great comfort, that your Majesty hath in mind your Majesty's royal promise, which to me is anchora spei, touching the attorney's place. I hope Mr. Attorney shall do well. I thank God I wish no man's death, nor much mine own life, more than to do your Majesty service. For I account my life the accident, and my duty the substance. But this I will be bold to say; if it please God that I ever serve your Majesty in the attorney's place, I have known an attorney Coke, and an attorney Hobart, both worthy men, and far above myself: but if I should not find a middle way between their two dispositions and carriages, I should not satisfy myself. But these things are far or near, as it shall please God. Meanwhile I most humbly pray your Majesty, to accept my sacrifice of thanksgiving for your gracious favour. God preserve your Majesty, I ever remain CV. TO THE MOST HIGH AND EXCELLENT PRINCE, HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, DUKE OF CORNWALL, AND EARL OF CHESTER.† IT MAY PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS, HAVING divided my life into the contemplative and active part, I am desirous to give his Majesty and your highness of the fruits of both, simple though they be. To write just treatises, requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader, and therefore are not so fit, neither in regard of your highness's princely affairs, nor in regard of my continual service; which is the cause that hath made me choose to write 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 you mark them well, are but essays, that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of epistles. These labours of mine, I know, cannot be worthy of your highness, for what can be worthy of you? But my hope is, they may be as grains of salt, that will rather give you an appetite, than offend you with satiety. And although they handle those things wherein both men's lives and their persons are most conversant; yet what I have attained I know not; but I have endeavoured to make them not vulgar, but of a nature, whereof a man shall find much in experience, and little in books; so as they are neither repetitions nor fancies. But, however, I shall most humbly desire your highness to accept them in gracious part, and to conceive, that if I cannot rest, but must show my dutiful and devoted affection to your highness in these things which proceed from myself, I shall be much more ready to do it in performance of any of your princely commandments. And so wishing your highness all princely felicity, I rest, CVI. TO THE EARL OF SALISBURY, LORD TREASURER, UPON A NEW-YEAR'S TIDE. IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP, I WOULD entreat the new year to answer for the old, in my humble thanks to your lordship; both for many your favours, and chiefly that upon the occasion of Mr. Attorney's infirmity I found your lordship even as I could wish. This doth increase a desire in me to express my thankful mind to your lordship; hoping, that though I find age and decays grow upon me, yet I may have a flash or two of spirit left to do you service: and I do protest before God, without compliment or any light vanity of mind, that if I knew in what course of life to do you best service, I would take it, and make my thoughts, which now fly to many pieces, be reduced to that centre. But all this is no more but that I am; which is not much; but yet the entire of him that is, &c. CVII. TO MY LORD MAYOR, UPON A PROCEEDING IN A PRIVATE CAUSE.§ MY VERY GOOD Lord, I DID little expect, when I left your lordship last, that there would have been a proceeding against Mr. Barnard to his overthrow: wherein I must confess myself to be in a sort accessary; because he relying upon me for counsel, I advised that course which he followed. Wherein now I begin to question myself whether in preserving my respects unto your lordship, and the rest, I have not failed in the duty of my profession towards my client. For certainly, if the words had been heinous, and spoken in a malicious fashion, and in some public place, and well proved; and not a prattle in a tavern, caught hold of by one who, as I hear, is a detected sycophant, Standish, I mean; yet I know not what could have been done more, than to impose upon him a grievous fine, and to require the levying of the same; and to take away his means of life by his disfranchisement, and to commit him to a defamed prison during Christmas; in honour whereof, the prisoners in other courts do commonly of grace obtain some enlargement. This rigour of proceeding, to tell your lordship and the rest, as my good friends, my opinion plainly, tendeth not to strengthen authority, which is best supported by love and fear intermixed; but rather to make people discontented and servile; especially when such punishment is inflicted for words not by rule of law, but by a jurisdiction of discretion, which would evermore be moderately used. And I pray God, whereas, Mr. Recorder, when I was with you, did well and wisely put you in mind of the admonitions you often received from my lords, that you should bridle unruly tongues; that those kind of speeches and rumours, | whereunto those admonitions do refer, which that he inserted part of it in his dedication to the duke of Tuscany, before his translation of those Essays printed in 1618. Rawley's Resuscitatio. § Ibid. are FR. BACON. CIX. TO SIR HENRY SAVILLE.§ SIR, concerning the state and honour thereof, do not pass | be beholden in those cases in a right cause. And too licentiously in the city unpunished; while these so I bid you farewell. words which concern your particular, are so straitly inquired into, and punished with such extremity. But these things your own wisdom, first or last, will best represent unto you. My writing unto you at this time is, to the end, that howsoever I do take it somewhat unkindly, that my meditation prevailed no more yet that I might preserve that farther respect that I am willing to use unto such a state, in delivering my opinion unto you freely, before II had refreshed myself with company which I loved, would be of counsel, or move any thing that should cross your proceedings; which, notwithstanding, in case my client can receive no relief at your hands, I must and will do; continuing, nevertheless, in other things, my wonted good affections to yourselves and your occasions. CVIII. TO SIR VINCENT SKINNER.* I SEE that by your needless delays, this matter is grown to a new question; wherein for the matter itself, if it had been stayed at the beginning by my lord Treasurer and Mr. Chancellor, I should not so much have stood upon it. For the great and daily travels which I take in his Majesty's service, either are rewarded in themselves, in that they are but my duty, or else may deserve a much greater matter. Neither can I think amiss of any man, that in fartherance of the king's benefit moved the doubt, that knew not what warrant I had. But my wrong is, that you having had my lord Treasurer's and Mr. Chancellor's warrant for payment above a month since; you, I say, making your payments, belike upon such differences, as are better known to yourself, than agreeable to the respect of his Majesty's service, have delayed all this time, otherwise than I might have expected from our ancient acquaintance, or from that regard which one in your place may owe to one in mine. By occasion whereof there ensueth to me a greater inconvenience, that now my name in sort must be in question amongst you, as if I were a man likely to demand that which were unreasonable, or be denied that which is reasonable: and this must be, because you can pleasure men at pleasure. But this I leave with this: that it is the first matter wherein I had occasion to discern of your friendship, which I see to fall to this; that whereas Mr. Chancellor, the last time, in my man's hearing, very honourably said, that he would not discontent any man in my place; it seems you have no such caution. But my writing to you now is to know of you where now the stay is, without being any more beholden to you, to whom indeed no man ought to Stephens's First Collection, p. 53. + Officer of the receipts of the exchequer. Rymer, XVI. p. 497. Sir Henry Saville, so justly celebrated for his noble ed tion of St. Chrysostom and other learned works, was many years warden of Merton college in Oxford, in which university be founded a geometry and astronomy lecture, 25 May, 1620. See the instrument of foundation, Rymer, XVI. p. 217, and COMING back from your invitation at Eton, where For I fell into a consideration of that part of policy, whereof philosophy speaketh too much, and laws too little; and that is, of education of youth. Whereupon fixing my mind a while, I found straightways, and noted even in the discourses of philosophers, which are so large in this argument, a strange silence concerning one principal part of that subject. as touching the framing and seasoning of youth to moral virtues, as tolerance of labours, continency from pleasures, obedience, honour, and the like, they handle it; but touching the improvement, and helping of the intellectual powers, as of conceit, memory, and judgment, they say nothing: whether it were, that they thought it to be a matter wherein nature only prevailed; or that they intended it as referred to the several and proper arts which teach the use of reason and speech. But for the former of these two reasons, howsoever it pleaseth them to distinguish of habits and powers, the experience is manifest enough, that the motions and faculties of the wit and memory may be not only governed and guided, but also confirmed and enlarged by custom and exercise duly applied: as if a man exercise shooting, he shall not only shoot nearer the mark, but also draw a stronger bow. And as for the latter, of comprehending these precepts within the arts of logic and rhetoric, if it be rightly considered, their office is distinct altogether from this point; for it is no part of the doctrine of the use or handling of an instrument, to teach how to whet or grind the instrument to give it a sharp edge, or how to quench it, or otherwise whereby to give it a stronger temper. Wherefore finding this part of knowledge not broken, I have, but "tanquam aliud agens," entered into it, and salute you with it; dedicating it, after the ancient manner, first as to a dear friend, and then as to an apt person, forasmuch as you have both place to practise it, and judgment and leisure to look deeper into it than I have done. Herein you must call to mind "Aptorov pèv vdwp. Though the argument be not of great height and dignity, nevertheless it is of great and universal use and yet I do not see why, to consider it rightly, that should not be a learning of height, which teacheth to raise the highest and worthiest part of the mind. But howsoever that be, if the world take any light and use likewise provost of Eton. To this gentleman, as of all the most proper, Sir Francis Bacon sends this discourse touching "Helps for the intellectual Powers in Youth;" but being an imperfect essay to incite others, he places this useful subject among the deficients reckoned up in his " Advancement of Learning." Stephens. § Stephens's First Collection, p. 54. by this writing, I will the gratulation be to the good | amples of strange victories over the body in every friendship and acquaintance between us two: and so I commend you to God's divine protection. A DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE HELPS FOR INTEL- I DID ever hold it for an insolent and unlucky saying, "Faber quisque fortunæ suæ;" except it be uttered only as a hortative or spur to correct sloth. For otherwise, if it be believed as it soundeth, and that a man entereth into a high imagination that he can compass and fathom all accidents; and ascribeth all successes to his drifts and reaches; and the contrary to his errors and sleepings: it is commonly seen that the evening fortune of that man is not so prosperous, as of him that without slackening of his industry attributeth much to felicity and providence above him. But if the sentence were turned to this, "Faber quisque ingenii sui," it were somewhat more true, and much more profitable; because it would teach men to bend themselves to reform those imperfections in themselves which now they seek but to cover, and to attain those virtues and good parts which now they seek but to have only in show and demonstration. Yet notwithstanding every man attempteth to be of the first trade, of carpenters, and few bind themselves to the second; whereas nevertheless the rising in fortune seldom amendeth the mind; but on the other side, the removing of the stonds and impediments of the mind doth often clear the passage and current to a man's fortune. But certain it is, whether it be believed or no, that as the most excellent of metals, gold, is of all others the most pliant and most enduring to be wrought; so of all living and breathing substances, the perfectest man is the most susceptible of help, improvement, impression, and alteration; and not only in his body, but in his mind and spirit; and | there again not only in his appetite and affection, but in his powers of wit and reason. For as to the body of man, we find many and strange experiences, how nature is over-wrought by custom, even in actions that seem of most difficulty and least possible. As first in voluntary motion, which though it be termed voluntary, yet the highest degrees of it are not voluntary; for it is in my power and will to run; but to run faster than according to my lightness or disposition of body, is not in my power nor will. We see the industry and practice of tumblers and funambulos, what effects of great wonder it bringeth the body of man unto. So for suffering of pain and dolour, which is thought so contrary to the nature of man, there is much example of penances in strict orders of superstition what they do endure, such as may well verify the report of the Spartan boys, which were wont to be scourged upon the altar so bitterly as sometimes they died of it, and yet were never heard to complain. And to pass to those faculties which are reckoned more involuntary, as long fasting and abstinence, and the contrary extreme, voracity; the leaving and forbearing the use of drink for altogether; the enduring vehement cold, and the like; there have not wanted, neither do want, divers ex of these. Nay, in respiration, the proof hath been of some who by continual use of diving and working under the water, have brought themselves to be able to hold their breath an incredible time: and others that have been able, without suffocation, to endure the stifling breath of an oven or furnace so heated as though it did not scald nor burn, yet it was many degrees too hot for any man not made to it to breathe or take in. And some impostors and counterfeits likewise have been able to wreathe and cast their bodies into strange forms and motions; yea, and others to bring themselves into trances and astonishments. All which examples do demonstrate how variously and to how high points and degrees the body of man may be as it were molded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is some secret propriety of nature that hath been in those persons which have attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things come but very rarely to pass it is true no doubt but some persons are apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection, but the less aptness doth not disable: so that, for example, the more apt child, that is taken to be made a funambulo, will prove more excellent in his feats; but the less apt will be gregarius funambulo also. And there is small question, but that these abilities would have been more common, and others of like sort, not attempted, would likewise have been brought upon the stage, but for two reasons: the one, because of men's diffidence in prejudging them as impossibilities; for it holdeth in those things which the poet saith, "possunt, quia posse videntur;" for no man shall know how much may be done except he believe much may be done. The other reason is, because they be but practices base and inglorious, and of no great use, and therefore sequestered from reward of value, and on the other side painful; so as the recompence balanceth not with the travel and suffering. And as to the will of man, it is that which is most maniable and obedient; as that which admitteth most medicines to cure and alter it. The most sovereign of all is religion, which is able to change and transform it in the deepest and most inward inclinations and motions, and next to that is opinion and apprehension, whether it be infused by tradition and institution, or wrought in by disputation and persuasion; and the third is example, which transformeth the will of man into the similitude of that which is most observant and familiar towards it; and the fourth is, when one affection is healed and corrected by another, as when cowardice is remedied by shame and dishonour, or sluggishness and backwardness by indignation and emulation, and so of the like; and lastly, when all these means or any of them have new-framed or formed human will, then doth custom and habit corroborate and confirm all the rest. Therefore it is no marvel, though this faculty of the mind, of will and election, which inclineth affection and appetite, being but the inceptions and rudiments of will, may be so well governed and managed; because it admitteth access to so divers remedies to be applied to it, and to work upon it: the effects whereof are so many and so known, as require no enumeration; but generally they do issue, as medicines do, into two kinds of cures, whereof the one is a just or true cure, and the other is called palliation for either the labour and intention is to reform the affections really and truly, restraining them if they be too violent, and raising them if they be too soft and weak; or else it is to cover them, or, if occasion be, to pretend them and represent them of the former sort whereof the examples are plentiful in the schools of philosophers, and in all other institutions of moral virtue: and of the other sort the examples are more plentiful in the courts of princes, and in all politic traffic; where it is ordinary to find, not only profound dissimulations, and suffocating the affections, that no note or mark appear of them outwardly; but also lively simulations and affectations, carrying the tokens of passions which are not, as risus jussus and lacrymæ coacte, and the like. OF HELPS OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. THE intellectual powers have fewer means to work upon them, than the will or body of man; but the one that prevaileth, that is, exercise, worketh more forcibly in them than in the rest. * The ancient habit of the philosophers, "Si quis quærat in utramque partem de omni scibili." The exercise of scholars making verses extempore," Stans pede in uno." The exercise of lawyers in memory narrative. The exercise of sophists, and “Jo. ad oppositum," with manifest effect. Artificial memory greatly holpen by exercise. The exercise of buffoons to draw all things to conceits ridiculous. The means that help the understanding and faculties thereof are, (Not example, as in the will, by conversation; and here the conceit of imitation already digested, with the confutation "obiter si videbitur," of Tully's opinion, advising a man to take some one to imitate. Similitude of faces analysed.) The Arts, Logic, Rhetoric; The ancients, Aristotle, Plato, Theætetus, Gorgias “litigiosus vel sophista," Protagoras, Aristotle, "schola sua." Topics, Elenchs, Rhetorics, Organon, Cicero, Hermogenes. Neoterics, Ramus, Agricola. "Nil sacri;" Lullius his Typocosmia, studying Cooper's Dictionary, Matthæus collection of proper words for metaphors, Agrippa “de vanitatibus," &c. Que. If not here of imitation. Collections preparative. Aristotle's similitude of a shoemaker's shop, full of shoes of all sorts: Demosthenes, "Exordia concionum." Tully's precept of theses of all sorts preparative. The relying upon exercise, with the difference of using and tempering the instrument: and the similitude of prescribing against the laws of nature and of estate. • These that follow are but indigested notes. Five points. 1. That exercises are to be framed to the life; that is to say, to work ability in that kind whereof a man in the course of action shall have most use. 2. The indirect and oblique exercises; which do, per partes and per consequentiam, enable these faculties; which perhaps direct exercise at first would but distort; and these have chiefly place where the faculty is weak, not per se, but per accidens; as if want of memory grow through lightness of wit and want of staid attention; then the mathematics or the law helpeth; because they are things, wherein if the mind once roam, it cannot recover. 3. Of the advantages of exercise; as to dance with heavy shoes, to march with heavy armour and carriage; and the contrary advantage, in natures very dull and unapt, of working alacrity, by framing an exercise with some delight or affection. "Ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi 4. Of the cautions of exercise; as to beware lest by evil doing, as all beginners do weakly, a man grow not, and be inveterate, in an ill habit, and so take not the advantage of custom in perfection, but in confirming ill. Slubbering on the lute. 5. The marshalling and sequel of sciences and practices; logic and rhetoric should be used to be read after poesy, history, and philosophy; first, exercise, to do things well and clean; after, promptly and readily. The exercises in the universities and schools are of memory and invention; either to speak by heart that which is set down verbatim, or to speak extempore; whereas there is little use in action of either or both; but most things which we utter are neither verbally premeditate, nor merely extemporal. Therefore exercise would be framed to take a little breathing, and to consider of heads; and then to fit and form the speech extempore. This would be done in two manners; both with writing and tables, and without for in most actions it is permitted and passable to use the note, whereunto if a man be not accustomed, it will put him out. : There is no use of a narrative memory in academiis, namely, with circumstances of times, persons, and places, and with names; and it is one art to discourse, and another to relate and describe; and herein use and action is most conversant. Also to sum up and contract, is a thing in action of very general use. CX. SIR FRANCIS BACON TO MR. MATTHEW, ABOUT HIS WRITINGS, AND THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.+ SIR, THE reason of so much time taken before my answer to yours of the fourth of August, was chiefly by accompanying my letter with the paper which † Sir Tobie Matthew's Collection of Letters, p. 23. 5. What was the reason, and to what end did you first set down in scattered papers, and after knit up, in form of a treatise or sermon, such a mass of treasonable slanders against the king, his posterity, and the whole state? 6. What moved you to write, the king might be stricken with death on the sudden, or within eight days, as Ananias or Nabal? do you know of any conspiracy or danger to his person, or have you heard of any such attempt? 7. You have confessed that these things were applied to the king; and that, after the example of preachers and chroniclers, kings' infirmities are to be laid open; this showeth plainly your use must be to publish them: show to whom and what manner. here I send you; and again, now lately, not to hold | time, and in what place meant you to have preached from you till the end of a letter, that which by grief them? if by treatise, to whom did you intend to may, for a time, efface all the former contents, the dedicate, or exhibit, or deliver such treatise ? death of your good friend and mine A. B., to whom because I used to send my letters for conveyance to you, it made me so much the more unready in the despatch of them. In the mean time I think myself, howsoever it hath pleased God otherwise to bless me, a most unfortunate man, to be deprived of two, a great number in true friendship, of those friends, whom I accounted as no stage-friends, but private friends, and such, as with whom I might both freely and safely communicate, him by death, and you by absence. As for the memorial of the late deceased queen, I will not question whether you be to pass for a disinterested man or no; I freely confess myself am not, and so I leave it. As for my other writings, you make me very glad of your approbation; the rather, because you add a concurrence in opinion with others; for else I might have conceived, that affection would, perhaps, have prevailed with you, beyond that, which if your judgment had been neat and free, you could have esteemed. And as for your caution, touching the dignity of ecclesiastical persons, I shall not have cause to meet with them any otherwise, than in that some schoolmen have, with excess, advanced the authority of Aristotle. Other occasion I shall have none. But now I have sent you that only part of the whole writing, which may perhaps have a little harshness and provocation in it: although I may almost secure myself, that if the preface passed so well, this will not irritate more, being indeed, to the preface, but as palma ad pugnum. Your own love expressed to me, I heartily embrace; and hope that there will never be occasion of other than entireness between us; which nothing but majores charitates shall ever be able to break off. INTERROGATORIES WHEREUPON PEACHAM QUESTIONS IN GENERAL." 1. WHо procured you, moved you, or advised you, to put in writing these traitorous slanders which you have set down against his Majesty's person and government, or any of them? 2. Who gave you any advertisement or intelligence touching those particulars which are contained in your writings; as touching the sale of the crown lands, the deceit of the king's officers, the greatness of the king's gifts, his keeping divided courts, and the rest; and who hath conferred with you, or discoursed with you, concerning these points? 3. Whom have you made privy and acquainted with the said writings, or any part of them? and who hath been your helpers or confederates therein ? 4. What use mean you to make of the said writings? was it by preaching them in sermon, or by publishing them in treatise? if in sermon, at what Sir David Dalrymple's Memorials and Letters relating to the history of Great Britain in the reign of James the First, p. 26. Edit. Glasgow. 1762. 8. What was the true time when you wrote the said writings, or any part of them? and what was the last time you looked upon them, or perused them, before they were found or taken ? 9. What moved you to make doubt whether the people will rise against the king for taxes and oppressions? Do you know, or have you heard, of any likelihood or purpose of any tumults or commotion? 10. What moved you to write, That getting of the crown-land again would cost blood, and bring men to say, This is the heir, let us kill him? Do you know, or have you heard of any conspiracy or danger to the prince, for doubt of calling back the crown-land ? 11. What moved you to prove, that all the king's officers mought be put to the sword? Do you know, or have you heard of any petition is intended to be made against the king's council and officers, or any rising of people against them? 12. What moved you to say in your writing, That our king, before his coming to the kingdom, promised mercy and judgment, but we find neither ? What promise do you mean of, and wherein hath the king broke the same promise? There follows in the hand-writing of Secretary Winwood, Upon those interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding nothing could be drawn from him, he still persisting in his obstinate and insensible denials, and former answers. January the 19th, 1614. |