1606. third visitation or circuit in all the qualities thereof: as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this age; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient writers; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all fortunes; the openness of the world by navigation, which hath disclosed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history; the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so generally in civil business as the states of Græcia did, in respect of their popularity, and the state of Rome, in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the present disposition of these times at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be said in controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men from other sciences; and the inseparable property of time, which is ever more and more to disclose truth,-I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, that this third period of time will far surpass that of the Grecian and Roman learning; only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness both; and take, one from the other, light of invention, and not fire of contradiction; and esteem of the inquisition of truth, as of an enterprize, and not as of a quality or ornament; and employ wit and magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things vulgar and of popular estimation." Of this work he presented copies to the King and to different statesmen, and, to secure its perpetuity, he exerted himself with his friends to procure a translation of it into Latin, which, in the decline of his life, he accomplished. (a) As a philosopher, Bacon, who beheld all things from a Et. 46. cliff, thus viewed the intellectual globe, dilating his sight to survey the whole of science, and contracting it so that the minutest object could not escape him. (a) For the different editions and further particulars of this work, see notę AAA at the end. Sweet as such speculations were to such a mind: pleasing as the labour must have been in surmounting the steeps: delightful to tarry upon them, and painful to quit them, he did not suffer contemplation to absorb his mind; but as a statesman, he was ever in action, ever advancing the welfare of his country. These opposite exertions were the necessary result of his peculiar mind; for, as knowledge takes away vain admiration, as no man marvels at the play of puppets who has been behind the curtain, (a) Bacon could not have been misled by the baubles by which common minds are delighted ; (d) and, as he had examined the nature of all pleasures, and felt that knowledge and benevolence, which is ever in its train, surpassed them all;(e) the chief source of his happiness, wherever situated, must have consisted in diminishing evil and in promoting good. With his delicate health and intense love of knowledge, he ought in prudence to have shunned the broad way and the green, and retreated to contemplation; but it was his favourite opinion that, " in this theatre of man's life, God and angels only should be lookers-on; that contemplation and action ought ever to be united, a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn the planet of rest, and Jupiter the planet of action." He could not, thus thinking, but engage in active life; and, so engaged, he could not but act in obedience to the passion by which he was alone animated; by exerting himself and endeavouring to excite others to promote the public good. We find him, therefore, labouring as a statesman and a patriot to improve the condition of Ireland; to (a) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 80. (d) When the populace huzzaed Dr. Swift upon his arrival in Ireland, "I wish," he said, "they would huzza my lord mayor." (e) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 85. Ireland. promote the union of England and Scotland; to correct. the errors which had crept into our religious establishments, and to assist in the amendment of the law; and, not content with the fruits of his own exertions, calling upon all classes of society to co-operate in reform. To professional men he says, "I hold that every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they to endeavour themselves by way of amends, to be a help and ornament." (a) And he admonishes the King, that, as a duty to himself, to the people, and to the King of kings, he ought to erect temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, bridges, make noble roads, cut canals, grant multitude of charters and liberties for comfort of decayed companies and corporations; found colleges and lectures for learning and the education of youth; institute orders and fraternities for nobility, enterprize, and obedience; but, above all, establish good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world." On the first day of the ensuing year he thus presented, as a new year's gift to the King, a discourse touching the plantation of Ireland: (b) "I know not better how to express my good wishes of a new year to your majesty, than by this little book, which in all humbleness I send you. The style is a style of business, rather than curious or elaborate. And herein I was encouraged by my experience of your majesty's former grace, in accepting of the like poor field fruits touching the union. And certainly I reckon this action as a second brother to the union. For 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." (a) See note 3 G at the end. (b) Vol. v. p. 170. > In this discourse, his knowledge of the miseries of Ireland, that still neglected country, and of the mode of preventing them, with his heartfelt anxiety for her welfare, appears in all his ardent endeavours, by all the power he possessed, to insure the King's exertions for "this desolate and neglected country, blessed with almost all the dowries 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 did join with the hand of nature; but they are severed,—the harp of Ireland is not strung or attuned to concord. This work, therefore, of all other, most memorable and honourable, your majesty hath now in hand; specially, if your majesty join the harp of David in casting out the evil spirit of superstition, with the harp of Orpheus, in casting out desolation and barbarism." (a) His exertions respecting the union of England and Scot- Scotland. land were, both in and out of parliament, strenuous and unremitted. He spoke whenever the subject was agitated. He was a member of every committee that was formed to carry it into effect: he prepared the certificate of the commissioners appointed to treat of the union: and he was selected to report the result of a conference with the Lords; until, exhausted by fatigue, he was compelled to intercede with the house that he might be assisted by the co-operation of other members in the discharge of these arduous duties; (b) and, it having been decided by all the judges, after an able argument of Bacon's, that all persons born in Scotland after the King's commission were natural born subjects, he laboured in parliament to extend these privi (a) Speech on General Naturalization. (b) Commous' Journals. Church leges to all Scotland, that the rights enjoyed by the children should not be withheld from their parents. The journals of the Commons contain an outline of many of his speeches, of which one upon the union of laws, and another upon the general naturalization of the Scottish nation were completed, and have been preserved; and are powerful evidence of his zeal and ability in this good cause, exerted at the risk of the popularity, which, by his independent conduct in parliament, he had justly acquired. (a) But he did not confine his activity to the bar or to the House of Commons. In his hours of recreation he wrote three works for the use of the King: "A Discourse upon the happy Union; (b) "Considerations on the same;" (c) and a preparation towards "the union of these two mighty and warlike nations under one sovereign and monarchy, and between whom there are no mountains or races of hills, no seas or great rivers, no diversity of tongue or language that hath created or provoked this ancient and too long continued divorce." His anxiety to assist in the improvement of the church appears in his exertions in parliament, and in his publications in his times of recreation. When assisting in the improvement of our civil establishment, he was ever mindful that our country ought to be treated as our parents, with mildness and persuasion, and not with contestations; (d) and, in his suggestions for the improvement of our religious establishments, his thoughts have a glory around them, from the reverence with which he always approaches this sacred subject, and particularly on the eve of times, which he foresaw, when voices in religion were to be numbered and not weighed, and when his daily prayer was, "Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before (a) Vol. v. p. 1. (c) Vol. v. p. 1 to 106. (b) Vol. v. p. 16. |