ci.A5(lfi459 k CONTENTS *^ • PAGE . Introduction o t; Bacon . ^ '. Of Truth . '^ 19 g^ \/0f Revenge ^ 22 ,T Of Wisdom for a Man's Self 24 Of Dispatch . . .25 v^ Of Friendship 2d Of Discourse 37 ^ >/0f Riches 39 ^^ Of Youth and Age 43 . Of Studies ^ 46 Characters Overs uRY A Wise Man 49 Joseph Hall V He IS A Happy Man > . . . . . • .50 John Earle A Young Man 54 A Good Old Man 55 A Tedious Man . . . . . . . .56 Butler A Romance-Writer ....... 57 Steele "^Mr. BiCKERSTAFF Visits A Friend V 59 The Art of Conferring Benefits . . . . . 65 /A Fine Gentleman . 68 Addison , ^Opera Lions .r .72 Westminster Abbey 76 ^True and False Humor v . 80 The Vision of Mirzah 84 Johnson The Revolutions of a Garret 90 The Multiplication of Books 95 Goldsmith A Service at St. Paul's . . . . . . .99 vThe Character of Beau Tibbs v( 102 Lamb ^/ A Chapter ON Ears . \ 110 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 118 Dream Children: A Reverie 124 •^ The Praise OF Chimney-Sweepers .' 129 / A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig 138 •Old China 146 i/TiiE Superannuated Man . . . . . . .153 Preface by a Friend of the Late Elia .... 162 CONTENTS PAGE Hazlitt On Going a Journey I6ii The Fight . >' 180 Sir Walter Scott 190 On the Conversation of Authors \ . . . . 198 Leigh Hunt On the Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving . > . . 209 Spring and Daisies 213 De Quincey On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth^ . . .221 Introduction to the World of Strife . . . . 227 Macaulay Milton and the Puritans / 242 Carlyle Shakespeare 257 Labor 273 Newman The Educated Man ^ 278 The Gentleman . 279 The Great Writer . 281 Ruskin St. Mark's Cathedral 283 The White-Thorn Blossom . 290 Thackeray Tunbridge Toys . 307 Arnold Sweetness and Light . . 316 Stevenson On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places . . .331 Walking Tours 340 Aes Triplex . . . 349 Washington Irving The Art of Bookmaking 360 Emerson Love 369 Heroism 382 Character 396 Curtis My Chateaux . 414 Holmes Boating 435 Thoreau Walking 443 INTRODUCTION The term essay is used loosely of many different kinds of literature, but almost always means a relatively short prose composition of an expository character. It may exist for some useful purpose, and resemble a brief treatise; or, at the opposite extreme, it may be wholly concerned with pleasurable talk about personal or even trivial things. Upon its subject- matter, then, there are practically no limits at all. For the purposes of knowledge, we are likely to value most highly the essay which is most impersonal or objective, — that is, which emphasizes the subject under consideration and not the one con- sidering it; for the purposes of pure literature, that essay is usually best which shows most of the writer^s personality. Essays may be conveniently classified in three groups: (1) the gnomic or aphoristic, (2) the personal or familiar, and (3) the didactic or critical. Those of the first type are chiefly made up of wise sayings or aphorisms. To see how an essaj'' of this character naturally comes into existence, one has only to look at the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. The greater portion of that book is made up of detached aphorisms, or small groups of them dealing with a single subject; but at times something like a connected essay is developed, as in the account of the Virtuous Woman in the last chapter. Essays of the second type are accounts of a subject from the dis- tinctive standpoint of the writer, — representing, it may be, his mere likes and dislikes, or some passing mood to which he wishes to give expression. As has already been suggested, this is the kind likely to be valued most highly from the literary point of view. Essays of the third type undertake to discuss a subject with critical judgment, representing not merely the 5 6 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN writer's taste but also facts which he can substantiate and theories which he can make appear reasonable. Of this type the higher class of book-review is a familiar example. The word essay properly means "an attempt/' and originally implied that the writer set out, with more or less modesty or informality, to open up a subject rather than to discuss it with formal completeness. It is from the French language that we get the w^ord, and it was a Frenchman who first applied it in this way. Of course there had been compositions which we might well call essays, in one sense or another, in ancient times ; Plutarch wrote them in Greek, and Cicero and Seneca in Latin. But the form was not a w^ell recognized one, except in con- nection with serious attempts to expound a subject for moral or philosophic purposes. It was Montaigne, a Frenchman of the sixteenth century, who first hit upon the idea of devoting himself to the writing of short compositions which, though they might deal with serious subjects, would be chiefly the result of his individual living, reading, and thinking; and he called them Essays. Though he had been a man of affairs, he retired from active life while still under forty, to live "in quiet and reading," and in 1580 published the first edition of the essays in which he had noted down the fruits of these quiet years. In his prefatory address "To the Reader" he gave warning that in making his book "I have proposed unto myself no other than a familiar and a private end: I have no respect or consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory." His principal subject, he went on to say, was himself. "I desire therein to be delineated in mine own genuine, simjDle, and ordinary fashion." "Myself am the groundwork of my book. It is then no ^reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vain a subject." This Avhimsical preface strikes at once the keynote of the familiar essay, which Mon- taigne thus invented and of which he is still regarded as the chief master. Montaigne's essays were soon translated into . English, and INTRODUCTION 7 found perhaps as many readers across the Channel as at home. But before the translation had been published, Francis Bacon took Montaigne's term "essay^' for the title of a little book of ten discourses on serious subjects, such as "Study/' "Expense/' "Honor and Reputation/' and the like, which he published in 1597. Thus the modern English essay was born. In 1612 a second edition raised the number of Bacon's essays to thirty-eight, and a third, in 1625, to fifty-eight. Most of these, however, are quite different from the Montaigne type; they belong to our first class, the aphoristic, and represent Bacon's desire to bring together a collection of sound maxims for those who wished to study the art of prudent and success- ful living. In a few cases, as in his essay on Gardens, one finds something of the other type, getting a glimpse of the more intimate personality of the writer ; but for the most part, in reading Bacon's essays, we remember the formal Elizabethan statesman, with starched ruff and serious face, teaching worldly wisdom in something like the manner of the ancient sages. The seventeenth century saw a number of other collections of essays, largely of the serious didactic sort. Sir William Cornwallis, a contemporary of Bacon's, published his in 1600 and later; Owen Felltham issued his in 1620, under the title Resolves; Abraham Cowley, one of the leading poets of the middle years of the century, included his in his collected works of 1668; Sir William Temple, a statesman of the court of Charles the Second, published his under the name Miscellanea in 1680. In this reign of Charles the Second an important new type of essay was developed by John Dryden, the leading man of letters of the age; namely, the type devoted to literary criticism. Most of Dry den's essays were much longer than those of the earlier period, and he wrote them originally as prefaces to his various poetical works, explaining and defending his literary principles and methods. The best of them, however, the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, was published separately, in the form of a dialogue, in which three gentlemen 8 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN were represented as discussing the liistory of the drama in friendly conversation. During the seventeenth century, again, Englishmen were fond of a kind of composition which may be viewed as a spe- cial form of the essay, — that is, the ^^charaeter." This type was not new; indeed it is usually traced to the invention of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (of the fourth century b.c.)> who portrayed typical faults and foibles in the form of descriptions of type-personages called "The Grumbler," "The Boastful Man,'' and the like. In 1608 Joseph Hall adopted this method in his Characters of Vices and Virtues; in 1614 a collection appeared written by Sir Thomas Over- bury and some of his friends; in 1628 John Earle pub- lished his Microcosmo graphic, or a Piece of the World Discovered in Essays and Characters; and in the latter part of the century Samuel Butler, best known as the author of the poem Hudihras, wrote a series of witty "characters" w^hich were not published till after his death. It is not pos- sible to say with exactness how much this peculiar form influenced the growth of the essay, but it is clear that the art of the "character" is not dissimilar, in its blend of humor and moralizing, to the spirit of the famous essays of Addison and Steele in the next century. It might also be noted that the formal epistle, which was a recognized literary form from the days of classical antiquity to the seventeenth century, had much in common with the essay. Not many English writers attained special distinction in this form, but the letters of James Howell, published in 1645-55 as Epistolce Ho-Elianoe, show how the purposes of the essay were served by the writing of letters intended for general reading as well as for the person originally addressed. In the eighteenth century the essay was in large degree the product of journalism. That is, the growth of the periodical press gave a new opportunity for the writer of brief exposi- tory discourses on almost any subject, and a new reading INTRODUCTION 9 public was being rapidly developed which could be reached in this way for various practical ends. Many of the new periodical essays were of a purely political or otherwise non- literary character; perhaps the first man to write them abun- dantly and successfully was Daniel Defoe, author of Rohinson Crusoe. But it was Steele and Addison who developed the form in a way suited not merely for temporary ends but for lasting literary significance, and their two chief periodicals, the Tatler and the Spectator (founded in 1709 and 1711 respec- tively), exerted the most important single influence on the essay which could easily be named. Richard Steele, in beginning the Tatler^ doubtless thought of the undertaking at first merely as a variety of the ordinary news- journal. These journals, in many cases, had come to be associated with particular London coffee-houses, social centers characteristic of the time, and in the first number of his new journal Steele made playful use of the fact in the announce- ment : "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of Whitens Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. James's Coffee-house; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment." Very soon, however, the elements of current news and of miscel- laneous reading-matter took a smaller and smaller place, and the real function of the Tatler was seen to be the publication of Steele's personal discussions of manners and morals, — such questions as family life, scolding, dueling, party feeling, fashionable hours, and the like, furnishing his most character- istic topics. Presently the editor's old friend Joseph Addison became his collaborator, and under his influence the more serious elements of the journal were still more emphasized. The tone of the Tatler essays was partly determined by the fact that they were represented as the work of a person by the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, a whimsical old gentleman who 10 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN went about London noting matters for comment. This, it will be noticed, brought about an important combination of moods or methods, — that of the serious didactic essay, made for a useful end, and that of the familiar essay, representing individual fancies and experiences. The second journal, the Spectator, from the first frankly devoted each number to a single essay, of a suitable length to be read at the breakfast- table; the writer was now supposed to be a gentleman called simply '^the Spectator," whose character Addison sketched in the first number. Other characters were also devised, as companions in his experiences, representing different types of English life; of these the most famous is Sir Roger de Coverley, who was gradually developed to the position of a character in a work of fiction. The papers of this sort show, therefore, how the essay sometimes tends to pass over into the field of the story. But the typical Spectator essay was even more didactic than in the case of the Tatler, dealing with problems of morals, manners, or literature, though familiar in tone and popular in appeal. "I shall be ambitious," wrote Addison, "to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." The journal ran to 555 numbers, of which Steele appears to have written some 236 and Addison 274, the remainder being con- tributed by ♦their friends. The essays were also bound up for sale in book form, and exerted an extraordinary influence on journalism and the art of the essay for a century following; they were widely imitated not only in England, but also in France, Germany, and even Russia. The most important successors of Addison and Steele in the periodical essay were Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, the leading prose writers of the later eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson issued a journal called The Rambler, from 1750 to 1752, made up almost wholly of his essays, and again, from 1758 to 1760, contributed a series called "The Idler" to a INTRODUCTION 11 newspaper. But although on the serious side of life he was as sound a critic as Addison, he was not possessed of the lightness of touch, the deftness of familiar style, which had so distinguished the Spectator; hence few modem readers care to penetrate the heaviness of his style — ^which some- times reminds one of the thick folds of an elephant's skin — to the substance of his essays. Goldsmith was much happier in following the Spectator tradition; indeed in the happy-go- lucky facility of both his life and his style he is more like Steele than Addison. He began his work in the periodical essay in 1759, in a little journal called The Bee, which lasted only eight weeks; but his chief reputation in the form depends on the series of papers called "The Citizen of the World," contributed to the Public Ledger in 1760. These were repre- sented as letters written by a Chinaman, named Lien Chi Altangi, temporarily residing in London, who undertook to describe the course of English life and manners to a friend at home. The idea was not a new one; Addison himself had used it in a well-known paper presenting the views of some '^Indian Kings" -who had visited England, and in 1757 Horace Walpole had published "A Letter from Xo Ho." But Gold- smith developed the idea fully, and in describing the experi- ences of the imagined writer from day to day in London he gave the familiar essay the most distinctive form it had acquired for many years. Sometimes, as in the two papers on "Beau Tibbs," Goldsmith's essay closely approaches the methods of fiction, as we have seen was true of some of Addison's and Steele's. In the early j^ears of the nineteenth century the essay was again strongly affected by certain developments in periodical literature. We must once more distinguish between the familiar type and the critical, for which new opportunities were fur- nished by two different kinds of journal, the magazine and the critical review. Blackwood^ s Magazine was founded in 1817, the London Magazine in 1820; and both of them, espe- 12 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN cially the latter, did much to develop the essay of the more informal kind. With the former is especially associated the work of John Wilson, whose pen-name was ^^Christopher North." Wilson wrote very abundantly, and through a long series of years, but rarely put his compositions into the brief and finished form characteristic of the true essay; one there- fore finds his most interesting work in the rambling talks of the Nodes Amhrosianoe (conversations called "Ambrosial Nights") rather than in pieces which can be selected for separate printing. The London Magazine had the honor of printing some of the best work of the essayists Hazlitt and De Quincey, and, above ail, the Elia Essays of Charles Lamb. There was also a group of periodicals edited by the brothers John and Leigh Hunt; and for these Leigh Hunt, as well as his friend Hazlitt and other essayists, wrote informal papers on both literature and life. The result was a larger body of writing in this form than had been seen before at one time, and its quality remains unexcelled. Charles Lamb, by common consent, is the chief master of the English familiar essay, and the most brilliant practitioner in that form since Montaigne. For this type, as we have seen, individual personality counts most, and Lamb chanced to have just the personality required for the finest results: he was whimsical in his tastes, sometimes fantastic in imagina- tion, yet always showed a sound judgment which penetrated his foibles with solid wisdom. He was a great reader, and had the art of pouring into his writing the flavor of the masters of English prose, without seeming to write in any other style than his own. Above all, he was like a child in the simple and curious interest which he showed in people and things. Hence whatever he wrote of became interesting when seen through his eyes, and, whether he makes the reader grow serious or smiling, his personality remains charmingly companionable. William Hazlitt, his contemporary in the same field, is like Lamb in the richness of his interest and INTRODUCTION 13 in the skill with which he brings together in the essay form the results of his reading and his personal experiences. His personality, however, is less agreeable; he was a somewhat fretful and wayward person, who, falling short of the sweet and sound character of Lamb, falls short correspondingly in his work. Moreover, he did not have the art of doing finely finished work in brief space, but let his pen run on with little sense of definite plan or end. Hence one of his essays is like a piece of tapestry of no definite pattern, which can therefore be cut into lengths of varying dimensions without injury; whereas one of Lamb's is more likely to resemble a tapestry complete in itself. Yet despite these things, Hazlitt is an essayist of great importance, and the substance of his writings is so full and varied that one may take them up day after day for many days, always certain of coming upon ideas fresh and worth while. The third of these magazine essayists of the period, Leigh Hunt, is like Lamb in his amia- bility, and like Hazlitt in the rambling and uncertain quality of his art. His essays are almost always agreeable, but rarely the very best of their kind. The other type of periodical, the critical, is represented chiefly by the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review^ founded respectively in 1802 and 1809. These journals devoted themselves chiefly to book notices, but they made of them much more than brief descriptions; those who wrote the reviews were encouraged to develop them into extended dis- cussions of whatever subject was suggested by the book in hand. The result was a new type of essay. Of the review editors the greatest was Francis Jeffrey, who was connected with the Edinburgh from its beginning until 1829; his own critical essays are among the most readable of the period. In 1825, however, he found a young contributor whose fame soon surpassed his own. This was Thomas Babington Macau- lay, who began his career with a review of a recently dis- covered work of Milton's, from which he branched out, 14 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN according to the accepted fashion, into a full essay on Milton and his times. When Jeffre^^ had read the manuscript, he is reported to have said, "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style !'' Henceforth Macau- lay became the Edinburgh's leading reviewer, and he remains the most widely read English essayist of the critical type. Almost all his essays, one will see by looking into a col- lective edition, were book reviews in their origin, but were developed into brilliant discussions of the principal subject, overflowing with the riches .of Macaulay^s mind ; for he was an enormous reader, and had the most retentive memory of any modern writer. He was particularly interested in the historj^ and the biography of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries — the period treated in his History of England; and it is in his essays which concern this same period that his most valuable work is found. Macaulay was a brilliant public speaker too, and combines something of the dogmatic clear- ness and force of an orator with the more usual style of the essayist. Thomas De Quincey was equally a magazinist and a reviewer ; he wrote wdth brilliancy of both his own experiences and literature, and so fluently and abundantly that he came to be called "the great contributor." His most famous personal essay, the "Confessions of an Opium-Eater,'' was rather too long to conform to the usual standards of the essay, and he later expanded it into an entire book. What has been said of Hazlitt, indeed, applies to De Quincey even more: he rarely thought of the essay form as setting definite bounds to his composition, but wrote on and on in colloquial fashion, never systematic, always fluent and clever. In consequence, one usually reads him in fragments^ as one drops into a room to listen to a brilliant conversationalist, knowing that it matters comparatively little when one comes in or goes out. Both Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, the leading prose writers of the mid-nineteenth century, are also better known INTRODUCTION 15 as miscellaneous writers than as essayists in the stricter sense. Carlyle wrote a number of essays of the book-review type, of which those on the poet Burns and on BoswelPs Life of Johnson are the chief; but his most characteristic work was done in books, like Sartor Resartus or Past and Present^ which must be read pretty thoroughly to be well understood, though many of their chapters may be viewed separately as essays on moral and social themes. Ruskin never contributed to the magazines, nor set out to write essays at all. He wrote lectures, treatises, and letters, always designed to enforce some truth respecting art, ethics, or society, or to awaken his readers to more vivid views of both the physical and spiritual world. There is not, then, a single distinctive essay among his many works; but numerous passages stand out in the reader^s memory with almost all the qualities of the essay, — such as the famous account of the two cathedrals, English and Vene- tian, included in this colltction, a passage which in its original setting is merely incidental to Ruskin's exposition of the qualities of various types of architecture. If we may call him an essayist, then of all our essayists he shows the most remarkable combination of the methods of poetry and of prose; for he is like the poets in loving beautiful words and images for their own sake, and in expressing his personal feel- ings with great intensity, while at the same time, like the prose writers, he has in view some practical and didactic end. The chief Victorian novelists also wrote essays by the way. Those of George Eliot are of the serious critical type, written for the great reviews. Those of Dickens and Thackeray are chiefly of the informal familiar type, often close to the border of fiction; Dickens's were written for his periodicals. House- hold Words and All the Year Bound, and Thackeray's for the Cornhill Magazine during the period of his editorship. In the latter part of the nineteenth century two English writers attained distinction in different forms of the essay, — Matthew Arnold in the critical type, and Robert Louis Steven- 16 ESSAYS—ENGLISH AND AMERICAN son in the familiar. Arnold, like Ruskin, was always disposed to teach, and in both literary and social criticism he exerted a strong influence on thoughtful men of his time. His Essays in Criticism (published in two collections, 1865 and 1888) are perhaps the finest specimens of the review essay in the modern period, while in the several chapters of the book called Culture and Anarchy he applies the essay method to the whole question of the art of living. Stevenson, on the other hand, viewed the essay like the romance, as a means of recreation, and revived the familiar form of it more suc- cessfully than anyone had done since the days of Lamb. His success, of course, was due to the same cause as Lamb's — the unmistakable charm of his personality, which made the mere writing down of himself a thing worth while. He began his work as an essayist while still an undergraduate at Edinburgh, and first attained distinction in the Travels with a Donkey^ diary-like sketches of a tour in the* south of France. Later essays appeared in various periodicals, and were collected in the volumes called Virginihus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of Men and Books j and Memories and Portraits (1881 to 1887). In America the writing of essays began when the Spectator type was still the chief model in men's minds, and Washington Irving followed this type in the essays of his Sketch-Book (published 1820) so agreeably that he found many readers in Great Britain as well as in his own land. Emerson, how- ever, was the earliest American essayist to attain a place of the first importance, and he remains our most distinguished name in the field of the essay. The most striking character- istic of his essays is their return to the method of the aphoristic form; in this sense they are more like Bacon's than those of any other modern writer. The reason for this is not that Emerson set out to write in the manner of Bacon, or of anyone else, but that his method of thought made him emphasize the separate sentence rather than the whole composition. He saw truths one at a time, and, instead of undertaking to argue INTRODUCTION 17 about them, or to build up a careful expository structure to make them clear, he simply stated them, like an oracle or a prophet, hoping that the truth in men^s minds would recognize them instinctively. He knew as well as any one that the result was a style which could not be thought a model of coherence. ^^Here I sit and read and write,'' he once said, I'Vith very little system, and as far as regards composition ■with the most fragmentary result; paragraphs incompressi- ;ble, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." In reading one of Emerson's essays, then, one must not expect to go from one definite point to another along a line of thought, but .rather to move around and around the principal theme, view- 'ing it from many rewarding points of view. Of the other New England writers of the same period, Henry David Thoreau was most like Emerson, and indeed viewed himself in some sense as a disciple of "the sage of Concord." Yet he lived very much his own life, and wrote like no one else. Thoreau wrote no separate essays of great distinction; but the chapters of his chief book, Walderij and of his other books dealing with the life of the spirit as he lived it out-of-doors, have some of the fine qualities of both the serious and the familiar essay. Contemporary with these two men of Concord were two at Cambridge, Lowell and Holmes. James Russell Lowell may be regarded as the chief of American critical essayists; he wrote on many subjects, but most intimately and effectively on literature, in the volumes called Among my Boohs (1870-76). Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote no essays in the stricter sense, but in his Autocrat papers he developed the method of the essay in the free manner of conversation, and sometimes introduced passages [which have the character of independent compositions, like that included in the present collection. These papers were first contributed to the Atlantic Monthly and then published in the volume called The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Tahle, a title which represents a personality — partly fictitious, partly 18 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN Holmes^s own — as original and charming as the Spectator himself. American journalism has not produced much important work in the field of the essay. Perhaps the most distinguished name in this connection is that of George William Curtis, a man of letters who combined something of the courtliness of the old school with a keen sense of the significant qualities of contemporary life. For many years his editorial contribu- tions to Harper's Weekly maintained a high standard of social criticism; while on the lighter side his sketches in Potiphar Papers and Pi'ue and I (1853 and 1856) hover charmingly on the border-line between the essay and fiction. Charles Dudley Warner in like manner blended the serious and the familiar with some distinction in such essays as his Backlog Studies (1872). We cannot undertake here to follow the essay into the work of our own contemporaries; yet one name may be added which links the nineteenth century witli . the twentieth — that of Mr. William Dean Howells. Best ! kno^vn as a novelist, Howells has also done admirable and i delightful work in the essay, both of the critical and the familiar sort. In general, when we consider this form with reference to the present time, we observe that, like all other literary types, it is not now maintained in any traditional form for its ow^n sake, but changes and reappears in ways characteristic of the demands of the new generation. The old-time formal essay, whether critical or personal, tends to disappear; on the other hand, the continued grow^th of journalism maintains various kinds of periodical essay, from the comparatively brief edi- torial to the more serious critical review. Indeed the essay form is so flexible, so adaptable to the spirit of different peri- ods, that there is no reason to expect any decline of its importance so long as literature exists at all. FRANCIS BACON [Francis Bacon was born in London in 1561. He looked forward I to a diplomatic career, and, after completing his formal edu- I cation at Cambridge, went to Paris in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet, ambassador to France. Returning to England, he was made Member of Parliament for Middlesex (1595), and thereafter ; rose rapidly in political life, becoming successively Attorney- ' General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam, and ' Viscount St. Albans. His political enemies having sought out : means to attack him, he was proved (and confessed)^ to have I received gifts from some whose suits were before him as Lord I Chancellor, and, being convicted of bribery, was sentenced to a fine of 40,000 pounds and deposed from office. This tragic end of his public career led Pope to describe Bacon in the famous but grossly exaggerated phrase, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of 1 mankind." Meantime Bacon had devoted much of his time to I literature and philosophy, and his monumental work, the Novum Organum (or "New Instrument" for the discovery of truth), first I published in Latin in 1620, is one of the landmarks in the history I of both philosophy and science. Bacon died in 1626. For his I essays, see the Introduction, p. 7.] OF TRUTHi What is truth P said jesting^ Pilate, and would not stsij for an answer. Certainly there be tliat^ delight in giddiness,'^ and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in I thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of (philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins,^ though there 1. This essay, which appeared first in the collection of 1625, !was given the place of honor in that volume, as Essay I. 2. What is truth? See John 18: 38. 3. jestlngr. Scoffing. 4. there "be tliat. There are those who. The reference is espe- cially to the "sect" of Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher who flourished 300 B.C., and who, since he denied the possibility of human knowl- edge, was called the founder of the skeptical school. 5. giddiness. Levity or inconstancy. 6. discoursing* . . . veins. Wits who still argue in the same way. 19 20 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it impos- eth^ upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools^ of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a"^stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies ; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie^s sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day- light, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle- lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one Avould,^ and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indispo- sition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers,^^ in great severity, called poesy vinum dcemonum^ because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teach eth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge 7. imposetli. Exerts a forcible influence. 8. One of the later schools. Lucian of Samosata, of the second century a.d. 9. as one would. At pleasure, unrestrained. 10. One of the fathers. St. Jerome had called the songs of poets "dsemonum cibus", "food of demons"; and St. Augustine referred to poetry as "vinum erroris", "the wine of sin." Bacon may have confused the two passages. baco:n » 21 of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and his sabbath w^ork, ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet^^ that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (sl hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene J, and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below: so^^ always that this prospect^^ be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the 1 truth of civil business : it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round^^ dealing is the honor of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like allay^^ in coin of gold and silver; which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth^^ it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There 11. The poet. Lucretius, who died 55 b.c. His "sect" was that of the Epicureans, whose doctrines he wrote his great poem I De Reritm Natiira to expound. The quotation is from Book ii, lines 1-13. 12. so. Provided. 13. prospect. Survey. 14. round. Fair. 15. allay. Alloy. 16. emliasetli it. Debases its value. f 22 ' ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne^ ^ saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgTace- and such an odious charge; saith he, If it he ivell weighed^ to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is hrave towards God and a coward toivards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot pos- sibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold that, when Christ cometh,^^ he shall not find faith upon the earth. OF REVENGE! Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.* For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law ; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Salomon,^ I am sure, saith. It is the glory of a man to pass hy an offense. That which is past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with them- selves, that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why 17. Montaigne. See the Introduction, page 6. The quotation is from the 18th essay of Montaigne's second Bool^; he derived it from Plutarch's Lives. 18. wlieu Clirist cometh., etc. See Luke 18: 8. Bacon interprets the word "faith" in the sense of "fidelity" rather than in the New Testament sense. 1. First published in 1625 as Essay IV. 2. Salomon. See Proverbs 19:11. BACON 23 should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before- hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it eometh: this is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable: You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our eyiemies; hut you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit of Job^ was in a better tune: Shall we (saith he) take good at God's hands y and not he content to take evil also? And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds gTeen, which other- wise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Caesar; for the death of Pertinax;* for the death of Henry the Third^ of France; and many more. But in private revenges it is not so. Nay rather, vindicative^ persons live the life of witches; who as they are mischievous, so end they infor-tunate. 3. spirit of Job. See Job 2:10. 4. Pertinax. A Roman emperor who was murdered by the Pretorian Guard in the year 193 a.d. ; the soldiers were disgraced and banished by Septimius Severus. 5. Henry tlie Third was assassinated in 1589 by a monk, Jacques Clement, who was himself slain on the spot by the king's guards. 6. vindicative. Vindictive. 24 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AINIERICAN OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF^ An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd^ thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste^ the public. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, specially to thy king and country. It is a poor center of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth;* for that only stands fast upon his own center, whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens move upon the center of another, which they benefit. The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a repub- lic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to^ the ends of his master or state. Therefore let princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except they mean their ser\dce should be made but the accessary. That which maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferred before the master's: but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias^ upon their bowl, of their own pettv^ ends and envies, 1. First published in 1612; called Essay XXIII in 1625. The title may be paraphrased, "Of Self-Seeking." 2. slirewd. Mischievous. 3. waste. Despoil. 4. rig'ht earth. Merely earthy. The phrase is explained by the following passage, based on the old Ptolemaic astronomy; the earth, the center of our universe, revolves only about its own axis, whereas the planets and the sun revolve around it. 5. eccentric to. Divergent from. 6. bias. In the game of bowls, a piece of lead inserted at one side of the bowl, deflecting it from the straight course. BACON 25 to the overthrow of their master's gi'eat and important afcairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme self -lovers, as^ they will set an house on fire, and^ it were but to roast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them and profit them- selves; and for either respect^ they will abandon the good of their affairs. Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles,^^ that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui amantes sine rivaU,^'^ are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of Fortune, whose wings they thought by their self -wisdom to have pinioned.^^ OF DISPATCH^ Affected dispatch^ is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians 7. as. That. 8. and. If. 9. respect. Consideration. 10. crocodiles. This belief was widespread, and gave rise to the still current expression, "crocodile tears." Cf. Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, III, i, 226. 11. sui amantes, etc. "Lovers of themselves without a rival," 12. pinioned. Clipped. 1. First published in 1612; Essay XXV in the final collection. Bacon uses the term "dispatch" with special reference to public business, and his maxims will still be found admirable for the consideration of debaters, chairmen, and those in similar positions. 2. affected dispatcli. Exaggerated haste. 26 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN call pre-digestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the times of sitting, but by tlio advancement of the business. And as in races it is not the large stride or high lift that makes the speed; so in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of it too mucli at once, procureth dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because^ they may seem men of dispatch. But it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off: and business so handled at several sittings or meetings goeth commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man* that had it for a by -word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion: Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner. On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For time is the measure of business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where there is small dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards^ have been noted to be of small dispatch : Mi venga la muerte de Spagna; Let my death come from Spain; for then it will be sure to be long in coming. Give good hearing to those that give the first information in business; and rather direct them in the beginning than interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches: for he that is put out of his own order will go forward and back- ward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory than he could have been if he had gone on in his own course. But sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more trouble- some than the actor. 3. "because. That. 4. a wise man. Sir Amyas Paulet. (See the biographical note on Bacon.) 5. Spaniards. Bacon refers to the same proverb in one of his letters, saying: "All which have made the delays of Spain to come into a byeword through the world." BACON 27 Iterations^ are commonly loss of time: but there is no such gain of time as to iterate often the state of the question; for it chase th away many a frivolous speech as it is coming for the Long and curious"^ speeches are as fit for dispatch, as a robe or mantle with a long train is for race. Prefaces, and passages,* and excusations,^ and other speeches of reference to the per- son, are gTeat wastes of time; and though they seem to pro- ceed of modesty, they are bravery.^ ^ Yet beware of being too material,^ ^ when there is any impediment or obstruction in men's wills; for preoccupation of mind ever requireth preface of speech; like a fomentation^^ ^q make the unguent enter. Above all things, order, and distribution, and singling out of parts, is the life of dispatch; so as the distribution be not too subtile : for he that doth not divide^ ^ will never enter well into business; and he that divideth too much will never come out of it clearly. To choose time is to save time; and an unsea- sonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business: the preparation, the debate or examination, and the perfection. Whereof, if you look for dispatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat^^ conceived in writing doth for the most part facilitate dispatch; for though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes are more { generative than dust. 6. Iterations. Repetitions. 7. curious. Over-detailed. 8. passag-es. Digressions. 9. excusations. Apologies. 10. 'bravery. Display. 11. being* too material. Sticking too closely to the mcin subject. 12. fomentation. A hot application to open the pores. 13. divide^ Classify, analyze. 14. somewliat. Sometning. 28 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN OF FRIENDSHIP! It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth than untruth together in a few words, than in that speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.^ For it is most true that a naturaP and secret hatred and aversation^ towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation:^ such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana;^ and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal,''' where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little. Magna civitaSj magna solitudo;^ because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most 1. First published in 1612; rewritten as Essay XXVII for the final collection. 2. Whosoever, etc. From the Politics of Aristotle, Book i. 3. natural. Untamed. 4. aversation. Aversion. 5. conversation. Way of life, intercourse. 6. Epimenides, etc. All these were men who loved solitude, and who were rumored to have intercourse with spiritual powers. Epimenides was a Cl-etan poet of the seventh century b.c, who, after a long- period of retirement, reappeared with the claim that he had slept for fifty years, and assumed the role of one inspired. Numa, the traditional first king of Rome, was reputed to seek in solitude the counsel of the nymph Egeria. Empedocles, a Sicilian philosopher of the fifth century b.c, boasted m^iraculous powers conferred on him by the gods. Apollonius, a Greek phi- losopher of the first century a.d., spent many years in retirement at a temple dedicated to ^^sculapius, and was also said to have conversed with the spirit of Achilles at his tomb. 7. tinkling" cymbal. Cf. i Corinthians 13:1. 8. Magrna civltas, etc. "A ^eat city, a great solitude." This saying is found in the Adagia of Erasmus, and in various classical writers. BACON 29 part, which is in less neighborhoods. Bu-t we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable soli- tude to want^ true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whoso- ever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kind do cause and induce. We know diseases of stop- pings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza^^ I to open the liver, steeP^ to open the spleen, flowers of sul- phur for the lungs, castoreum^^ for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of " civil shrift^ ^ or confession. I It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings I and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak : so great, as^* they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) thej raise some persons to be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to^^ inconvenience. The modern 9. want. Lack. 10. sarza. Sarsaparilla. 11. steel. A familiar remedy. Dorothy Osborne, a well-known letter-writer of the 17th century, wrote to Sir William Temple: "They do so frig-ht me with strange stories of what the spleen ^ will bring me to in time. . . . To prev-ent this, who would not take steel or anything. . . . I do not take the powder, as many , do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over nig-ht and ! drink the infusion next morning." 12. castoreniiL. An oil obtained from a gland of the beaver. 13. civil slixift. Opposed to a religious shrift, made only in the church. 14. as. That. 15. sorteth to. Results in. 30 ESSAYS— EIS^GLISH AND AMERICAN languages give unto such persons the name of favorites^ or privadoes ;^^' as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum;^'^ for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men. L. Sylla,^^ when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great,^^ Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With Julius Cassar, Decimus Brutus^^ had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testa- ment for heir in remainder after his nephew; and this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate 16. privadoes. Familiars (Spanish). 17. participes curarum. Sharers of cares. Bacon appears to have found this "Roman namis" in Dion Cassius's History of Rome. 18. Sylla. Sulla (138-78 e.g.) obtained command of Rome by leading its own army ag^ainst the state; his cause was espoused by Pompey. In what follows Bacon is inaccurate. According to Plutarch, "Pompey required the honor of a triumph, but Sylla denied it, alleging that none could enter in triumph into Rome but consuls or praetors. . . . All this blanked not Pompey, who told him frankly . . . how men did honor the rising not the IJJ setting of the sun." (Life of Poimpey, North's translation.) 19. great. Violently. 20. Caesar . . . Brutus. See the faithful picture of the rela- tions of these men given by Shakespeare in Jiilius Ccosar, based on Plutarch's Lives, BACON 31 till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero^s Philippics^ calleth him veneficay "witch"; as if he had enchanted Cassar. Augustus raised Agrippa^^ (though of mean birth) to that height, as, when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippay or take away his life; there was no third way^ he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus^^ j^^d ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Hcec pro amicitid nostra non occul- tavi;^^ and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the gTeat dearness of friend- ship between them two. The like or more was between Sep- timius Severus^^ and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate by these words : I love the man so welly as I wish he may over-live^^ me. Now if these? princes had been as a Trajan,^^ or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength 21. AgTippa. Son-in-iaw and minister of Augustus, and one of his two chief advisers; the other was Maecenas, a man of great wealth, best known as a patron of literature. The anecdote of Maecenas's advice respecting the marriage of the princess is from Dion Cassius. 22. Sejanus. A favorite adviser of the emperor Tiberius; put to death, however, on being discovered to have conspired against his master, in 31 a.d. 23. Hasc pro, etc. "On account of our friendship I have not con- cealed these things." (Tacitus, Annals, Book iv.) 24. Septimius Sevenis, An African soldier (146-211 a.d.), who won the Roman throne by overthrowing his rivals with the aid of his troops. Plautianus was a fellow-townsman, to whom he virtually made over the government; like Sejanus, however, the favorite conspired against the master, and was executed in 203. 25. over-live. Survive. 26. Trajan . . . Marcus Aurelius. Emperors distinguished for their moderation and kindliness. 32 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece,^^ except they might have a friend to make it entire: and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus^^ observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy ; namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on and saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish^^ his understanding. Surely Comineus might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose close- ness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras^^ is dark, but true; Cor ne edito, ^^Eat not the heart.'' Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want^^ friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable^^ (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a mean's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more ; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth of operation upon a man's mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to 27. half piece. An allusion to the practice of cutting silver pennies in two, when smaller coins were scarce. 28. Comineus. Philippe de Comines (1445-1509), confidential adviser of Cha.rles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, until, in 1472. he entered the service of Louis XI of France. (See Scott sQuenhn Durzvard for brilliant portraits of all three men.) Later he com- posed an important volume of Memoirs. 29. perish. Cause to decay. 30. Pytliag-oras. A Greek philosopher of the sixth century b.c. 31. want. Lack. 32. admirable. To be wondered at. BACON 33 attribute to their stone^^ for man's body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet, without praying in aid^^ of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any vio- lent impression: and even so is it of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the under- standing, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend ; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another: he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was w^eil said by Themistocles^^ to the king of Persia, that speech was like cloth of ArraSj^^ opened and put ahroad;^'^ ivherehy the imagery doth appear in figure ;^^ whereas in thoughts they lie hut as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship. in opening the understanding, restrained^^ only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best) ; 33. alchemists' stone. More often called "the philosopher's stone," a substance believed to have the power of transmuting base metals into gold, and also of prolonging life. 34. praying- in aid. Craving the assistance; a legal term. 35. Themistocles. An Athenian general (514-449 b.c), who, after being accused of treason by his own people, sought refuge with the Persian king Artaxerxes. 36. cloth of Arras. Art-tapestry (named from the town in France where the finest kinds were made). 37. put abroad. , Spread out or hung. 38. imag-ery ... in fig-ure. The design is fully revealed. 39. restrained. Restricted. 34 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not.^^ In a word, a man were better relate himself^^ to a statua^^ or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother/^ Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and f alleth withia vulgar^^ observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraelitus^^ saith well in one of his enigmas. Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is that the light that a man reeeiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which Cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such remedy against A^tterj of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first; the best pre- servative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a mediciiie, sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes unproper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the 40. stone wMcli itself cuts not. A proverbial expression drawn from Horace. 41. were Tbetter relate liimself. Would do better to converse. 42. statua. Statue (the I^atin form). Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar, II, li, 76 and III, ii, 192. 43. in smother. Stifled. 44. vulgfar. Common, g-eneral. 45. Heraclitiis. A Greek philosopher who flourished about 500 B.C. The v/ords attributed to him are found in Plutarch's Life of Romulus. Whatever they orig-inally meant, Bacon uses the phrase "dry lig-ht" (and it has ever since been used) to ipiean clear intellectual perception, free from the saturating moisture (see "infused and drenched," four lines further) of personal feeling. BACOX 35 admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. For, as S. James*^ saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass ^ and presently^'^ forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and-twenty letters;*^ or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest;^^ and such other fond^^ and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces, asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is well (that is to say, better perhaps than if he asked none at all) ; but he runneth two dangers. One, that he shall not be faithfully counseled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked^^ to some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy ; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought 46. S. James. See the Epistle of James, 1:23-24. 47. presently. Immediately, favor. Countenance. 48. four-and-twenty letters. To run through the alphabet was a form of the same process as that recommended in the adage, "When angry count a hundred." The letters were numbered as twenty-four because u and v were counted as but one letter; so also i an j. 49. musket . . . upon a rest. The musket was a heavy gun introduced into the Spanish army by the Duke of Alva; it was originally fired from a rest, which the "musketeer" stuck into the ground in front of him. 50. fond. Foolish. 51. 1>owed and crooked. Bent and perverted. 36 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unac- quainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate^^ will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead than settle and direct. After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment) followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast^^ and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients,^^ to say that a friend is another himself: for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing^ ^ of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath as it were two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices^^ of life are as it were granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol 52. estate. Condition. 53. cast. Consider, count up. 54. speech of tlie ancients. A widely quoted saying. Bacon probably drew it from Cicero's treatise On Friendship, 55. bestowing'. Giving- in marriage. 56. offices. Functions. BACON 37 them; a man camiot sometimes brook^^ to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man's person hath many proper^^ relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth^^ with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless: I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part: if he have not a friend, lie may quit the stage. OF DISCOURSE! Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought. Some have certain common-places and themes wherein they are good, and want^ variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridiculous. The honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to moderate^ and pass to somewhat else; for then a man leads the dance. It is good, in discourse, and speech of con- versation, to vary and intermingle speech of the present occa- sion with arguments; tales with reasons; asking of questions with telling of opinions; and jest with earnest: for it is a dull thing to tire, and, as we say now, to jade^ anything too far. As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it; namely, religion, matteis of state, great 57. brook. Endure^ 58. proper. Peculiar to himself. 59. sorteth.. Suits. 1. This essay first appeared in 1597; it was enlarged in 1612 and agrain in 1625, and was eventually numbered XXXII. 2. want. Lack. 3. moderate. Sum up the question (like a presiding officer). 4. jade. Exhaust. 38 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMEPJCAN persons, any man's present business of importance, and any <3ase that deservetli pity. Yet there be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant and to the quick: that is a vein which would be^ bridled : Parce, puer, stimulis, et fortius iitere loris.^ And generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory. He that questioneth much, shall learn much, and content much ; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh: for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge. But let his questions not be troublesome ; for that is fit for a poser. "^ And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak. Nay, if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, lei: him find means to take them off and to bring others on ; as musicians used to do with those that dance too long galliards.^ If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought another time to know that you know not. Speech of a man's self ought to be seldom, and well chosen. I knew one was wont to say in scorn. He must needs he a wise man, he speaks so much of himself: and there is but one case wherein a man may commend him- self with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself pretendeth.^ Speech of touch^^ towards others should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without 5. would be. Should be. (Cf. Hamlet, III, iii, 75.) 6^ Parce, puer, etc. "Boy, spare the spur, and hold the reins more tig"htiy." (Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii, 127.) 7. poser. Examiner; one who sets test questions. 8. fifalliardB. The g^alliard was a formal but spirited dance. 9 pretencletli. Lays claim. 10. Speech of toucli. Personalities. BACON 39 coming home to any man. I knew two noblemen, of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to sco:ff, but kept ever royal cheer^^ in his house: the other would ask of those that had been at the other's table, Tell truly , was there never a flout or dry-^ blow given f to which the guest would answer^ Such and such a thing passed. The lord would say, 1 thought he would mar a good dinner. Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words or in good order. A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocu- tion, shows slowness; and a good reply or second speech, without a good settled speech, shov/eth shallowness and weak- ness. As we see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course are yet nimblest in the turn; as it is betwixt the grey- hound and the hare. To use too many circumstances^^ ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt. OF RICHES^- I CANNOT call riches better than the baggage of virtue. The Roman word is better, impedimenta ; for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.^ So saith Salomon:^ Where much is, there are many to consume it; and what hath the owner but the sight of it ivith his eyes? The personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of 11. clieer. Hospitality. 12. dry. Hard. 13. circTunstances. Unessential details. 1. First published in 1612; enlarged in 1625 as Essay XXXIV, 2. conceit. Imagination. 3. saitli Salomon. See Ecclesiastes 5:11. 40 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AlVIERICAN them; or a power of dole and donative^ of them; or a fame of them; but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see what feigned prices are set upon little stones and rarities? and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because^ there might seem to be some use of great riches ? But then you will say, they may be of use to buy men out of dangers or trouble. As Salomon saith : Biclies are as a stronghold in the imagina- tion of the rich man.^ But this is excellently expressed, that it is in imagination, and not always in fact. For certainly great riches have sold more men than they have brought out. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou may est get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. Yet have no abstract nor friarly'' contempt of them. But distin- guish, as Cicero saith® well of Rabirius Posthumus : In studio rei ampliflcandce ap par eh at non avaritice prcsdam sed instru- Tnentum honitati quceri.^ Hearken also to Salomon, and beware of hasty gathering of riches: Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons.^^ The poets feign that when Plutus (which is Riches) is sent from Jupiter,^^ he limps and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto,^^ he runs and is swift of foot : meaning, that riches gotten by good means and just labor pace slowly; but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man. But it might be applied likewise 4. dole and donative. Dealing out (as in charity) and bestow- ing (as in bequests, endowments, etc). 5. because. So that. 6. Riches are, etc. Proverbs 10:15. 7. abstract nor friarly. As a matter of principle, or like the friars who abjure wealth. 8. Cicero saith. The speech in which the remark occurs was a defence of Posthumus, a famous money-lender accused of extor- tion, though the remark itself had reference to another man, Curius Rabirius. 9. In studio rei, etc. "In his desire for increased wealth he sought not, it was evident, the gratification of avarice but the means of doing good." 10. Qui festinat, etc. "He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." Proverbs 28:20. 11. Jupiter . . . Pluto. Rulers, respectively, of the celestial and the infernal regions. BACON 41 to Pluto, taking him for the devil. For when riches come from the devil (as by fraud and oppression and unjust means), they come upon speed.^^ The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul. Parsimony is one of the best, and yet is not innocent; for it withholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the gTOund is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow. And yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman in England, that had the greatest audits^ ^ of any man in my time; a great grazier, a gTeat sheep-master, a great timber man, a great collier, a great corn^^-master, a great lead-man, and so of iron, and a number of the like points of husbandry: so as the earth seemed a sea to him, in respect of the perpetual impor- tation. It was truly observed by one, that himself came very hardly^ ^ to a little riches, and very easily to great riches. For when a man's stock is come to that, that he can expect^ ^ the prime of markets, and overcome^"^ those bargains which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly.^^ The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and furthered by two things chiefly : by diligence, and by a good name for good and fair dealing. But the gains of bargains are of a more doubtful nature; when men shall wait upon others' necessity, broke^^ by servants and instruments to draw them on, put off others cunningly that would be better chapmen,2o and the like practices, which are crafty and 12. upon speed. With speed. 13. audits. Receipts from land. 14. corn. Grain. 15. Hardly. With difficulty. 16. expect. Await. 17. overcome. Get at, take advantage of. 18. mainly. Greatly. 19. broke. Do business. 20. cliapmea. Traders. 42 ESSAYS— ENGLISH ANB AMERICAN naught.^^ As for the chopping of bargains, when a man buys, not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grind- eth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury22 is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread in sudore vultus alieniy^^ and besides, doth plow upon Sundays. But yet, certain though it be, it hath flaws; for that the scriveners^^ and brokers do value^^ unsound men, to serve their own turn. The fortune in being the first in an invention, or in a privi- lege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches; as it was with the first sugar man^^ in the Canaries: there- for if a man can play the true logician, to have as well judgment as invention, he may do great matters; especially if the times be fit. He that resteth upon gains certain, shall hardly grow to great riches: and he that puts all upon adven- tures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is good therefore to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and coemption^^ of wares for re-sale, where they are not restrained, are great means to enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what things are like to come into request, and so store himself before- hand. Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best rise,^^ yet when they are gotten by flattery, feeding humors, and other servile conditions, they may be placed amongst the worst. As for fishing for testaments and executorships (as 21. naufiTlit. Evil (naugrhty). 22. Usury. The lending- of money for (not necessarily exces- sive) interest. 23. in sudore, etc. "In the sweat of another's brow." 24. scriveners. Brokers, who invested money on commission. 25. value. Represent as trustworthy. 26. first su^rar man. No particular person is referred to. Sugar cane was taken from Sicily to Madeira and the Canaries near the end of the 15th century, and for the following two centuries Europe drew her sugar supply chiefly from these islands. 27. coemption. Buying up the whole supply. 28. of tiie "beet rise. In the highest rank. BACON ^'d Tacitus saith^^ of Seneca, testamenta et orhos tanquam indagine eapi^^), it is yet worse; by how much men submit themselves to meaner persons than in service. Believe not much them that seem to despise riches: for they despise them that despair of them; and none worse, when they come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A gTeat state^^ left to an heir, is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better stabiished in years and judgment. Likewise glorious gifts and foundations^^ are like sacrifices without salt;^^ and but the painted sepulchers of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly. Therefore measure not thine advance- ments^'^ by quantity, but frame them by measure :^^ and defer not charities till death ; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly. he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own. OF YOUTH AND AGE^ A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of 29. Tacitus salth. Tacitus, one of the chief Roman historians, is quoting- Suillius, one of Seneca's enemies, who asks how the philosopher-statesman could have amassed 300,000,000 sesterces in four years by fair means. 30. testamenta, etc. "Wills and childless parents taken as with a net." {Annals of Tacitus, book xiii.) 31. state. Estate; compare "stablish," just below, for modem "establish." 32. fotLndations. Endowments. S3, sacrifices without salt. See Leviticus 2:13 for the Hebrew- custom referred to. Bacon means that the gifts left behind after the death of the giver will spoil for lack of his personal care. 34. advancements. Settlements of property. 35. measure. Just proportion. 1. First published in 1612; revised in 1625, as Essay XLIL 44 ESSAYS— EXGLIS:i AXD AMERICAN old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and as it were more divinely. Natures that have much heat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years: as it was with Julius Caesar, and Septimius Severus;^ of the latter of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus^ imo fiirorihus, •plenamJ' And yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list. But reposed^ natures may do well in youth; as it is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmus duke of Florence,^ Gaston de Foix,^ and others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition^ for busi- ness. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things, abuseth^ them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they €an hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, with- out consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate,^ which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, 2. Septimus Severus. See note above, page 31, under the essay on Friendship. 3. Juventutem, etc. "His youth was full not only of errors tut of frantic passiona" (From Spartianus's Life of Severus.) 4. reposed. Calm. 5. Cosm.us cluie of Plorence. Cosmos de Medici (1389-1464) became ruler of Florence at the age of seventeen. 6. Gaston de Poix. Bacon may refer to a Count de Foix of the 14th century, of whom the chroniclers relate that he won distinction both \n civil and military life at the age of fourteen, or to a nephew of Louis XII who was made commander-in-chief of an expedition in which he was slain at the age of twenty-three, In 1512. 7. com.position. Temperament. 8. abusetli. Deceives. 9. care not to innovate. Are not cauticuF about making innovations. BACON 45 will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period/® but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession/^ that young men may be learners, while men in age are actors ; and, lastly, good for extern accidents,^^ because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreamSj^'^> inf erreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth ; and age doth profit^^ rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections. There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was Hermo- genes^^ the rhetorician, whose books are exceediug subtile, who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech, which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully^^ saith of 10. period. Consummation. 11. snccessioxi. Provision for the future. 12. extern accidents. Chances coming from without (as from public opinion). 13. Yonr young' men, etc. See Joel 2:28. The "rabbin" is Abravanel, a Jewish scholar of the early 16th century. 14. profit. Improve, advance in. 15. Hermog'enes. A writer of the second century, who at fifteen was famous as a rhetorician, but lost his memory at twenty-five, and spent the remainder of a long" life uselessly. 16. Tnlly. Cicero. 46 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN Hortensius/^ Idem manehat, neque idem deeehat.^^ The third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are mag- nanimous^^ more than tract^^ of years can uphold ; as was Scipio Africanus,^^ of wliom Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis cedehant.^^ OF STUDIES^ Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men^ can execute and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affecta- tion; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor^ of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning^ by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men^ contemn studies; simple® men admire them ; and wise men use them : for they teach not their 17. Hortenslus. A Roman orator, at first a rival and later a tjolleague of Cicero. 18. Idem maneljat, etc. **He remained the same, when the same was no long-er becoming to him." 19. iiiag*nanlmoTis. High-spirited. 20. tract. Course. 21. Scipio Africantis. A great Roman general, who died 183 B.C.; he was elected consul before he had attained the legal age, and won his great victories in Africa in his early thirties, but his later years were shadowed by public ingratitude and sus- picion. Livy the historian treats of him in his Annals. 22. Ultima, etc. "The last fell short of the first." 1. First published in 1597; enlarged in 1612 and again In 1625; eventually called Essay L. 2. expert men,. Men trained by experience. 3. humor. Whim, eccentricity. 4. proyning'. Pruning, cultivation. 5. crafty m.en. Bacon probably means men skilled in handi- crafts and other matters not requiring book learning. 6. simple. Ignorant, foolish. BACON 47 own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for gTanted; nor to find talk and dis- course; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiousl}^;^ and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important argu- ments,^ and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are j like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit;^ and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to ; seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty ;^^ the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy^^ deep ; moraP^ grave ; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Aheiint studia in mores,^^ ^^Jj there is no stond^^ or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out^^ by fit studies : like as diseases I of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins ;-^ shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathe- matics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never 7. curiously. Attentively. 8. arg^insiLts. Portions of the subject-matter. 9. present wit. A ready mind. 10. witty. Quick of fancy. 11. natural pliilosopliy. Physical science. 12. moral. Understand "philosophy." 13. Abeunt, etc. "Studies have an influence upon the manners of those that are conversant in them." (This is Bacon's own paraphrase, in his Advancement of Learning; the original is from Ovid's Heroides, Book xv.) 14. stoud. Hindrance, stoppage. 15. wroug-lit out. Removed. 18. reins. Kidneys. 48 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to dis- tinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen ;^^ for they are cymini sectores:^^ if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. 17. the sclioolmeii. Medieval philosophers (of the "scholastic" system). 18. cymlnl sectores. Splitters of cummin-seed, "hair-splitters." CHARACTERS [Sir Thomas Overbury was born in 1581, of an aristocratic family; le did distinguished work at Oxford University, and later won a I position at the court of James I, where he fostered literature and ;he arts. Becoming- involved in a court scandal, he was impris- oned in the Tower and secretly poisoned (in 1613) by agents of (Lady Essex. For his Characters, see the Introduction, page 8. Joseph Hall was born in 1574, and educated at Cambridge. He vvon early success as poet and satirist, but after taking holy orders devoted himself largely to controversial writing on ecclesi- a.stical matters; he was mad© Bishop of Exeter in 1627 and of Norwich in 1641. Under the Commonwealth he was removed from office and imprisoned; he died in private life, in 1656. John Earle was born about 1601, and educated at Oxford. While still a young man he attained literary fame through his collection of Characters called Microcosmographie (1628), which ran through many editions. He became tutor to Prince Charles (afterward Charles II), and during the Commonwealth followed the royal 1 house to France; after the Restoration he was made Bishop, first jof "Worcester, then of Salisbury, dying in 1665. He was called j "one of those men who could not have an enemy." Samuel Butler was bom. in 1612, the son of a Worcestershire [farmer, and had to make his own way in the world. Eventually I he served as clerk to several justices of the peace and as secre- j tary to country gentlemen. He engaged in some pamphleteering j on the side of the Royalists, and after the Restoration attained I fame through the publication of Hudibras, a mock-heroic poem in I ridicule of the Puritans. Admired but not greatly rewarded by ! the court, he died in poverty in 1680, Butler's Characters, to- , gether with many of his other writings, remained in manuscript I until the middle of the eighteenth century.] I SIR THOMAS OVERBURY A WISE MAN IS THE truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reason- able creature. His disposition^ alters; he alters not. He hides 1. disposition. Condition. 49 50 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN himself with the attire of the vulgar ;2 and in indifferent things is content to be governed by them. He looks according to nature; so goes his behavior. His mind enjoys a continual smoothness; so cometh it that his consideration is always at home. He endures the faults of all men silently, except his friends, and to them he is the mirror of their actions; by this means, his peace cometh not from fortune, but himself. He is cunning in men, not to surprise, but keep his own,^ and beats oE their ill-affected humors no otherwise than if they were flies. He chooseth not friends by the Subsidy-book,* and is not luxurious^ after acquaintance. He maintains tho strength of his body, not by delicates, but temperance; and his mind, by giving it pre-eminence over his body. He under- stands things, not by their form, but qualities; and his com- parisons intend^ not to excuse but to provoke him higher. He is not subject to casualties, for fortune hath nothing to do with the mind, except those drowned in the body; but he hath divided his soul from the case of his soul, whose weak- ness he assists no otherwise than commiseratively — not that it is his, but that it is. He is thus, and will be thus; and lives subject neither to time nor his frailties, the servant of virtue, and by virtue the friend of the highest. JOSEPH HALL HE IS A HAPPY MAN THAT hath learned to read himself more than all books, and hath so taken out this lesson that he can never forget it; 2. vulfirar. Common people. 3. le CTuminsT in men, etc. Knows how to deal with men, not deceitfully but for self-protection. 4. SuTssidy-book. A book in which were recorded the names of those liable to pay certain taxes; hence a list of people of means. 5. luznrloas. Passionately desirous. 6. Ms eomparlsons Intend, etc. That is, when he compares his own worlc with that of others he does it not to apolog-ize but to improve. HALL 51 that knows the world, and cares not for it; that, after many traverses of thoughts/ is grown to know what he may trust to, and stands now equally armed for all events; that hath ^ot the mastery at home, so as he can cross his will without a mutiny, and so please it that he makes it not a wanton; .that in earthly things wishes no more than nature, in spiritual is ever graciously ambitious;^ that for his condition stands ;on his own feet, not needing to lean upon the great, and can 'so frame his thoughts to his estate that when he hath least he cannot want, because he is as free from desire as super- fluity; that hath seasonably broken the headstrong restiness^ I of prosperity, and can now manage it at pleasure; upon whom all smaller crosses light as hailstones upon a roof; and for the greater calamities, he can take them as tributes of life and tokens of love ; and if his ship be tossed, yet he is sure his anchor is fast. If all the world were his, he could be no I other than he is, no whit gladder of himself, no whit higher I in his carriage/^ because he knows contentment lies not in the things he hath, but in the mind that values them. The powers of his resolution can either multiply or subtract* at pleasure. He can make his cottage a manor or a palace when be lists, and his home-close^ ^ a large dominion, his stained cloth arras,^^ his earth^^ plate, and can see state in the attend- ance of one servant, as one that hath learned a man's greatness 'or baseness is in himself; and in this he may even contest jwith the proud, that he thinks his own the best. Or if he must be outwardly great, he can but turn the glass, and make his stately maiior a low and straight^* cottage, and in all his 7. traverses of tlioiig'lits. Thoughts on unhappy fortunes. 8. gTaciously ambitioiis. Ambitious to attain divine grace. 9. restiness. Stubbornness (of a horse). 10. carrlag"e. Mode of carrying (deporting) himself. 11. liome-close. House-yard. 12. arras. Wall-tapestry. 13. earth. Earthenware; that is, he can make his coarse dishes into gold plate. 14. straig-lit. Narrow; now spelled "strait." 52 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN costly furniture he can see not richness but use; he can see dross in the best metal and earth through the best clothes, and in all his troupe^ ^ he can see himself his own servant. He lives quietly at home out of the noise of the world, and loves to enjoy himself always, and sometimes his friend, and hath as full scope to his thought as to his eyes. He walks ever even in the midway betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear nothing but God, to hope for nothing but that which he must have. He hath a wise and virtuous mind in a serviceable body, which that better part affects as a present servant and a future companion, so cherishing his flesh as one that would scorn to be all flesh. He hath no enemies; not for that^^ all love him, but because he knows to ^"^ make a gain of malice. He is not so engaged to any earthly thing that they two cannot part on even terms; there is neither laughter in their meeting, nor in their shaking of hands tears. He keeps ever the best company, the God of Spirits and the spirits of that God, whom he entertains continually in an awful familiarity, not being hindered either with too much light or with none at all. His conscience and his hand are friends, and (what devil soever tempt him) will not fall out. That divine part goes ever uprightly and freely, not stooping under the burden of a willing sin, not fettered with the gyves of unjust scruples. He would not, if he could, run away from himself or from God; not caring from whom he lies hid, so he may look these two in the face. Censures and applauses are passengers to him, not guests; his ear is their thoroughfare, not their harbor; he hath learned to fetch both his counsel and his' sentence from his own breast. He doth not lay weight upon his own shoul- ders, as one that loves to torment himself with the honor of much employment; but as he makes work his game, so doth he not list to make himself work. His strife is ever to redeem 15. troupe. Household retinue. 16. for tliat. Because. 17. knows to. Knows how to. HALL 53 and not to spend time. It is his trade to do good, and to think of it his recreation. He hath hands enough for himself and others, which are ever stretched forth for beneficence, not for need. He walks cheerfully in the way that God hath chalked, and never wishes it more wide or more smooth. Those very temptations whereby he is foiled^^ strengthen him; he comes forth crowned and triumphing out of the spiritual battles, and those scars that he hath make him beautiful. His soul is every day dilated to receive that God, in whom he is ; and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for His own sake. His eyes stick so fast in heaven that no. earthly object can remove them; yea, his whole self is there before his time, and sees with Stephen,^® and hears with Paul,^^ and enjoys with Lazarus,^^ the glory that he shall have, and takes possession beforehand of his room amongst the saints ; and these heavenly contentments have so taken him up that now he looks down displeasedly upon the earth as the region of his sorrow and banishment, yet joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evils. He holds it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so well acquainted with his last guest that he fears no unkindness from him: neither makes he any other of dying than of walking home when he is abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter; and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him; his betters, the angels, love to observe him; God Himself takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him. 18. foiled. Partly thrown (in wrestling). 19. Stephen. See Acts 7:55-56. 20. PauL See Acts 9:3-4. 21. ibazams. See Luke 16:23. 54 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN JOHN EARLE A YOUNG MAN He is now out of nature's protection, though not yet able to guide himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, from which the weakness of his childhood preserved him; and now his strength exposes him. He is, indeed, just of age to be miserable, yet in his own conceit^^ first begins to be happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his misery not felt is less. He sees yet but the outside of the world and men, and conceives them according to their appearing glis- ter, ^^ and out of this ignorance believes them. He pursues all vanities for happiness, and enjoys them best in this fancy. His reason serves not to curb but understand his appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with a moro eager earnestness. Himself is his own temptation, and needs not Satan, and the world will come hereafter. He leaves repentance for gray hairs, and performs it in being covetous. He is mingled with the vices of the age as the fashion and custom, with which he longs to be acquainted, and sins to better his understanding. He conceives his youth as the season of his lust, and the hour wherein he ought to be bad; and because he would not lose his time, spends it. He dis- tastes religion as a sad thing, and is six years elder for a thought of heaven. He scorns and fears, and yet hopes for old age, but dare not imagine it with wrinkles. He loves and hates with the same inflammation, and when the heat is over is cool alike to friends and enemies. His friendship is seldom so steadfast, but that lust, drink, or anger may over- turn it. He offers you his blood today in kindness, and is ready to take yours tomorrow. He does seldom anything which he wishes not to do again, and is only wise after a mis- 22. conceit. Imagination. 23. conceives . . . gflister. Judges them according to their apparent brilliance. EARLE 55 fortune. He suffers much for his knowledge, and a great deal of folly it is makes him a v/ise man. He is free from many vices, by being not grown to the performance, and is only more virtuous out of weakness. Every action is his danger, and every man his ambush. He is a ship without pilot or tackling, and only good fortune may steer him. If he scape this age, he has scaped a tempest, and may live to be a man. A GOOD OLD MAN IS THE best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire. One whom time hath been thus long a working, and like winter fruit ripened when others are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons of the world as days, and learnt the best thing in it, the vanity of it. He looks over his I former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to begin again. His lust was long broken before his body, yet he is glad this temptation is broke too, and that he is fortified from it by this weakness. The next door of death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as his turn in nature; and fears more his recoiling back to childishness than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. His very presence and face puts vice out of countenance, and makes it an indecorum in a vicious man. He practices his experience on ; youth without the harshness of reproof, and in his counsel j is good company. He has some old stories still of his own seeing to confirm what he says, and makes them better in the telling; yet is not troublesome neither with the same tale again, but remembers with them how oft he has told them. His old sayings and morals seem proper to his beard; and the poetry of Cato^* does well out of his mouth, and he speaks it as if he were the author. He is not apt to put the 24. Cata, The Roman statesman of the second century b.c, who v*ras hig-hiy reputed for his old-fashioned and uncompromising virtue. He was not a poet, but in later ages various ethical maxims, in verse form, were attributed to him. |l 56 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN boy on a younger man,25 nor tlie fool on a boy, but can distinguish gravity from a sour look; and the less testy he is, the more regarded. You must pardon him if he like his own times better than these, because those things are follies to him now that were wisdom then: yet he makes us of that opinion too when we see him, and conjecture those times by so good a relic. He is a man capable of a dearness with the youngest men, yet he not youthfuller for them, but they older for him; and no man credits more his acquaint- ance. He goes away at last too soon whensoever, with all men^s sorrow but his own; and his memory is fresh, when it is twice as old. A TEDIOUS MAN TALKS to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would never come at it willingly. His discourse is like the road- miles in the north,^^ the filthier and dirtier the longer; and he delights to dwell the longer upon them to make good the old proverb that says they are good for the dweller, but ill for the traveler. He sets a tale upon the rack, and stretches, it until it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates^^ says art is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of dullness that runs through all he says or does; for nothing can be tedious that is not dull and insipid. Digressions and repetitions, like bag and baggage, retard his march and put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches to a business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discover- ing what his design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty deep road, that moves slowly; and, when he is at a stop, 25. put . . . young'ep man. Take a young-er man for a boy. 26. road-miles in the north,. The Scottish mile was formerly about an eig-hth longer than the Eng-lish. Cf. Burns In Tarn O'Shanter: "We think na on the lang Scots miles." 27. Hippocrates. An ancient Greek physician. His famous aphorism was handed down later in Seneca's Lratin version: "Vita brevis, ars longa," which Ohaucer paraphrased in the line, "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne." J BUTLER 57 goes back again, and loses more time in picking of his way khan in going it. How troublesome and uneasy soever he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not at all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more delightful than finer things abroad; and he that is used to a thing and knows no better believes that other men, to whom it appears otherwise, have the same sense of it that he has; as melancholy^^ persons that fancy themselves to be glass believe that all others think them so too; and there- fore that which is tedious to others is not so to him, other- wise he would avoid it; for it does not so often proceed from a natural defect as affectation and desire to give others that pleasure which they find themselves, though it always falls out quite contrary. He that converses with him is like one that travels with a companion that rides a lame jade; he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for though he understands long before what he would be at better than he does himself, he must have patience and stay for him, until, with much ado to little purpose, he at length comes to him; for he believes himself injured if he should abate a jot of his own diversion. SAMUEL BUTLER A ROMAXCE WRITER PULLS down old histories to build them up finer again, after a new model of his own designing. He takes away all the lights of truth in history to make it the fitter tutoress of life; for Truth herself has little or nothing to do in the affairs of the world, although all matters of the greatest weight and moment are pretended and done in her name, like a weak princess that has only the title, and falsehood all the power. He observes one very fit decorum in dating his histories in the days of old and putting all his own inventions upon ancient times; for when the world was younger, it might 28. melanclicly. Mad. 58 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN perhaps love and fight and do generous things at the rate he describes them; but since it is grown old, ail these heroic feats are laid by and utterly given over, nor ever like to come in fashion again; and therefore all his images of those virtues signify no more than the statues upon dead men's tombs, that will never make them live again. He is like one of Homer's gods, that sets men together by the ears and fetches them off again how he pleases; brings armies into the field like Janello's leaden soldiers; leads up both sides himself, and gives the victory to which he pleases, according as he fijids it fit the design of his story; makes love and lovers too, brings them acquainted, and appoints meetings when and where he pleases, and at the same time I betrays them in the height of all their felicity to miserable captivity, or some other horrid calamity; for which he makes them rail at the gods and curse their own innocent stars when he onty has done them all the injury ; makes men villains, compels them to act all barbarous inhumanities by his own directions, and after inflicts the cruelest punishments upon them for it . He makes all his knights fight in fortifica- tions, and storm one another's armor before they can come to encounter body for body, and always matches them so equally one with another that it is a whole page before they can guess which is likely to have the better; and he that has it is so mangled that it had been better for them both to have parted fair at first; but when they encounter with those that are no knights, though ever so well armed and mounted, ten to one goes for nothing. As for the ladies, they are every one the most beautiful in the whole world, and that's the reason why no one of them, nor all together with all their charms, have power to tempt away any knight from another. He differs from a just historian as a joiner does from a carpenter; the one does things plainly and substantially for use, and the other carves and polishes merely for show and ornament. I RICHARD STEELE 1 [Richard Steele was born in 1672. He entered Oxford University, I but joined the axmy before he had taken a degree. In 1701 he began to write for the stage ; later he was appointed state gazetteer, ind engaged in political pamphleteering. He founded The Tatler in 1709 (see Introduction, page 9), and later joined Addison in The Spectator and various subsequent journals. After a stormy career as Member of Parliament, he was knighted by the King. [n 1724 he retired to an estate in Wales, and died there in 1729. Though he fell short of the distinction which marked the literary work and reputation of Addison, Steele's character is as amiable sind rather more vivacious than that of his friend.] MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND^ [Tatler No. 95. Thursday, November 17, 1709.] There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with Lheir own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances 3f their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in . the opinion j)f others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a '^etreat from its inquietudes. ^ I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, \mho was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last veek with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning >ent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it 1. This essay is one of the most characteristic of those which represent the effort of Steele and Addison to attract their readers ' -o the values of simple domestic morality and happiness. On 'Mr. Bickerstaff," see the Introduction, page 9. 59 60 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is, to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbor's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old compan- ions, I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary2 is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta^ reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages* which happened long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand : "Well, my good friend," says he, "I am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you today again. Do not you think the good 2. Mrs. Mary. Pronounced *'Mistress." The term "Miss" was at this period reserved for little girls. 3. Teraminta. The fanciful name supposed to be applied to the young lady in question according to the practice of conven' tional love poetry. 4. passag'es. Incidents. STEELE 61 woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her from the play-house, to find out who she was, for me'^^ i perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, said I, ^^She is not indeed quite that creature she was when she returned me the letter I carried from you; and told me ^she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me, but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in.' You may remember, I thought her in earnest; and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be forever fifteen." "Fifteen 1" replied my good friend. "Ah! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most \ beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sin- cerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot with any sort of moderation think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment ] of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my for- tune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it ; there is no decay in any feature, which I can- not trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some 1 anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus at the B same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion com- 62 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN monly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, *my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling our boy stories of the battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby,^ and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melan- choly." He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her coun- tenance told us she had been searching the closet for some- thing very good, to treat such an old friend as I was. Her husband^s eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady, observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheer- fulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, "Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you; I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know, he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintance and school-fellows are here, young fellows 5. her TbaTby. That is, her doll; the gossiping is the christening* STEELE 63 Avith fair full-bottomed periwigs.^ I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted."^ My friend^ who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor^ made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep *up the good humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry me thither tomorrow night, and lead me into the front box."* This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were mothers to the present, and shone in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her I was glad she had trans- ferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half -a-y ear of being a toast. ^ We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with , the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little god- ^son to give me a point of war.^® His mother, between laugh- 1 ing and childing, would have put him out of the room ; but I would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts,^^ and was a great master of all the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in ^^sop's Fables; but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for 1 which reason I found he had very much turned his studies, 6. fuU-'bottomed periwig's. Larg-e curled wigs, reaching: to the shoulders, such as are familiar in. the pictures of Addison and Steele. 7. open-breasted. That is, with the then fashionable long waistcoat unfastened over the chest, "out of an affectation of youth," as Steele put it in another essay (Tatler No. 246). 8. front box. At this period the gentlemen occupied the side Doxes at the theater, the ladies those in front of the stage. 9. toast. A belle, in whose honor toasts would be drunk at • parties. 10. point of war. A short roll on the drum, used as a sig-naL 11. parts. Abilities. 64 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures of Don Belianis^2 Qf Greece, Guy of Warwick,^-^ the Seven Champions,^* and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- ness of* his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks^*"^ which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift,^® find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southamp- ton,^^ and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly molded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. ^^Betty," said she, "deals chiefly in fairies and sprites, and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed." I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, con- sidering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect that whenever I go off I shall leave no 12. Don Belianis. The hero of an extravag^ant Spanish romance by Fernandez. 13. Guy of Warwick. A legendary English hero, whose adven- tures were narrated in many popular romances. 14. tlie Seven Champions. National heroes (St. George, St Patrick, St. Andrew, St. David, St. Denis, St. Anthony, and St. James) whose stories were related in a long romance called The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, by Richard Johnson, 1596-1616. 15. made remarks. Observed matters. 16. Jolin Hickertlirlft. A mythical boy (called also Tom Hickathrift), reputed to have had extraordinary strength, where- with he slew giants, played merry pranks, etc. 17. Bevis of Southampton. The hero of another widely popu- lar romance of the sixteenth century. STEELE 65 traces behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my family ; that is to say, to my maid, 'my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me. THE ART OF CONFERRING BENEFITS [Spectator^ No. 248. Friday^ December 14, 1711.] There are none who dese/ve superiority over others in the esteem of mankind, who do not make it their endeavor to be beneficial to society, and who, upon all occasions which their circumstances of life can administer, do not take a certain unfeigned pleasure in conferring benefits of one kind or other. Those whose great talents and high birth have placed them in conspicuous stations of life are indispensably obliged to exert some noble inclinations for the service of the world, or else such advantages become misfortunes, and shade and privacy are a more eligible portion. Where opportunities and inclina- tions are given to the same person, we sometimes see sublime instances of virtue, which so dazzle our imaginations that we look with scorn on all which in lower scenes of life we may ourselves be able to practice. But this is a vicious way of thinking; and it bears some spice of romantic madness for a man to imagine that he must grow ambitious, or seek adven- tures, to be able to do great actions. It is in every man^s power in the world who is above mere poverty, not only to do things worthy, but heroic. The great foundation of civil virtue is self-denial; and there is no one above the necessities of life but has opportunities of exercising that noble quality, and doing as much as his circumstances will bear for the ease and convenience of other men; and he who does more than ordinarily men practice upon such occasions as occur in his life, deserves the value of his friends, as if he had done enter- prises which are usually attended with the highest glory. Men of public spirit differ rather in their circumstances than €6 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN their virtue; and the man who does all he can, in a low station, is more a hero than he who omits any worthy action he is able to accomplish in a great one. It is not many years ngo since Lapirius,^ in wrong of his elder brother, came to a