content to present an almost impious kind of flattery to his weak sovereign, but he stooped to become the minion of a minion-namely, Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who had been recently raised from obscurity to the highest court honours, merely on account of his possessing a ⚫ handsome person. By such means, and by writing to the king a letter studiously depreciating all the other great lawyers of his day, he obtained, in March 1617, the appointment of Lord-keeper, and, two years after, that of Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron Verulam, subsequently exchanged for that of Viscount St Albans.

Without apparently gaining much personal esteem, Bacon had at this time obtained the highest reputation as a philosophical writer. To the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, and afterwards republished in an extended form, was added, in 1620, the Novum Organum, which was designed as a second part of his grand work, The Instauration of the Sciences. Another portion, intended to complete the work, was never produced. The objects of the whole work were, to answer the objections made to the progress of knowledge, to classify the branches of knowledge, and to explain a new method of employing the faculties for the increase of knowledge; namely, to ascertain facts in the first place, and then to reason upon them towards conclusions—a mode which may now appear very obvious, and even unavoidable, but which was nevertheless unknown till explained by him. To come to particulars, Bacon tells us :

1. That the ultimate aim of philosophical investigation is to bring the course of events, as much as possible, under our own control, in order that we may turn it to our own advantage.

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2. That as each event depends upon a certain combination of circumstances which precede it, and constitute its cause, it is evident we shall be able to command the event, whenever we have it in our power to produce that combination of circumstances out of the means which nature has placed within our reach.

3. That the means of producing many events which we little dream of, are actually placed within our reach; and that nothing prevents us from using those means, but our inability to select them from the crowd of other circumstances by which they are disguised and surrounded.

4. That, therefore, we should endeavour, by diligent observation, to find out what circumstances are essential, and what extraneous, to the production of each event; and its real cause being stripped free from all the perplexing concomitants which occur in nature, we shall perceive at once whether we can command the circumstances that compose it or not. This, in short, is to generalise; and having done so, we shall sometimes discover that objects, which of all others appeared the most useless, remote, and inapplicable to our purpose, possess the very properties we are in search of. Nature stands ready to minister to our designs, if we have only the sagacity to disentangle its operations from one another, to refer each event to its real source, and to trace the powers and qualities of objects into their most abstract form.

"In pursuing the dictates of this noble philosophy, man is no longer impotent and ridiculous. He calmly vanquishes the barriers which oppose his wishes-he eludes the causes of pain-he widens the range of enjoyment— and, at the same time, feels the dignity of intellect, which,

like a magician's talisman, has made all things bow before his feet.

'To this extraordinary individual we are indebted also for an attempt to reduce the chaos of literature into some degree of order; and to shew that, notwithstanding the multiplicity and variety of books, there are only three different objects, to one or other of which the contents of every book must apply. According to Lord Bacon, human knowledge is resolvable into history, philosophy, and poetry. By history, is meant a statement of particular events which have occurred in past time. By philosophy, is meant the knowledge of general facts, concerning the relation of one phenomenon to another. By poetry, is meant an assemblage of ideas brought together for the purpose of exciting emotion.

'Lord Bacon's Essays are by no means the least part of his philosophy. Wisdom has never appeared in a garb so closely adapted to her person. Every subject is treated with a clear and luminous brevity, which places the propositions side by side, without any intermediate ornament. A florid discourse may astonish us, but it is a simple one like this which enables us to arrive at conclusions.' These Essays are the most popular of his writings, being devoted to subjects and involving thoughts which, as he says of them himself, 'come home to men's business and bosoms.' They often unite the most profound philosophy with the most fanciful illustration and poetical language, and sometimes display an almost scriptural pathos, as in the following beautiful passage:

The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shews he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no

island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shews that his heart is like a noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily pardons and remits offences, it shews that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot. If he be thankful for small benefits, it shews that he weighs men's minds, and not their trash.'

Another specimen of Bacon may be given from his praises of learning: Learning taketh away the wildness, barbarism, and fierceness of men's minds; though a little of it doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the kind, and to accept of nothing but [what is] examined and tried. It taketh away all vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness; for all things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are great. ... If a man meditate upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls excepted) will not seem more than an ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfection of manners. Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears together. It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind-sometimes purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes

...

helping the digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and ulcerations thereof, and the like; and I will therefore conclude with the chief reason of all, which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of reformation. For the unlearned man knoweth not what it is to descend into himself, and call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that most pleasant life which consists in our daily feeling ourselves become better. The good parts he hath, he will learn to shew to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them; the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them; like an ill mower, that mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof.'

It is distressing to know that this great man, in his latter years, was guilty of certain moral delinquencies. In 1621, it was discovered that, under the pressure of temptation, he had accepted bribes from suitors in the Court of Chancery, for which offence he was imprisoned in the Tower, and pronounced incapable of holding office or of ever sitting in parliament. This reverse of fortune was humiliating and salutary. On his release from confinement, he pursued his philosophical researches to the last, in the midst of bodily infirmities brought on by intense study, by multiplicity of business, and, above all, by anguish of mind. In the winter of 1625, his health was much improved, but he died the following year, 9th April 1626. Succeeding generations remember with gratitude what Bacon did for the advancement of science.