Bacon

Bacon, by Richard William
Church

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Title: Bacon English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley
Author: Richard William Church
Release Date: October 29, 2004 [EBook #13888]
Language: English
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BACON
BY

R.W. CHURCH
DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S
HONORARY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE

ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
JOHNSON Leslie Stephen. GIBBON J.C. Morison. SCOTT R.H.
Hutton. SHELLEY J.A. Symonds. HUME T.H. Huxley. GOLDSMITH
William Black. DEFOE William Minto. BURNS J.C. Shairp.
SPENSER R.W. Church. THACKERAY Anthony Trollope. BURKE
John Morley. MILTON Mark Pattison. HAWTHORNE Henry James,
Jr. SOUTHEY E. Dowden. CHAUCER A.W. Ward. BUNYAN J.A.
Froude. COWPER Goldwin Smith. POPE Leslie Stephen. BYRON
John Nichol. LOCKE Thomas Fowler. WORDSWORTH F. Myers.
DRYDEN G. Saintsbury. LANDOR Sidney Colvin. DE QUINCEY
David Masson. LAMB Alfred Ainger. BENTLEY R.C. Jebb.
DICKENS A.W. Ward. GRAY E.W. Gosse. SWIFT Leslie Stephen.
STERNE H.D. Traill. MACAULAY J. Cotter Morison. FIELDING
Austin Dobson. SHERIDAN Mrs. Oliphant ADDISON W.J. Courthope.
BACON R.W. Church. COLERIDGE H.D. Traill. SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY J.A. Symonds. KEATS Sidney Colvin.
12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. Other volumes in preparation.
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any
part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.

PREFACE.

In preparing this sketch it is needless to say how deeply I am indebted
to Mr. Spedding and Mr. Ellis, the last editors of Bacon's writings, the
very able and painstaking commentators, the one on Bacon's life, the
other on his philosophy. It is impossible to overstate the affectionate
care and high intelligence and honesty with which Mr. Spedding has
brought together and arranged the materials for an estimate of Bacon's
character. In the result, in spite of the force and ingenuity of much of
his pleading, I find myself most reluctantly obliged to differ from him;
it seems to me to be a case where the French saying, cited by Bacon in
one of his commonplace books, holds good--"Par trop se débattre, la
vérité se perd."[1] But this does not diminish the debt of gratitude
which all who are interested about Bacon must owe to Mr. Spedding. I
wish also to acknowledge the assistance which I have received from Mr.
Gardiner's History of England and Mr. Fowler's edition of the Novum
Organum; and not least from M. de Rémusat's work on Bacon, which
seems to me the most complete and the most just estimate both of
Bacon's character and work which has yet appeared; though even in
this clear and dispassionate survey we are reminded by some
misconceptions, strange in M. de Rémusat, how what one nation takes
for granted is incomprehensible to its neighbour; and what a gap there
is still, even in matters of philosophy and literature, between the whole
Continent and ourselves--
"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Promus: edited by Mrs. H. Pott, p. 475.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE EARLY LIFE 1
CHAPTER II.

BACON AND ELIZABETH 26
CHAPTER III.
BACON AND JAMES I. 55
CHAPTER IV.
BACON SOLICITOR-GENERAL 77
CHAPTER V.
BACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND CHANCELLOR 95
CHAPTER VI.
BACON'S FALL 118
CHAPTER VII.
BACON'S LAST YEARS--1621-1626 149
CHAPTER VIII.
BACON'S PHILOSOPHY 168
CHAPTER IX.
BACON AS A WRITER 198

BACON.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY LIFE.

The life of Francis Bacon is one which it is a pain to write or to read. It
is the life of a man endowed with as rare a combination of noble gifts
as ever was bestowed on a human intellect; the life of one with whom
the whole purpose of living and of every day's work was to do great
things to enlighten and elevate his race, to enrich it with new powers, to
lay up in store for all ages to come a source of blessings which should
never fail or dry up; it was the life of a man who had high thoughts of
the ends and methods of law and government, and with whom the
general and public good was regarded as the standard by which the use
of public power was to be measured; the life of a man who had
struggled hard and successfully for the material prosperity and
opulence which makes work easy and gives a man room and force for
carrying