should follow a fine remedy devised by Cicero when consul, a mild one but an apt one: Eos qui otium perturbant reddam otiosos.*

In swearing in new Judges, he delivered most excellent advice to them, which should be kept in remembrance by all their successors. Thus he counsels JUSTICE HUTTON, when called to be a Judge of the Common Pleas :

Draw your learning out of your books, not out of your brain. "Mix well the freedom of your own opinion with the reverence of the opinion of your fellows.

"Continue the studying of your books, and do not spend on upon the old stock.

"Fear no man's face, yet turn not stoutness into bravery.

"Be a light to jurors to open their eyes, not a guide to lead them by the noses.

"Affect not the opinion of pregnancy and expedition by an impatient and catching hearing of the counsellors at the bar.

"Let your speech be with gravity, as one of the sages of the law, and not talkative, nor with impertinent flying out to show learning.†

"Contain the jurisdiction of your Court within the ancient merestones, without removing the mark."

Bacon, although without any natural taste for legal studies, felt that he must ascribe the elevation which he prized so much to his profession, and he had a sincere desire to repay the debt of gratitude which he was ever ready to acknowledge that he owed it. He wrote valuable treatises to explain and improve the laws of England, he was eager to assist in digesting them-and he induced the King to appoint reporters with adequate salaries, who should authoritatively print such decisions of the Courts, and such only, as would be useful-guarding against the publication of crude, trifling, contradictory cases, which had then become alarming, and by which we are now overwhelmed.‡

Viewed as a statesman,-as far as right principles and inclinations are concerned, Bacon deserves high commendation. He was for governing constitutionally by parliaments; he never counselled violent measures; and, though he laboured under the common error about the balance of trade and the necessity for laws. to prevent the exportation of coin, he had generally just views both of domestic and foreign policy. He was a reformer, yet he saw the danger of rash innovation; and he says, "it is not good

*Bacon's Works. vol. vi. 141. 194. 244. iv. 497.

"An overspeaking Judge a no well-timed cymbal. It is no grace to a Judge first to find that which he might have heard in due time from the bar, or to show quickness of conceit in cutting off evidence or counsel too short, or to prevent [anticipate] information by questions, though pertinent."-Essay of Judicature.

Rymer's Foed. vol. xvii. p. 27. Ordinatio qua constituantur les Reporters de lege." After stating the King's anxiety to preserve the ancient law and to prevent innovations, he declares that he has thought it good to revive the custom of appointing some grave and learned lawyers as reporters, &c.; their stipend was fixed at 1007.. but there were only two for all the Courts.

to try experiments in states except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident, and well to beware that it is the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation."*

The advice he gave respecting Ireland is beyond all praise, and never having steadily been acted upon, it is unfortunately highly applicable to our own times. On new-year's day, 1606, he presented to the King, as a "Gift," a " Discourse touching the Plantation in Ireland," saying to him, "I assure myself that England, Scotland, and Ireland, well united, is such a trefoil as no Prince, except yourself, who are the worthiest, weareth in his crown;" and points out to him how, by liberality and kindness, the union might be accomplished. He displays a most intimate knowledge of the miseries of Ireland, their causes and cure. "This desolate and neglected country is blessed with almost all the doweries of nature-with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good soil, temperate climate, and a race and generation of men, valiant, hard, and active, as it is not easy to find such confluence of commodities,-if the hand of man join with the hand of nature: but they are severed, the harp of Ireland is not strung or attuned to concord."

We must not suppose that he was either insincere or unenlightened in his political theories by merely regarding his practice; for he had no moral courage, and no power of self-sacrifice or self-denial. hence we account for his clinging to every minister who could advance him,—for his sealing patents to create a monopoly in all articles of necessity and luxury,-and for his writing in defence of a Spanish war, for which he knew there was no just cause, and which he knew could promote no national object.

His published speeches (which he evidently thought might be compared to the choice specimens of ancient eloquence) do not support his fame as an orator. They are superior to those of his contemporaries, and even to those of the leaders of the Long Parliament, who, as boys, were studying under him, but who suffered the effect of their masculine thinking to be weakened by endless heads and subdivisions, and to be counteracted by courtly ribaldry, or by puritanical cant. Nevertheless, no speech of his at the bar or in parliament, even approaches the standard of pure and unstained eloquence set us by Erskine and Burke,—and to get at his weighty, rich, and pathetic passages, we must pass over much that is quaint, pedantic, and dull.†

But it was as a philosopher that Bacon conquered immortality,

*If misled by no personal interest, he would have supported the Bill of Rights in 1689, and the Reform Bill in 1832;-and by going so far, and no further, would have assisted in saving the constitution.

† In his own time he seems to have been considered equally eminent as an orator and as an author. Raleigh, no mean judge, declared that "Lord Salisbury was a great speaker but a bad writer, and Lord Northampton was a great writer but a bad speaker, while Lord Bacon was equally excellent in speaking and writing.”

and here he stands superior to all who went before, and to all who have followed him. If he be not entitled to a place in the interior of the splendid temple which he imagined for those who, by inventing arts, have embellished life, his statue ought to appear in the more honourable position of the portico, as the great master who has taught how arts are to be invented-with this inscription on its pedestal,

"O tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen

Qui primus potuisti, illustrans commoda vitæ." However, I must limit myself to declaring my humble but hearty concurrence in the highest praises that have been bestowed upon him for what he did for science. No one is so absurd as to suppose that he was the first to render experience available in the search after truth; but he it was that first systematically showed the true object of philosophical inquiry, and the true means by which that object was to be attained. Before and during his time discoveries were accidentally made; but they were retarded and perverted by fantastical à priori theories, which they were supposed to illustrate. He taught as one inspired, that the labour of all who think ought to be to multiply human enjoyments and to mitigate human sufferings, and that for this purpose they must observe and reason only from what they see. All who have studied the history of ancient or modern science, must be aware of the host of established errors he had to encounter, which were supposed to be sanctioned by names of no meaner note than those of Plato and Aristotle. But with what courage, steadiness, and perseverance did he proceed with his undertaking! Luckily he was in no danger of losing the place of Solicitor or Attorney General, or Lord Chancellor, by exposing the idola tribus, the idola specus, the idola fori, or the idola theatri.

His plan was left unfinished; but in spite of all the distractions of professional drudgery and grovelling ambition,—although, in the language of Sir Thomas Bodley, "he wasted many years on such study as was not worthy of such a student,"-he accomplished more for the real advancement of knowledge than any of those who spent their lives in calm meditation under sequestered porticoes or amidst academic groves.

With all his boldness he is entirely free from dogmatism and intolerance,-unlike the religious reformers of his day, who, assailing an ancient superstition, wished to burn all who doubted the new system which they set up in its place. Having put down ty ranny, he did not himself assume the sceptre, but proclaimed freedom to mankind.

I deny the recent assertion, that little practical benefit arose from his writings-which is founded on the false statement that they were little read in England, and were hardly known abroad till analysed in the Preface to the French Encyclopædia by D'Alembert and Diderot. They were eagerly read and studied in

this country from the time they were respectively published; and as soon as they appeared here, they were reprinted and translated on the Continent. Attacked by obscure men, they were defended by Gassendi, Puffendorff, and Leibnitz. They made a deep impression on the public mind of Europe, which has never been effaced, and to their direct and indirect influence may be ascribed many of the brilliant discoveries which illustrated the latter half of the seventeenth century.*"

He

I must likewise indignantly repel the charge brought against him, that he is a mere 'utilitarian"—in the contracted and bad sense of the word-having regard only to our physical wants. always remembered that man is a social and reasonable and accountable being, and never erred by supposing that his true welfare could be promoted without ample provision for cultivating his affections, enlightening his understanding, and teaching him his duties to his Maker. A most perfect body of ethics might be made out from the writings of Bacon; and though he deals chiefly, in his examples, with natural philosophy, his method is equally well adapted to examine and classify the phenomena of mind.

I may not enter into any minute criticisms on the style of his philosophical works, whether English or Latin; yet I cannot refrain from remarking, that while he instructs he is ever exact, perspicuous, and forcible,-charming his reader with a felicity of illustration peculiar to himself-ever seconded by the commanding powers of a bold and figurative eloquence. To beginners the "Advancement of Learning" is certainly the most captivating performance, but let them proceed, and they will soon be familiar with the "De Augmentis,”—and the most abstract aphorisms in the " NOVUM ORGANUM" will yield them delight.

Bacon's miscellaneous literary productions would of themselves place him high as an author. Many of the observations on life and manners in his "Essays" have passed into maxims, and are familiar to us from infancy. Of all the compositions in any language I am acquainted with, these will bear to be the oftenest perused and re-perused, and after every perusal they still present some new meaning and some new beauty. He was himself conscious of his power in this department of literature, and of the "lustre and reputation these recreations of his other studies would yield to his name.Ӡ

His "New Atlantis" he seems to have intended as a rival to the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, although his object was less

*It is not very creditable to England that Bacon's philosophical works have fal len into comparative neglect in his own country. Aristotle excludes them at Oxford, and they are not the subject of any lectures or examinations at Cambridge,― while at most foreign universities "the Baconian system" is regularly taught,— and it is to Scotch professors, Reid, Dugald Stewart, Robison, and Playfair, that it Owes its best illustrations,

† Letter to Bishop of Winchester. Again, he resembles his short Essays to the reformed coin, "where the pieces are small, but the silver is good."

to satirise existing institutions and manners than to point out the unbounded progress that might be made in discovery and improvement.* Some of his suggestions which must have appeared the most extravagant to his contemporaries have been realised in the present age.

His tract "On Church Controversies" is admirably written,to inculcate the salutary precept that Christians should contend "not as the brier with the thistle, which can wound deepest? but as the vine with the olive, which bears best fruit?"

His derivation of all physical and moral truth from mythological fables in his "Wisdom of the Ancients," is often forced and farfetched; but no where do we trace more striking proofs of his imagination, and his power of discovering resemblances and differences, in which consist wit and wisdom.

His Latin style, though pointed and forcible, is not sweet nor pure; but he has left us some of the best specimens of genuine Anglicism, and the few antiquated words and turns of expression which we find in his writings, as in the contemporary translation of the Bible, only give additional weight and solemnity to the sentiments which he expresses. Addison, who knew what good composition was, talks with rapture of his "beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments."

In considering his private character, we must begin with the formidable admission that he was without steady attachments as well as aversions, and that, regardless of friendship or gratitude, he was governed by a selfish view of his own interest. But he was perfectly free from malignity; he was good-natured and obliging; when friends stood between him and his object-sacrificing them to the necessary extent, he did them as little further damage as possible,—and instead of hating those whom he had injured, he was rather disposed to be reconciled to them, and to make them amends by courtesy, if he could not render them real service.

I find no impeachment of his morals deserving of attention,and he certainly must have been a man of very great temperance, for the business and studies through which he went would be enough to fill up the lives of ten men who spend their evenings over their wine, and awake crapulous in the morning. Nullum momentum aut temporis segmentum perire et intercidere passus estt," knowing that if he took good care of sections of an hour, entire days would take care of themselves.

All accounts represent him as a most delightful companion, adapting himself to company of every degree, calling, and hu

* This work seems to have been deeply studied by Swift, who has happily ridi culed some parts of it in Gulliver's Travels, particularly in the voyage to Laputa. Another Lord Chancellor has attempted a philosophical romance, but Lord Erskine's "Armata" does not encourage his successors to venture again upon this mode of addressing the public.

↑ Rawley,