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tent, consists in compactness,-with the heart sufficient to support the extremities;-the arms, or martial virtues, answerable to the greatness of dominion;-and every part of the state profitable to the whole. Each of these sections is explained with his usual extensive and minute investigation, and his usual felicity of familiar illustration. Compact- With respect to compactness, he says, "Remember the tortoise, which, when any part is put forth from the shell, is endangered."

ness.

Martial valour.

With respect to the heart being sufficient to sustain the extremities, "Remember," he says, "that the state of Rome, when it grew great, was compelled to naturalize the Latins, because the Roman stem could not bear the provinces and Italy both as branches; and the like they were contented after to do to most of the Gauls: and Sparta, when it embraced a larger empire, was compared to a river, which after it had run a great way, and taken other rivers and streams into it, ran strong and mighty, but about the head and fountain was shallow and weak."

With respect to martial valour, "Look," he says, "at every conquered state, at Persia and at Rome, which, while they flourished in arms, the largeness of territory was a strength to them, and added forces, added treasures, added reputation: but when they decayed in arms, then greatness became a burthen; like as great stature in a natural body is some advantage in youth, but is a burthen in age; so it is with great territory, which when a state beginneth to decline, doth make it stoop and buckle so much the faster."

And with respect to each part being profitable to the whole, he says, in allusion to the fable in Æsop, by which Agrippa appeased the tumult, that health of body and of state is promoted by the due action of all its parts, "Some provinces are more wealthy, some more populous, and some more warlike; some situate aptly for the excluding or

expulsing of foreigners, and some for the annoying and bridling of suspected and tumultuous subjects; some are profitable in present, and some may be converted and improved to profit by plantations and good policy."

He proceeds with the same minuteness to expose the Riches error, that the power of government consists in riches; by explaining that the real power of wealth depends upon mediocrity, joined with martial valour and intelligence.

The importance of martial valour and high chivalric spirit he avails himself of every opportunity to enforce. "Well," he says, "did Solon, who was no contemplative man, say to Croesus, upon his shewing him his great treasures, 'When another comes with iron he will be master of all your gold;' and so Machiavel justly derideth the adage that money is the sinews of war, by saying, 'There are no other true sinews of war but the sinews and muscles of men's arms.""

So impressed was he with the importance of elevating the national character that, three years before his death, (a) he spoke with still greater energy upon this subject, in his treatise upon the Greatness of States. "Above all things," he says, "cultivate a stout and warlike disposition of the people; (b) for walled towns, stored arsenals, goodly races of horses, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like, all this is but sheep in a lion's skin, unless the breeding and disposition of the people be warlike;" and, "as to the illusion that wealth may buy assistance, let the state which trusts to mercenary forces ever remember, that, by these purchases, if it spread its feathers

(a) De Augmentis, published 1623, vol. ix. p. 72.
(b) See Sir W. Jones's translation of the ode, by Alceus.
"What constitutes a state?

Not high rais'd battlement or labour'd mound,
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd,
No: man, high-minded man, &c. &c."

the

for a time beyond the compass of its nest, it will mew them soon after;" and, in this spirit, he records various maxims to counteract the debasement of character attendant upon worship of gold: and above all, the evil of sedentary and within-door mechanical arts, requiring rather the finger than the arm; which in Sparta, Athens, and Rome was left to slaves, and amongst christians should be the employment of aliens, and not of the natives, who should be tillers of ground, free servants, and labourers in strong and manly

arts.

Such were the opinions of Bacon. How far they will meet with the approbation of political economists in these enlightened times, it is not necessary, in this analysis of his sentiments, to inquire. If he is in error, he may, in the infancy of the science of government, be pardoned for supposing that the national character would not be elevated by making sentient man a machine, or by those processes, by which bones and sinews, life and all that adorns life, is transmuted into gold. The bell by which the labourers are summoned to these many windowed fabrics in our manufacturing towns, sweeter to the lovers of gain than holy bell that tolls to parish church, would have sounded upon Bacon's ear with harsher import than the Norman. curfew. (a) He may be pardoned, though he should warn us that in these temples, not of liberty, the national character will not be elevated by the employment of children, not in the temper of Him who took them in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them, but in never ceasing labour, with their morals sapped and undermined, their characters lowered and debased. It is possible that if he had witnessed the cowering looks and creeping gait, or shameless mirth of these little slaves, he might have

(a) See William Wordsworth's noble poem, "The Excursion."

thought of Thebes or Tyre or Palmyra, and of the instability of all human governments, whatever their present riches or grandeur may be, unless the people are elevated by virtue.

Such, however, were his sentiments; and, even if they are erroneous, it cannot but be lamented that the only parts of this work which are completed and applied to Great Britain, are those which relate to extent and wealth. The remaining errors of fruitfulness of the soil, and fortified towns are not investigated.

Having thus cleared the way by shewing in what the strength of government does not consist, he intended to explain in what it did consist:

1. In a fit situation, to which his observations are confined. 2. In the population and breed of men.

3. In the valour and military disposition of the people. 4. In the fitness of every man to be a soldier.

5. In the temper of the government to elevate the national character; and,

6. In command of the sea: the dowry of Great Britain.

During the next terms and the next sessions of parliament his legal and political exertions continued without intermission. Committees were appointed for the consideration of subsidies; of articles for religion; purveyors; recusants; restoring deposed ministers; abuses of the Marshalsea court, and for the better execution of penal laws in ecclesiastical causes. He was a member of them all; and, mindful of the mode in which, during the late session, he had discharged his duties as representative of the house, he was elected to deliver to the King the charge of the Commons respecting ecclesiastical grievances.

In every debate in this session he was the powerful advocate, in speeches which now exist, for the union of the

1605.

t. 45.

Advancement of

kingdoms and the union of the laws; (a) during which he
availed himself, according to his usual mode, when oppor-
tunity offered, to recommend as the first reform, the reform
of the law, saying, "The mode of uniting the laws seemeth
to me no less excellent than the work itself; for if both
laws shall be united, it is of necessity, for preparation and
inducement thereunto, that our own laws be reviewed and
recompiled; than the which, I think, there cannot be a
work that his majesty can undertake, in these his times of
peace, more politic, more honourable, nor more beneficial
to his subjects, for all
ages."

In the midst of these laborious occupations he published Learning. his celebrated work upon "the Advancement of Learning," which professes to be a survey of the then existing knowledge, with a designation of the parts of science which were unexplored; the cultivated parts of the intellectual world and the desarts; a finished picture with an outline of what was untouched.

Within the outline is included the whole of science. After having examined the objections to learning;-the advantages of learning;—the places of learning or universities; the books of learning or libraries, "the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed;"-after having thus cleared the way, and, as it were, 66 I made silence to have the true nature of learning better heard and understood," he investigates all knowledge:

1st. Relating to the Memory, or History.

2nd. Relating to the Imagination, or Poetry.
3rd. Relating to the Understanding, or Philosophy.

(a) Vol. v. from 1 to 106.

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