part it describes men's minds as well as pictures do their

bodies : so it did his above all men living. The course of it is vigorous and majestical : the wit bold and familiar. The com- parisons fetched out of the way, and yet the most easy : in all expressing a soul equally skilled in men and nature. . . . He seems to take all that comes, and to heap together rather than to register. But I hope this accusation of mine can be no great injury to his memory ; seeing at the same time that I say he had not the strength of a thousand men. I do also allow him to have had as much as twenty." (See Character of Lord Bacon, by Dr. Sprat ; History of the Royal Society, Part I., sec. 16, pp. 35, 36.)
Highly poetical — Possessing every faculty and gift of the true poet.
" It is he that filled up all numbers, and performed that which may be compared or preferred to insolent Greece or haughty Rome." (Ben Jonson.)
" His Lordship was a good poet, but concealed, as appears by his letters." (John Aubrey.)
The author of " The Great Assises Holden in Parnassus " ranks Lord Verulam next to Apollo.
" The poetic faculty was strong in Bacon's mind. No imagination was ever at once so strong and so subjugated. In truth, much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world . . . magnificent day-dreams . . . analogies of all sorts," etc., etc. (Macaulay.)
" Few poets deal in finer imagery than is to be found in Bacon. . . . His prose is poetry." (Campbell.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 73
" The varieties and sprightliness of Bacon's imagination, an imagination piercing almost into futurity, conjectures improving even to prophecy. . . . The greatest felicity of expression, and the most splendid imagery,'' etc., etc. (Basil Montagu.)
" The Wisdom of the Ancients, ... a kind of parabolical poetry. The fables abounding with the deepest thought and beauty. . . . To the Advancement of Learning he brings every species of poetry by which imagination can elevate the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying of its own essence. . . . Metaphors, similitudes, and analogies make up a great part of his reasoning. . . . Ingenuity, poetic fancy, and the highest imagination and fertility cannot be denied him." (Craik.)
" The creative fancy of a Dante or Milton never called up more gorgeous images than those suggested by Bacon, and we question much whether their worlds surpass his in affording scope for his imagination. His extended over all time. His mind brooded over all nature, . . . unfolding to the gaze of the spectator the order of the universe as exhibited to angelic intelligences." (Devey.)
" The tendency of Bacon to see analogies ... is characteristic of him, the result of . . . that mind not truly philosophic, but truly poetic, which will find similitudes everywhere in heaven and earth." (Dr. Abbott.)
" He had the liveliest fancy and most active imagination. But that he wanted the sense of poetic fitness and melody, he might be almost supposed, with his reach and play of thought, to have been capable, as is maintained in some eccentric modern theories, of writing Shakespeare's plays. No man ever had a more imaginative power of illustration drawn from the most remote and most unlikely analogies ; analogies often of the quaintest and most unexpected kind, but often, also, not only felicitous in application, but profound and true." (Church, pp. 21, 22 ; see also pp. 19, 24, 173, 197, 200, 204, 217, 171, 201 ; and note that Dr. Church here gives Bacon every attribute of the poet excepting the power to write poetry.)
" Gentle and susceptible in genius. ... A mind susceptible of all impressions. . . . Trott, a lover of poetry and wit, advanced him money. ... As a bencher Bacon became the light and genius ... of Gray's Inn; . . . dressed the dumb
74 FRANCIS BACON
show, led off the dances, invented the masques ; a genial and original nature." (Hepwortli Dixon, Story, 21, 23, 33, etc.)
"I infer from this sample that Bacon had all the natural faculties which a poet wants : a fine ear for metre, a fine feeling for imaginative effect in words, and a vein of poetic passion. . . . The truth is that Bacon was not without the ' fine phrensy' of a poet," etc. (Spedding, Works, VII., 267—272.)
Sir Francis Bacon is also enumerated, by Edmund Howes, amongst a list of " Our modern and present excellent poets, which worthily flourish in their owne works ; and who, accord- ing to their priorities as neere as I could, I have orderly set downe." In this curious list Bacon stands eighth and Shake- speare fifteenth in order.
See also Sir Tobie Matthew's account of Bacon's " sprouting invention," his " ravishing way of words, metaphors, and allusions as perhaps the world hath not seen since it was a world ; " his pre-eminence as the " Genius of England."
See Halliwell Phillips's Outlines, p. 512.
Dr. Fischer, of Heidelberg, endorses these opinions in his work on Bacon.
lie had little or no religion.
"Bacon's zeal against persecution and intolerance arose probably in no small measure from vagueness, uncertainty or indifference in his own religious beliefs." (Fowler's Bacon, p. 185, and see p. 182.)
" He was guarded by every sentinel but those of virtue and God's favour. . . . May we not humbly, but urgently, say, 'Remember Lord Bacon' . . . whenever any effort or com- bination of human faculties awakes your admiration and applause. . . . Let such qualities be found in union with 1 repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.' We cannot but believe that all that was low, . . . degrading, . . . treacherous, . . . subservient, . . . and dishonest ... in the life of Lord Bacon could never have blotted his noble escutcheon if he had walked humbly with his God, . . . with a confidence in God as a Father ; . . . a jealousy for the honour of his Saviour, and an hourly reference ... to the guidance of the Holy Ghost," etc. (Life of Bacon, by the Rev. J. Sortain, 1790.)
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 75
It is science that makes him in any sense a religious man — non-religious in conduct, etc. (Abbot, Introduction to Essays.)
He was truly religious.
" This lord was religious ; for though the world be apt to suspect and prejudge great wits and politiques to have somewhat of the atheist, yet he was conversant with God, as appeareth through- out the whole current of his writings. ... No man will deny him ... to have been a deep philosopher. And not only so, but he was able to render a reason for the hope which was in him, which that writing of his of the Confession of Faith doth abundantly testify. He repaired frequently (when his health would permit him) to the services of the church to hear sermons, to the adminstration of the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ ; and died in the true faith, established in the Church of England." (Dr. Rawley's Life of Bacon, 1670.)
His toleration in religious matters blamed.
Bacon's toleration showed a fatal want of religious enthusiasm. (Storr, Introduction to Essays.)
His toleration applauded.
We do not pretend that he ever became a violent partisan against the Church of Rome ; . . . neither, on the other hand, was he an exclusive advocate for the Church of England in opposition to the Puritans. ... In the whole range of ecclesi- astical history we can recall no one whose mind looked down upon church controversies with more anxious concern. His was not the latitudinarianism of indiffei'enee. . . . We should feel that we were performing a high duty to the Church of Christ, at the present times, to transcribe the whole of Bacon's enlarged view of church controversies. ... In thus stating his comprehensiveness of charity, we must again add that it was most remote from indifferentism." (Rev. J. Sortain.)
This is the same author who shows in the same book (Life of Francis Bacon) that Bacon's weak point was want of religion and earnest faith.
Amongst the many proofs of the intense admiration and affection, esteem and reverence, which Francis Bacon inspired in
76 FBANCIS BACON
those who were personally intimate with him, none are more satisfactory than those contained in the voluminous, but still unpublished, correspondence of Anthony Bacon, in the library at Lambeth Palace.
Here we find his extreme kindness, sweetness of disposition and heavenly-mindedness, continual subjects of comment. His followers and disciples vow fidelity to him from simple love of him and his cause ; they are willing to go through the greatest perils and sufferings, as indeed we find them doing, in order to aid in the objects and plans which are most dear to him — the propagation of Christian truth and of a wide-spread and liberal education.*
" For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages ; " or, as in another copy of his will, " and to mine own countrymen, after some time he past."
These prophetic words seem now to be in process of fulfil- ment. Englishmen must regret that with " foreign nations " lies the honour of first and fully appreciating the genius of Francis Bacon, and of being the first willing or eager to hear, and to investigate the claims which have been brought forward with regard to his authorship of the " Shakespeare Plays." What Dr. Rawley said in 1657 is true even now : " His fame is greater and sounds louder in foreign parts abroad, than at home in his own nation ; thereby verifying that divine sentence, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house." Yet Bacon had a just confidence " in that old arbitrator, Time," and in the verdict of the " next ages." He had assured himself, long before he made his will, that " the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands ; " that learning, " by which man ascendeth to the heavens, is immortal," for " the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation."
We appeal to those into whose hands this outline of a great and wonderful life may fall, to lay aside prejudice acquired at second hand, and to study for themselves the life and character
* The following is reprinted from a little pamphlet published by the present writer in 1884.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 77
of Francis Bacon, as displayed, not in any one or two question- able transactions, not from a few picked passages of his volumi- nous works, or in a few letters written under exceptional cir- cumstances, but as the characters and lives of other great men are studied, and as we humbler individuals would wish posterity to study and so judge our own. Let Bacon be judged by the whole general tenor of his Kfe, and works, and letters ; and by their influence on his contemporaries and on posterity for good or for evil.
It has unhappily become habitual to Englishmen to criticise and represent this "glory of his age and nation" in such a manner that the few blemishes which dim that glory are magni- fied and intensified so as to obscure the picture itself. The result is that, perhaps, no other great man has been so much talked of, and so little generally know or understood, as Bacon. Probably, also, there are few men of any kind of whom, whilst contemporary biographers agree in recording so much that is great and good, writers of 150 years later date have delighted in ignoring the good, and in bringing to the front and dwelling upon every circumstance, or action, or word, which can admit of a base or evil interpretation. Rather let us consider first his many great virtues, his amiability, gentleness, sweetness of temper, and con- sideration for others, his readiness to forgive injuries and to acknowledge any error in himself, his generosity and liberality as soon as he had any means at his disposal, his magnanimity and fortitude under calamity, his ardour in pursuit of truth, his endless perseverance and patience, (an acquired virtue, since he felt that by nature he was impatient and over-zealous), his bright, hopeful spirit and large-hearted toleration, his modesty, and absence of self-importance or self-assertion. This last virtue has been held by his biographers to have been almost a weak- ness, and in some respects a disadvantage to him, as well as to the world at large, since the pliancy of his disposition and the submissive attitude which he maintained toward his official superiors, and which were part of his nature, have been brought against him as proofs of " cringing " and " servility." Let us also remember the threefold aims which he had set before him as the object of his life — " an object to live for as wide as humanity and as immortal as the human race ; an idea vast and lofty enough to fill the soul for ever with religious and heroic aspira-
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tions. ... Of Bacon's life no man will ever form a correct idea unless he bear in mind that, from very early youth, his heart was divided between these three objects, distinct but not dis- cordant— the cause of reformed religion, the cause of his Queen and country, and of the human race through all their genera- tions." *
If we also bear in mind that not only was he profoundly learned, laboriously hard-working, and painstaking in search of truth, but that he was intensely sensitive and highly imagina- tive ; his mind, as he said, " nimble and versatile, quick to perceive analogies " (the poet's faculty), and ingenious in their application, we shall acknowledge that such a character is not one to be harshly judged in the portion of his career for which he repeatedly confesses himself " unfit" as a lawyer and a chancellor. For our own sakes, for justice' sake, let us first contemplate and know him at his best, as " the pioneer of truth," the " patriot born," the poet-philosopher, the man who wished to spend and be spent for the advancement of learning and the benefit of the human race.
Theobald, in the preface to his edition of " Shakespeare," says kindly : " The genius that gives us the greatest pleasure sometimes stands in need of our indulgence. Whenever this happens with regard to Shakespeare, I would willingly impute it to a vice in his times."
So said Bacon of himself (though it was never his manner to excuse himself) : " This is all I can say for the present concern- ing my charge. ... I do not fly to say that these things are vitia temporis, and not vitia hominis." But may not the same indulgence which has been accorded to " Shakespeare " be accorded equally to Bacon?
Of Shakespeare we know nothing creditable ; he was vulgar, jovial, and money-loving. Of Bacon we have the testimony of contemporaries whose opinion is above all suspicion of interested motives, and we know that those who saw him nearest, and those who knew him longest, give him the best character.
Sir Tobie Matthew (writing, 1618, to the Grand Duke of Tuscany) gives some account of his career and position, and a description of his immense intellectual powers. He goes on to say
* Condensed from Spedding, L. L. I. 5.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 79
that the praise applies not only to the qualities of the intellect, but as well to those " which are rather of the heart, the will, and the moral virtue ; being a man most sweet in his conversation and ways, grave in his judgments, invariable in his fortunes, splendid in his expenses ; a friend unalterable to his friends ; an enemy to no man ; a most hearty and indefatigable servant to the King, and a most earnest lover of the public — having all the thoughts of that large heart of his set upon adorning the age in which he lives, and benefiting, as far as possible, the whole human race."
"And I can truly say," he adds, " having had the honour to know him for many years, as well when he was in his lesser for- tunes as now that he stands at the top and in the full flower of his greatness, that I never yet saw any trace in him of a vindictive mind, whatever injury were done him, nor ever heard him utter a word to any man's disadvantage which seemed to proceed from personal feeling against the man, but only (and that too very seldom) from judgment made of him in cold blood. It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue : it is not the favours I have received from him (infinite though they be) that have thus enthralled and enchained my heart, but his whole life and character ; which are such that if he were of an inferior con- dition I could not honour him the less, and if he were mine enemy I should not the less love and endeavour to serve him."
Dr. Rawley's short Life of Bacon deals more with his circum- stances and works than with his character, yet his opinion is the same as Sir Tobie's. During his residence in Gray's Inn, Bacon "carried himself," says Dr. Rawley, " with such sweet- ness, comity, and generosity, that he was much revered and loved by the Readers and Gentlemen of the House " (or Inn). Again, " When his office called him, as he was the King's Council Learned, to charge any offenders, ... he was never insulting or domineering over them, but always tender-hearted, and carrying himself decently towards the parties (though it was his duty to charge them home), as one that looked upon the example with the eye of severity, but upon the person with the eye of pity and compassion. And in civil business, as he was Councillor of State, he had the best way of advising, . . . the King giving him this testimony, ' That he ever dealt in business suavibus modis, which was the way that was most according to his heart.'"
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Having borne testimony to his " prime and observable parts, . . . abilities which commonly go singly in other men, but which in him were conjoined " — sharpness of wit, memory, judgment, and elocution, together with extraordinary celerity in writing, facility in inventing and " caution in venting the imagination or fancy of his brain" — Dr. Rawley records his industry, his anxiety to write so as to be easily understood, the charm of his conversation, and his power of " drawing a man on so as to lure him to speak on such a subject as wherein he was peculiarly skilful, and would delight to speak, contemning no man's observation, but lighting his torch at every man's candle. . . . His opinions and assertions were, for the most part, bind- ing, and not contradicted by any. . . . As he was a good servant to his master " (being never in nineteen years' service rebuked by the King for anything), " so he was a good master to his servants, . . . and if he were abused by any of them in their places, it was not only the error of the goodness of his nature, but the badge of their indiscretions and intemperances.'' After speaking of Bacon as a " religious " man, able to given a reason of the hope which was in him, and observant of the services and sacraments of the Church of England, Dr. Eawley continues : " This is most true. He was free from malice, no revenger of injuries, which, if he had minded, he had both opportunity and high place enough to have done it. He was no hearer of men out of their places. He was no defamer of any man to his Prince, . . . which I reckon not among his moral but his Christian virtues."
John Aubrey, in his MS. notes, jotting down several pleasant anecdotes of Bacon and his friends, adds : "In short, all that were great and good loved and honoured him [the italics are Aubrey's own] ; his favourites took bribes, but his Lordship always gave judgment secundem cequum et bonum. His decrees in Chancery stand firm : there are fewer of his decrees reversed than of any other Chancellor."
The tributes to Bacon's personal worth by his physician, Peter Boener, and by Sir Thomas Meautys, have already been noticed. We conclude this brief sketch with the last clause in the posthumous record which Ben Jonson wrote, under the title of Dominus Verulamius, in his notes on " Discoveries upon Men and Matter " :
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 81
" My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place, or honours ; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength ; for greatness he could not want, neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as kno~wing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."
If, as we have been told, such heartfelt words as these are merely the effusions of personal attachment, or of " partial " and " admiring " friendship, what can any of us desire better ourselves than that we may so live as to win such admiration and to attach and retain such devoted friends ? And yet the friendship of those who lived in the presence of Bacon, who worked with and for him, who knew him in his struggles and in his triumphs, in his greatness and in his fall, is not the only friendship which he has secured. Those still revere and love him best who, like Basil Montagu, James Spedding, and Hep- worth Dixon, have devoted years of their lives to the study of his works and the contemplation of his life and character.
Lord Macaulay, who wrote one Essay on Bacon, is astonished at the enthusiasm with which a prolonged intimacy with the works and life of that great man had inspired his biographer, Basil Montagu. " The writer," says Macaulay, " is enamoured of his subject. It constantly overflows from his lips and his pen." But this is the impression made upon most thoughtful persons who read and read again (without previous prejudice or the aid of a commentator) the works and letters of Bacon, until they come to know not only the matter, but the man himself.
There can, we think, be but one issue to such a study : admiration deepening into esteem, sympathy, and a feeling of personal friendship, which no hostile or piecemeal criticism will avail to shake.
The admiring warmth with which " Shakespeare " scholars have justly extolled the character of their ideal author is pre- cisely that which creeps over and possesses the soul of the earnest disciple of the " myriad-minded " Bacon. We may be incapable of following, even in imagination, " the vast contem- plative ends " which he proposed to himself, and to the accom-
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plishment of which his life was actually consecrated. But no one who can apprehend, however dimly, the plan and purpose of such a life, can withhold from it a tribute of admiration, or can remain insensible of the influence for good which that man must by personal example have shed around him, and which through his works he still diffuses. And, says Ben Jonson at the conclusion of his sketch of Bacon's genius, " There is not one colour of the mind and another of the works." Such as works are as a whole, such on the whole is their author. Goodness, as well as greatness, is impressed upon the writings of Bacon. We may be awe-struck in the contemplation of his magnificent powers of mind, enchanted with his language, and with the consummate ability with which he treats of all subjects, great or small ; but we feel that this is not all. Mere intellect may attract attention and admiration, but it does not win esteem. Eunning through the whole of his works there is a thread of genuine goodness. It is a thread rather underlying the substance than superficially exhibited, but it is inextricably interwoven. Everywhere from Bacon's works there radiates this goodness, kindness of heart, large-minded toleration, " enthusiasm of humanity," respect for authority, reverence for, and trust in, a great and good God. This it is which "en- thralled V his personal friends and " enamoured " his later biographer. This it is which prompts us to exclaim of him as Holofernes did of Virgil :
" Who understandeth thee not. loveth thee not."
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 83