but even ascertained and accomplished, by the application certain Axioms common alike to animate and inanimate Nature. Thus the Essay on Ambition is based upon the unexpressed axiom that "All things move violently to their place, but easily in their place;" the Essay on Fortune has for its basis the notion that a combination of many small causes often escapes notice; "The way of Fortune is like the milken way in the sky, which is a meeting, or knot, of small stars, not seen asunder but giving light together. So are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate." Herein consists the peculiar fitness of the metaphors so richly strewn throughout the Essays: they are often more than illustrations, they are the origins of the thought which the author presents to us and of many of them Bacon would probably say, as he says elsewhere of Analogical Instances: "These are not only similitudes, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to be; but the same footsteps of nature treading or printing upon several subjects or matters."

§ 62 BACON AS A WRITER

Remarking on the difference in style between the earlier and later editions of the Essays, Lord Macaulay has been led to the conclusion that in the works of Bacon, as in those of Burke, terseness in youth gives place to rich copiousness in old age-a reversal of the natural order of rhetorical development. And this opinion has been so generally adopted without question that a refutation of it may not be without use.

I do not believe that Lord Macaulay would have come to this conclusion if he had had before him that complete collection of Bacon's works for which these and later times will remain deeply indebted to Mr. Spedding. Bacon's style varied almost as much as his handwriting; but it was influenced more by the subject-matter than by youth or old age. Few men have shown equal versatility in adapting their language to the slightest shade of circumstance and purpose. His style depended upon whether he was addressing a king, or a great nobleman, or a philosopher, or a friend; whether he was

composing a State paper, pleading in a State trial, magnifying the Prerogative, extolling Truth, discussing studies, exhorting a judge, sending a New Year's present, or sounding a trumpet to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Man over Nature.) It is a mistake to suppose that Bacon was never florid till he grew old. On the contrary, in the early Devices, written during his connection with Essex, he uses a rich exuberant style and poetic rhythm; but he prefers the rhetorical question of appeal to the complex period. On the other hand, in all his formal philosophical works, even in the Advancement of Learning, published as early as 1605, he uses the graver periodic structure, though often illustrated with rich metaphor. The Essays, both early and late, abound in pithy metaphor, as their natural illustration; but in the later and weightier edition in which they were enlarged not only in number, but also "in weight so that they are indeed a new work "there is an intentional increase of rhetorical ornament and illustration, and, in some of the later Essays on more serious subjects, there is somewhat more of the periodic structure. But this is caused by the weight of the subject, not by weight of years.

As instances, take first the following specimens of the early florid style (a comparison between the servant of Love and the servant of Self-love) from the Device of Essex, 1594-5:

"But give ear now to the comparison of my master's condition, and acknowledge such a difference as betwixt the melting hailstone and the solid pearl. Indeed it seemeth to depend as the globe of the earth seemeth to hang in the air; but yet it is firm and stable in itself. It is like a cube or die-form, which, toss it or throw it any way, it ever lighteth upon a square... His falls are like the falls of Antaeus; they renew his strength: his clouds are like the clouds of harvest, which makes the sun break forth with greater force; his wanes and changes are like the moon, whose globe is all light towards the sun when it is all dark towards the world; such is the excellency of her nature and of his estate."

Next, take a passage from the Advancement of Learning (1605). Though published twenty years before the last edition of the Essays, it is no less periodic in structure, and hardly less rich in style, than the passage quoted by Lord Macaulay from the latter:

"Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature; which merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus' theatre; where all beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs and accords of the harp; the sound thereof no sooner ceased or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature. Wherein is aptly described the condition of men ; who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which, as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion sweetly touched with eloquence, and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."

On the other hand the History of Henry VII., written in 1621, although it is for the most part periodic in structure, yet by its abruptness and occasional roughness, its colloquial phrases and homely metaphor, often reminds us of the earlier Essays:

"So that they were now like sand without lime; ill bound together; especially as many as were English; who were at a gaze, looking strange upon one another, not knowing who was faithful to their side, but thinking that the king (what with his baits and what with his nets) would draw them all unto him that were anything worth. And indeed it came to pass that divers came away by the thrid, sometimes one and sometimes another."

Or take from the same source the following humorous description (all the more humorous when it is remembered that Bacon himself had been both a "lawyer and a privy councillor ") of Henry VII.'s instruments, Empson and Dudley:

"And as kings do more easily find instruments for their will and humour than for their service and honour, he had gotten for his purpose, or beyond his purpose, two instruments, Empson and Dudley; whom the people esteemed as his horse-leeches and shearers: bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's grist. . . . These two persons, being lawyers in science and privy councillors in authority (as the corruption of the best things is the worst) turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine."

...

G G

In accordance with this adaptation of style to subject, we may expect to find a richer and more rhythmical style in those essays which deal with high subjects such as Truth, Death, Adversity, Love, Envy, Friendship, and a more blunt and colloquial style in those that deal with more commonplace subjects such as Studies, Faction, Discourse, Health, Expense. But the edition of 1597 included only these latter commonplace subjects. This then (independently of the intention to add weight to the last edition), is a sufficient reason why the language and construction in the supplementary Essays might naturally be more sententious, periodic, and elevated than in the earlier Essays-without supposing that Bacon's style underwent any great and unusual change in his maturity and old age.

It would seem that Bacon's habit of collecting choice words and phrases, to express his meaning exactly, briefly, or ornately, had from a very early date the effect of repelling some of his hearers by the interspersion of unusual expressions and metaphors. Fresh from hearing an argument of Mr. Francis Bacon in the year 1594 "in a most famous Chequer Chamber case,' a young lawyer thus records his impressions:

"His argument, contracted by the time, seemed a bataille serrée, as hard to be discovered as conquered. The unusual words wherewith he had spangled his speech were rather gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, and like to serve both for occasions to report and means to remember his argument. Certain sentences of his, somewhat obscure, and as it were, presuming upon their capacities, will, I fear, make some of them admire rather than commend him." 1

Conscious of this temptation to be singular and obscure, Bacon would often ask his friends and secretaries (so Rawley informs us) "if the meaning were expressed plainly enough, as being one that accounted words to be but subservient or ministerial to matter;" and in letters to Bishop Andrews and Toby Matthew he asks them to "mark whatsoever shall not seem current in the style," and to correct "such words and phrases as" they "cannot like." On one occasion (as early as 1610) the King is said to have manifested his dislike for Sir Francis Bacon's

1 Spedding, i. 268.

"extravagant style "1 by requesting some one else to represent more soberly the wishes of the House of Commons. It would therefore be more in accordance with fact to call attention to this singularity of language, largeness of vocabulary, and richness of illustrations, as distinguishing Bacon's style to some extent in every period, and especially in his early period, than to lay stress upon any imaginary development of the bold early style into a florid late one.

But the leading peculiarity of Bacon's literary style is its sympathetic nature; that is to say, its versatile adaptation to every slightest variation of subject or aspect of a subject As Lord Chancellor, he can be florid and discursive upon the King's Prerogative, but homely and forcible on ordinary legal business. "I do not mean to make it a horse-race who shall be first at Westminster Hall," and again, "By the grace of God I will make injunctions a hard pillow to sleep on." Even in the later additions to the earlier Essays-though for the most part purposely "weighty" and periodical in structure—yet, <when the subject. needs it, we find the old terse metaphor characteristic of the earliest edition: "The rebellions of the belly are the worst ; Money is like muck, not good except it be spread; "But then it must be a prudent king, such as is able to grind with a handDistilled books are like common distilled waters,

mill;
flashy things."

"2

If therefore any difference could be exhibited in detail between Bacon's later and earlier styles it would probably be found to be this, that the later works are more free from uncommon words and phrases and are more current in the style." He seems gradually to have succeeded, with the aid of friendly critics, in shaking off his early tendency to "spangle his speech" with fit and terse but unusual expressions. But that he felt any pride in, or even set just value on, his unique mastery of the English language there is scarcely any indication. Of his Latin he was proud: "They tell me," he writes (February 1610)

1 See above, p. 201. The word "extravagant" may possibly refer to the thought as well as to the language; but those who have read Bacon's utterances in the House of Commons will find that, wherever the King is mentioned, an "extravagance" of language accompanies "extravagance" of thought. 4 Ibid. iv. 29.

2 Essays, xv. 87.

Ibid. 76.

Ibid. iv. 30, a passage added in the later edition.