Advancement of

kingdoms and the union of the laws; (a) during which he availed himself, according to his usual mode, when opportunity 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, "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.

Such is the outline: within it the work is minutely arranged, (a) abounds with great felicity of expression, and nervous language: but not contenting himself, by such arrangement, with the mere exhibition of truth, he adorned it with familiar, simple, and splendid imagery. (b)

(a) The arrangement of the work may be thus generally exhibited:

I. The excellence of Learning, and its communication.

1. By divines.

1. Objections to learning. 2. By politicians.

3. From errors of learned men.

(b) Disapproving of the manner of the stoics, who laboured to thrust virtue upon men by concise and sharp sentences and conclusions, which have no sympathy with the imagination and will, he in this work avails himself of every opportunity to reduce intellectual to sensible things. "That which is addressed to the senses," he says, "strikes more forcibly than that which is addressed to the intellect. The image of a huntsman pursuing a hare; or an apothecary putting his boxes in order; or a man making a speech; or a boy reciting verses by heart; or an actor upon the stage, are more easily remembered than the notions of invention, disposition, elocution, memory, and action." This work abounds, therefore, with

ornament.

So, Shakespeare, in one of his sonnets, says:

"Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch;

When speaking of the error of common minds retiring from active life, he says, "Pythagoras, being asked what he was, answered, that if Hiero were ever at the Olympic games, he knew the manner, that some came as merchants to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheer, and some came to look on, and that he was one of them that came to look on; but men must know, that in this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on." (c) So, when explaining the danger to which intellect is exposed of running out into sensuality on its retirement from active life, he says, in another work, (a) "When I was chancellor I told Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honour to get rid of the burthen; that I had always a desire to lead a private life. Gondomar answered, that he would tell me a tale; ' My lord, there was once an old rat that would needs leave the world: he acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in soli

Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour, or deform'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue."

"His similes and illus

So too, Fuller, speaking of the divine, says, trations are alwaies familiar, never contemptible. Indeed reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon, but similitudes are the windows which give the best lights."

I somewhere, but where I forget, have read that the mind of a celebrated divine was first excited to religious meditation by some Dutch tiles which ornamented the fireplace in his nursery.

(c) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. (a) See vol. i. pp. 347 and 454.

p.

275.

tude, and commanded them to respect his philosophical seclusion. They forbore two or three days: at last one, hardier than his fellows, ventured in to see how he did; he entered, and found him sitting in the midst of a rich parmesan cheese.""

In such familiar explanations did he indulge himself: it being his object not to inflate trifles into marvels, but to reduce marvels to plain things. Of these simple modes of illustrating truth it appears, from a volume of Apothegms, published in the decline of his life, and a recommendation of them, in this treatise, (b) as a useful appendage to history, that he had formed a collection.

When the subject required it, he, without departing from simplicity, selected images of a higher nature; as, when explaining how the body acts upon the mind, and anticipating the common senseless observation, that such investigations are injurious to religion, "Do not," he says, "imagine that inquiries of this nature question the immortality of the soul, or derogate from its sovereignty over the body. The infant in its mother's womb partakes of the accidents of its mother, but is separable in due season.” (e) So, too, when explaining that the body is decomposed by the depredation of innate spirit and of ambient air, and that if the action of these causes can be prevented, the body will defy decomposition: "Have you never," he says, seen a fly in amber, more beautifully entombed than an Egyptian monarch?" (c) and, when speaking of the resemblance in the different parts of nature, and calling upon his readers to observe that truths are general, he says, "Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop

(b) See under Appendices to History, vol. ii. p. 118.

(e) Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 157.

(c) Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Art. 100.

in music the same with the playing of light upon the water,

'Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus."" (d)

Such are his beautiful and playful modes of familiarizing abstruse subjects: but to such instances he did not confine himself. He was too well acquainted with our nature, merely to explain truth without occasionally raising the mind by noble and lofty images to love it.

It must not be supposed that, because he illustrated his thoughts, he was misled by imagination, which never had precedence, but always followed in the train of his reason: (a) or, because he had recourse to arrangement, that he was enslaved by method, which he always disliked, as impeding the progress of knowledge. (a) It is, therefore, his constant admonition, that a plain, unadorned style, in aphorisms, is the proper style for philosophy; and in aphorisms the Novum Organum and his tract on Universal Justice are composed. But, although this was his general opinion; although he was too well acquainted with what he terms the idols of the mind, to be diverted from truth by the love of order; yet, knowing the charms of theory and system, and the necessity of adopting them to insure a favourable reception for abstruse works, he did not reject these garlands, at once the ornament and fetters of science. They may now, perhaps, be laid aside, and the noble temple which he raised may be destroyed; but its gorgeous magnificence will never be forgotten, and amidst the ruins a noble statue will be seen by every true worshipper of beauty and of knowledge.

To form a correct judgment of the merits of this treatise

(d) De Aug. lib. iii. c. i. v. 8. p. 155.

(a) See note RRR at the end.