"O Lord, thou art our home, to whom we fly,
And so hast always been from age to age;
Before the hills did intercept the eye,

Or that the frame was up of earthly stage,
One God thou wert, and art, and still shall be;
The line of Time, it doth not measure thee.

"Both death and life obey thy holy lore,

And visit in their turns, as they are sent;
A thousand years with thee they are no more
Than yesterday, which, ere it is, is spent ;

Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep,
And goes, and comes, unwares to them that sleep.

"Thou carriest man away as with a tide;

Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high:
Much like a mocking dream, that will not bide,
But flies before the sight of waking eye;

Or as the grass, that cannot term obtain
To see the summer come about again.

"Begin thy work, O Lord, in this our age,

Shew it unto thy servants that now live;
But to our children raise it many a stage,
That all the world to thee may glory give.
Our handy-work likewise, as fruitful tree,
Let it, O Lord, blessèd, not blasted be."

The translation of the one hundred and fourth Psalm perhaps exhibits Bacon at his best as a versifier, although even here there are occasional declensions from the elevated style, as in the reference to

"the great Leviathan

That makes the seas to seeth like boiling pan."

But of the opening Mr. Spedding says (I think with somewhat excessive praise) that "the heroic couplet could hardly do its work better in the hands of Dryden," and it is, at least, of such merit as to claim a longer extract than the other Psalms :

"Father and King of pow'rs, both high and low,
Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow,
My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise,
And carol of thy works and wondrous ways.

But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright?
They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight.
Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown,
All set with virtues, polish'd with renown:
Thence round about a silver veil doth fall
Of crystal light, mother of colours all.

1

The compass heaven, smooth without grain or fold,
All set with spangs of glitt'ring stars untold,
And strip'd with golden beams of power unpent,

Is raised up for a removing tent.

Vaulted and archèd are his chamber beams
Upon the seas, the waters, and the streams:
The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky;
The stormy winds upon their wings do fly.
His angels spirits are, that wait his will,
As flames of fire his anger they fulfil.
In the beginning, with a mighty hand,
He made the earth by counterpoise to stand;
Never to move, but to be fixed still;
Yet hath no pillars but his sacred will.
The earth, as with a veil, once cover'd was,
The waters over-flowèd all the mass :

But upon his rebuke away they fled,

And then the hills began to shew their head;
The vales their hollowed bosoms open'd plain,
The streams ran trembling down the vales again :
And that the earth no more might drowned be,
He set the sea his bounds of liberty;

And though the waves resound, and beat the shore,
Yet it is bridled by his holy lore.

Then did the rivers seek their proper places,

And found their heads, their issues, and their races;
The springs do feed the rivers all the way,
And so the tribute to the sea repay:
Running along through many a pleasant field,
Much fruitfulness unto the earth they yield:
That know the beasts and cattle feeding by,
Which for to slake their thirst do thither hie.
Nay desert grounds the streams do not forsake,
But through the unknown ways their journey take:
The asses wild, that hide in wilderness,

Do thither come, their thirst for to refresh.

The shady trees along their banks do spring,

In which the birds do build, and sit, and sing;

1 i.e. "roughness," like the "grain" of wood.

F F

Stroking the gentle air with pleasant notes,

Plaining or chirping through their warbling throats.
The higher grounds, where waters cannot rise,

By rain and dews are water'd from the skies;
Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts,
And garden herbs, serv'd at the greatest feasts;
And bread, that is all viands' firmament,
And gives a firm and solid nourishment;
And wine, man's spirits for to recreate;
And oil, his face for to exhilarate.

The sappy cedars, tall like stately tow'rs
High-flying birds do harbour in their bow'rs;
The holy storks, that are the travellers,

Choose for to dwell and build within the firs;
The climbing goats hang on steep mountain's side;
The digging conies in the rocks do bide.

The moon, so constant in inconstancy,
Doth rule the monthly seasons orderly;

The sun, eye of the world, doth know his race,
And when to shew, and when to hide his face.
Thou makest darkness, that it may be night,
Whenas the savage beasts, that fly the light,
(As conscious of man's hatred) leave their den,
And range abroad secur'd from sight of men.
Then do the forests ring of lions roaring,

That ask their meat of God, their strength restoring;
But when the day appears, they back do fly,
And in their dens again do lurking lie.

Then man goes forth to labour in the field,

Whereby his grounds more rich increase may yield.

O Lord, thy providence sufficeth all;

Thy goodness, not restrained, but general

Over thy creatures the whole earth doth flow With thy great largeness pour'd forth here below. Nor is it earth alone exalts thy name,

But seas and streams likewise do spread the same. The rolling seas unto the lot doth fall

Of beasts innumerable, great and small;

There do the stately ships plough up the floods;
The greater navies look like walking woods;
The fishes there far voyages do make,
To divers shores their journey they do take.
There hast thou set the great Leviathan,
That makes the seas to seeth like boiling pan.
All these do ask of thee their meat to live,
Which in due season thou to them dost give."

Some allowance must be made (no doubt) for the fact that Bacon is translating and not writing original verse. Nevertheless a true poet, even of a low order, could hardly betray so clearly the cramping influence of rhyme and metre. There is far less. beauty of diction and phrase in these verse translations than in any of the prose works that are couched in an elevated style. Possibly the nature of the subject was against him. Theological verse, like theological sculpture, might seem to require something of the archaic, and a close adherence to the simplicity of the original prose. But I cannot help coming to the conclusion that, although Bacon might have written better verse on some subject of his own choosing, the chances are that even his best would not have been very good.

1

A brief notice is claimed by the Colours of Good and Evil, published in 1597 in the same volume as the first edition of the Essays. The title signifies the Fallacies, or "Colours," by which a persuader labours "to make things appear good or evil, and that in higher or lower degree." Each "colour" is exemplified by an instance, and followed by its "reprehension" or refutation. One of the ten Colours set forth in this treatise may serve as a specimen of the rest.

"Quod rem integram servat, bonum ; quod sine receptu est, malum. Nam se recipere non posse impotentiae genus est; potentia autem bonum." [That course which keeps the matter in a man's power is good; that which leaves him without retreat is bad for to have no means of retreating is to be, in a sort, powerless, and power is a good thing.]

"Hereof Esop framed the fable of the two frogs, that consulted together in the time of drought (when many plashes that they had repaired to were dry), what was to be done; and the one propounded to go down into a deep well, because it was like the water would not fail there but the other answered, 'Yea; but if it do fail, how shall we get up again?'" And the reason is, that human actions are so uncertain and subject to perils, as that seemeth the best course which hath most passages out of it.

'Appertaining to this persuasion, the forms are, You shall engage2 yourself; on the other side, Tantum quantum voles sumes ex fortuna, &c., shall keep the matter in your own hands.

you

"The reprehension of it is, that Proceeding and resolving in all actions is necessary for as he saith well, Not to resolve is to resolve; and many times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth' as far in some other sort, as to resolve.

1 Spedding, Works, vii. 65-92.

2i.e. "entangle."

"So it is but the covetous man's disease translated into power; for the covetous man will enjoy nothing, because he will have his full store and possibility to enjoy the more; so by this reason a man should execute nothing, because he should be still indifferent and at liberty to execute anything. Besides, necessity, and this same jacta est alea, hath many times an advantage, because it awaketh the powers of the mind, and strengtheneth endeavour. Ceteris pares necessitate certe superiores estis [Being equal otherwise, in necessity you have the better]."

§ 60 THE METHOD OF THE " ESSAYS " 1

The Colours of the Good and Evil are more closely connected with the Essays than might be supposed. Both alike are amplifications (the Essays being more ample and varied) of a species of rhetorical equipment called by Bacon Antitheta, “Opposite Maxims," or "Antitheses of Things" the object of which is thus set forth in the De Augmentis (vi. 3) :

"I would have all topics, which there is frequent occasion to handle (whether they relate to proofs and refutations, or to persuasions and dissuasions, or to praise and blame), studied and prepared beforehand; and not only so, but the case exaggerated both ways with the utmost force of the wit, and urged unfairly as it were and quite beyond the truth. And the best way of making such a collection, with a view to use as well as to brevity, would be to contract these common places into certain acute and concise sentences; to be as skeins or bottoms of thread which may be

1 As to the word "Essay," it is interesting to contrast what Bacon and Ben Jonson say of it.

The former (in the cancelled dedication to Prince Henry, see below, p. 438) distinguishes "Essays" from "just treatises," implying that his work must be expected to be a little disconnected and abrupt: "Certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient. For Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if one mark them well, are but Essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of Epistles.'

Ben Jonson will have none of the Essayists. They are the writers "that turn over books, and are equally searching in all papers, that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice: by which means it happens that what they have discredited and impugned in one work, they have, before or after, extolled the same in another. Such are all the Essayists, even their master, Montaigne" (Ben Jonson's Works, ed. Gifford, p. 747).

Considering the great admiration expressed by Ben Jonson for Bacon's style (see p. 453) one is a little surprised to find no mention of Bacon's Essays, and to note the assumption that Montaigne is "Master of the Essayists." It may be noted that in 1625, describing the new edition of his Essays to Father Fulgentio, Bacon says that in Italy the book was called Saggi Morali, "but I gave it a weightier name, calling it 'Faithful Discourses,' or 'The Inwards of Things.''