Chapter 14

126“We are a sufficient theme for contemplation, the one for the other.”—Sen. Epist. Mor.1. 7. (A. L. l. iii. 6.) Pope seems, notwithstanding this censure of Bacon, to have been of the same opinion with Epicurus:—“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study for mankind is man.”Essay on Man, Ep. ii. 1. 2.Indeed, Lord Bacon seems to have misunderstood the saying of Epicurus, who did not mean to recommend man as the sole object of the bodily vision, but as the proper theme for mental contemplation.

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study for mankind is man.”Essay on Man, Ep. ii. 1. 2.

“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,

The proper study for mankind is man.”

Essay on Man, Ep. ii. 1. 2.

Indeed, Lord Bacon seems to have misunderstood the saying of Epicurus, who did not mean to recommend man as the sole object of the bodily vision, but as the proper theme for mental contemplation.

127Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur.—Pub. Syr. Sent.15. (A. L. ii. proœ. 10.)

128He refers here to the judgment of Paris, mentioned by Ovid in his Epistles, of the Heroines.

129Montaigne has treated this subject before Bacon, under the title ofDe l’incommodité de la Grandeur. (B. iii. ch. vii.)

130“Since you are not what you were, there is no reason why you should wish to live.”

131“Death presses heavily upon him, who, well known to all others, dies unknown to himself.”—Sen. Thyest.ii. 401.

132“And God turned to behold the works which his hands had made, and he saw that everything was very good.”—SeeGen.i. 31.

133“As a matter of course.”

134Too great easiness of access.

135Predilections that are undeserved.

136Proverbs xxviii. 21. The whole passage stands thus in our version: “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. To have respect of persons is not good; for, for a piece of bread, that man will transgress.”

137“By the consent of all he was fit to govern, if he had not governed.”

138“Of the emperors, Vespasian alone changed for the betterafter his accession.”—Tac. Hist.i. 49, 50 (A. L. ii. xxii. 5).

139Plut. vit. Demosth. 17, 18.

140It is not improbable that this passage suggested Pope’s beautiful lines in theEssay on Man, Ep. i. 125-28.“Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,Men would be angels, angels would be gods.Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.”

140It is not improbable that this passage suggested Pope’s beautiful lines in theEssay on Man, Ep. i. 125-28.

“Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,Men would be angels, angels would be gods.Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.”

“Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,

Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.”

141Auger Gislen Busbec, or Busbequius, a learned traveller, born at Comines, in Flanders, in 1522. He was employed by the Emperor Ferdinand as ambassador to the Sultan Solyman II. He was afterwards ambassador to France, where he died, in 1592. His “Letters” relative to his travels in the East, which are written in Latin, contain much interesting information. They were the pocket companion of Gibbon, and are highly praised by him.

142In this instance the stork or crane was probably protected, not on the abstract grounds mentioned in the text, but for reasons of state policy and gratitude combined. In Eastern climates the cranes and dogs are far more efficacious than human agency in removing filth and offal, and thereby diminishing the chances of pestilence. Superstition, also, may have formed another motive, as we learn from a letter written from Adrianople, by Lady Montagu, in 1718, that storks were “held there in a sort of religious reverence, because they are supposed to make every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca. To say truth, they are the happiest subjects under the Turkish government, and are so sensible of their privileges, that they walk the streets without fear, and generally build their nests in the lower parts of the houses. Happy are those whose houses are so distinguished, as the vulgar Turks are perfectly persuaded that they will not be that year attacked either by fire or pestilence.” Storks are still protected, by municipal law, in Holland, and roam unmolested about the market-places.

143Nicolo Machiavelli, a Florentine statesman. He wrote “Discourses on the first Decade of Livy,” which were conspicuous for their liberality of sentiment, and just and profound reflections. This work was succeeded by his famous treatise, “Il Principe,” “The Prince;” his patron, Cæsar Borgia, being the model of the perfect prince there described by him. The whole scope of this work is directed to one object—the maintenance of power, however acquired. Though its precepts are no doubt based upon the actual practice of the Italian politicians of that day, it has been suggested by some writers that the work was a covert exposure of the deformity of the shocking maxims that it professes to inculcate. The question of his motives has been much discussed, and is still considered open. The word “Machiavellism” has, however, been adopted to denote all that is deformed, insincere, and perfidious in politics. He died in great poverty, in the year 1527.

144VideDisc. Sop. Liv. ii. 2.

145St. Matthew v. 45. “For he maketh his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

146This is a portion of our Saviour’s reply to the rich man who asked him what he should do to inherit eternal life: “Then Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”—St. Markx. 21.

147See St. Luke xvi. 21.

148Timon of Athens, as he is generally called (being so styled by Shakspeare in the play which he has founded on his story), was surnamed the “Misanthrope,” from the hatred which he bore to his fellow-men. He was attached to Apemantus, another Athenian of similar character to himself, and he professed to esteem Alcibiades, because he foresaw that he would one day bring ruin on his country. Going to the public assembly on one occasion, he mounted the rostrum, and stated that he had a fig-tree, on which many worthy citizens had ended their days by the halter; that he was going to cut it down for the purpose of building on the spot, and therefore recommended all such as were inclined, to avail themselves of it before it was too late.

149A piece of timber that has grown crooked, and has been so cut that the trunk and branch form an angle.

150He probably here refers to the myrrh-tree. Incision is the method usually adopted for extracting the resinous juices of trees; as in the India-rubber and gutta-percha trees.

151“A votive,” and, in the present instance, a “vicarious offering.” He alludes to the words of St. Paul in his Second Epistle to Timothy ii. 10: “Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

152Consideration of, or predilection for, particular persons.

153The Low Countries had then recently emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of Spain. They were called the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands.

154This passage may at first sight appear somewhat contradictory; but he means to say, that those who are first ennobled will commonly be found more conspicuous for the prominence of their qualities, both good and bad.

155Consistent with reason and justice.

156The periods of the Equinoxes.

157“He often warns, too, that secret revolt is impending, that treachery and open warfare are ready to burst forth.”—Virg. Georg.i. 465.

158“Mother Earth, exasperated at the wrath of the Deities, produced her, as they tell, a last birth, a sister to the giants Cœus, and Enceladus.”—Virg. Æn.iv. 179.

159“Great public odium once excited, his deeds, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall.” Bacon has here quoted incorrectly, probably from memory. The words of Tacitus are (Hist.B. i. C. 7): “Inviso semel principe, seu bene, seu male, facta premunt,”—“The ruler once detested, his actions, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall.”

160“They attended to their duties; but still, as preferring rather to discuss the commands of their rulers, than to obey them.”—Tac. Hist.ii. 39.

161He alludes to the bad policy of Henry the Third of France, who espoused the part of “The League,” which was formed by the Duke of Guise and other Catholics for the extirpation of the Protestant faith. When too late he discovered his error, and finding his own authority entirely superseded, he caused the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal De Lorraine, his brother, to be assassinated.

162“The primary motive power.” He alludes to an imaginary centre of gravitation, or central body, which was supposed to set all the other heavenly bodies in motion.

163“Too freely to remember their own rulers.”

164“I will unloose the girdles of kings.” He probably alludes here to the first verse of the 45th chapter of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates.”

165“Hence devouring usury, and interest accumulating in lapse of time; hence shaken credit, and warfare, profitable to the many.”—Lucan. Phars.i. 181.

166“Warfare profitable to the many.”

167“To grief there is a limit, not so to fear.”

168“Check,” or “daunt.”

169This is similar to the proverb now in common use: “’Tis the last feather that breaks the back of the camel.”

170The state.

171Though sumptuary laws are probably just in theory, they have been found impracticable in any other than infant states. Their principle, however, is certainly recognized in such countries as by statutory enactment discountenance gaming. Those who are opposed to such laws upon principle, would do well to look into Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees,” or “Private Vices Public Benefits.” The Romans had numerous sumptuary laws, and in the Middle Ages there were many enactments in this country against excess of expenditure upon wearing apparel and the pleasures of the table.

172He means that they do not add to the capital of the country.

173At the expense of foreign countries.

174“The workmanship will surpass the material.”—Ovid, Met.B. ii. l. 5.

175He alludes to the manufactures of the Low Countries.

176Like manure.

177Sometimes printedengrossing, great pasturages. Byengrossing, is meant the trade ofengrossers—men who buy up all that can be got of a particular commodity, then raise the price. Bygreat pasturagesis meant turning corn land into pasture. Of this practice great complaints had been made for near a century before Bacon’s time, and a law passed to prevent it.—SeeLord Herbert of Cherbury’s History of Henry VIII.

178The myth of Pandora’s box, which is here referred to, is related in theWorks and Daysof Hesiod. Epimetheus was the personification of “Afterthought,” while his brother Prometheus represented “Forethought,” or prudence. It was not Epimetheus that opened the box, but Pandora—“All-gift,” whom, contrary to the advice of his brother, he had received at the hands of Mercury, and had made his wife. In their house stood a closed jar, which they were forbidden to open. Till her arrival, this had been kept untouched; but her curiosity prompting her to open the lid, all the evils hitherto unknown to man flew out and spread over the earth, and she only shut it down in time to prevent the escape of Hope.

179“Sylla did not know his letters,and sohe could not dictate.” This saying is attributed by Suetonius to Julius Cæsar. It is a play on the Latin verbdictare, which means either “to dictate,” or “to act the part of Dictator,” according to the context. As this saying was presumed to be a reflection on Sylla’s ignorance, and to imply that by reason thereof he was unable to maintain his power, it was concluded by the Roman people that Cæsar, who was an elegant scholar, feeling himself subject to no such inability, did not intend speedily to yield the reins of power.—Suet. Vit. C. Jul. Cæs.77, i. andCf.A. L.i. vii. 12.

180“That soldiers were levied by him, not bought.”—Tac. Hist.i. 5.

181“If I live, there shall no longer be need of soldiers in the Roman empire.”—Flav. Vop. Vit. Prob.20.

182“And such was the state of feeling, that a few dared to perpetrate the worst of crimes; more wished to do so; all submitted to it.”—Hist.i. 28.

183He probably alludes to the legends or miraculous stories of the saints; such as walking with their heads off, preaching to the fishes, sailing over the sea on a cloak, &c. &c.

184This is a book that contains the Jewish traditions, and the rabbinical explanations of the law. It is replete with wonderful narratives.

185This passage not improbably contains the germ of Pope’s famous lines:—“A little learning is a dangerous thing;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

185This passage not improbably contains the germ of Pope’s famous lines:—

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

186A philosopher of Abdera; the first who taught the system of atoms, which was afterwards more fully developed by Democritus and Epicurus.

187He was a disciple of the last-named philosopher, and held the same principles; he also denied the existence of the soul after death. He is considered to have been the parent of experimental philosophy, and was the first to teach, what is now confirmed by science, that the Milky Way is an accumulation of stars.

188Spirit.

189Psalm xiv. 1, and liii. 1.

190To whose (seeming) advantage it is; the wish being father to the thought.

191“It is not profane to denythe existence ofthe deities of the vulgar; but, to apply to the divinities the received notions of the vulgar, is profane.”—Diog. Laert.x. 123.

192He alludes to the native tribes of the continent of America and the West Indies.

193He was an Athenian philosopher, who, from the greatest superstition, became an avowed atheist. He was proscribed by the Areiopagus for speaking against the gods with ridicule and contempt, and is supposed to have died at Corinth.

194A Greek philosopher, a disciple of Theodorus the atheist, to whose opinions he adhered. His life was said to have been profligate, and his death superstitious.

195Lucian ridiculed the follies and pretensions of some of the ancient philosophers; but though the freedom of his style was such as to cause him to be censured for impiety, he hardly deserves the stigma of atheism here cast upon him by the learned author.

196“It is not for us now to say, ‘Like priest like people,’ for the people are not even sobadas the priest.” St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, preached the second Crusade against the Saracens, and was unsparing in his censures of the sins then prevalent among the Christian priesthood. His writings are voluminous, and by some he has been considered as the latest of the fathers of the Church.

197“A superior nature.”

198“We may admire ourselves, conscript fathers, as much as we please; still, neither by numbersdid we vanquishthe Spaniards, nor by bodily strength the Gauls, nor by cunning the Carthaginians, nor through the arts the Greeks, nor, in fine, by the inborn and native good sense of thisournation, and thisourrace and soil, the Italians and Latins themselves; but through our devotion and our religious feeling, and this, the soletruewisdom, the having perceived that all things are regulated and governed by the providence of the immortal Gods, have we subdued all races and nations.”—Cic. de. Harus. Respon.9.

199The justice of this position is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. The superstitious manmusthavesomescruples, while he who believes not in a God (if there is such a person),needshavenone.

200Time was personified in Saturn, and by this story was meant its tendency to destroy whatever it has brought into existence.—Plut. de Superstit.x.

201The primary motive power.

202This Council commenced in 1545, and lasted eighteen years. It was convened for the purpose of opposing the rising spirit of Protestantism, and of discussing and settling the disputed points of the Catholic faith.

203Irregular or anomalous movements.

204An epicycle is a smaller circle, whose centre is in the circumference of a greater one.

205To account for.

206Synods, or councils.

207At the present day calledattachés.

208He probably means the refusing to join on the occasion of drinking healths when taking wine.

209Something to create excitement.

210“The heart of kings is unsearchable.”—Prov.v. 3.

211Commodus fought naked in public as a gladiator, and prided himself on his skill as a swordsman.

212Making a stop at, or dwelling too long upon.

213After a prosperous reign of twenty-one years, Diocletian abdicated the throne, and retired to a private station.

214After having reigned thirty-five years, he abdicated the thrones of Spain and Germany, and passed the last two years of his life in retirement at St. Just, a convent in Estremadura.

215Philost. vit. Apoll. Tyan. v. 28.

216“The desires of monarchs are generally impetuous and conflicting among themselves.”—Quoted rightly,A. L.ii. xxii. 5, fromSallust(B. J. 113).

217He was especially the rival of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and was one of the most distinguished sovereigns that ever ruled over France.

218An eminent historian of Florence. His great work, which is here alluded to, is, “The History of Italy during his own Time,” which is considered one of the most valuable productions of that age.

219Spoken badly of. Livia was said to have hastened the death of Augustus, to prepare the accession of her son Tiberius to the throne.

220Solyman the Magnificent was one of the most celebrated of the Ottoman monarchs. He took the Isle of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John. He also subdued Moldavia, Wallachia, and the greatest part of Hungary, and took from the Persians Georgia and Bagdad. He died A. D. 1566. His wife Roxolana (who was originally a slave called Rosa or Hazathya), with the Pasha Rustan, conspired against the life of his son Mustapha, and by their instigation this distinguished prince was strangled in his father’s presence.

221The infamous Isabella of Anjou.

222Adulteresses.

223He, however, distinguished himself by taking Cyprus from the Venetians in the year 1571.

224He was falsely accused by his brother Perseus of attempting to dethrone his father, on which he was put to death by the order of Philip, B. C. 180.

225Anselm was Archbishop of Canterbury in the time of William Rufus and Henry the First. Though his private life was pious and exemplary, through his rigid assertion of the rights of the clergy he was continually embroiled with his sovereign. Thomas à Becket pursued a similar course, but with still greater violence.

226The great vessel that conveys the blood to the liver, after it has been enriched by the absorption of nutriment from the intestines.

227This is an expression similar to our proverb, “Penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

228A subdivision of the shire.

229The Janizaries were the body-guards of the Turkish sultans, and enacted the same disgraceful part in making and unmaking monarchs, as the mercenary Prætorian guards of the Roman Empire.

230“Remember that thou art a man.”

231“Remember that thou art a God.”

232“The representative of God.”

233Isaiah ix. 6: “His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

234Prov. xx. 18: “Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.”

235The wicked Rehoboam, from whom the ten tribes of Israel revolted, and elected Jeroboam their king.—See 1Kingsxii.

236Hesiod, Theog. 886.

237The political world has not been convinced of the truth of this doctrine of Lord Bacon; as cabinet councils are now held probably by every sovereign in Europe.

238“I am full of outlets.”—Ter. Eun.I. ii. 25.

239That is, without a complicated machinery of government.

240Master of the Rolls and Privy Councillor under Henry VI., to whose cause he faithfully adhered. Edward IV. promoted him to the See of Ely, and made him Lord Chancellor. He was elevated to the See of Canterbury by Henry VII., and in 1493 received the Cardinal’s hat.

241Privy Councillor and Keeper of the Privy Seal to Henry VII., and, after enjoying several bishoprics in succession, translated to the See of Winchester. He was an able statesman, and highly valued by Henry VII. On the accession of Henry VIII. his political influence was counteracted by Wolsey; on which he retired to his diocese, and devoted the rest of his life to acts of piety and munificence.

242Before mentioned, relative to Jupiter and Metis.

243Remedied.

244“He shall not find faith upon the earth.” Lord Bacon probably alludes to the words of our Saviour, St. Luke xviii. 8: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?”

245He means to say, that this remark was only applicable to a particular time, namely, the coming of Christ. The period of the destruction of Jerusalem was probably referred to.

246“’Tis the especial virtue of a prince to know his own men.”

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