APPENDIX TO THE ESSAYS. I. A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON FAME.1 THE poets make Fame a monster. They describe her in part finely and elegantly; and in part gravely and sententiously. They say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath; so many tongues; so many voices; she pricks up so many ears. This is a flourish. There follow excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going: that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds that in the day-time she sitteth in a watch tower, and flieth most by night: that she mingleth things done with things not done: and that she is a terror to great cities. But that which passeth all the rest is; they do recount that the Earth, mother of the Giants that made war against Jupiter and were by him destroyed, thereupon in an anger brought forth Fame; 1 This fragment was first published by Dr. Rawley, in the Resuscitatio (1657), p. 281. Though unfinished, therefore, it may be regarded as a genuine and undoubted work of Bacon's, as far as it goes. Two other Essays, which have been ascribed to Bacon upon very doubtful authority (and at least one of them in my opinion very improbably), will be printed by themselves at the end of this Appendix. for certain it is that rebels, figured by the giants, and seditious fames and libels, are but brothers and sisters; masculine and feminine. But now, if a man can tame this monster, and bring her to feed at the hand, and govern her, and with her fly other ravening fowl and kill them, it is somewhat worth. But we are infected with the stile of the poets. To speak now in a sad and a serious manner. There is not in all the politics a place less handled, and more worthy to be handled, than this of fame. We will therefore speak of these points. What are false fames; and what are true fames; and how they may be best discerned; how fames may be sown and raised; how they may be spread and multiplied; and how they may be checked and laid dead. And other things concerning the nature of fame. Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part; especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius, by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to remove the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations, by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continual giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment. And it is an usual thing with the Bashaws, to conceal the death of the great Turk from the Janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes King of Persia post apace out of Græcia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are, the less they need to be repeated; because a man meeteth with them every where. Therefore let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs themselves. The rest was not finished. II. EARLY EDITIONS OF THE ESSAYS. BACON'S Essays in their earliest shape formed part of a very small octavo volume, published in 1597, with the following title: Essayes. Religious Meditations. Places of persuasion and disswasion. Seene and allowed. At London, Printed for Humfrey Hooper, and are to be sold at the blacke Beare in Chauncery Lane. 1597. The Religious meditations and the Places of perswasion and dissuasion refer to two other works; one in Latin, entitled Meditationes sacre: the other in English, entitled Of the Coulers of Good and Evill; a fragment. These will be printed elsewhere. The "Epistle Dedicatory" prefixed to the volume is dated the 30th of January, 1597; which in the case of an ordinary letter would be understood to mean 1597-8. But I suppose that publishers, who like to have fresh dates on their titlepages, followed the “historical" year, which was reckoned from the 1st of January, and not the "civil," which was reckoned from the 25th of March. For I find in the Lambeth library, the following rough draft of a letter from Anthony Bacon to the Earl of Essex, docqueted “le 8me de février, 1596." |