use good forms, as Ovid spake of his faculty of versifying,

"Et quod tentabam scribere, versus erat."

When his office called him, as he was of the king's council learned, to charge any offenders, either in criminals or capitals, he was never of an insulting and domineering nature over them, but always tenderhearted, and carrying himself decently towards the parties (though it was his duty to charge them home), but yet as one that looked upon the example with the eye of severity, but upon the person with the eye of pity and compassion. And in civil business, as he was counsellor of estate, he had the best way of advising, not engaging his master in any precipitate or grievous courses, but in moderate and fair proceedings the king whom he served giving him this testimony, That he ever dealt in business suavibus modis; which was the way that was most according to his own heart.

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Neither was he in his time less gracious with the subject than with his sovereign. He was ever acceptable to the House of Commons when he was a mem

of the source whence he derived it, or to suggest an allusion which may give a better effect to it, he very often quotes inaccurately. Sometimes, no doubt, this was unintentional, the fault of his memory; but more frequently, I suspect, it was done deliberately, for the sake of presenting the substance in a better form, or a form better suited to the particular occasion. In citing the evidence of witnesses, on the contrary, in support of a narrative statement or an argument upon matter of fact, he is always very careful.

1 The Latin version adds, in quo sæpe peroravit, non sine magno applausu; a statement of the truth of which abundant evidence may be found in all the records which remain of the proceedings of the House of Commons. The first parliament in which he sate was that of 1584: after which he sate in every parliament that was summoned up to the time of his fall.

As an edition of Bacon would hardly be complete unless it contained Ben Jonson's famous description of his manner of speaking, I shall insert it here:-"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was

ber thereof. Being the king's attorney, and chosen to a place in parliament, he was allowed and dispensed with to sit in the House; which was not permitted to other attorneys.

And as he was a good servant to his master, being never in nineteen years' service (as himself averred) rebuked by the king for anything relating to His Majesty, so he was a good master to his servants, and rewarded their long attendance with good places freely1 when they fell into his power; which was the cause that so many young gentlemen of blood and quality sought to list themselves in his retinue. And if he were abused by any of them in their places, it was only the error of the goodness of his nature, but the badges of their indiscretions and intemperances.

This lord was religious: for though the world be apt to suspect and prejudge great wits and politics to have somewhat of the atheist, yet he was conversant with God, as appeareth by several passages throughout the whole current of his writings. Otherwise he should have crossed his own principles, which were, That a little philosophy maketh men apt to forget God, as attributing too much to second causes; but depth of philosophy bringeth a man back to God again. Now I full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end." - Discoveries: under title Dominus Verulamius.

1 Gratis, in the Latin version; i. e. without taking any money for them; an unusual thing in Bacon's time, when the sale of offices was a principal source of all great men's incomes.

am sure there is no man that will deny him, or account otherwise of him, but to have him been a deep philosopher. And not only so; but he was able to render a reason of the hope which was in him, which that writing of his of the Confession of the Faith doth abundantly testify. He repaired frequently, when his health would permit him, to the service of the church, to hear sermons, to the administration of the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ; and died in the true faith, established in the church of England.

This is most true he was free from malice, which (as he said himself) he never bred nor fed. He was no revenger of injuries; which if he had minded, he had both opportunity and place high enough to have done it. He was no heaver of men out of their places, as delighting in their ruin and undoing. He was no defamer of any man to his prince. One day, when a great statesman was newly dead, that had not been his friend, the king asked him, What he thought of that lord which was gone? he answered, That he would never have made His Majesty's estate better, but he was sure

1"He said he had breeding swans and feeding swans; but for malice, he neither bred it nor fed it." From a commonplace book of Dr. Rawley's in the Lambeth Library. "Et posso dir," says Sir Tobie Matthew, in his dedication to Cosmo de' Medici of an Italian translation of the Essays and Sapientia Veterum, 1618, "et posso dir con verità (per haver io havute l'honore di pratticarlo molti anni, et quando era in minoribus, et hora quando sta in colmo et fiore della sua grandezza) di non haver mai scoperto in lui animo di vendetta, per qualsivoglia aggravio che se gli fosse fatto; nè manco sentito uscirgli di bocca parola d' ingiuria contra veruno, che mi paresse venire da passione contra la tal persona; ma solo (et questo ancora molto scarsamente) per giudicio fattone in sangue freddo. Non è già la sua grandezza quel che io ammiro, ma la sua virtù; non sono li favori fattimi da lui (per infiniti che siano) che mi hanno posto il cuore in questi ceppi et catene in che mi ritrovo; ma si bene il suo procedere in commune; che se egli fosse di conditione inferiore, non potrei manco honorarlo, e se mi fosse nemico io dovrei con tutto ciò amar et procurar di servirlo."

he would have kept it from being worse; which was the worst he would say of him: which I reckon not among his moral, but his Christian virtues.

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His fame is greater and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad, than at home in his own nation; thereby verifying that divine sentence, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. Concerning which I will give you a taste only, out of a letter written from Italy (the storehouse of refined wits) to the late Earl of Devonshire, then the Lord. Candish I will expect the new essays of my Lord Chancellor Bacon, as also his History, with a great deal of desire, and whatsoever else he shall compose: but in particular of his History I promise myself a thing perfect and singular, especially in Henry the Seventh, where he may exercise the talent of his divine understanding. This lord is more and more known, and his books here more and more delighted in; and those men that have more than ordinary knowledge in human affairs, esteem him one of the most capable spirits of this age; and he is truly such. Now his fame doth not decrease with days since, but rather increase. Divers of his works. have been anciently and yet lately translated into other tongues, both learned and modern, by foreign pens. Several persons of quality, during his lordship's life, crossed the seas on purpose to gain an opportunity of seeing him and discoursing with him; whereof one carried his lordship's picture from head to foot1 over with him into France, as a thing which he foresaw would be much desired there, that so they might enjoy the image of his person as well as the images of his brain, his books. Amongst the rest, Marquis

1 This picture was presented to him by Bacon himself, according to the Latin version.

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Fiat, a French nobleman, who came ambassador into England, in the beginning of Queen Mary, wife to King Charles, was taken with an extraordinary desire of seeing him; for which he made way by a friend; and when he came to him, being then through weakness confined to his bed, the marquis saluted him with this high expression, That his lordship had been ever to him like the angels; of whom he had often heard, and read much of them in books, but he never saw them. ter which they contracted an intimate acquaintance, and the marquis did so much revere him, that besides his frequent visits, they wrote letters one to the other, under the titles and appellations of father and son. As for his many salutations by letters from foreign worthies devoted to learning, I forbear to mention them, because that is a thing common to other men of learning or note, together with him.

But yet, in this matter of his fame, I speak in the comparative only, and not in the exclusive. For his reputation is great in his own nation also, especially amongst those that are of a more acute and sharper judgment; which I will exemplify but with two testimonies and no more. The former, when his History of King Henry the Seventh was to come forth, it was delivered to the old Lord Brook, to be perused by him; who, when he had dispatched it, returned it to the author with this eulogy, Commend me to my lord, and bid him take care to get good paper and ink, for the work is incomparable. The other shall be that of Doctor Samuel Collins, late provost of King's College in Cambridge, a man of no vulgar wit, who affirmed unto me,1 That when he had read the book of the

1 In the Latin version Rawley has thought it worth while to add that this may have been said p'ayfully: Sive festive sive scrio.