ESSAYS: FBAJ5TCIS BAOOF, BARON or VKRULAM, VISCOTST ST. ALDAN'S, AND LORD CHANVEI.LOK OF ENGLAND. WITH. NOTES BY JOSEPH DEVEY, M.A. NEW YORK: JOHN R. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. IfflS. AKD BOOKBINDING tOWP*Y, CONTENTS. 1. Of Truth .. . I 9 30. Of Regimen of Health 31. Of Suspicion 119 121 123 12r. 129 189 K'.-i 110 112 144 144 M in IM 15? K 2. Of Death 3. Of Unity in Religion 4. Of Revenge a 18 32. Of. Discourse 33. Of Plantations 5. Of Adversity 34. Of Riches 6. Of Simulation and l>is>im a H 80 tf .;- a 5! a 3 r >. Of Prophecies... 36. Of Ambition 7. Of Parents and Children.. 8. Of Marriage and Single Life 37. Of Masques and Triumphs. 38. Of Nature in Men 39. Of Custom and Education. 40. Of Fortune 9. Of Envv 10. Of Love 11. Of Great Place 41. Of Usury... 42. Of Youth and Age 12. Of Boldness 43. Of Beau iv . 13. Of (. id Good- ness of Nature 44. Of Deformity 45. Of Building 14. Of Nobilltv 46. Of Gardens 15. Of Seditions and Troubles. 16. Of Atheism . 48. Of Followers and i9 ** 2i S 17. Of Superstition IS. Of Travel 50. Of Studies . 19. Of Empire 20. Of Counsel JO 77 H M H 97 11 UK 51. Of Faction 52. Of Ceremonies specta 21. Of Delavs 22. Of Cunning 53. Of Praise 2:5. <>f Wisdom for a Man's Self 54. Of Vain f or 55. Of Hi-- rutation. 56. Of Ju iicatr'\s . 24. Of Innovations 25. Of Despatch Dining Wise 58. Of Vici-.situde of Things... Fragment Of an I Fame. . 27 Of Friendship 23. Of Expense 29. Of The True Gren: Kingdoms and ) - of a King On Death... ........ 2075482 I. OF TRUTH. WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate;* and would not stay for tin answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affect ing free-will iu 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 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 imposeth 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 f 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 * He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: "Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, lie went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I (hid iu him no fault at all.'' t He probably refers to the " New Academy," a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, " What is truth?" I 1 p. m which they c.-uue to the unsatisfactory conclusion that man- kind lias no criterion by which to form a judgment. 8 SAVON'S ESSAYS. this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling 01 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 truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it cmbaseth 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 is no vice that cloth 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 disgrace, and such an odious charge, saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God the plains, without a share in the danger: but nothing is there more delightful than to occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life." * Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French essayist. His Essays embrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and entertaining manner, and are replete with remarks indicative of strong native good sense. He died in 1593. The following quotation is from the second book of the Essays, c. 18: " Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is ' affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men:' it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, ilir,- gtisting, and abandoned nature: for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God?" OF DEA1 1 and a cowiml towards men. For a lie faces Qoa, ana shrinks from man;" surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly ex- pressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the lodgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when " Christ com.eth,"he shall not "find faith upon the earth."* II. OF DEATH.f MEN fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of supersti- tion. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher, and natural man, it was well said, " Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa." J Groans and H __ * St. Luke xviii. 8: "Nevertheless, .when the Son of man Cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?" t " A portion of this Kssay is borrowed from the writings of Seneca. See his Letters to I.iirilins. 15. iv. Ep. 24 and Si. f'The array of the death -bed has more terrors than death Itself." This quotation is from Seneca. 10 BACOX'S convulsions, and a discolored f;ice, and friends weep- ing, and blacks * and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attend- ants about him that can win the combat of him. Re- venge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspirelh to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: " Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tautum fortis, aut miser, sed etiain fastidiosus potest." f A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make: for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Ca-sar died in a compliment; "Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale."J Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacllus sailh of him, "Jam Tibcrium vires et corpus, non-dissimula- tio, deserebant:" Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the * He probably alludes to the custom of hanging the room in black where the body of the deceased lay. a practice much more usual in Bacon's time than at the present day. t " Reflect how often you do the same things ; a man may wish to die. not only because either he is brave or wretched, but even bf-nnx^ he is surfeited with life." J " Livia, mindful of our union, live on, and fare thee well." " His bodily strength and vitality were now forsaking Tib* rius. but not his duplicity." OF DEATH. 11 stool,* " Ut puto Deus fio:"f Galba with a sentence, Feri, si ex re sit populi Komaui," j: holding forth his neck: Septimus Severus in dispatch, " Adeste, si quid mihi rest at agendum,"^ an :l the like. Certainly the Stoics || bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saitb he, " qui finem vitaeextremutn inter muncra ponit naturae." Tf It is as natural to die a sto be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is " Nuncclimittis," ** when a man hath obtained worthy * This was said as a reproof to his flatterers, and in spirit is not unlike the rebuke administered by r.vnute to his retinue. t " I am become a liivinity, I sup: $ " If it be for the advantage of the Roman people, strike." " If auglit remains to be done by me. dispatch." re tin 1 followers of /,eno, a philosopher of Citiura, in Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or ' School of the Portico,' 1 at Athens. The basis of his doctrines was the duty of making virtue the object of all our researches. According to him, the pleasures of the mind were preferable to those of the body, and his disciples wore taught, t > view with indifference health or sickness, riches or poverty, pain or pleasure. 1 "Who r of his life among the boons of nature." Lord i;a<-on here (potes from memory; the passage is in the tenth Satire of Jiivca.il, and runs thus: "Fortem posee :ut imnm. mortis ten-ore carentem, Qui spatium vitie extre.aum inter munera ponat Nature" ' Pray for strong resolve, void of the fear ol death, that reckons the closing period ot life among the boons of nature." ** He alludes to the song of Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost 12 BACON'S ESSAYS. ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extirigtiisheth envy; " Extiuctus amabitur idem." * III OF UNITY IX RELIGION. RELIGION being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The quarrels and division! about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen con- sisted rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any con- stant belief; for you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak a few words concerning the unily of the church; what are the fruits thereof; what the bounds; and what the means. The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all in all) are two; the one towards those that are without the church, the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain, that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scan- dals; yea. more than corruption of manners: for as in the natural body a wound or solution of continuity is had revealed " that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." When he beheld the infant Jesus in the Temple, he took the child in his arms and burst forth into a sous of thanksgiving, commencing. " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in pearv, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." St. Luke ii. -J9. ' " When dead, the same person shall be beloved. " OF UXITY I.\ UKL1G10X. 13 worse than a corrupt humor, so in the spiritual: so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity; and therefore whensoever it c<>meth to that pass that one suith, "Ecce in Deserto,"* another saith, "Ecce in penetralibus;"f that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears, "nolite exire," ''go not out." The doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special care of those with- out) saith, " If a heathen \ come in, and hear you speak with .several tongues, will he not say that you are mad?" and, certainly, it is little better: when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it doth avert them from the church, and maketh them " to sit down in the chair of the scorners.'' It is but a light tiling to be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it exprcsseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing that in his catalogue; of books of a feigned library sets down this title of a book, "The Morris- Dance | of Heretics:' 1 for, " Behold, he is in the Desert." St. Matthew sxiv. 38. liehold, he is in the secret chambers." St. Matthew xxiv. so. t He alludes to I. Corinthians xiv. 23 : " If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with ti.ngrues. and there come in those that are unlearned or unbe- lievers, will they not say that ye are mad ?" S Psalm i 1 " P.lessod is the man that walketh not in the i of tin- unpxlly. nor staiiiieth in the way of sinners, nor fcittelh in the seat of the scornful." . TUL- nance, which was originally called the Morisco dance, is Mippo.-x'd t<> have Iwi-n derived from the Moors of Spain : the d..n-j'.Ts in earlier times blackening their faces to resemble 14 BACON'S ESSAYS. indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, by themselves, which canuot but move derision in wordlings and depraved politicians, who are apt to contemn holy things. As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which containeth infinite blessings; it established faith; it kiudleth charity; the outward peace of tho church distilleth into peace of conscience, and it turneth the labors of writing au.l reading of controver- sies into treatises of mortification and devotion. Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing of them importeth exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes: for to certain zealots all speech of pacifica- tion is odious. "Is it peace, Jehu?" "What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me."* Peace is not the matter, but following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceansf and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be Moors. It was probably a corruption of the ancient Pyrrhic dance, which was performed by men in armor, and which is still existing in Greece, in Byron's %; Song of the Greek Cap- tive :" " You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet." Attitude and gesture formed one of the characteristics of tha dance. It is still practised in some parts of England. * II. Kind's, ix. IS. t He alludes to the words in Revelations, c. iii. v. 14. " And un- to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: I know thy works, that, thou art neither cold nor hot; I will spue thee out of my mouth." Laodicea was a city of Asia Minor. St. Paul established the church there which is here referred to. OF UNITY IN RELIGION. K5 done if the league of Christians, penned by our Sav- iour himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded: " He that is not with us is against us;" * and again, " He that is not against us is with us;" that is, if the points funda- mental and of substance in religion, were truly dis- cerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a matter trival, and done already; but if it were done less partially, it would be embraced more generally. Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model. Men ought to take heed of rending God'? church by two kinds of controversies; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled only by contradiction; for, as it is noled by one of the f ai hers, "Christ's coat indeed had no seam, but the church's vesture was of divers colors;" whereupon he saitli, " In veste varietas sit, scissur.a noil sit,"f they be two tilings, unity and uniformity; the other is, when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an over great subtilty and obscurity, so that it beconieth a thing rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men dilTer, and know well within himseif, that, those which so dilTer mean one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree; and if it come so to pass in that, distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frai: * St. Matthew, xii. : J o. 1- " In tin* Krtrmeut there may be many colors, but let there be no rending of it." 16 11 AGON'S ESSAYS. men, in some of their contradictions, intend the same tiling; and accepteth of both? The nature of such con- troversies is excellently expressed by St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he givelh concerning the same; " Devita profanas vocum novitalcs, et opposi- tiones falsi nominis scientise." * Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms, so fixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false peaces, or unities; the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an implicit ignorance: for all colors will agree in the dark: the other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in fundamental points: for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's im- age;! t' ie y ma y cleave, but they will not incorporate. Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware that, in the procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of char- ity and of human society. There be two swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal; and both have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion: but we may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, \ or like unto it: that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecu- tions to force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish seditions; to authorize * " Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of sci- ence falsely so called." . Tim. vi. 30. t Tie alludes to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, significant of the limited duration of his kingdom. See Daniel ii. 33, 41. * Mahomet proselytized by jrivinj; to the nations which he con- quered the option of the Koran or the sword. OF UNITY L\ RELIGION. 17 conspiracies ami rebellious; to put the sword into the people's hands, and the- like, tending to the subversion of all government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed: " Tantum religio potuit sua dere malorum." * What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France, f or the powder treason of Eng- land?}: He would have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of re- ligion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people; let that be left unto the Ana- baptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy, when the devil said, "I will ascend and be like the Highest;'' but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in saying, "I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness;" and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and execra- ble actions of numljring princes, butchery of people and subversion of states and governments? Surely this * " To deeds so dreadful could religion prompt." The poet re- fers to the sacrifice by Agamemnon, the Grecian leader, of his daughter Iphigenia, with the view of appeasing the wrath of Diana. t He alludes to the massacre of the Huguenots, or Protestants, in Francs, which took place on St. Bartholomew's day, August ~(. I."-', by the order of Charles IX. and his mother, Catherine de Medici. On this occasion about (!:.). 00) persons perished, includ- ing the Admiral de Coligny, one of the most virtuous men that France possessed, and the- mainstay of the Protestant cause. t Mote generally known as " the Gunpowder Plot." 18 BACON'S ESSAYS. is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of the bark of a Christian church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins; therefore it is most necessary that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and 'all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod,* do damn, and send to hell for- ever those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same; as hath been already in good part done. Surely in councils concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, " Ira hominis mm implet justitiam Det:"f and it was a notable observation of a wise father, and 110 less ingenuously confessed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences were commonly interested therein themselves for their own ends. IV. 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 clolh 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, lie is su- perior; for it is a prince's part to pardon: and Solomon, I am sure, saith, "It is the glory of n man to pass by an offense." \ That which is past is gone and irrevoca- * Allusion is made to the " cacluceus," with which Mercury, the messenger of the gods, summoned the souls of the departed to the infernal regions. t 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." James i. 20 + These words as here quoted, arc not to !>< found in th-; writ- ings of Solomon, though doubtless the sentiment is. OF REVENGE'. 19 ble, and wise men have enough to do with things pres- ent 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; there- fore why should I be angry with a man for loving him- self better than me? And if any man should do wrong mi /rely out of ill-nature, why yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no oilier. 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 ns there is 110 law to punish, else a man's enemy is still before- hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take re- venge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh: this is the more generous; for the delight seem- eth 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 unpardona- ble. "You shall read," saith he, " that we are com- manded to forgive our enemies; but 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, and not be content to take evil also?"f and so of friends in a proportion. This H certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his o\vn wounds green, which otherwise would heal and * He alludes to Cosmo , t\\ vnty -<-ighi years afi> first Essays, has been quoted by lUncaulay, \\ith considerable justice, as a proof that the writer's fancy did not decay with the advance of old age, and that his style in his latter years becanio richer and softer. The learned Critic contrasts this passage with the terse style of the Essay of Studies (Essay 50), \\hicli was pub- lished in 1597. OF SIMULA TION A AD DltiSLV I' LA TION. 23 tinguislied; for if a man liave tlint penetration of judg- ment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half- lights, and to whom and when (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), lo him a habit of dissimulation is a hiuderau "e and a poorness. But if a man cannot attain to that judgnu nt, then it is left to him generally to be close, and a dis- sembler: for where a man cannot choose or vary in par- ticulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like the going softly, by one that can- not well see. Certainly, the ablest men that ever were, have had nil an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity : but then they wm; like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness of deal. ing. made them almost invisible. There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self: the first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is: the second, dis- simulation in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that lie is not that he is: and the third, simulation in tli;- affirmative; when a man industri- ously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not. For the first of these, secrecy, it is indeed the virtue of a confessor; and assuredly the secret man hearetb many confessions; for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But it' a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovers-, as the more close air sucketh m the more 34 BACON'S ESSAYS. open; and, as in confession, the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a niau's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things 111 that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than im- part their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say truth), nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small rever- ence to men's manners and actions, if they be not alto- gether open. As for talkers, and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal: for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he kuow- eth not; therefore set it down, that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral: and in this part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak; for the dis- covery of a man's self, by the tracts* of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked aud believed than a man's word. For the second, which is dissimulation, it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree; for men are loo cunning to suffer a man to keep ou indiffer- ent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying tiie balance on either side. They wJ/,1 so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him. that without an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they c?nnot hold out long: so that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation, which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy. * A word now unused, signifying the " traits" or " f -Hums." OF SIMULATION AXD DISSIMULATION. 25 But for the third degree, which is simulation and false profession, that 1 hold more culpable, and less politic, except it be in great and rare matters: and, therefore, a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness, or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some maiii faults; which, because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand ehould be out of use. The advantages of Simulation and dissimulation are three: first, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise; for where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarm to call up all that are against them: the second is, to re- ocrvc to a man's self a fair retreat; for if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall: the third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will (fair) let him go on, and turn their freedou of speech to freedom of thought; and therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniards, " Tell a lie and find a troth;"* as if there were no way of discovery by simulation. There be also three disadvantages to set it even; the first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearful ness, which, in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark; the second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that, perhaps, would otherwise co-operate Avith him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends; the third, and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action, which is trust and belief. The best composition and * A truth. 26 AVON'S temperature is, to have openness iti fame and opinion; secrecy iu habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign if there be no remedy. VII. OP PARENTS AND CHILDREN. THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The per- petuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men: and surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to ex- press the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed; so the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent towards their children, beholding them as the continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work; and so both children and creatures. The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal, and some- times uuworth)', especially in the mother; as Solo- mon saith, "A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother."* A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons :f but in the midst some that are as it were forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, prove the * Proverbs x. 1: "A wise son maketh a glad father, but a fool- ish son is the heaviness of his mother.'' t Petted- spoiled. OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. 27 best. The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their children, is a harmful error, makes them base, ac- quaints them with shifts, makes them sort with mean company, and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty: and, therefore, the proof* is best when men keep their authority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both par- ents, and schoolmasters, and servants), in creating and breeding an emulalkm between brothers during child- hood, which many times sortcth to discord when they are men, and disturbeth families, f The Italians make little difference between children and nephews, or near kinsfolk; but so they be of the lump, they care not, though they pass not through their own body; and, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle or a kinsman, more than his own parent, as the blood hap- pens. Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take, for then they are most flexible, and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as think- ing they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection, or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept is good, " Optimum, elige, * This word seems here to mean " a plan" or " method " as proved by its results. t There is considerable justice in this remark. Children should be taught to do what is right for its own sake, and because it is their duty to do so, and not that they may have the selfish grati- fication of obtaining the reward which their companions have failed to secure, and of being led to think themselves superior to their companions. When launched upon the world, emulation will be quite sufficiently forced upon them by stern necessity. 28 BACON'S ESSAYS. suave et facile illud faciet consuetude. " * Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited. VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE. HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enter- prises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have pro- ceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and ac- count future times impertinences; nay, there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges; nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer; for, perhaps they have heard some talk, " Such an one is a great rich man," and another except to it, " Yea, but he hath a great charge of children," as if it were an abatement to his riches: but the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humor- ous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants ; but not always best sub- jects, for they are light to run away, and almost all * " Select that cnurnc of life which is the most advantageous: habit will soon render it pleasant and easily endured." OF MMiniAUK AM> SINGLE LIFE 29 fugitives arc ul' that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where il must first till a pool.* It is indifferent for j ud ires and magistrates; for if they l>c facile and corrupt, you .sliail have a servant live times worse than a wife. 1-Vr soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortativcs, \ ut men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage amongst the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Cer- tainly wife :;ud children are a kind of discipline of hu- manity; and single men, though they l>e many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hard- hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, " Vetulam suain pnetulit immortalitati,"t Chaste women are often proud and t'roward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses, compan- ions for middle age, ami old men's nurses, so as a man may have a quarrel}: to marry when he will: but yet he \va- reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry: "A young * His meaning is. that if clergymen have the expenses of a family to support, they will hardly find means for the exercise of benevolenee toward their purishoners. t " He preferred his aged wife Penelope to immortality." This was when Ulysses was entreated by the goddess Calypso to give up all thoughts of returning to Ithaca, and to remain with her in the enjoyment of immortality. ; " May have a pretext," or "excuse." SO BACON'* ESSAYS. man not yet, an elder man not at all." It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it conies, or that the wives take a pride in their patience; but this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent, for then they will be sure to make good their own folly. IX. OF ENVY. THERE be none of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy: they both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions, and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects which are the points that conduce to fas- cination, if any such thing there be. "We see, likewise, the Scripture callcth envy an evil eye;* and the astrolo- gers call the evil influences of the stars evil aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation, or irradiation of the eye; nay, some have been so curious as to note, that the times, when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in glory * So prevalent in ancient times was the notion of the injurious effects of the eye of envy, that in common parlance the Romans generally used the word "prsefiscini," " without risk of enchant- ment," or " fascination," when they spoke in high terms of themselves. They supposed that they thereby averted the effects of enchantment produced by the evil eye of any envious person who might at that moment possibly be looking upon them. Lord Bacon probably here alludes to St. Mark vii. 21, 22: ' Out of the heart of men proceedeth deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye." Solomon also speaks of the evil eye, Prov. xxiii, 6, and xsvii, 22. OF ENVY. 81 or triumph; for that sets an edge upon envy: and be- sides, at such times, the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward purls, and so meet the blow. But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to be thought on in lit place), we will handle what persona are apt to envy others, what persons are most subject to be envied themselves, and what is the difference be- tween public and private envy. A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the oilier; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand,* by depressing another's fortune. A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envi- ous; for to know much of other men's matters cannot be, because all that ado may concern his own estate; therefore it must needs be that he lakeih a kind of play- pleasure in looking upon the fortunes of others: neither can he that miudeth but his own business find much matter for envy; for envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the street, and does not keep home: " Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus."f Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise; for the distance is altered: and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back. Deformed persons and eunuchs, and the old men and bastards, are envious; for he that cannot possibly mend his own case, will do what he can to impair another's; * To be oven with him. t "There is no person a busy-body but what he is ill-natured teo." This passage is from the Slichus of Plautus. 32 fi AGON'S ESSAYS. except these defects light upon a very brave and heroic nature, which thinketh to m;ike his natural wants part of iiis honor; in that it should be said, " That a eunuch, or a lame man, did such great matters," affecting the honor of a miracle: as it was in Narses* the eunuch, and Agesilaus and Tamerlane, f that were lame men. The same is the case of men that rise after calamities and misfortunes; for they are as men fallen out with the times, and think other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings. They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity and vain-glory, are ever envious, for they cannot want work: it being impossible, but many, in some of those things, should surpass them; which was the char- acter of Adrian the emperor, that mortally envied poets and painters, and artificers in works, wherein he had a vein to excel. Lastly, near kinsfolk and fellows in office, and those that have been bred together, are more apt to envy * Narses superseded Belisarius in the command of the armies of Italy, by the orders of the Emperor Justinian. He defeated To- tila, the king of the Goths (who had taken Rome), in a decisive engagement, in which the latter was slain. He governed Italy with consummate ability for thirteen years, when he was un- gratefully recalled by Justin the Second, the successor 01 Jus- tinian. t Tamerlane, or Timour, was a native of Samarcand. of which territory he was elected emperor. He overran Persia, Georgia. Hindostan, and captured Bajazet, the valiant Sultan cf the> Turks, at the battle of Angora, 1402, whom he is said to have in- closed in a cage of iron. His conquests extended from the Ir- tish and Volga to the Persian Gulf and from the Ganges to the Grecian Archipelago. While preparing for the invasion of China, he dierl, in the 70th year of his age, A.D. 1405. He was tall and corpulent in person, but was maimed in one hand, and lam on the right side. OF ENVY. 38 their equals when they are raised; for it doth upbraid unto them their own fortunes, and poiutetli at them, and cometh oftener into their remembrance, and in- currelh likewise more into the note* of others: and :-nvy ever redoubletli from speech and fame. Cain's envy was the more vile and malignant towards his brother Abel, because when his sacrifice was better ac- cepted, there was nobody to look on. Thus much for those that are apt to envy. Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy: First, persons of eminent virtue, when they arc advanced, are less envied, for their fortune seemeth but due unto them; and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy; and therefore kings are not envied but by kings. Nevertheless, it is to be noted, that unworthy persons are most envied at their first coming in, and afterwards overcome it bet- ter; whereas, contrariwise, persons of worth and merit are most envied when their fortune continueth long; for by that time, though their virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same lustre; for fresh men grow up that darken it. Persons of noble blood arc less envied in their rising; for it sccmeth but right done to their birth; besides, there sccmeth not so much added to their fortune; and envy is as the sunbeams, that beat hotter upon a bank or steep rising ground, than upon a flat; and, for the same reason, those that an- advanced by degrees are less envied tlinn those that are advanced suddenly, and " per snltum."| fs iimliT th<; observation. t " By a leap," i.e., over the heads of others. 34 BACON'S ESS AT 8. Those that have joined with their honor great travels, cares, or perils, are less subject to envy; for men think that they earn their honors hardly, and pity them some- times; and pity ever healeth envy: wherefore you shall observe, that the more deep and sober sort of politic persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning them- selves what a life they lead, chanting a "quanta pati- mur;"* not that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy: but this is to be understood of business that is laid upon men, and not such as they call unlo themselves; for nothing increnseth envy more than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing of business; and nothing doth extinguish envy moie than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers in their full rights and pre-eminences of their places; for, by that means, there be so many screens between him and envy. Above all, those are most subject to envy, which carry the greatness of their fortunes in an insolent and proud manner: being never well but, while they are, showing how great they are, either by outward pomp, or by tri- umphing over all opposition or competition: whereas wise men will rather do sacrifice to envy, in suffering themselves, sometimes of purpose, to be crossed and overborne in things that do not much concern them. Notwithstanding so much is true, that the carriage of greatness in a plain and open manner (so it be without arrogancy and vain-glory) doth draw less envy than if it be in a more crafty and cunning fashion; for in that course a man doth but disavow fortune, and seemeth to be conscious of his own want in worth, and doth but teach others to envy him. Lastly, to conclude this part, as we said in the be- * " How vast the evils we endure." OF ENVY. 35 ginning that the act of envy had somewhat in it of witchcraft, so there is no oilier cure of envy but the cure of witchcraft; and that is, to remove the lot (as they call it), and to lay it upon another; for which pur- pose the wiser sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage somebody upon whom to derive the envy that would conic upon themselves; sometimes upon minis- ters and servants, sometimes upon colleagues and asso- ciates, and the like; and, for that turn, there are never wanting some persons of violent and undertaking na- tures, who, so the}" may have power and business, will take it at any cost. Now, to speak of public envy: there is yet some good in public envy, whereas in private there is none; for public envy is as an ostracism,* that eclipseth men when they get too great; and therefore it is a bridle also to great ones, to keep them within bounds. This envy, be-in g in the Latin word " invidia,"f goeth iu the modern languages by the name of discontent- ment; of which we shall speak in handling sedition. It is a disease in a state like to infection; for as infec- tion spreadcth upon that which is sound, and taintetu it, so, when envy is gotten once into a state, it traduc- eth even the best actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill odor; and therefoio there is little won by in- termingling of plausible actions; for that doth argue but a weakness and a fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more, as it is likewise usual in infections, which, if you fear them, you call them upon you. * He probably alludes to the custom of the Athenians, who frequently ostracised or banish M by vote their public men, lest they should become too powerful. + From "in" and "video," "to look upon;" with reference to the so-called " evil eye" of the envious. 36 BACON'S ESSAYS. This public envy seemclh to beat chiefly upon prin- cipal olricers or ministers, rather than upon kings and estates themselves. But this is a sure rule, that if the envy upon the minister be great, when the cause of ii in him is small; or if the envy be general in a manner upon all the ministers of an estate, then the envy (though hidden) is truly upon the state itself. And so much of public envy or discontentment, and the differ- ence thereof from private envy, which was handled in the first place. We will add this in general, touching the affection of envy, that of all other affections it is the most impor- tune and continual ; for of other affections there is occasion given but now and then ; and therefore it was well said, " Invidia festos dies uon agit:" * for it is ever working upon some or other. And it is also noted, that love and envy do make a man pine, which other affec- tions do not, because they are not so continual. It is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for which cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is called " The envious man, that sovveth tares amongst the wheat by night;" f as it always cometh to pass that envy worketh subtilely, and in the dark, and to the prejudice of good things, such as is the wheat. X. OF LOVE. THE stage is more beholding to love than the life of man; for as to the stage, love is ever matter of come- dies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren, sometimes like a Fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, * " Envy ke x>s no holidays." t See St. Matthew xiii. 25. or I.OVK. 3; cither ancient or recent), there is not one that hath heen transported to the in:id degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius,* the Decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordi- nate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, "Satis magnum alter altcri theatrum sumus:"f as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make him- self subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye, which was given him for higher pur- poses. It is a strange thing to note the e.xros of this passion, and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyper- * He iniquitously attempted to obtain possession of the person of Virginia, who was killed by her father Virginius, to prevent her from falling a victim to his lust. This circumstance caused the fall of the Decemvir at Rome, who had been employed in framing the code of laws afterwards known as " The Laws of the Twelve Tables." They narrowly escaped being burnt alive by the infuriated populace. t " We are a sufficient theme for contemplation, the one for the other." Pope seems, notwithstanding this censure of Bacon, to have been of the same opinion with Kpicurus : " Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study for mankind is man." Essay on Man, Ep. ii. 1, 2. Indeed Lord Bacon seems to have misunderstood the saying of Epicurus, who did not mean to recommend man as the sole ob- ject of the bodily vision, but as the proper theme for mental con- templation. 38 BACON'S ESS ATX. bole is comely in nothing but in love; neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, " That the arch flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self;" certainly the lover is more; for there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said. " That it is impossible to love and to be wise." Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciprocal; for it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with reciprocal, or with an inward and secret contempt; by how much the more men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself. As for the other losses, the poet's relation* doth well figure them: "That he that pre- ferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas;" for whosoever estcemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity and great adversity, though this latter hath been less observed; both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can nowise be true to their ow T n ends. I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is, but as they are given to wine, for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion * He refers here to the judgment of Paris, mentioned by Ovid in his Epistles, of the Heroines. OF GREAT PLACE. 89 towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it. XI. OF GREAT PLACE. MEN in great place are thrice servants servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, ind 1)}' indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing: "Cum non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere."* Nay, retire men cannot when they would, neither will they when it were reason; but are impatient of privateness oven in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like old townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street-door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. (\ i -fainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it: but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are. then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within; for they are the first that find then * " Since you are not what you wore, there is no reason wh.> you should \\ sh to live." 40 HACOX'8 ESSAYS. own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind. " Illi mcrs gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi."* In place there is license to do good and evil; whereof the latter is a curse: for in evil the best condition is not to will, the second not to can. But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that can- not be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion; and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest: for if a man can be par- taker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. " Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quse fccerunt manus suse, vidit quod omiiia essent bona nimis ;"f and then the Sabbath. In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts; and after a time set before thee thine own example; and examine thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those that have carried themselves ill In the same place; not to set off thyself by taxing their memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without bravery or scandal of former times and* persons; but yet set it *" Death presses heavily upon him, who, well-known to all others, dies unknown to himself." t " And God turned to behold the works which his hands had made, and he saw that everything was very good." See Gen. i. 31. OF UliKAT PL AC I:'. 41 down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to tiie first institution, ami observe wherein and how they have degenerated; bill yet ask counsel of both times of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest. Seek in make thy course regular, that men may know before- hand what they may expect; but be not too positive and peremptory; and express thyself well when thou di- gressest from thy rule. Preserve the rigut of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction; and rather assume? thy right in silence, and " de facto,"* than voice it with claims and challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of inferior places; and think it more honor to direct in chief than to be busy in all. Embrace and invite helps and advices touching the execution of thy place; and do not drive away such as bring thee information as meddlers, but accept of them in good part. The vices of authority are chielly four: delays, corruption, rough- ness and facility For delays give easy access; keep times appointed; go through with that which is in hand, and interlace not business but of necessity. For corrup- tion, do not only bind thine own hands or thy servant's hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering; for integrity used doth the one; but in- tegrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion. Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly -without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption: therefore, always when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change, and do not think to steal it. A servant or a * " As a matter of course." 42 BACON'S ESSAYS. favorite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness, it is a needless cause of dis- content: severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility,* it is worse than bribery; for bribes come but now aiid then; but if im- portunity or idle respects f lead a man, he shall never be without; as Solomon saith, "To respect persons is not good; for such a man will transgress for a piece of bread. " \ It is most true that was anciently spoken; "A place showeth the man ; and it showeth some to the better and some to the worse:" " Omnium couseusu capax imperil, nisi imperasset," saith Tacitus of Galba; but of Yes- pashm he saith, cf Solus imperantium, Vespasiauus mutatus in melius;" || though the one was meant of suf- ficiency, the other of manners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honor amends; for honor is, or should be, the place of virtue; and as in nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the rising, * Too great easiness of access. t Predilections that are undeserved. % Proverbs xxviii. 21. The whole passage stands thus in our version: " He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. To have respect of persons is not good; for, for a piece of bread that man will transgress." ' By the consent of all he was fit to govern, if he had not governed." I " Of the emperors, Vespasian alone changed for the better after kin acaesaiim." OF BOLDNESS. 43 and to balance himself when he is placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly aud tenderly; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will sure be paid when thon art gone. If thou have colleagues, respect them; and rather call them when they look not for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be called. Bo not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in con- versation aud private answers to suitors; but let it rather be said, " When he sits in place, he is another man." XII. -OF BOLDNESS. IT is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy a wise man's consideration. Question was asked of De- mosthenes, what was the chief part of an orator? he answered, Action: what next? Action: what next again? Action, lie said it that knew it best, and had by nature himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange thing, that that part of an orator which is but superficial, ami rather the virtue of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of inven- tion, elocution, and the rest; nay, almost alone, as if it were all in all. But the reason is plain. There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are most potent. Wonder- ful like is the case of boldness in civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? bold nes.- ; and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts: but, nevertheless, it doth fas- cinate, aud bind hand ami foot those that are either shallow In judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea, and prevailed) with wise men at weak times; therefore we s.ee it hath done wonders in 44 BACON'S ESSAYS. popular states, but with senates and princes less; and more, ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action than soon after; for boldness is aii ill keeper of promise. Surely as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body; men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out; nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill." So these men when they have promised great matters and failed most shamefully, yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado. Certainly to men of great judgment, bold persons are a sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar also boldness hath somewhat of the ridicu- lous ; for if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom withoxit some absurdity ; especially it is a sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must; for in bashf ulness the spirits do a little go and come; but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir: but this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be weighed, that boldness H ever blind; for it sceth not dangers and in- conveniences: therefore it is ill in counsel, good in OF QOODNEX* 45 execution; so that the right use of bold persons is, that tliey never command in chief, but be seconds and under the direction of others; for in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them except they be very great. XIII. OF GOODNESS. AND GOODNESS OF NATURE. I TAKE goodness in this sense, the effecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call " philau- thropia;" and the word humanity (as it is used) is a little too light to express it. Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being t he character of the Deity : and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall;* the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; ;is it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who neverthe- less arc kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds; insomuch as Busbechiusf reporteth, a Christian boy in * It is not improbable that this passage suggested Pope's beautiful lines in the Essay on Man, Ep. i. 125-8. " i'ride still is aiming at the blest abodes. Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to bo gods, if angels fell. Aspiring to he angels, men rebel." t Auger Gislen Busbec, or Busbfquiu.s. a learned traveler, 46 BACON'S ESSAYS. Constantinople had like to have been stoned for gagging in a waggishness a long-billed fowl. * Errors, indeed, in this virtue, of goodness or chanty, may be com- mitted. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, " Tanto buon die val niente:" "So good, that he \a good for nothing:" and one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel,f had the confidence to put in writ- born at Comines, in Flanders, in 1522. He was employed by the Emperor Ferdinand as ambassador to the Sultan Solyman II. He was afterwards ambassador to France, where lie died in 1593. His letters relative to his travels in the East, which are written in Latin, contain much interesting information. They were the pocket companion of Gibbon, and are highly praised by him. * In this instance the stork or crane was probably protected not on the abstract grounds mentioned in the text, but for rea- sons of state policy and gratitude combined. In Eastern climes the cranes and dogs are far more efficacious than human agency in removing filth and offal, and thereby diminishing the chances of pestilence. Superstitution, also, may have formed another motive, as we learn from a letter written from Adrianople by Lady Montagu, in 1718, that storks were " held there in a sort of religious reverence, because they are supposed to make every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca. To say truth, they are the hap- piest subjects under the Turkish government, and are so sensi- ble of their privileges, that they walk the streets without fear, and generally build their nests in the lower parts of the houses. Happy are those whose houses are so distinguished, as the vulgar Turks are perfectly persuaded that they will not be that year attacked either by fire or pestilence." Storks are still protect! d by municipal law in Holland, and roam unmolested about the market-places. tNicolo Machiavelli, a Florentine statesman. He wrote " Dis- courses on the first Decade of Livy." which were conspicuous for their liberality of sentiment, and just and profound reflec- tions. This work was succeeded by his famous treatise. " II Principe," "The Prince," his patron, C.-rsar Borgia, being the model of the perfect prince there described by him The whole scope of this work is directed to one object -the maintenance of OF OOODM':^. 47 ing, almost in plaiu terms, " Th:it the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to tliose that are tyran- nical and unjust;" which he spake, because, indeed, tliere was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth: there- fore-, to avoid the scandal and the danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the errors of a habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men. but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies; for that is but facility or softness, which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou .-K-'ip's cock a g<-'in, who would be better pleased and happier if he had had a bailey corn. The example of God teachcth the lesson truly; " lie sendeth his rain, and maketh his sun to shine upon the just and the un- just;"* but he doth not rain wealth, nor .shine honor and virtue upon men equally: common benetits are to be communicate with all, but peculiar benelits with choice, And beware how in making the portraiture thou brcak- est the pattern; for divinity maketh the love of our- selves the pattern: the love of our neighbors but the portraiture: " Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me:"f but sell not all thou hast except thou power, however acquired. Though its precepts are no doubt based upon the actual practice of the Italian politicians of that day, it lias been suggested by some writers that the work was a covert exposure of the deformity of the shocking maxims that it professes to inculcate. The question of his motives has been much discussed, and is still considered open. The word !ii:ivellism" lias, however, been adopted to denote all that is deformed, insincere, and perfidious in politics. He died in >verty, in the year 1.V,'7. * St. Matthew v. 5: ' For he niftketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the un- just." t This is a portion of our Saviour's reply to the rich man who asked him what ho should do to inherit, eternal life: "Then 48 BACON'S ESSAY*. come and follow me; lhat is, except thou have a voca- tion wherein thou raayest do as much good with litlle means as with great; the otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest for fountain. Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by right reason ; but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition towards it; as, on the other side, there is a natural malignity: for there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. The lighter sort of malignity turueth but to a cross- ness, or frowarduess, or aptness to oppose, or difficile- ness, or the like; but the deeper sort to envy, and mere mischief. Such men in other men's calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the loading part: not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores,* but like flies that are still buzzing upon anything that is raw; misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon f had: such disposi- tions are the very errors of human nature, and yet they Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest; go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." St. Mark x. 21. * See St. Lukexvi. 21. t Timon of Athens, as he is generally called (being so styled by Shakespeare in the play which he has founded on his story), was surnamed the " Misanthrope," from the hatred which he bore to his fellow-men. He was attached to Apemantus, another Athenian of similar character to himself, and he professed toes- teem Alcibiades, because he foresaw that he would one day bring ruin on his country. Going to the public assembly on one occa- sion, he mounted the rostrum, and stated that he had a flg-tree on which many worthy citizens had ended their days by the hal- ter; that he was going to cut it down for the purpose of building on the spot, and therefore recommended all such as were in- clined to avail themselves of it before it was too late. OF XO.'ULITY. 49 are the fittest timber to make great politics of; like to knee timber,* that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm. The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lauds, but a continent that joins to them: if he be compassionate towards the aillictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm:f if he easily pardons and remits offenses, it shows that his mind is planted above injuries, so that lie cannot be shot: if he he thankful for small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash: but, above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, that lie would wish to be an anathema J from Christ for the salvation of his breth- ren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ himself. XIV. OF NOBILITY. WE will speak of nobility first as a portion of an es- tate, then as a condition of particular persons. A mon- archy, where there is no nobility at all, is ever a pure and absolute tyranny, as that of the Turks; for nobility attempers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the peo- * A piece of timber that has grown crooked, and has been so cut that the trunk and branch form an angle. t He probably here refers to the myrrh-tree. Incision is the method usually adopted for extracting the resinous juices of as in the india-rubber and gutta-percha trees. t " A voiivr." and in the present instance "a vicarious offer- in-." He alludes to the words of St. Paul in his Second Epistle to Timothy ii. 10: " Therefore I endure, all things for the elect's sakes. that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ . | \s itli eternal glory." 50 BACON'S ESSAY*. pie somewhat aside from the line royal: but for democ- racies they need it not; and they are commonly more quiet and less subject to sedition than where there are stirps of nobles; for men's eyes are upon the business, and not upon the persons; or if upon the persons, it is for the business sake, as fittest, and not for flags and pedigree. We see the Svvitzers last well, notwithstand- ing their diversity of religion and of cantons; for utility is their bond, and not respects.* The united provinces of the Low Countries f in their government excel; for where there is an equality the consultations are more indifferent, and the payments and tributes more cheer- ful. A great and potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch; but dimmisheth power, and putteth life and spirit into the peoplfe, but presseth their fortune. It is well when nobles are uot too great for sovereignty nor for justice; and yet maintained in that height, as the iu- soleucy of inferiors may be broken upon them before it come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. A numer- ous nobility causeth poverty and inconvenience in a state, for it is a surcharge of expense; and besides, it being of necessity that many of the nobility fall in time to be weak in fortune, it maketh a kind of dispropor- tion between honor and means. As for nobility in particular persons, it is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay, or to see a fair timber- tree sound and perfect; how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time! for new nobility is but, the act of power, but ancient nobil- * " Consideration of," or " predeliction for, particular persons." t The Low Countries had then recently emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of Spain. They were called the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. Ob' 8ED1TICNB AND TROUBLE*. 51 ity is the act of time. Those that are first raised to no- bility are com mo nly more virtuous,* but less innocent, than their descendants; for there is larely any rising but by a commixture of -rood and evil arts; but it is reasonf the memory of their virtues remain to their posterity, and their faults die with themselves. Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry: and he that is not indus- trious, envieth he that is; besides, noble persons cannot go much higher; and he that standeth at a stay when others rise, can hardly avoid motions of envy. On th-: other side, nobility extinguished the passive envy from others towards them, bocause they are in possession of honor. Certainly, kings that have able men of their no- bility shall find ease in employing them, and a better slide into their business; for people naturally bend to them as born in some sort to command. XV. OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES. SHEPHERDS of people had need know the calendars of tempests in slate, which are commonly greatest when things grow to equality; as natural tempests are great- est about the equinoctial and as there are certain hol- low blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a tempest, so are there in states: " Tlkotiam caecos instare tumultiis Ssepe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescere bella." * This poss.iy" m iy at first sight appear somewhat contradic- tory; but he means to say that those who are first ennobled will commonly be found to be more conspicuous for the prominence of their qualities, both good and bad. t Consistent with reason and justice. t The periods of the Equinoxes. \ ' He often warns, too, that secret revolt is impending, that treaoherv an.l o;wi warfare arc ready to burst forth." 52 . BACON'S ES8AT& Libels and licentious discourses against the state, when they are frequent and open; and in like sort false news, often running up and down, to the disadvantage of the state, and hastily embraced, are amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of Fame, saith she was sister to the giants: "Illam Terra parens, ira irritata Deonim, Extremam (ut perhibent) Cceo Enceladoque sororem Progenuit." * As if fames were the relics of seditions past; but they are no less indeed the preludes of seditions to come. Howsoever he noteth it right, that seditious tumults and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and sister, masculine and feminine; especially if it come to that, that the best actions of a state, and the most plausible, and which ought to give greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense, and traduced: for that shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith, " Conflata magna iuvidia, seu bene, seu male; gesta premunt."f Neither doth it fol- low, that because these fames are a sign of troubles, that the suppressing of them with too much severity should be a remedy of troubles; for the despising of them many times checks them best, and the going about to stop them doth but make a wonder long-lived. Also that kind of obedience, which Tacitus speak eth of, is to be held suspected: " Erant in offlcio, ced tamen qui * " Mother Earth, exasperated at the wrath of the Deities, pro- duced her, as they tell, a last birth, a sister to the giants Coaus and Enceladus." t " Great public odium or.ce excited, his deeds, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall." Bacon has here quoted in- correctly, probably from memory. The words of Tacitus are (Hist. B. i. C. 7) "Inviso semel principe, seu bene, sen male, facta premunt," " The ruler once detested, his actions, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall/' OF SEDITIOUS AM) TROUBLES. 53 mallent imperantium mandata interpretari, quam ex- scqui;"* disputing, excusing. cavilling upon mandates and directions, is a kind of shaking off the yoke, and assay of disobedience; especially if in those disputings they which are for the direction speak fearfully and tenderly, and those that are against it audaciously. Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when princes, that ought to be common parents, make themselves as a party, and lean to a side; it is, as a boat that is over thrown by uneven weight on the one side; as was well seen in the time of Henry the Third of France; for h'rst himself entered league f for the extirpation of the Protestants, and presently after the same league was turned upon himself : for when the authority ot princes is made but an accessory to a cause, and that there be other bands that tie faster than the band of sov- nty, kings begin to be put almost out of possession. Also, when discords, and quarrels, and factions, are carried openly and audaciously, it is a sign the rever- ence of government is lost; for the motions of the great- est persons in a government ought to be as the motions of the planets under " primum mobile." \ according to the old opinion, winch is, that every of them is carried swiftly by the highest motion, and softly in their own * "They attended to their duties, hut still, as preferring rather lo discuss the commands of their rulers, than to obey them." t He alludes to the bad policy of Henry the Third of France, who espoused the part of " the League" which was formed hy tin- Imkr uf (iuise and other Catholics for the extirpation of the Protestant faith. When too late, he discovered his error, and, finding his own authority entirely superseded, he causHl the Duke of (iuise and the Cardinal De Lorraine, his brother, to be assassinated. i "Tlie primary motive pnver." He alludes to an imaginary center of gravitation, or central body, which was supposed tc el all the other heavenly bodies in i:. 54 n A COX'S ESSAYS. motion; and therefore, when great ones in their own particular motion move violently, and as Tacitus ex- presseth it well, "liberius quam ut imperantium mem- inissent," * it is a sign the orbs are out of frame: for reverence is that wherewith princes are girt from God, who threateneth the dissolving thereof; " Solvam ciu- gula regum/' f So when any of the four pillars of government are mainly shaken or weakened (which are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure), men had need to pray for fair weather. But let us pass from this part of predictions (concerning which, nevertheless, more light may be taken from that which followeth), and let us speak first of the materials of seditions; then of the motives of them; and thirdly of the remedies. Concerning the materials of seditions, it is a thing well to be considered; for the surest way to prevent se- ditions (if the times do bear it) is to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on lire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds; much poverty and much discontentment. It is certain, so many over- thrown estates, so many votes for troubles. Lucau noteth well the state of Rome before the civil war: "Hinc ustira vorax, rapidumque in tempore foenus, Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum."t * "Too freely to remember their own rulers." t "I will unloose the girdles of kings." He probably alludes here to the first verse of the 45th chapter of Isaiah: " Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have tip- holden, to subdue nations before him: and 1 will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates." t " Hence devouring usury, and interest accumulating in laps* of time, hence shaken credit, and warfare, profitable to thf many." OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLKS. ZZ This same " muHis utile bellum," * is an assured and in- fallible sign of a stale disposed to seditious uiid troubles; :ind if this poverty and broken estate in the better sort be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people the danger is imminent and great: for the rebellions of the belly are the worst. As for discontentments, they are in the politic body like to humors in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural heat and to in- flame; and let no prince measure the danger of them by this, whether they be just or unjust: for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable, who do often spurn at their own good; nor yet by this, whether (he griefs whereupon they rise be in fact great or small; for they are Ihe most dangerous discontentments where the fear is greater than the feeling: "Dolendi modus, timendi non item:"f besides, in great oppressions, the same things that provoke the patience, do withal mate:}: the courage; but, in fears it is not so; neither let any prince or state be secure concerning discontentments, because they have been often, or have been long, and yet no peril hath ensued: for as it is true that every va- por or fume doth not turn into a storm, so it is never- theless true that storms, though they blow over divers times, yet may fall at last; and, as the Spanish proverb notcth well, "The cord breaketh at the last by the weakest pull." The causes and motives of seditions are, innovation in religion, taxes, alteration of laws and customs, break- ing of pri*. icral oppression, advancement of uu- Avorlhy persons, strangers, dearths, disbanded soldiers, * " Warfare jirofitiible to the many.'' t " To grief there is u limit, not so to fear." J "Cheek." or "daunt." This is similar to the proverb now in common use: " Tis the lust foather that breaks the back of the camel." 56 BA CON'S ESSAYS. factions grown desperate: and whatsoever in offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause. For the remedies, there may be some general preserv- atives, whereof we will speak: as for the just cure, it must answer to the particular disease: and so be left to counsel rather than rule. The first remedy, or prevention, is to remove by all means possible that material cause of sedition whereof we spake, which is, want and poverty in the estate:* to which purpose serveth the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufactures; the banish- ing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess, by sumptuary la\vs;f the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulating of prices of things vendible; the moderating of taxes and tributes, and the like. Generally, it is to be foreseen that the population of a kingdom (especially if it be not mown down by wars) do not exceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain them: neither is the population to be reckoned only by number; for a smaller number, that spend more and earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a greater number that live lower and gather more: there- fore the mulitplying of nobilify, and other degrees of quality, ia an over proportion to the common people, * The state. t Though sumptuary laws are probably just in theory, they have been found impracticable in any other than infant states. Their principle, however, is certainly recognized in such coun- tries as by statutory enactment discountenance gaming. Those who are opposed to such laws upon principle, would do well to look into Bernard Vaudeville's " Fable of the Bees," or" Private Vices Public Benefits." The Romans had numerous sumptuary laws, and in the middle ages there were many enactments in this country against excess of expenditure upon wearing apparel and the pleasures of the table. OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES.. 57 doth speedily bring a state to necessity; and so doth likewise an overgrown clergy, for they bring nothing to the stock;* and, in like manner, when more are bred scholars than preferments can take off. It is likewise to be remembered, that, forasmuch us the increase of any estate must be upon the foreigner \ (for whatsoever is somewhere gotten is somewhere lost), there be but three things which one nation selletli unto another; the commodity, as nature yieldeth it; the manufacture; and the vecture, or carriage; so that, if these three wheels go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide And it comelh many times to pass, that, " mate- riam superabit opus,"}: that the work and carriage is more worth than the material, and enricheth a state more: as is notably seen in the Low Countrymen, who have the best mines above ground in the world. Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the treasure and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands: for, otherwise, a state may have a great stock, and yet starve; and money is like muck,| not good ex- cept to be spread. This is done chiefly by suppressing, or, at least, keeping a straight hand upon the devouring trades of usury, engrossing great pasturages, and the like. For removing discontentments, or, at least, the dan- ger of them, there is in every state (as we know) two portions of subjects, the nobles and commonalty. "When one of these is discontent, the danger is not * He means that they do not add to the capital of the country. t At the expense of foreign count; t "The workmanship will surpass the material.'' Ovid, Met- amorph. B. ii. 1, 5. He alludes to the manufactures of Low Countries. | Like manure. 58 BACON'S great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength except the multitude be apt and ready to move of themselves; then is the danger, when the greater sort do but wait for the troubling of the waters among the meaner, that then they may declare themselves. The poets feign that the rest of the gods would have bound Jupiter; which he hearing of, by the counsel of Pallas, sent for Briareus, with his hundred hands, to come in to his aid: an emblem, no doubt, to show how safe it is for monarchs to make sure of the good will of common people. To give moderate liberty for griefs and discontent- ments to evaporate (so it be without too great insolency or bravery), is a safe way: for he that ttirneth the hu- mors back, and maketh the wound bleed inwards, endangereth malign ulcers and pernicious imposthuma- tions. The part of Epimetheus * might well become Prome- theus, in the case of discontentments, for there is not a better provision against them. Epimetheus, when griefs and evils flow abroad, at last shut the lid, and kept hope in the bottom of the vessel. Certainly, the * The myth of Pandora's box, which is here referred to, is re- lated in the " Works and Days" of Hesiod. Epimetheus was the personification of "Afterthought," while his brother Prometheus represented " Forethought," or prudence. It was not Epime- theus that opened the box, but Pandora, "All-gift," whom, contrary to the advice of his brother, he had received at the hands of Mercury, and had made his wife. In their house stood a closed .jar, which they were forbidden to open. Till her arrival this had been kept untouched: but her curiosity prompting her to open the lid, all the evils hitherto unknown to man flew out and spread over the earth, and she only shut it down in time to prevent the escape of Hope. or >/:/'/ 7vo.v> AXD TROUBLES. si politic and artificial nourishing and entertaining of hopes, and carrying m<-n from hopes lo hopes, is one of best antidotes against the poison of discontentments: and it is a certain sign of a wise government and pro- ceeding, when it can hold menV hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction ; and when it can handle things in such manner as no evil shall appear so peremptory bur that it hath some outlet of hope; which is the less hard to do. because- both particular persons ar.d factious are apt enough to flatter themselves, or at least to brave that which they believe not. Also the foresight and prevention, that there be no likely or fit head whcreuuto discontented persons may it, and under whom they may join, is a known, but an excellent point of caution. I understand a fit head to be one that hath greatness and reputation, that hath confidence with the discontented party, and upon whom they turn their eyes, and that is thought discontented in his own particular: which kind of persons are either to be won and reconciled to the state, and that in a fast and true manner; or to be fronted with some other of the same party that may oppose them, and so divide the reputation. Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions and combinations that are adverse to the state, and setting them at distance, or, at least, dis- trust amongst themselves, is not one of the worst remedies: fur it it a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united. I have noted, that some witty and sharp speeches, which have fallen from princes, have given fire to sedi- tious. Ca-sar did himself infinite hurt in that speech 60 BACON'S ESSAYS. "Sylla nescivit literas, nou potuit dictarc;"* for it did utterly cut off that hope which meu had entertained, that he would at one time or other give over his dicta- torship. Galb undid himself by that speech, "Legi a se militem, non emi;"f for it put the soldiers out of hope of the donative. Probus, likewise, by that speech, " Si vixero, non opus erit amplius Romano imperio militibus;"^: a speech of great despair for the soldiers, and many the like. Surely princes had need in tender matters and ticklish times to beware what they say, es- pecially iu these short speeches, which fly abroad like darts, ami are thought to be shot out of their secret in- tentions; for as for large discourses, they are flat things, and not so much noted. Lastly, let princes, against all events, not be without some great person, one or rather more, of military valor, near unto them, for the repressing of seditions iu their beginnings; for without that, there useth to be more trepidation in court upon the first breaking out of trou- bles than were fit; and the state runneth the danger of that which Tacitus saith; " Atque is habitus auimorum fuit, ut pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures velleut * " Sylla did not know his letters, and so he could not dictate.' ' This saying is attributed by Suetonius to Julius Csesar. It is a play on the Latin verb "dictare," which means either "to dic- tate," or " to act the part of Dictator," according to the context. As this saying was presumed to be a reflection on Sylla's ignor- ance, and to imply that by reason thereof he was unable to main- tain his power, it was concluded by the Roman people th;i sar, who was an elegant scholar, feeling himself subject to no such inability, did not intend speedily to yield the reins of ' power. t " That soldiers were levied by him, not bought." i " If I live, there shall no longer be need of soldiers in the Roman empire." OF AT1IKLW. 61 omnes, paterentur:"* but let such military persons be assured, and well reputed of, rather than factious and popular; holding also good correspondence with the other great men in the state, or else the remedy is worsa than the disease. XVI. OF ATHEISM. I HAD rather believe all the fables in the legend, the Talmud, J and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind; and, therefore, God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordi- nary works convince it. It is true, that a little philoso- phy S indineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in phi- losophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scat- tered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further' but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs Hy to Providence and Deity: nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion: that is, the * " And such was the state of feeling, that a few dared to per- petrate the worst of crimes; more wished to do so, all submitted to it." t He probably alludes to the legends or miraculous stories of the saints, such as walking with their heads off, preaching to the fishes, sailing over the sea on a cloak, etc., etc. + This is the book that contains the Jewish traditions, and the Rabbinical explanations of the law. It is replete with wonderful narratives. This passage not improbably contains the germ of Pope's famous lines, " A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.", y* ESSAYS. school of Leucippus,* and Democritus,f and Epicurus for it is a thousand times more credible that four muta- ble elements, and one immutable fifth essence,! duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should Lave produced this order and beauty without a divine marshal. The Scripture saith, "The fool hath said iu his heart, there is no God;" it is not said, "The fool bath thought in his heart;" so ns he rather saith it by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it; for none deny there is a God, but those for whom it makcth|| that there were no God. It appeareth iu nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, ^ind would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others; nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas, if they did truly think that there were no such thing as God, why should they * A. Philosopher of Abdera; the first who taught the system of atoms, which was afterwards more fully developed by Democri- tus and Epicurus. t He was a disciple of the last named philosopher, and held the same principles: he also denied the existence of the snul after death. He is considered to have been the parent of experi- mental Philosophy, and was the first to teach, what is now con- firmed by science, that the Milky Way is an accumulation of stars. J Spirit. Psalm xiv. 1, and liii. 1. | To whose (seeming) advantage it is; the wish being father to the thought. Ob' ATHEISM. 6S trouble themselves? Epicurus is charged, that he did but dissemble for liis credit's sake, when he affirmed there were blessed natures, but such as enjoyed them- selves without having respect to the government of the world; wherein they say he did temporize, though in secret he thought there was no God: but certainly he is traduced, for his words are noble and divine: " Nou Deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opiniones Diis applicare profanum." * Plato could have said no more; and although he had the confidence to deny the admin- istration, he had not the power to deny the nature. The Indians! of the west have names for their particu- lar gods, though they have no name for God: as if (lie heathens should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, etc., but not the word Deus, which shows that even those barbarous people have the notion, though they have not the ^atitude and extent of it; so that against atheists the very savages take part with the very subtlest philosophers. The contemplative atheist is rare; a Diagoras,]: a Bion.g a Lucianlj perhaps, and * " It is not profane to deny the existence of the Deities of the vnlKar: but to apply to the Divinities the received notions of the vtiljr:ir is pn>fanr." t He alludes to the native tribes of the continent of America and the West Indies. i lit- was an Athenian philosopher, who from the greatest su- perstition beraine an avowed atheist. lie was proscribed by the piurns for speaking against the gods with ridicule and con- tempt, and is supposed to have died at Corinth. A Greek philosopher, a disciple of Theodorus the atheist, to -vhose opinions lie adhered. His life ~.vas said to have been prof- litfuie, and his death superstitious. Lucian ridiculed the. follies and pretensions of some of the. ancient philosophers; but. though the freedom of his style was such as to cause him to be censured for impiety, he hardly de' 64 BACON'S ESSAYS. some others; and yet they seem to be more than they are; for that all that impugn a received religion, or su- perstition, are, by the adverse part, branded with the name of atheists; but the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, which nvc ever handling holy things but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end. The causes of atheism are, divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division addcth zeal to both sides, but many divisions intro- duce atheism: another is, scandal of priests, when it is come to that which St. Bernard saith, "Non est jam dicere, ut populus, sic sacerdos; quia nee sic populus, ut sacerdos:"* a third is, custom of profane scoffing in holy matters, which doth by little and little deface the reverence of religion; and lastly, learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men's minds to religion. They that deny a God destroy a man's no- bility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magnanimitj r , and the raising of human nature; for take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself main- tained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or serves the stigma of atheism here cast upon him by the learned author. * " It is not for us now to say, ' Like priest like people,' for the people are not even so bad as the priest." St. Bernard, abbct of Clairvaux, preached the second Crusade against the Saracens, and was unsparing in his censures of the fins then prevalent among the Christian priesthood. His writings are voluminous, and by some he has been considered as the latest of the fathers of the Church OF SUPERSTITION. 60 melior natura;"* which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that coufidence of a better na- ture than his own, could never attain. So man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine protection ami favor, gathereth a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not obtain; therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth hu- man nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty. As it is in particular persons, so it is in na- tions: never was there such a state for magnanimity as Rome. Of this state hear what Cicero saith: " Quam volumus, licet, Patres conscripti, uos amemus, tamen nee numero Hispanos, nee robore Gallos, nee calliditate Pcenos, nee artibus Grsecos, nee denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terrae domestico nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed pietate, ac religione, atque hac una sapientia, quod Deorutn immortalium mimiue omnia regi, gubernarique perspeximus, omues geutes, nation- sque superavimus." + XVII. OF SUPERSTITION. lr were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is * " A superior nature." \Ve may admire ourselves, conscript fathers, as much as we please: still, neither by number I the Span- lards, nor by bodily strength the Gauls, nor by cunning the Car- ians, nor through the arts the Greeks, nor, in fine, by the inborn and native good sen- .on, and this our >!. the Italians and Latins themselves; but through our devotion and our religious feeling, and this, the sole tru* wisdom, the having perreived that all things are regulated an/ governed by tli provid^iu:* 1 of tin- immortal (fodb. have we suli il races and nati<'i " 68 BACON'S ESSAYS. unbelief; the other is contumely:* and certainly super- stition is the reproach of the Diety. Plutarch suitk well to that purpose, " Surely," saith he, "I had rather a great deal meu should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his children f as soon as they were born;" as the poets speak of Saturn: and, as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural pjety, to laws, to repu- tation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dis- mounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy m the minds of men: therefore, atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further, and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times; but su- perstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new "primum mobile," \ that ravished! all the spheres of government. The master of supersti- tion is the people, and in all superstition wise men fol- low fools: and arguments are fitted to practice in a re- versed order. It was gravely said by some of the prelates in the Council of Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great sway, that the schoolmen * The justice of this position is perhaps somewhat doubtful. The superstitious man must have some scruples, while he who believes not in a God (if there is such a person) needs have none. t Time was personified in Saturn, and by this story was meant its tendency to destroy whatever it has brought into existence. t The primary motive power. This Council commenced in 1545, and lasted eighteen years. It was convened for the purpose of opposing the rising spirit of Protestantism, and of discussing and settling the disputed points of the Catholic faith. OF BUPBBsrtnoir. e? were like astonomers, which did feign eccentrics * and epicycles,! and such engines of orbs to save the phe- nomena, though they knew there were no such things; and, in like manner, that the schoolmen had framed a number of subtle and intricate axioms and theorems, to save the practice of the Church. The causes of super- stition arc, pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; overgreat reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the Church; the strategems of prelates for their own ambi- tion and lucre; the favoring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to conceits and novelties; the taking an aim at divine matters by human, which can- not but breed mixture of imaginations; and, lastly, bar- barous times, especially joined with calamities and ITS. Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing; for as it addeth deformity to an ape to be BO like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed: and as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of petty observances. There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best if they go furthest from the superstition for- merly received; therefore care would be had that (as it fare tli in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people ia the reformer. * Irregular or anomalous movements. + An epicycle is a smaller-circle, whose center is iu the circum- ference of a greater one. $ To account fyr. fJACOX'g EM AY*. XVIII. OF TRAVEL. TRAVEL, in tbe younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to /ravel. That young men travel under some tutor or grave servant, I allow well; so that he be such a one that hath the lan- guage, and hath been in the country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go, what acquaint- ances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place yielded; for else young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is a strange thing, that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in laud travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if chance were fitter to be registered than observation: let diaries, therefore, be brought in use. The things to be seen and observed are, the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories* ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns; and so the havens and harbors, antiquities and ruins, libraries, colleges, disputatious, and lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gar- dens of state and pleasure, near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, excercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of sol- diers, and the like: comedies, such whereunto the bet- * Synods, or councils. OF TEA VKI.. C9 tor sort of persona do resort; treasuries of jewels and rolies; cabiuots ;uul rarities; and, to conclude, whatsn- ever is memorable in the places where they go; after all which the tutors or servants ought to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need net be put in mind of them: yet are they not to be ne- glected. If you will have a young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to gather much, this you must do: first, as was said, he must have some entrance into the language before he goeth; then lie must have such a servant, or tutor, as kuoweth the country, as was likewise said: let him carry with him also some card, or book, describing the country where he traveleth, which will be a good key to his inquiry; let him keep also a diary; let him not stay long in one city or town, more or less as the place deserveth, but not long; nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town to another, which is a great adamant of acquaintance; let him sequester himself from the company of his country- men, and diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where he traveleth: let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither he removeth, that he may use his favor in those things he desireth to see or know ; thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that which is most of all profitable, is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed men* of ambassadors; for *o in traveling in one country he shall suck the expe- * At the present day called "attaches." 70 BACON'S ESSAYS. rience of many: let him also see aud visit eminent per- sons in all kinds, which are of great name abroad, that he may be able to tell how the life agreelh with the fame ; for quarrels, they arc with care and discretion to be avoided; they are commonly for mistresses, healths,* place, aud words; and let a man beware how lie keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quar- rels. When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth ; aud let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answers, than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts ; but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country. XIX. OF EMPIRE. IT is R miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear: and yet that commonly in the case of kings, who being at the highest, want matter of desire, f which makes their minds more lan- guishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear; and this is one reason also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, "That the king's heart is inscrutable :"| * He probably means the refusing to join on the occasion of ' drinking healths when taking wine, t Something to create excitement. " The heart of kings is unsearchable." Prov. v. 3. OF EMP1RK. 71 for multitude of jealousies, and lack of some predomi- nant desire, that should marshal and put iu order all the rest, makeih any mail's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys; some- times upon a building; sometimes upon erecting of an order; sometimes upon the advancing of a person; sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art, or feat of the hand: as Nero for playing on the harp; Do- mitian for certainty of the hand with the arrow; Corn- modus for playing at fence;* Caracal la for driving chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those that know not the principle, that the mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by profiting in small things than by standing at a stayf iu great. We see also that kings that have been fortunate conquerors in their tirst years, it being not possible for them logo forward infinitely, but that they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy; as did Alexander the Great, Dioclesian.t and in our memory, Charles the Fifth, and others; for he that is used to go forward, and lindeth a stop, falleth out of his own favor, and is not the thing he was. To speak now of the true temper of empire, it is a thing rare and hard to keep; for both temper and dis- temper consist of contraries; but it is one thing to min- * Commodus fought naked in public as a gladiator, and prided himself on his skill as a swordsman. t Making a stop at, or dwelling too long upon. t After a prosperous reign of twenty-one years, Dioclesian ab'lk-rtted the throne, and retired to a private station. After having reigned thirty-five years, he abdicated the thrones of Spain and Germany, and passed the two last yeai of his life in retiring at St. Just, a convent in Estremadura. 72 JiACOX'ti gle contraries, another to interchange them. The an swer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent in- struction. Vespasian asked him, " What was Xero's overthrow?" he answered, "Nero could touch and tune the harp well; but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, sometimes to let them down too low." And certain it is, that nothing destroyeth au- thority so much as the unequal and untimely inter- change of power pressed too far, and relaxed too much. This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times in princes' affairs is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof: but this is but to try masteries with fortune; and let men be- ware how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared. For no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes (saith Tacitus) to will contradictories: " Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se contrariae;"* for it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean. Kings have to deal with their neighbors, their wives, their children, their prelates or clergy, their nobles, their second nobles or gentlemen, their merchants, their commons, and their men of war; and from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not used. First, for their neighbors, there can no general rule b(_- given (the occasions are so variable), save one which ever holdeth; which is, that princes do keep due senti- * " The desires of monarchs are generally impetuous and con flicting among themselves." OF EMPIRE. 78 nel that none of their neighbors do overgrow so (by increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by ap- proaches, or the like), as they become more able to annoy them than they were; and this is generally the work of standing counsels to foresee and to hinder it. During that triumvirate of kings, King Henry the Eighth of England, Francis the First, King of France,* and Charles the Fifth, Emperor, there was such a watch kept that none of the three could win a palm of ground, but the other two would straightways balance it, either by confederation, or, if need were, by a war; and would not in anywise take up peace at interest; and the like was done by that league (which Guicciardiuif saith was the security of Italy), made between Ferdi- naudo, King of Naples, Loreuzius Medlcis, and Ludo- vicus Sforza, potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. Neither is the opinion of some of the school- men to be received, that a war cannot justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or provocation; for there is no question, but a just fear of an imminent danger, though there be DO blow given, is a lawful cause of a war. For their wives, there are cruel examples of them. Livia is iufamedf for the poisoning of her husband; * He was especially the rival of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and was one of the most distinguished sovereigns that ever ruled over France. t An eminent historian of Florence. His great work, which i* here alliuU-d to. is "The History of Italy during his own Time, 1 which is con. idered one of the most valuable productions of that age. $ Spoken badly of. Livia was said to have hastened the death of Augustus, to prepare the accession of her son Tiberius to the throne. 74 JIAt'OX'S Koxolaiui, Solyman's wife* was the destruction of that renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise troubled his house and succession; Edward the Second of England's Queen fluid the principal hand iu the disposing and murder of her husband. This kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly when the wives have plots for the raising of their own chil- dren, or else that they be advoutresses.:}: For their children, the tragedies likewise of dangers from them have been many; and generally the entering of fathers into suspicion of their children hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction of Mustapha's (that we named before) was so fatal to Solymau's line, as the succession of the Turks from Solyman's until this day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the Second was thought to be suppo- sitions. The destruction of Crispus, a young prince of rare towardness, by Coustantinus the Great, his father, was in like manner fatal to his house; for both Constantinus and Constance, his sons, died violent deaths; and Constantinus, his other son, did little bet ter, who died indeed of sickness, but after that Julianus * Solyman the Magnificent was one of the most celebrated of the Ottoman monarchs. He took the Isle of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John. He also subdued Moldavia, Wallachia, and the greatest part of Hungary, and took from the Persians, Georgia and Bagdad. He died A.D. 1566. His wife Boxolana (who was originally a slave called Rosa or Hazathya), with the Pasha Rustan, conspired against the life of his son Mustapha, and by their instigation this distinguished prince was strangled in his father's presence. t The infamous Isabella of Anjou. t Adultresses. He. however, distinguished himself by taking Cyprus from Venetians in the year 1571. OF EMPIRE. 7.1 had taken arms against him. The destruction of De- nic-trius,* son to Philip the Second of Macedon, turned upon the father who died of repentance, and many like examples there are; but few or none where the fathers had good by such distrust, except it were where the sons were up in open arms against them; as was Sely- nuis the First against Bajazet, and the three sous of Henry the Second, King of England. For their prelates, when they are proud and great, there is also danger from them; as it was in the times of Anselmusf and Thomas Becket, Archbishops of Canterbury, who with their crosiers did almost try it with the King's sword; and yet they had to deal with stout and haughty kings: William Rufus, Henry the First, and Henry the Second. The danger is not from that state, but where it hath a dependence of foreign authority; or where the churchmen conic in and are elected, not by the collation of the king or particular patrons, but by the people. For their nobles, to keep them at a distance is not amiss; but to depress them may make a king more ab- solute, but less safe, and less able to perform anything he desires. I have noted it in my History of King Henry the Seventh, of England, who depressed his nobility, whereupon it came to pass that his times were full of difllcultics and troubles; for the nobility, though they * He was falsely accused by his brother Perseus of attempt- ing to dethrone his father, on which he was put to death by the order of Philip, B.C. 180. t Anselm was archbishop of Canterbury in the time of William Rnfus and Henry the First. Though his private life was pious and exemplary, through his rigid assertions of the rights of the clergy, he was continually embroiled with his sovereign. Thomas & Becket pursued a similar course, but with still greater vio- lence. 76 At'VX't< BS&AY& continued loyal unto him, yet did they not co-operate with him in his business, so that ill effect he was fain to to do all things himself. For their second nobles, there is not much danger from them, being a body dispersed: they may some- times discourse high, but that doth little hurt: besides, they are a counterpoise to the higher nobility, that they grow not too potent; and, lastly, being the most imme- diate in authority with the common people, they do best temper popular commotions. For their merchants, they are "vena porta;"* and if they flourish not, a kingdom may have good limbs, but will have empty veins, and nourish little. Taxes and imposts upon them do seldom good to the king's reve- nue, for that which he winsf in the hundred, J he loseth in the shire; the particular rates being increased, but the total bulk of trading rather decreased. For their commons, there is little danger from thorn, except it be where they have great and potent heads, or where you meddle with the point of religion, or their customs or means of life. For the men of war.g it is a dangerous state where they live and remain in a body, and are used to donat- ives whereof we see examples in the Janizaries J and * The great vessel that conveys the blood to the liver, after it has been enriched by the absorption of nutriment from the in- testines. t This is an expression similar to our proverb, "Penny-wise and pound-foolish. i A subdivision of the shire. Soldiers. The Janizaries were the body-guards of the Turkish sultans, and enacted the same disgraceful part in making and unmaking: monarehs as the mercenary Praetorian guards o f the Roman empire. OF COUSXKL. 77 Praetorian bands of Rome; but training of men, and arming them in several places, and under several com- manders, and without donatives, are tilings of defense, and no danger. Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have much veneration, hut no re.-t. All precepts concerning kings are in effect com- prehended in those two remembrances, "Memento quod es homo;"* and '' Memento quod es Deus," f or " vice Dei;":): the one bridleth their power, and the other their will. XX. OF COUNSEL. THE greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel; for in other confidences men commit the parts of life, their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors they commit the whole: by how much the more they are obliged to all faith and integ- rity. The wisest princes need not think it any diminu- tion to their greatness or derogation to their sufficiency to rely upon counsel. God himself is not without, but hath made it one of the great names of his blessed Son, "The Counsellor." Solomon hath pronounced that, " In counsel is stability." \ Things will have their first or second agitation : if they be not tossed upon the ar- guments of counsel, they will be tossed upon waves of * " Remember that thou art a man." t " Remember that thou art a God." t "The representative of God." Isaiah ix. li: " His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsel- lor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.'' I Prov. xx. 18: " Every purpose is established by counsel: and o ith sood advice make war." 78 BACON'S ESSAYS. fortune; and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing., like the reeling of a drunken man. Solomon's sou* found the force of counsel, as his father saw the neces- sity of it: for the beloved kingdom of God was first rent and broken by ill counsel; upon which counsel there are set for our instruction the two marks whereby bad counsel is forever best discerned, that it was young counsel for the persons, and violent counsel for the matter. The ancient times do set forth in figure both the in- corporation and inseparable conjunction of counsel with kings, and the wise and politic use of counsel by kings: the one in that they say Jupiter did marry Metis, which signifieth counsel; whereby they intend that sovereignty is married to counsel; the other, in that which follow- eth, which was thus: they say, after Jupiter was mar- ried to Metis, she conceived by him and was with child; but Jupiter suffered her not to stay till she brought forth, but eat her up: whereby he became himself, with child; and was delivered of Pallas armed, out of his head. Which monstrous fable coutaineth a secret of empire, how kings are to make use of their counsel of state: that first they ought to refer matters unto them, which is the first begetting or impregnation; but when they are elaborate, molded and shaped in the womb of their council, and grow ripe and ready to be brought forth, that then they suffer not their council to go through with the resolution and direction, as if it de- pended on them; but take the matter back into their own hands, and make it appear to the world that the decrees and final directions (which, because they come forth with prudence and power, are resembled to Pallas * The wicked Rohoboam, from whom the ten tribes of Israel revolted and elected Jeroboam 'their king. See I. Kings xii. OF COUNSEL. 79 armed), proceeded from themselves; and not only from their authority, but (the more to add reputation to themselves) from their head and device. Let us now speak of the inconveniences of counsel, and of the remedies. The inconveniences that have been noted in calling and using counsel, are three: first, the revealing of affairs, whereby they become less se- cret; secondly, the weakening of the authority of princes, as if they were less of themselves; thirdly, the danger of being unfaithfully counselled, and more for the good of them that counsel than of him that is coun- selled; for which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings' times, hath intro- duced cabinet councils; a remedy worse than the dis- ease.* As to secrecy, princes arc not bound to communicate all matters with all counsellors, but may extract and se- lect; neither is it necessary, that he that consulteth what lie should do, should declare what he will do; but let princes beware that the unsecreting of their affairs comes not from themselves: and, as for cabinet coun- cils, it may be their motto, " Plcmis rimarum sum:"f one futile person, that maketh it his glory to tell, will do more hurt than many, that know it their duty to conceal. It is true there be some affairs which require extreme secrecy, which will hardly go beyond one or two persons besides the king: neither are those coun- sels unprosperous; for, besides the secrecy, they com- monly go on constantly in one spirit of direction with- out distraction: but then it must be a prudent king. * The political world has not been convinced of the truth of this doctrine of Lord Bacon, as cabinet councils are now held probably by every sovereign in Europe. t " I am full of outlets." 80 BACON'S ESSAYS. such as is able to grind with a hand mill;* and those inward counsellors had need also be wise men, and es- pecially true and trusty to the king's ends, as it wu with King Henry the Seventh of England, who, in h : s greatest, business imparted himself to none, except it were to Mortonf and Fox. \ For weakening of authority, the fable showetli the remedy: nay, the majesty of kings is rather exalted than diminished when they are in the chair of coun- cil; neither was there ever prince bereaved of his dependencies by his council, except where there hath been either an over-greatness in one counsellor, or an over strict combination in divers, which are things soon found and holpeu.| For the last inconvenience, that men will counsel with an eye to themselves; certainly, " uou inveuiet fidem super terram," ^[ is meant of the nature of times,** and * That is, without a complicated machinery of government. t Master of the Rolls and Privy Councillor under Henry VI.. to whose cause he faithfully adhered. Edward IV. promoted him to the see of Ely, and made him Lord Chancellor. He was ele- vated to the see of Canterbury by Henry VII., and in 1493 received the Cardinal's hat. t Privy Councillor and Keeper of the Privy Seal to Henry VII. ; and after enjoying several bishoprics in succession, translated to the see of Winchester. He was an able statesman, and highly valued by Henry VII. On the accession of Henry VIII. , his political influence was counteracted by Wolsey: on which he retired to his diocese, and devoted the rest of his life to acts ol piety and munificence. Before mentioned, relative to Jupiter and Metis. Remedied. C1- He shall not find faith upon the earth." Lord Bacon probably alludes to the words of our Saviour, St. Luke xviii. 8: "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?" ** He means to say that this remark was only applicable to a OF COU.\*1L. 81 not of all particular persons. There be Unit are iu nature faithful and sincere, ami plain and direct, nut crafty and involved: let princes, above all, draw to themselves such natures. Besides, counsellors are not commonly so united, but that one counsellor keepeth sentinel over another; so that if any do counsel out of faction or private ends, it commonly conies to the King's ear: but the best iemedy is, if princes know their coun- sellors, as well as their counsellors know them: " Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos."* And on the other side, counsellors should not be too speculative into their sovereign's person. The true composition of a counsellor is, rather to be skillful in their master's business than in his nature;! for then he is like to advise him, and not to feed his humor. It is of singular use to princes if they take the opinions of their council both separately and together; for private opinion is more free, but opinion before others is more re-'. 83 than to make an iudifferency by putting in those tli:it are strong on both sides. I commend, also, standing commissions; as for trade, for treasure, for war, for suits, for some provinces; for where there be divers particular councils, and but one council of estate (as i\ is in Spain), they are, in effect, no more than standing commissions, save that they have greater authority. Let such as are to inform councils out of their particular professions (as lawyers, seamen, mintmen, and the like*, be first heard before committees; and then, as occ , serves, before the council; and let them not come iu multitudes, or in a tribunitious* manner; for that is to clamor councils, not to inform them. A long table and a square table, or seats about the walls, seem thiiiL form, but are things of substance; for at a long table a few at the upper end,, in effect, sway all the business; but in the other form there is more use of the counsellors' opinions that sit lower. A king, when lie presides in council, let him beware how he opens his own inclina- tion too much in that which lie propoundeth; for else counsellors will but take the wind of him, and instead of giving free counsel, will sing him a song of " placebo."! XXL OF DELAYS. FOKTCNK is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall; and again, it is sometimes like Sibylla's offer.f which at first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, * A tribunitial or declamatory manner, t " I'll follow the bent of your humor." JSoe the history of Rome under the reign of Tarquinius Superbue. 84 BACUX'* />>'. 1 )">. and still holdeth up the price; for occasion (as it is in the common verse) " turneth a bald noddle* after she liath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken;" or, al least, turueth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after the belly, which is hard to clasp. There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things. Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them: nay, it is better to meet some dangers halfway, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds that he will fall asleep. On the other side, to be deceived with too long shadows (as some have been when the moon was low, and shone on their enemies' back), and so to shoot off before the time; or to teach dangers to come on by over earl}- buckling towards them, is another extreme. The ripeness or unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must be very well weighed; and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands; first to watch and then to speed; for the helmet of Pluto, which maketli the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the council, and celerity in the execution; for when things are once come to the execu- tion, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye. * Bald head. He alludes to the common saying " take time by the forelock." OF XXII. OF CUNNING. WE take cunning for a sinister, or crooked wisdom; and certainly there is great difference between a cunning man and a wise men, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards,' and yet cannot play well; so there are some that art- good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men. Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to understand matters; for many are per- fect in men's humors that are not capable of the real part of business, which is the constitution of one that hath studied men more than books. Such men are litter for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in their own alley: turn them to new men, and they have lost their aim; so as the old rule, to know a fool from a wise man " Mitte ambos nudos ad ignotos, et videbis,"f doth scarce hold for them ; and, because these cunning men are like haberdashers J of small wares, it is not amiss to set forth their shop. It is a point of cunning to wail upon him with whom you speak with your eye, as the Jesuits gave it * Packing the cards is an admirable illustration of the author's meaning. It is a cheating exploit, by which knaves, who pep- haps are inferior players, insure to themselves the certainty of pood hands. * " Send them both naked among strangers, and then you will tThis word is used here in its primitive sense of "retail dealers." It is said to have been derived from a custom of the Flemings, who first settled in this country in ihe fourteenth century, stopping the passengers as they passed their shops, and saying to them, " Habor da. herr?" "Will you take this, sir." The word is now generally used as synonymous with linen-draper. 5 To watch. 86 in precept; for there be many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances: yet this would be done with a demure debasing of your eye sometimes, us the Jesuits also do use. Another is, when you have anything to obtain ot present dispatch, you entertain and amuse the party with whom you deal witli some other discourse, that he IK: not too much awake to make objections. I knew a counsellor and secretary that never came to M Elizabeth of England with bills to Mini, but would always first put her into some discourse of es- tate* that she might the less mind the bills. The like surprise may be made by moving things f when the party is in haste, and cannot stay to consider advisedly of that is moved. If a man would cross a business that he doubts some other would handsomely and effectually move, let him pretend to wish it well, and move it himself, in such sort as may foil it. The breaking oil in the midst of that one was about to say, as if he took himself up, breeds a greater appe- tite in him with whom you confer to know more. And because it works better when anything seemelh to be gotten from you by question than if you offer it of yourself, you may lay a bait for a question, by show- ing anolher visage and countenance than you are wont; to the end, to give occasion for the party to ask what the matter is of the change, as Nehemial4 did, "And I had not before that time been sad before the king." * State. t Discussing matters. t He relVrs !> Hi<' nnvisioii when Ncliciniiili, on presenting the wine, us eiipbearer to King Artaxerxcs, appeared sorrowful, and nn being asked the reason of H. entreated the, king to allow Jeru- salem to be rebuilt. Nehemiah ii. 1. OF CUXNINQ. 87 In t.hings that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance, so that he may be asked the question upon the other's speech; as Narcissus did, in relating to Claudius tin- marriage * of Messalina and Siiius. In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or ''There is a speech abroad." I knew one, that when he wrote a letter, he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it Uad been a by-matter. I knew another, that when he came to have speech, f ho would pass over that that lie intended most: and go forth and come back again, and speak of it as of a thing that he had almost forgot. Some procure themselves to be surprised nf such times as it is like the p irty that they work upon will suddenly come upon them, and to be found with a letter in their hand, or doing somewhat which they are not accus- tomed, to the end they may be opposed off those things which of themselves they are desirous to utter. It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a man's own name, which he would have another man learn and use. and thereupon take advantage. I knew two that were competitors for the secretary's place, in * This can hardly be called a marriage, as at the time of the intrigue Messalina was the wife of Claudius: but she forced I'aius Siiius. of whom she was deeply enamored, to divorce his own wife, that she herself mifrht enjoy his society. The intrigue was disclosed to Claudius by Narcissus, who was his freedman. and the pander to his infamous vices, on which Siiius was put to death. t To speak in his turn. t Be questioned upon. 88 BACON'S E8HAY& Queen Elizabeth's lime, ;iud yet kept good quarter* be- tween themselves, and would confer one with another upon the business; and the one of them said, that to be a secretary in the declination of a monarchy was a tick- lish thing, and that he did not affect it:f the other straight caught up those words, and discoursed with divers of his friends, that he had no reason to desire to be secretary in the declination of a monarchy. The first man took hold of it, and found means it was told the queen ; who, hearing of a declination of a monarchy, took it so ill, as she would never after hear of the other's suit. There is a cunning, which we in England call," the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him; and, to say truth, it is not easy, when such a matter passed between two, to make it ap- pear from \vhich of them it first moved and began. It is a way that some men have, to glance and dart at others by justifying themselves by negatives; as to say, "This I do not;"asTigellinus did towards Burrluis, '' Se non diversas spes sed iucolumitatem imperatoris simpliciter spectare."| Some have in readiness so many tales and stories, as there is nothing they would insinuate, but they can wrap it into a tale; which serveth both to keep them- * Kept on good terms. t Desire it. i " That he did not have various Lopes in view, but solely the safety of the emperor." Tigellinus was the profligate minister of Nero, and Africanus Burrhus was the chief of the Praetorian guards. As Nathan did when he reproved David for his criminality with Bathsheba. II. Samuel xii. OF V&N2FINQ. 89 selves more in guard, and to make others carry it with more pleasure. It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and proposi- tions; for it makes the other party stick the less. It is strange how long some men will lie in wait to speak somewhat they desire to say; and how far about tl'cy will fetch,* and how many other matters they will beat over to come near it: it is a thing of great patience, but yet of much use. A sudden, bold, and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man, and lay him open. Like to him, that, having changed his name, and walking in Paul's, t another suddenly came behind him and called him by his true name, whereat straight ways he looked back. But these small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite, and it, were a good deed to make a list of them; for that nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. But certainly some there are that know the resorts \ and falls of business that cannot sink into the main of it; | like a house that hath convenient stairs and entries, but never a fair room; therefore you shall see them find out pretty losses *[ in the conclusion, but are noways able to examine or debate matters; and yet commonly they take advantage of their inability, and would be thought wits of direction. Some build rather upon the abusing of others, and (as we now say) putting tricks * Use indirect stratagems. t Ho alludes to the old Cathedral of St. Paul in London, which, in the sixteenth century, was a common lounge for idlers. J Movements, or springs. Chances, or vicissitudes. Enter deeply into. ' faults, or weak points. 90 JJACOlf'ti upon them, than upon soundness of their own proceed- ings: but Solomon saith, " Prudens advertit ad gres- sus suos : stultus di vertit ad dolos. " * XXIII. OF WISDOM FOR A. MAN'S SELF. AN ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd f 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, especially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth; for that only stands fast upon his cfwn center; \ whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens, move upon the centre of an- other, which they benefit. The referring of all to a man's self, is more tolerable in a sovereign prince, be- cause 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 republic; for whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, lie 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 service should be made the accessory. That which maketh the effect more pernicious is, that all proportion is lost; it * "The wise man ^ives heed to his own footsteps; the fool turneth aside to the snare." No doubt lie here alludes to Ecele- siustes xiv. 2. which passage is thus rendered in our version: "The wise man's eyes are iu his head; but the fool walketh in darkness." t Mischievous. i It must be remembered that Bacon was not a favorer of th Copernican system. ( OF WISDOM' FOR A J/.-LV.S' SELF. . 91 wore disproportionate enough for the servant's good to be preferred before the muster's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall cany things against a great good of the master's: and 3'et 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 petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's great and im- portant affairs, 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 a house on fire, an it were but to roast their eggs; ami yet these men many times hold credit with their masters because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves; and for either respect they will aboudon 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 Pom pey) are, "sui amantcs, sine rivali,"* are many times unfortunate; and whereas they have all their times sacrificed to them- selves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. * " Lovers of themselves without a rival." 92 BACOX'X ASSAYS. XXIV. OF INNOVATIONS. As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapeu, so are all innovations, which are the births of time; yet notwithstanding, as those that first bring honor into their family are commonly more worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is seldom attained by imitation; for ill to man's nature as it stands perverted, hath a natural motion strongest in continu- ance; but good, as a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine * is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? It is true, that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet at least it is fit; and those things which have long gone together, are, as it were, confederate within themselves;! whereas new things piece not so well; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their inconformity: besides, they are like strangers, more admired and less favored. All this is true, if time stood still: which, contrariwise, moveth so round, that a froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new. It were good, there- fore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived ; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlocked for; and ever it mends some and pairs \ other; and he that is holpen, * Remedy. t Adapted to each other. t Injures, or impairs. OF DISPATCH. V'.\ takes it fora forttmc, ami IhauUs the time; and lie Unit is hurt, for a wrong, and itnputeth it to the author. It. is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation; and lastly, that the novelty, though it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect,* and, as the Scripture saith, " That we make a stand upon the an- cient way, and then look about us, and discover what is the straight aud right \vay, and so to walk in it."-f XXV. OF DISPATCH. AFFECTED dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be: it is like that which the physicians call predigestion, 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 the 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 much at once, pro- cureth dispatch. It is the care of some, only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false peri- ods of business, because they may seem men of dis- patch : hut it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting,} another by cutting off ; and business so handled at sev- * A thing suspected. t He probably alludes to Jeremiah, vi. 16: "Thus sairh tlio Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall thul i v*t for your souls.'' J That is, by means of good management. 94 BACON'S ESSAYS. eriil sittings, or meetings, goeth commonly backward aud forward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man * that had it for a by-word, when lie saw men has- ten 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 theru 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 infor- mation iu business, and rather direct them in the begin- ning, than interrupt them iu the continuance of their speeches; for he that is put out of his own order will go forward and backward, 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 troublesome than the actor. 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 chaseth away many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. Long and curious speeches are as fit for dispatch as a robe, or mantle, with a long train, is for a race. Prefaces, aud passages,! and excu- sations,! and other speeches of reference to the person, Are great wastes of time; and though they seem to pro- * It is supposed that he here alludes to Sir Amyas Panlet, a very able statesman, and the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth to the court of France. t Quotations. t Apologies. OF BBBMINQ WISE. 96 cecd of modesty, they are bravery.* Yet beware of being too material when there is an3 r impediment, or obstruction in men's wills; for preoccupation of mind f ever requireth preface of speech, like a fomentation to make the unguent enter. Above all things, order and distribution, and singling out of parts, is the life of dispatch; so as the distribu- tion 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 unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business: the preparation; the debate, or examination; and the per- fection. 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 in- definite, as ashes are more generative than dust. XXVI. OF SEEMING WISE. IT hath been an opinion, that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly, it is so between man and man; for as the apostle saitli of godliness, " Having a show of godliness, but denying the power thereof;"}: so certainly there are, in points of wisdom and sufficiency, that do nothing, or little very solemnly; " mngno coirntu nugas." It is a ridiculous thing, and tit fora satire to persons of judgment, to see * Hoastiiifj. t Prejudice. { II. Tim. iii. 5. | ' Trifles with great effort." 96 BACON'S ESSAYS. what shifts these formalists have, and what prospectives to make supertices to seem body, that hath depth and bulk. Some are so close and reserved as they will not show their wares but by a dark light, and eeem always to keep back somewhat; and when they know within themselves they speak of that they do not well know, would nevertheless seem to others to know of that which they may not well speak. Some help themselves with countenance and gesture, and are wise by signs; as Cicero saith of Piso, that when he answered him he fetched one of his brows up to his forehead, and bent the other down to his chin; " Respondes, altero ad frontcm sublato, altero ad mentnm deprcsso supercilio; crudelitatemtibi non placere."* Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance that which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise, or make light of it as impertinent or curious: and so would have their ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch the matter; of whom A. Gellius saith. " Hominem delirum, qui ver- borum minutiis rerum frangit pondcra."f Of which kind also Plato, in his Protagoras, bringeth in Prodicus in scorn, and maketh him make a speech that consisteth of distinctions from the beginning to the end. Gen- erally such men, in all deliberations, find ease to be:}: of * " With one brow raised to your forehead, the other bent downward to your chin, you answer that cruelty deligli> not.'' t " A foolish man who fritters away the weight of matters by fine-spun fritting on words." t Find it easier to mako difficulties and objections than to originate. OF FRIENDSHIP. 97 the negative side, and affect a credit to object and fore- tell difficulties; for when propositions arc denied, there is ;in end of them; but if they be allowed, it requireth a new work : which false point of wisdom is the bane of business. To conclude, there is no decaying merchant, or inward beggar,* hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of wealth as these empty persons have to main- tain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion ; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly, you were better take for business a man somewhat absurd than over- formal. XXVII OF FRIENDSHIP. IT had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech, "Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god : " f for it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and aversion 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 desire 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.J the Candian; Numa, the * One in really insolvent circumstances, though to the world he does not appear so. t He here quotes from a passage in the " Politica"' of Aristotle, book i.: " He who is unable to mingle in society, or who requires noth- ing, liy reason of suflleintf for himself, is no part of the state, so thai he is either a wild Inmost or a Divinity.'' t Kpiineiii-le.-.. a poet of Crete (of which Candia is the modern name 'i, i - said by Pliny to have fallen into n sleep which lasted 98 BACON'S ESSAYS. 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 Icve. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little, " Magna ci vitas, magna solitudo;"* because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fel- lowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbor hoods; but we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friend- ship, lie taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and dis- charge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most clan- gerous in the body ; and it is not much otherwise in the fifty-seven years. He was also said to have lived 299 years. Numa pretended that he was instructed in the art of legislation by the divine nymph, Egeria. who dwelt in the Arican grove. Empedocles. the Sicilian philosopher, declared himself to be immortal, and to be able to cure all evils: he is said by some to have retired from society that his death might not be known, and to have thrown himself into the crater of Mount JEtna. Apollonius of Tyana, the Pythagorean philosopher, pretended to miraculous powers, and after his death a temple was erected to him at that place. His life is recorded by Philostratus ; and some persons, among whom are Hierocles, Dr. More, in his Mys- tery of Godliness, and recently Strauss, have not hesitated te compare his miracles with those of our Saviour. * " A great city, a great desert." OF FRIENDSHIP. 99 mind; you may take sarza* to open tlie liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur for the lungs, cas- toreum f for the brain ; but no receipt opetieth 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. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings 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) they raise some persons to be as it were companions, and almost equals to themselves, which many times Borteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace, or conversation; but the Roman name attuiueth 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 servauts, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between pri- vate men. L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey * Sareaparilla. t A liquid matter of a pungent smell, extracted from a portion of the body of the beavt-r. J ' Partakers of cares." 100 BACON'S ESSAYS. (after surnamed the Great) to that height that Poinpcy 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 there- at, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for tint more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that inter- est, as he set him down in his testament for heir in re- mainder after his nephew; and this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death : for when Csesar would have discharged the senate, in re- gard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Cal- phurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream; and it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a let- ter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philip- pics, calleth him "venefica," "witch;" as if he had enchanted Caesar. 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 Agrippa, or take away his life: there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a letter to him, saith, " Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi,"* and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, ih respect of the great dearness of friendship * "These things, by reason of our friendship, I have not con* oealecl/roHi you." OF FRIENDSHIP. 101 between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Pluutiunus; for he forced his oldest sou to marry the daughter o Plautiauus, 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 well, 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 good- ness of nature; but being men so wise,*of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of them- selves, 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 Comineusf observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, $ name- ly, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saitb, that to- wards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perisli his understanding. Surely Comiueus might have made the same judgment also, if it had * Such infamous men as Tiberius and Sejanus hardly deserve this commendation. t Philip de Comines. t Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, the valiant antagonist of Louis XI. of France. De Comines spent his early years at his court, but afterwards passed into the service of Louis XI. This monarch was notorious for his cruelty, treachery, and dissimu- lation, and had all the bad qualities of his contemporary, Ed- ward IV. of England, without any of his redeeming virtues. 102 BACON'S ESSAYS. pleased him, of his second master, Louis the Elev. eutli, whose closeness 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 con- clude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man'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 alchymists used to at- tribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of na- ture: but yet, without praying in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature; for, in bodies, union strcngtheneth and cher- isheth any natural action : and, on the other side, weak- eneth and dulleth any violent impression; and even so is it of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sover- eign for the understanding, as the first is for the affec- tions; for friendship maketh indeed a fair day m the affections from storm and tempests, but it maketh day- * Pythagoras went still further than this, as he forbade his dis- ciples to eat flesh of any kind whatever. See the interesting speech which Ovid attributes to him in the Fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Pseudodoxia (Browne's Works. Bohn's Antiquarian edn., vol. i. p. '2V, et seq.), Ki'es some curious explanations of the doctrines of this philo si her. OF FRIENDSHIP. 103 light in tba understanding, out of darkness and confu- sion 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 toss- eth his thoughts more easily; lie marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he wuxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's medi- tation. It was well said by Themistocles to the king of Persia, " That speech was like cloth of Arras,* opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but 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), but even without that a man lenrneth of himself, and briug- eth his own thoughts to light, and whelteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue 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 falletu within vulgar observation: which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, " Dry light is ever the best:" and certaiu it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel, from another, is drier and purer than that which cornet! from his own understanding and judgment; which it * Tapestry. Speaking hypereritically, Lord Bacon commit,' an anachronism here, as Arras did not manufacture tapestry till the middle ages. 104 IS A VOX' S ESSAYS. ever infused aud drenched iu bis 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 flat- terer; for there is no such flatterer as is a man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning busi- ness: for the first, the best preservative 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 medi- cine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead; obsevv- ing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best receipt (best I say to work and best to take) is the admonition, of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors aud 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 aud fortune: for, as St. 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 let- ters; f or, that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; \ and such other fond and high * James i. 83. t He alludes to the recommendation which moralists have often given, that a person in anger should go through the alpha- bet to himself before he allows himself to speak. t In his day the musket was fixed upon a stand, called the " rest," much as the gingals or matchlocks are used in the East at the present day. OF FRIENDSHIP. 10S imaginations, to tbink himself all in all: but when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which settetli 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 dan- gers; one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and en- tire 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 good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is un- acquainted with your body; and, therefore, may put you in a 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 daslu-th upon the other incon- venience, and therefore, rest not upon scattered coun- sels; 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 ac- tions 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 him- self; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say, " that a friend is another him- 106 BACvA"* ESSAYS. self;" for that a frieud 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 bestow- ing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure tliat 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 them: a man cannot 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 u 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, he may quit the stage. XXVIII. OF EXPENSE. RICHES are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for vol- untary undoing may be as well for a man's country as for kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, aud governed with such OF EXPENSE. 107 regard, as it be within his compass; and not subject to de-cult and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of eveu hand, his ordinary expenses onght to be but to the h;ilf of his receipt-;; and if he think to wax rich, but to the Ciii'd part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend .mil look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, hut doubting to bring them- selves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken : but wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all, had need both choose well those whom he employeth, and change them often ; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it belioveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other: as if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel: if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable: and the like. For he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds will hardly be preserved from decay. In clearing* of a man's estate, he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden, as in letting it run oil too long; for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageablc as interest. Besides, he that clears at once will relapse; for finding himself out of straits, he will revert to his customs: but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate. Certainly, who hath a state to repair, may not despise small things; and, commonly, it is less dishonorable to abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought * From debts and Incu:ubrances. 108 warily to begin charges, which once begun will con- tinue: but in matters that return not, he may be more magnificent. XXIX. OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. THE speech of Themistocles, the Athenian, which was haughty and arrogant, in taking so much to himself, had been a grave aud wise observation and censure, applied at large to others. Desired at a feast to touch a lute, he said, "He could not thldle, but yet he could make a small town a great city." These words (holpen a little with a metaphor) may express two different, abilities in those that deal in business of estate; for if a true survey be taken of counsellors and statesmen, there may be found (though rarely) those which can make a small state great, and yet cannot fiddle: as, on the other side, there will be found a great many that can fiddle very cunningly, but yet are so far from being able to make a small state great, as there gift lieth the other way; to bring a great and flourishing estate to ruin and decay. And certainly, those degenerate arts and shifts whereby many counsellors aud governors gain both favor with their masters and estimation with the vulgar, deserve rio better name than fiddling; being things rather pleas- ing for the time, and graceful to themselves only, than tending to the weal and advancement of the state which they serve. There are also (no doubt) counsellors and governors which may be held sufficient, " uegotiis pares,"* able to manage affairs, and to keep them from precipices and manifest inconveniences; which, never * " Equal to bu.sii OF KINGDOMS AXD ESTATES. 109 thclcss, are far from the ability to raise aud amplify an cslate in power, means, ami fortune: but be the work- men what they may be, let us speak of the work; that is, the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and the means thereof. Au argument fit for great and mighty princes to have in their hand; to the end that neither by over-measuring their forces, they lose themselves in vain enterprises: nor, on the other side, by undervalu- ing them, they descend to fearful aud pusillanimous counsels. The greatness of au estate, in bulk aud territory, doth fall under measure; aud the greatness of finances aud revenues doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps: but yet there is not anything amongst civil affairs more subject to error than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. The kingdom of heaven is compared, not to any great kernel, or nut, but to a grain of mustard-seed;* which is one of (he least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily to get up and spread. So are there states great in territory, and yet not apt to enlarge or command ; and some that have but a small dimension of stem, and yet apt to be the foundations of great monarchies. Walled towns, stored arsenals and armories, goodly races of horse, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like; all this is but a sheep in a lion's * He alludes to the following passage, St. Matthew xiii. 31: " Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of imistard-se<-d, which a mail took and sowed in his Held: which indeed is the least of allseeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becouieth a live, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." 110 BACON'S ESSAYS. skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike. Nay, number itself in armies im- porteth not much, -where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, " It never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be." The army of the Persians in the plains of Arbela was such a vast sea of people, as it did some- what astonish the commander? in Alexander's army, who came to him, therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night; but lie answered, " He will not pilfer the victory: and the defeat was easy. When Tigranes,* the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made himself merry with it, and said, " Yonder men are too many for an ambassnge, and too few for a fight;" but before the sun set, he found them enow to give him the chase with infinite slaughter. Many are the examples of the great odds between number and courage: so that a man may truly make a judgment, that the principal point of greatness in any state is to have a race of military men. Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said), where the sinews of men's arms in base and effeminate people are failing: for Solon said well to Croesus (when in ostentation he showed him his gold), " Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold." Therefore, let any prince, or state, think soberly of his forces, except his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers; and let princes, on the other side, that have subjects of martial disposition, know their own strength, unless they be otherwise * He was vanquished by LucuIIus, and finally submitted to Pompey. OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. Ill wanting unto themselves. A3 for mercenary forces (which is the help in this case), all examples show that, whatsoever estate, or prince, doth rest upon them, he may spread his feathers for a time, but he will mew them soon after. The blessing of Judah and Issachar* will never meet; that the same people, or nation, should be both the lion's whelp and the ass between burdens; neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should ever be- come valiant and martial. It is true that taxes, levied by consent of the estate, do abate men's courage less; as it hath been seen notably iu the excises of the Low Countries; and, in some degree, in the subsidies f of England; for, you must note, that we speak now of the heart, and not of the purse; so that, although the same tribute and tax laid by consent or by imposing, be all fine to the purse, yet it works diversely upon the courage. So that you may conclude, that no people overcharged with tribute is fit for empire. Let states that aim at greatness take heed how their nobilit}' and gentlemen do multiply too fast; for that rnaketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer. Even as you may see in coppice woods; if you leave your staddles $ too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and * He alludes to the prophetic words of Jacob on his death-bed, (Ji'ii. xlix. 9, 14, 15: "Judah is a lion's whelp he stooped clown, he crouched as a lion, and as an old lion Issachar is a strong ass crouching down between two burdens: And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant: and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." t Sums of money voluntarily contributed by the people for the use of the sovereign. i Young trees. 112 BACON'S ESSAYS. bushes. So in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons will be base; and you will bring it to that, that not the hundred poll will be fit for a helmet: especi- ally as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army; and so there will be great population and little strength. This which I speak of hath been nowhere better seen than by comparing of England and France; whereof England, though for less in territory and population, hath been (nevertheless) an overmatch; in regard the middle people of England make good soldiers, which the peasants of France do not; and herein the device of King Henry the Seventh (whereof I have spoken largely in the history of his life) was profound and admirable; in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land unto them as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition; and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings; and thus indeed you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to ancient Italy: " Terra potens armis atque ubere glebse." * Neither is that state (which, for anything I know, is almost peculiar to England, and hardly to be found anywhere else, except it be, perhaps, in Poland) to be passed over; I mean the state of free servants and attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen, which are no ways inferior unto the yeomanry for arms ; and, therefore, out of all question, the splendor and magnif- icence, and great retinues, and hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen received into custom, do much conduce unto martial greatness; whereas, contrariwise, the close * " A land strong in arms and in the richness of the soil." OF KINGDOMS . i ;w> /;> r. i TKS. 1 13 and reserved living of noble-men and gentlemen eauseth a penury of military forces. By all means it is to be procured that the trunk of Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy * be great enough to bear the branches and the boughs; that is, that the nat- ural subjects of the crown, or state, bear a sufficient proportion to the stronger subjects that they govern- therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers are fit for empire; for to think that a handful of people can, with the greatest courage and policy in the world, embrace too large extent of domin- ion, it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The Spartans were a nice people in point of naturaliza- tion; whereby, while they kept their compass, they stood firm; but when they did spread, and their boughs were becoming too great for their stem, they became a windfall upon the sudden. Never any state was, in this point, so open to receive strangers into their body as were the Romans; therefore it sorted with them ac- cordingly, for they grew to the greatest monarchy. Their manner was to grant naturalization (which they called " jus rivitatis''),f and to grant it in the highest degree, that is, not only "jus commereii.J jus connu- bii. jus lurreditatis;" | but also, " jus suffnigii,"^[ and * He alludes to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, which is men- tioued Daniel iv. 10: ''I saw, and, behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; the leaves tin-reef were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; the beasts of the field had shadow under it. and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.'' t " Right "f fili/t-iiship." } " Right of trading." " Right of intermarriage." | " Right of inheritAr.ee." ^ ' Right of suffrage." 114 BACON'S ESSAYS. "jus honorum;" * and this not to singular persons alone, but likewise to whole families; yea, to cities, and sometimes to nations. Add to this their custom of plan- tation of colonies, whereby the Roman plant was re- moved into the soil of other nations, and, putting both constitutions together, you will say, that it was not the Romans that spread upon the world, but it was the world that spread upon the Romans; and that was the sure way of greatness. I have marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they clasp and contain so large dominions with so few natural Spaniards; f but sure the whole compass of Spain is a very great body of a tree, far above Rome and Sparta at the first; and, besides, though they have not had that usage to naturalize liber- erally, yet they have that which is next to it; that is, to employ, almost indifferently, all nations in their militia of ordinary soldiers; yea, and sometimes in their high- est commands; nay, it seemeth at this instant they are sensible of this want of natives; as by the pragmatical sanction, : now published, appeareth. It is certain, that sedentary and within-door arts, and delicate manufacturers (that require rather the finger than the arm), have in their nature a contrariety to a military disposition; and generally all warlike people are a little idle, and love danger better than travail; neither must they be too much broken of it, if they shall be preserved in vigor; therefore it was great ad- * "Right of honors." t Long since the time of Lord Bacon, as soon as these colonies had arrived at a certain state of maturity, they at different peri- ods revolted from the mother country. t The laws and ordinances promulgated by the sovereigns of Spain were so called. The term was derived from the Byzantine empire. OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 115 vantage in the ancient states of Sparta, Athens, Rome, anil others, that they hud the use of slaves, which cr.m- monly did rid those manufacturers; but that Is ;ib<>l ishcd, in greatest part by the Christian la\v. That which coineth nearest to it is, to leave those arts chitlly to strangers (which, for that purpose, are the more eas- ily to be received), and to contain the principal bulk of the vulgar natives within those three kinds, tillers of the ground, free servants, and handicraftsmen of strong and manly arts; as smiths, masons, carpenters, etc., not reckoning professed soldiers. But, above all, for empire and greatness, it importeth most, that a nation do profess arms as their principal honor, study, and occupation; for the things which \ve formerly have spoken of are but habitations * towards arms; and what is habilitatiou without intention and act? Romulus, after his death (as they report or feign), sent a present to the Romans, that above all they should intend f arms, and then they should prove the greatest empire of the world. The fabric of the state of Sparta was wholly (though not wisely) framed and composed to that scope and end; the Persians and Macedonians had it for a flash; \ the Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and others, had it for a time: the Turks have it at this day, though in great declination. Of Christian Europe, they that have it are in effect only the Spaniards: but it is so plain, that every man prof- iteth in that he most intendeth, that it needeth not to be stood upon: it is enough to point at it; that no nation which doth not directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths; and, on the other side, Qualifications. t Attend to. For a short or transitory period. 116 BACON'S ESSAYS. it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) do wonders; and those that have professed arms but for an age have, notwith- standing, commonly attained that greatness in that age which maintained them long after, when their profes- sion and exercise of arms had grown to decay. Incident to this point is, for a state to have those laws or customs which may reacli forth unto them just occa- sions (as may be pretended) of war; for there is that justice imprinted in the nature of men, that they enter not upon wars (whereof so many calamities do ensue), but upon some, at the least specious grounds and quar- rels. The Turk hath at hand, for cause of war, the propagation of his law or sect, a quarrel that he may always command. The Romans, though they esteemed the extending the limits of their empire to be great honor to their generals when it was done, yet they never rested upon that alone to begin a war: first, therefore, let nations that pretend to greatness have this, that they be sensible of wrongs, either upon borderers, merchants, or politic ministers; and that they sit not too long upon a provocation: secondly, let them be pressed* and ready to give aids and succors to their confederates; as it ever was with the Romans; insomuch, as if the con- federate had leagues defensive with divers other states, and, upon invasion offered, did implore their aids sever- ally, yet the Romans would ever be the foremost, and leave it to none other to have the honor. As for the wars, which wore anciently made on the behalf of a kind of party or tacit conformity of estate, I do not see how they maybe well justified: as when the Romans 4 Bt- in a hurry. OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 117 made a war for the liberty of Grsecia: or, when the La- cedamionians and Athenians made wars to set up or pull down democracies and oligarchies: or when wars were made by foreigners, under the pretence of justice or protection, to deliver the subjects of others from tyr- anny and oppression; and the like. Let it suffice, that no estate expect to be great, that is not awake upon any just occasion of arming. No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and, certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honorable war is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate and manners corrupt: but how- soever it be for happiness, without all question for great- ness, it maketh to be still for the most part in arms- and the strength of a veteran army (though it be a charge- able business), always on foot, is that which commonly giveth the law, or at least, the reputation amongst all neighbor states, as may well be seen in Spain,* which hath had, in one part or other, a veteran army almost continually, now by the space of six-score years. To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a monarchy. Cicero, writing to Atticus, of Pompey's preparation against Caesar, saith, " Consilium Pom- peii plane Themistocleum est; putat enim, qui mari pntitur, eum rerum potiri;"f and without doubt, Pom pey had tired out Caesar, if upon vain confidence * It was its iinnionse armaments that in a great measure con- sumed the vitals of Spain. t "Pompey's plan is clearly that of Themistocles; for he be- lieves that whoever is master of the sea will obtain the supreme power." 118 BACON'S ESSAYS. he had not left that way. We see the great effects of battles hy sea: the battle of Actium decided the em- pire of the world; the battle of Lepanto arrested the greatness of the Turk. There be many examples where sea fights have been final to the war: but this is when princes, or slates, have set up their rest upon the bat- tles. But thus much is certain ; that he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will; whereas those that be strongest by land are many times, nevertheless, in great etraits. Surely, at this day, with us of Europe the vantage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal doweries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great; both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and because the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessory to the command of the seas. The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory and honor which reflected upon men from the wars in ancient time. There be now, for martial encouragement, some degrees and orders of chivalry, which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscu- oush' upon soldiers and no soldiers; and some remem- brance perhaps upon the escutcheon, and some hospi- tals for maimed soldiers, and such like things; but in ancient times, the trophies erected upon the place of the victory; the funeral laudatives* and monumeuis for those that died in the wars; the crowns and gar- lands personal; the style of emperor with the great kings of the world after borrowed; the triumphs of the generals upon their return; the great donatives and Encomiums. OF REGIME* OF HEALTH. 119 largesses upon the disbanding of the armies, were things able to inflame all men's courages; but above all, that of the triumph amongst the Romaus was not pageants, or gaudcry, but one of the wisest and noblest institu- tions that ever was: for it contained three things; honor to the general, riches to the treasury out of the spoils, and donatives to the army: but that honor, per- haps, were not fit for monarchies, except it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his sons; as it mine to pass in the limes of the Jtoman emperors, who did inipropriale the actual triumphs to themselves and their sons, for such wars as they did achieve in person, and left only for wars achieved by subjects, some triumphal garments and ensigns to the general. To conclude: no man can by care taking (as the Scripture saith), "add a cubit to his stature,"* in this little model of a man's body; but in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes, or estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as we have now touched, they may sow greatness to their posterity and succes- sion: but these things are commonly not observed, but left to take their chance. XXX.-OF REGIMEN OF HEALTH. THERE is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to pre- serve health; but it is a safer conclusion to say, "Thin agree th not well with me, therefore I will not continue * St. Matthew vi. 27: St. Luke xii 120 BACON'S ESSAYS. it;" than this, "I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it:" for strength of nature in youth passr-th over many excesses which are owing* a man till his age. Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied. Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet, and, if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it; for it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one. Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any- thing thou shall judge hurtful to discontinue it by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconven- ience by the change, thou come back to it :igaiu: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome from that which is good particularly. f and fit for thine own body. To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys, and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights, rather thau surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects; as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strange for your body when you. shall need it; if you make it too familiar, it will work no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I command rather some diet, for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, * The effects of which must be felt in old age. t Of benefit in your individual case. OF SUSPICION. 1C1 except it be grown into a custom ; for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less. Despise no new ac- cident* in your body, but ask opinionf of it. In sick- ness, respect health principally; uml iu health, action: for those that put their bodies to endure in health, may, in most sicknesses which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet and tendering. Celsus could never Lave spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vaiy and inter- change contraries, but with an inclination to the more benign extreme: use fasting and full eatiug, but rather full eating;}: watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sit- ting and exercise, but rather exercise, and the like: so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries. Physicians are some of them so pleasing and coniform- able to the humor of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceed ing according to art not for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or, if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and for- get not to call as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty. XXXI. OF SUSPICION. SUSPICIONS amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever tly by twilight : certainly they are to be repressed, or at the least well guarded; for they cloud * Any striking change iu the constitution. t Take medical advice. t Incline rather to fully satisfying your hunger. 132 JiACOH'S the miad, they lose friends, ;uid they check with busi- ness, whereby business cannot go on currently and non- stautly: they dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy: they are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain ; for they take place in the stoutest natures, as in the exam- ple of Henry VII. of England; there was not a more suspicious man. nor a more stout: and in such a compo- sition they do small hurt; for commonly they are not admitted, but with examination, whether they be likely or no; but in fearful natures they gain ground too fast. There is nothing makes a man suspect much more than to know little; and therefore men should remedy sus- picion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. What would men huve? Do they think those they employ and deal with are saints? Do they not think they will have their own ends, and be truer to themselves than to them? There- fore there is no better way to moderate suspicions, than to account upon such suspicions as true, and yet to bridle them as false:* for so far a man ought to make use of suspicions, as to provide, as if that should be true that he suspects, yet it may do him no hurt. Sus- picions that the mind of itself gathers are but buzzes; but suspicious that are artificially nourished, and put into men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings. Certainly, the best mean, to clear the way in this same wood of suspicions, is frankly to com- municate them with the party that he suspects; for thereby he shall be sure to know more of the truth of them than he did before; and withal shall make that party more circumspect, not to give further cause of * To hope the best, but be fully prepared for the worst. OF DISCOURSE. . 128 suspicion. But this would not be done to men of base natures; for they, if they find themselves once sus- pected, will never be true. The Italian says, "Sos- petto licentia fede;" * as if suspicion did give a passport to faith; but it ought rather to kindle it to discharge itself. XXXII. OF DISCOURSE. SOME in their discourse desire rather commenda- tion of wit, in being able to hold all arguments.f 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 conversation, to vary, and intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments, talea with reasons, askingof questions with tellingof 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, matters of state, great per- sons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity; yet there be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out * Suspicion Is the passport to faith. t A censure of this nature has been applied by some to Dr. Johnson, and possibly with some reason. } To start the subject. 124 BACOX'8 ESSAYS. . somewhat that is piquant, and to the quick; that is a vein which would be bridled ; * " Farce, puer, stimulis, et fortius utere loris." t And generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. Certainly he that hath a satiri- cal 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 es- pecially if he apply his questions to the skill of the per- sons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall con- tinually 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 turn to speak : nay if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, let 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 at another time, to know that j-ou 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 be a wise man, he speaks so much of himself," and there is but one case wherein a man may commend himself with good grace and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto him- * Requires to be bridled. t He quotes here from Ovid: " Boy, spare the whip, and tight- ly grasp the reins." t One who tests or examines. The Galliard was a light active dance much in fashion in tho time of Queen Elizabeth. OF PLANTATIONS. 12:, self pretendeth. Speech of touch * towards others should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to he ;is a field, without coming home to any man. I knew two noble- men of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house;; the one would ask of those who had been at the other's table, " Tell truly, was there never a flout f or dry blow \ given? To which the guest would answer, "Such and such a thing passed." The lord would say, " I 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 interlocution, shows slowness; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good set- tled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness. 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. XXXIII. OF PLANTATIONS^ PLANTATIONS are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works. When the world was young, it begat more children; but now it is old, it begets fewer, for I may juslly account new plantations to be the children of former kingdoms. I like a plantation in a pure soil ; that, is, where people are nol displautedj to the end to * Hits at, or remarks intended to be applied to particular indi- viduals. t A slight or insult. A sarcastic remark. The old term for colonies. I He perhaps alludes covertly to the conduct of the Spaniard* 126 BACON'S ESSAYS. plant in others; for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years' profit, and expect your recompense in the end: for the principal thing that hath been the destruc- tion of most plantations, has been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand with the good of the plantation, but no farther. It is a shameful and unblessed thing* to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoilcth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation. The peo- ple wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, plough- men, laborers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fisherman, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks and bakers. In a country of plantation first look about what kind of victual the country yields of itself to hand: as chestnuts, walnuts, pine-apples, olives, dates, plums, cherries, wild honey, and the like; and make use of them. Then consider what victual, or esculent things there are, which grow speedily, and within the year; as parsnips, carrots, turnips, onions, radish, artichokes of Jerusalem, maize and the like: for wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labor; but witli peas and beans extirpating aboriginal inhabitants of the West India Islands, against which the venerable Las Casas so eloquently but vainly protested. * Of course this censure would not apply to what is primarily and essentially a convict colony: the object of which is to drain, the mother country of its impure superfluities. OF PLANTATIONS, 127 you may begin, both because they ask less labor, ami because tliey serve for meat as well as for bread; ami of rice likewise cometh a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all, there ought to be brought store of biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, and the like, in the begin- ning, till bread may be had. For beasts, or birds, take chiefly such as are least subject to diseases ami multiply fast CM; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, u house-doves, and the like. The victual .in plantation ought to be expended almost as in a besieged town; that is with certain allowance: and let the main part of the ground employed to gardens or corn, be to a common stock; and to be laid in, and stored up, and Ihen de- livered out in proportion; besides some spols of ground that any particular person will manure for his own private use. Consider, likewise, what commodities the soil where the plantation is doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the plantation; so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia.* Wood commonly aboundeth but too much; and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Making of bay-salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience: growing silk, likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity: pitch and tar, where store of firs and pines are will not fail; so drugs and sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit: soap-ashes, likewise, and other things that may be thought of; but moil f not too much under ground, for * Times have much changed since this was penned: tobacco is uo\v the staple commodity, and the source of " The main busi- ness" of Virginia. + To labor hard. 128 BACON'S ESSAYS. the hope of mines is very uncertain, and useth to make the planters lazy in other things. For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some counsel; and let them have commission to exercise martial laws, with some limitation; and above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilderness, as they have God al- ways and his service before their eyes: let not the gov- ernment of the plantation depend upon too many coun- sellors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but upon a temperate number: and let those be rather noble- men and gentlemen, than merchants; for they look ever to the present gain. Let there be freedoms from cus- tom, till the plantation be of strength: and riot only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their com- modities where they make their best of them except there be some special cause of caution. Cram not in people, by sending too fast company after company; but rather hearken how they waste, and send sup- plies proportionally ; but so as the number may live wjll in the plantation, and not by surcharge be in penury. It hath been a great endangering to the health of some plantations, that they have built along the sea and rivers, in marish * and unwhole- some grounds: therefore though you begin there, to avoid carriage and other like discommodities, yet built still rather upwards from the streams, than along. It concerneth likewise the health of the plantation, that they have good store of salt with them, that they may use it in their victuals when it shall be necessary. If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles.f but use them justly and gra- * Marshy: from the French murals, a marsh. ,i\vs, or spangles. OF RICIIKS. 129 ciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not \viu their favor bj r helping them to invade their enemies, but for their defense it is not amiss; and send oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better condition than their own, and commend it when they return. When the plantation grows to strength, jthen it is time to plant with women as well as with 'men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from" without. It is the sin- fullest thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plan tation once in forwardness; for, besides the dishonor, it is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons. XXXIV. OF RICHES. I CAXNOT call riches better than the bnggage of vir- tue; the Roman word is better, "impedimenta;" for as the baggage is to an arm}', so is riches to virtue; it can- not be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march ; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or dis- turbeth the victoty: of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit; so saith Solomon, "Where much is, there are mauj r to consume it; and what hath the owner but the sight of it with his eyes?"* The personal fruition in any man can- not reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of 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 sec what feigned prices are set upon little stones and rarities? and what works of ostentation are under- * He nlliiil>-s t.> Kivlesiastes v. 11. (he words of which are somewhat vurieil in <>nr version : " When goods increase, thev are increase*! that eat then 1 .; and what poorl is there to the OWIHTS (hereof, saving the beholding of (hem with thefr eyes?" 130 BACON'S ESSAYS. taken, 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 troubles; as Solomon sailh, "Riches are as a strong hold in the imagination 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 bought out. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly; yet have no abstract nor friarly contempt of them; but distinguish, as Cicero saith well of Rabi- rius Posthumus, "In studio rei amplificandae -appare- bat, non avaritise prsedam, sed instrumenturn bonitati quseri."f Hearken also to Solomon, 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 to Pluto, taking him for the devil: for when riches come from the devil (as by fraud and oppression, and unjust means), they * "The rich man's wealth is his strong city." Prov. x. 15; xviii. 11. t "In his anxiety to increase his fortune, it -was evident that not the gratification of avarice was sought, but tfce means of doing good." $ " He who hastens to riches will not be without guilt." In our version the words are: "He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." Proverbs xxviii. 22. Pluto being the king of the Infernal regions, or place o< -Im- parted spirits. OF RICHES. 131 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 witliholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the ground 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 hus- bandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman in England that had the greatest audits* of any man in my time, a great grazer, a great sheep-mas- ter, a great timber-man, a great collier, a great corn- master, a great lead-mail, 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 importation. It ?ras truly observed by one, "That himself came very hardly to ;i little riches, and very easily to great riches;" for when a man's stock is come to that, that he can ex- pect the prime of markets,! and overcome those bar- gains, which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the industries of younger men, he can- not 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' nec- essity: broke by servants and instruments to draw them on put off others cunningly that would be better chap- men, and the like practices, which are crafty and naught; as for the chopping of bargains, when a man buys not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grindeth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Shar * Rent-roll, or account taken of income. t Wait till prices h -a r : >ui. 132 BACON'S ESSAYS. ings do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread, "in sndore vultus alieni;"* and besides, doth plough 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 for- tune, in being the first in an invention, or in a privilege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches, as it was with the first sugarman f in the Canaries: there- fore if a man can play the true logician, to have as well judgment as invention, he may do great matters, espe- cially if the times be fit: he that resteth upon gains cer- tain, shall hardly grow to great riches; and he that puts all upon adventures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is good, therefore, to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and co- emption of wares for resale, where they are not re- strained, are great means to enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what things are like to come into request, and so, store himself beforehand. 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 Tacitus saith of Seneca, "Testamenta et orbos tan- quam indagine capi"),J it is yet worse, by how much men submit themselves to meaner persons than in ser- * "In the sweat of another's brow." He alludes to the words of Genesis iii. 19: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." t Planters of sugar-canes. t "Wills and childless persons were caught by him as thousth with a hunting-net."' OF PROPHECIES 1C3 vice. Believe u<>t much them that seem to despite riches, for they despise them that despair of them; uiid iioue 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 flyiug to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred or to the public; aud moderate portions prosper best in both. A great state left to an heir, is as a lure to all tho birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment: likewise, glorious gifts aud foundations are like sacrifices with- out salt; and but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly: therefore meas- ure not thine advancements by quantity, but frame them by measure: aud defer not charities till death; for, cer- tainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own. XXXV.-OF PROPHECIES. I MEAN not to si>eak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural predictions; but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythouissa* to Saul, "To- morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me." Virgil hath these verses from Homer: " Hie domus JEneae cunctis dominabitur oris, Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis." t * " Pythoness," used in the sense of witch. He alludes to the witch of Endor, and the words in Samuel xxviii. 19. He is, how- ever, mistaken in attributing these words to the witch; it was tho spirit of Samuel that said, "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sous LR- with me." t " But the house of ./Eneas shall reign over every shore, both his children's children, and those who shall spring from them." /34 BACON '8 ESSAY* A prophecy, as it seems, of the Roman empire. Seneca the tragedian hath these verses: -Venient annis Ssecula seris, quibus Oceanus Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat Tellus, Tiphysque novos Detegat orbes: nee sit terris Ultima Thule:" * a prophecy of the discovery of America. The daughtel of Polycrates f dreamed that Jupiter bathed her f nther, and Apollo anointed him; and it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun made his body run with sweat; and the rain washed it. Philip of Macedon dreamed he sealed up his wife's belly; whereby he did expound it, that his wife should be barren; but Aristander the sooth-saver told him his wife was with child, because men do not use to seal vessels that are empty. A phantasm that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, said to him, " Philippis iterum me videbis."t Tiberius said to Galba, " Tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium." In Vespasian's time there went a prophecy in the East that those that should come forth of Judea, should reign over the world ; which though it may be was meant of our Saviour, yet * " After the lapse of years, ages will come in which Ocean shall relax his chains around the world, and a vast continent shall appear, and Tiphys shall explore new regions, and Thule shall be no longer the utmost verge of earth." t He was king of Samos, and was treacherously put to death by Oroetes, the governor of Magnesia, in Asia Minor. His daughter in consequence of her dream, attempted to dissuade him from visiting Orcetes, but in vain. t " Thou shall see me again at Philippi." " Thou also, (ialba. shall taste of empire.'' OF PROPHECIES. 135 Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his neck; and indeed the succession that followed him, for many years made golden times. Henry the Sixth of England said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, and gave him water, " This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown for which we strive." When I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the queen mother,* who was given to curious arts, caused the king her husband's nativity to be calculated under a false name; a -.id the astrologer gave a judgment, that he should be killed in a duel; at which the queen laughed, thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels; but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery going in at his beaver. The trivial prophecy which I heard when I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was, " When hempe is spunne England's done:" whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of the word hempe (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth), England should come to utter confusion; which thanks be to God, is verified only iu the change of the name: for that the king's style is now no more of England, but of Britain. f There was also another prophecy before the year of eighty -eight, which I do not well understand. * Catherine de Medicis. the wife of Henry II. of France, who diwl from a wound accidentally ivcMVfd in a tournament. t James I. hoing th<> first monarch of Great Britain. i36 BACON'S ESSAYS. " There shall be seen upon a day, Between the Baugh and the May, The black fleet of Norway. When that that is come and gone, England build houses of lime and stone, For after wars shall you have none." It was generally conceived to be meant of the Spanish fleet that came in eighty-eight: for that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is Norway. The predic- tion of Regiomontanus, " Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus." * was thought likewise accomplished in the sen-ding of that great fleet, being the greatest in strength, though not in number, of all that ever swam upon the sea. As for Cleon's dream, f I think it was a jest; it was, that he was devoured of a long dragon: and it was expounded of a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are numbers of the like kind; especially if you include dreams, and predictions of astrology: but I have set down these few only of certain credit, for example. * "The eighty -eight will be a wondrous year." t Aristophanes, in his Comedy of The Knights, satirizes Cleon, the Athenian demagogue. He introduces a declaration of the oracle that the Eagle of hides (by whom Cleon was meant, his father having been a tanner) should be conquered by a serpent. which Demosthenes, one of the characters in the play, expounds as meaning a'maker of sausages. How Lord Bacon could for a moment doubt that this was a mere jest, it is difficult to con- jecture. The following is a literal translation of a portion of the passage from The Knights (1. 197): " But when a leather eaglo with crooked talons shall have seized with its jaws a .serpent, a stupid creature, a drinker of blood, then the tan pickle of the Paphlagonians is destroyed; but upon the sellers of sausa??-' Deity bestows great glory, unless they choose rather to sell sausages." OF PROPHECIES. 13? My judgment is that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside: though when I say despised, I raeau it as for belief; for otherwise, the spreading or publishing of them is in no sort to be despised, for they have done much mischief; and I see many severe laws made to suppress them. That that hath given them grace, and some credit con- sisteth in three things. First, that men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss:* as they do, generally, also of dreams. The second is, that probable conjectures, or obscure traditions, many times turn themselves into prophecies; while the nature of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretell that which indeed they do but collect; as that of Seneca's verse; for so much was then subject to demonstration, that the globe of the earth had great parts beyond the Atlantic, which might be probably conceived not to be all sea: and added thereto the tradition in Plato's Tim- aemus, and his Atlanticus.f it might encourage one to turn it to a prediction. The third and last (which is the great one) is that almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been impostures, and by idle and crafty bruins, merely contrived and feigned, after the event past. * This is a very just remark. So-called strange coincidences, and wonderful dreams that are verified, when the point is con- sidered, are really not at all marvellous. We never hear of the 999 dreams that are not verified, but the thousandth that hap- pens to precede its fulfillment is blazoned by unthinking people as a marvel. It would be a much more wonderful thing if dreams were not occasionally verified. t Under this name he alludes to the Critias of Plato, In which an imaginary " terra incognita" is discoursed of under the name of the " New Atlantis." It has been conjectured from this by some, that Plato really did believe in the existence of a continent on the other side of tlie globe. 138 BACON'S ESSAYS. XXXVI. OF AMBITIOR. AMBITION is like cboler, Avhich is a humor that maketli men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped: but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh adust,* aud thereby malign and venomous: so ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince or state: therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so, as they be still progressive, aud not retrograde; which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all; for if they rise not with their service, they will take order to make their service fall with them. But since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we speak in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars must be taken, be they never so ambitious; for the use of their service dispenseth with the rest: and to take a soldier without ambition, is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use of ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger and envy; for no man will take that part except he be like a seeled f dove, that mounts and mounts, because he cannot see about him. There is use also of ambitious men in pulling down the great- ness of any subject that overtops; as Tiberius used * Hot and fiery. t With the eyes closed, or blindfolded. OF AMBITION. 139 Macro* in the pulling down of Sejanus. Since, there- fore, they must be used iu such cases, there resteth to speuk how they are to be bridled, that they may be less dangerous. There is less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they be uoble; and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious and popular; and if they lie rather new raised, than grown cunning and fortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weakness in princes to have favorites; but it is, of all others, the best remedy against ambitious great ones; for when the way of pleasuring and displeasuring lieth by the favorite, it is impossible any other should be over great. Another means to curb them, is to balance them by others as proud as they: but then there must be some middle counsellors, to keep things steady; for without that ballast the ship will roll too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure some meaner persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As for the having of them obnoxious tof ruin, if they be of fearful natures, it may do well; but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate their designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down, if the affairs require it, and that it may not be done witli safety suddenly, the only way is, the interchange con- tinually of favors and disgraces, whereby they may not know what to expect, and be as it were, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful the ambition to pre- vail in great things, than that other to appear in every- thing; for that breeds confusion, and mars business: but yet, it is less danger to have an ambitious man stir- * He was a favorite of Tiberius, to whose murder by Nero he was said to have been an accessory. He afterwards prostituted his own wife to Caligula, by whom he was eventually put to death t Liable to. 140 JIACOX'S ring in business, than great in dependencies. lie that seeketh to be eminent among stable men, hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public; but he that plots to be the only figure among ciphers, is the decay of a whole age. Honor hath three thing's in it; the vantage ground to do good ; the approach to kings and principal persons; and the raising of a man's own for- tunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when lie aspireth, is an honest man; and that prince that can discern of these intentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, let princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty than of ris- ing, and such as love business rather upon conscience than upon bravery; and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind. XXXVII. OP MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. THESE things are but toys to come amongst such seri- ous observations; but yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy, than daubed with cost. Dancing to song, is a thing of great state and pleasure. I understand it that the song be in quire, placed aloof, and accompanied with some broken music; and (lie ditty fitted to the device. Act- ing in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace; I say acting, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing); and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly (a base and a tenor; no treble), and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty. Several quires placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches anthem-wise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a childish curi- osity; and generally, let it. be noted, that those things OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS. 141 which I here set down are such as do naturally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments. It is true, the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and without noise, are tilings of great beauty and pleasure; for they feed and relieve the eye before it be full of the same object. Let the scenes abound with light, especially colored and varied; and let the masques, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have some mo- tions upon the scenes itself before their coming down; for it draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that, it cannot perfectly discern. Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings:* let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. The colors that show best by candlelight, are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green, and ouches, f or spangs.f as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. As for rich embroider}', it is lost, and not discerned. Let the suits of the masquers be graceful, and such as become the person when the vizors are off; not after examples of known attires; Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the like. Let anti- masques g not l>e long; they have been commonly of fools, sa'vrs, baboons, wild men, antics, beasts, sprites, witches, Ethiopes, pigmies, turquetsj nymphs, rustics, * Chirpings like the noise of young birds. + Jewels or necklaces J Spangles, or O's of gold or silver. Beckmann says that these were invented in the beginning of the seventeenth century. See Kcekmann's Hist, of Inventions (Bonn's Stand. Lib.), vol i. p. 4-J1. kj Or autiek-masques; were ridiculous interludes dividing the nets of the more serious masque. These were performed by hired actors, while the masque was played by ladies and penile men. The nil* was, the diameters wore tube neither serious nor f 'Menus. The " Pomus" of Milton is an admirable specimen of nasque. Turks. 142 BACON'S ESSAYS. s Cupids, statues, moving, and the like. As for angels, it is not comical enough to put them in anti-masques: and anything that is hideous, as devils, giants, is, on. the other side, as unfit: but chiefly, let the music of them be recreative, and with some strange changes. Some sweet odors suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment. Double masques, one of men, another of ladies, addeth state and variety; but all is nothing, except the room be kept clear and neat. For justs, and tourneys, and barriers, the glories of them are chiefly in the chariots, wherein the challeng- ers make their entry; especially if they be drawn with strange beasts: as lions, bears, camels, and the like; or in the devices of their entrance, or in the bravery of their liveries, or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armor. But enough of these toys. XXXVIIL OF NATUKE IN MEN. NATURE is often hidden, sometimes overcome, sel- dom extinguished. Force maketh nature more violent in the return ; doctrine and discourse maketh nature less importune; but custom only doth alter and subdue na- ture. He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great nor too small tasks: for the first will make him dejected by often failings, and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailings; and at the first, let him practise with helps, as swimmers do with bladders, or rushes; but, after a time, let him practise with disadvantage, as dancers do with thick shoes; for it breeds great perfec- tion, if the practice be harder than the use. Where na- OF NATURE IN MEN. 143 ture is mighty, and therefore the victory hard, the de- grees had need be, first to stay and arrest nature in time; like to him that would say over the four and twenty letters when he was angry; then to go less in quantity: as if oue should, in forbearing wine, come from drinking healths to a draught at a meal ; and lastly, to discontinue altogether: but if a man have the forti- tude and resolution to enfranchise himself at once, that is the best: "Optimus ille animi vindex laedentia pectus Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semeL" * Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand to a contrary extreme, whereby to $et it right; understanding it where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon himself with aperpet ual continuance, but with some intermission: for both the pause reiuforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not perfect, be ever in practice, he shall as well prac- tise his errors as his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to help this but b}- season- able intermissions; but let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far; for nature will lie buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion, or tempta- tion; like as it was with ^Esop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her: therefore, let a man either avoid the occasion altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved with it. A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there is no affectation; in passion, for that putteth a man out * " He is the best asserter of the liberty of his mind who bursts the chains that gall his breast, and at the same moment ceases to grieve." This quotation is from Ovid's Remedy of Love. 144 BACON'S ESSAYS. of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him. They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations; otherwise they may say, " Multum incola fuit anima inea," * when they con- verse in those things they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his na- ture, let him take no care for any set times; for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves, so as the spaces of other business or studies will suffice. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him season- ably water the one, and destroy the other. XXXIX. OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION. MEN'S thoughts are much according to their incli- nation :f their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed: and, there- fore, as Machiavel well note'.h (though in an evil- favored instance), there is no trusting to the force of nature, nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom. His instance is, that for the achieving of a desperate conspiracy, a man should not rest upon the fierceness of any man's nature, or his resolute undertakings; but take such a one as hath had his hands formerly in blood; but Machiavel knew n