Robert Cecil, Bacon's cousin, was one of the ablest and most powerful politicians of the later years of Queen Elizabeth and the first half of the reign of James I. Surrounded

by kinsfolk so great, it might be fancied that Bacon's fortunes were assured; but it seems to be the fact that the help he met from Burleigh or his other relatives of influence was small and grudgingly given, and it is certain that he owed his success to his own great ability.

That Bacon's was the greatest intellect of his age is hardly doubted; but of the greatness and nobility of his character there are many doubts. The chief stain upon his name is that of ingratitude, which has never been wiped out. During his earlier life he had no friend more generous than the Earl of Essex, who befriended him when he most needed friendship. But when Essex was accused of treason, Bacon was chief counsel for the Crown, prosecuted the charge against the unhappy earl, proved it, and gained the sentence of death against his former friend and patron; and finally, after the death of the earl, he wrote an account of his treason which still further blackened the character of the unfortunate Essex. Bacon's apologists plead that, as Queen's Counsel, it was his duty to his queen and his country to pursue this course; but I think every generous spirit will condemn Bacon, and will rate higher the obligations of gratitude and friendship than those of political duty such as this.

Bacon rose rapidly in the reign of James I. He held his father's office of Lord Keeper, was then made Lord Chancellor, and finally was created Viscount St. Albans. Near the close of his life he was accused of corruption in his high office, was tried for this charge, made an abject confession, and was sentenced to be expelled from the House of Lords, to be heavily fined, and to be imprisoned in the Tower. His sentence was not carried out. The king released him from prison in two days, his fine was remitted, and he finally resumed his seat in the House of Peers; but he never recovered from his disgrace, and it sullies to this day his character as a statesman.

His zeal for science caused his death. He was revolving in his mind a theory about the arrest of decay in animals by means of cold; and when driving one severe winter's day he alighted from his carriage and stuffed a dead fowl with snow. He thus took the cold of which he died. His will contains the following appeal to the judgment of the future, and shows that he foresaw that his intellectual greatness would overshadow the actions that marred the nobleness of his life and character: "For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to my own country after some time has passed over."

and

Of all Bacon's writings, his Essays belong most to literature, and so most concern us. They were his first publication, and were at once widely read in his own country, translated into both French and Italian. Thirty years afte their first appearance, Bacon carefully revised them, added to their number, and republished them, with a preface, in which he says: "These, of all my works, have been most current, for that, as it seems, they come home to men's businesse and bosomes." This is indeed the true secret of the immortality of any man's written words, that they should "come home to men's business and bosoms."

The Essays, which altogether make only one little volume, are brief dissertations on a great variety of subjects, running through the gamut of human interests, as Death, Adversity, Riches, Love, Friendship, Marriage, Gardens, Building, and the Regimen of Health. These little papers say more in brief space, and contain more practical wisdom, than anything else I know, of their length, or even a good many times their length, in the English language. I do not know a better book to pick up and read two or three sentences to set one thinking wholesomely. It seems as if the wisdom of a good many ages had been garnered here, ripe and ready for the use of all future generations. I shall quote one of the shorter essays entire, and then give extracts from two or three others. First, we will read this, on Revenge :

"Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which, the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For, as to the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior, for it is a prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith: 'It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.' That which is past, is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come. Therefore, they do but trifle with themselves that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore, why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill nature, why? Yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy. But then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish, else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two to one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh. This is the more generous, for the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party re pent; but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

"Cosmos, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. You shall read,' he said, 'that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.’ But yet the spirit of Job was in better tune. 'Shall we,' saith he, 'take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?' And so of friends in a proportion.

...

"This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate, but in private revenges it is not so. Nay, rather, vindictive persons live the life of witches, who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.”

Here are a few sentences from his Essay of Death:

"Men fear Death as children fear to go in the dark. And as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

"It is worthy the observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of Death. And therefore Death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; Love slights it; Honor aspireth to it; Grief flieth to it; Fear pre-occupateth it. . . .

"It is as natural to die as to be born, and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt. And, therefore, a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death. But above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man has obtained worthy ends and expectations."

These Essays have also many sentences which are a text for a whole sermon, as these :

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time."

"Virtue is like a rich stone, - best plain set."

"They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations."

And we will end these extracts from Bacon's Essays— which I hope will give you such a taste as shall make you desire to read them in full — with a sentence or two from his Essay on Studies, which every student should commit to memory:

"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. . .

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies."

I think after reading these extracts you will agree that there is much riches in small space in these Essays, and that this is a book which is to be "chewed and digested.”

XXI.

ON THE ENGLISH DRAMA AND SOME OF THE PLAY-WRITERS WHO CAME BEFORE SHAKESPEARE.

ONE

NE of the most wonderful things to note in this sixteenth century is the sudden growth of the English drama. Until after the middle of the century there are few plays worth mentioning as literature. All peoples have some sort of drama early in their history, just as children will act out in their plays that which they see done by grown-up people, - the affairs of the household, the Church service, the wedding, or the funeral. The early English drama was very like this sort of child's-play. The drama was usually under the direction of the Church, the plays being nearly all written by priests, and generally representing some scene from the Old or New Testament. These plays (called miracle-plays, or mysteries) had such subjects as the feast of Belshazzar, the raising of Lazarus, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden; and it was not felt irreverent to show the most sacred scenes and characters on the stage. If you have heard or read any account of the Passion Play, still represented in Germany, in which the trial and crucifixion of Christ is dramatized, you will have some idea of what these old plays were like.

One sometimes finds these early dramas very amusing. For instance, in the play of Noah's Flood, Mrs. Noah is a high-tempered scold, who refuses to go into the ark unless all her neighbor-gossips are saved as well as herself, and when carried into the ark by main force by her sons, she boxes Noah's ears, in a towering rage, on entering. The play of Lucifer's Fall represents Lucifer as a stage villain