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as an atheist and a traitor, reproached him, with the usual antipathy of a contracted mind to superior intellect, for being a genius and man of wit. (c)

(c) Raleigh. To whom speak you this? You tell me news I never heard of.

Attorney. Oh, sir, do I? I will prove you the notoriest traitor that ever came to the bar. After you have taken away the King, you would alter religion as you, Sir Walter Raleigh, have followed them of the bye in imitation; for I will charge you with the words.

Raleigh. Your words cannot condemn me; my innocency is my defence. Prove one of these things wherewith you have charged me, and I will confess the whole indictment, and that I am the horriblest traitor that ever lived, and worthy to be crucified with a thousand thousand torments.

Attorney. Nay, I will prove all: thou art a monster; thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart. Oh sir! I am the more large, because I know with whom I deal; for we have to deal to-day with a man of wit. Raleigh. If truth be constant, and constancy be in truth, why hath he forsworn that that he hath said? You have not proved any one thing against me by direct proofs, but all by circumstances.

Attorney. Have you done? The King must have the last.

You

Raleigh. Nay, Mr. Attorney, he which speaketh for his life must speak last. False repetitions and mistakings must not mar my cause. should speak secundum allegata et probata. I appeal to God and the King in this point, whether Cobham's accusation be sufficient to condemn me. Attorney. The King's safety and your clearing cannot agree. I protest before God, I never knew a clearer treason.

Raleigh. I never had intelligence with Cobham since I came to the Tower. Attorney. Go to, I will lay thee upon thy back, for the confidentest traitor that ever came at a bar. Why should you take eight thousand crowns for a peace?

Lord Cecil. Be not so impatient, good Mr. Attorney; give him leave to speak.

Attorney. If I may not be patiently heard, you will encourage traitors, and discourage us. I am the King's sworn servant, and must speak: if he be guilty, he is a traitor: if not deliver him.

Note, here Mr. Attorney sat down in a chafe, and would speak no more, until the Commissioners urged and intreated him. After much ado he went on, and made a long repetition of all the evidence, for the direction of the jury and at the repeating of some things, Sir Walter Raleigh interrupted him, and said he did him wrong.

Attorney. Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived.
Raleigh. You speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly.

Attorney. I want words sufficient to express thy viperous treasons.

When Bacon presented him with a copy of his Novum Organum he wrote with his own hand, at the top of the title page, Edw. C. ex dono auctoris.

Auctori Consilium.

Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum:

Instaura Leges Justitiamq; prius.

And over the device of the ship passing between Hercules's pillars, he wrote the two following verses:

"It deserveth not to be read in schools,

But to be freighted in the Ship of Fooles."(a)

From professional altercations with this contracted mind Bacon was rescued by his promotion.

Another and more important advantage attendant upon his appointment was the opportunity which it afforded him to assist in the encouragement of merit and in legal reform. Detur digniori was his constant maxim and constant practice. (b) He knew and taught that power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; and, when appointed Solicitor, he acted in obedience to his doctrines, encouraging merit, and endeavouring to discharge the duty which he owed to his profession by exertions and works for the improvement of the law. (c)

Raleigh. I think you want words indeed, for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times.

Attorney. Thou art an odious fellow, thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride.

Raleigh. It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney.

Attorney. Well, I will now make it appear to the world, that there never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou.-State Trials. See note X X X X at the end.

(a) See note YYYY at the end.

(b) Sic postea, when he was Chancellor. See note 4 A at the end. Paley, vol. i. p. 94.

(c) See note CC at the end.

Cogitata et
Visa, &c.

Wisdom of the

Ancients.

In the midst of arduous affairs of state and professional duties, he went right onward with his great work, conferring with various scholars and philosophers, from whose communications there was any probability of his deriving advantage.

In the progress of the Novum Organum he had, at different periods, even from his youth, arranged his thoughts upon detached parts of the work, and collected them under different titles: "Temporis partus maximus," (a) « Filum Labyrinthi,"(b) "Cogitata et Visa, &c." (c)

He now sent to the Bishop of Ely the "Cogitata et Visa." (d) He communicated also on the subject with his friend, Mr. Mathew, who, having cautioned him that he might excite the prejudices of the churchmen, spoke freely, yet with approbation of the work. (e) He also sent the tract to Sir Thomas Bodley, who received it with all the attachment of a collegian to Aristotle and the schoolmen and university studies, and, with the freedom of a friend, respectfully imparted to Bacon that his plan was visionary. (ƒ)

In the year 1609, as a relaxation from abstruse speculations, (g) he published in Latin his interesting little work,

(a) See vol. xi. p. 478.

(b) See vol. i. p. 311, and vol. x. p. 372.

(c) See vol. x. p. 462.

(d) See the letter, vol. xii. p. 93.

(e) See vol. xii. p. 90 to 94.

(f) See vol. xii. p. 83.

(g) "Le changement d'étude est toujours un delasement pour moi."

D'Aguesseau.

"What an heaven lives a scholar in, that at once in one close room can daily converse with all the glorious martyrs and fathers? that can single out at pleasure either sententious Tertullian, or grave Cyprian, or resolute Hierome, or flowing Chrysostome, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, or (who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine, and talk with them, and hear their wise and holy counsels, verdicts, resolutions; yea (to rise higher), with courtly Esay, with learned Paul, with all their fellow-prophets,

"De Sapientia Veterum," of which he sent a copy to his friend, Mr. Mathew, saying, "My great work goeth forward, and after my manner I alter ever when I add."

This treatise is a species of parabolical poetry, explained in the Advancement of Learning, and expanded by an insertion in the treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum of three of the Fables. (a) "One use of parabolical poesy consists," he says, "in withdrawing from common sight those things the dignity whereof deserves to be retired, as the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and philosophy, which are therefore veiled and invested in fables and parables, and, next to sacred writ, are the most ancient of all writings; for adopted, not excogitated by the reciters, they seem to be like a thin rarefied air, which, from the traditions of more ancient nations, fell into the flutes of the Grecians."

This tract seems, in former times, to have been much valued, for the same reason, perhaps, which Bacon assigns for the currency of the Essays; "because they are like the late new halfpence, where the pieces are small, but the silver is good."

The fables, abounding with a union of deep thought and poetic beauty, are thirty-one in number, (b) of which a part of "The Syrens, or Pleasures," may be selected as a specimen.

apostles; yet more, like another Moses, with God himself, in them both? Let the world contemn us; while we have these delights we cannot envy them; we cannot wish ourselves other than we are." See Bishop Hall's beautiful essay on the Pleasure of Study aud Contemplation.

(a) See vol. viii. p. 124.

(b) Cassandra, or Divination.
Typhon, or a Rebel.

The Cyclops, or the Ministers of
Terror.

Narcissus, or Self Love.

Styx, or Leagues.

Pan, or Nature.

Perseus, or War.

Endymion, or a Favourite.

The Sister of the Giants, or Fame.
Acteon and Pentheus, or a Cu-

rious Man.

Orpheus, or Philosophy.

Cœlum, or Beginnings.

Proteus, or Matter.

Memnon, or Youth too forward.

In this fable he explains the common but erroneous supposition, that knowledge and the conformity of the will, knowing and acting, are convertible terms.-Of this error he, in his essay of "Custom and Education," admonishes his readers, by saying, "Men's thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions, but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed; Æsop's damsel, transformed from a cat to a woman, sat very demurely at the board-end till a mouse ran before her."-In the fable of the Syrens he exhibits the same truth, saying, "The habitation of the Syrens was in certain pleasant islands, from whence, as soon as out of their watch-tower they discovered any ships approaching, with their sweet tunes they would first entice and stay them, and, having them in their power, would destroy them; and, so great were the mischiefs they did, that these isles of the syrens, even as far off as man can ken them, appeared all over white with the bones of unburied carcasses: by which it is signified that albeit the examples of afflictions be manifest and eminent, yet they do not sufficiently deter us from the wicked enticements of pleasure." (a)

Tithonus, or Satiety.

Juno's Suitor, or Baseness.
Cupid, or an Atom.

Diomedes, or Zeal.

Dædalus, or Mechanic.

Ericthonius, or Imposture.

Deucalion, or Restitution.

Nemesis, or the Vicissitudes of

Things.

Achelous, or Battle.

Dionysius, or Passions.
Atalanta, or Gain.

Prometheus, or the State of Man.
Scylla and Icarus, or the Middle
Way.

Sphynx, or Science.

Proserpina, or Spirit.

Metis, or Counsel.

The Syrens, or Pleasures.

(a) See note CCC at the end, for the various editions of this work, and observations upon them. See vol. iii. p. 1, for the English, and vol. xi. p. 271, for the Latin.

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