English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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It was upon a cold day in January in 1560 that Francis Bacon
"came crying into the world."* He was born in a fine house and
was the child of great people, his father being Sir Nicholas
Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. But although his father
was one of the most important men in the kingdom, we know little
about Francis as a boy. We know that he met the Queen and that
he must have been a clever little boy, for she would playfully
call him her "young Lord Keeper." Once too when she asked him
how old he was, he answered, "Two years younger than your
Majesty's happy reign." So if you know when Elizabeth began to
reign you will easily remember when Bacon was born.

*James Spedding.

Francis was the youngest of a big family, and when he was little
more than twelve years old he went to Trinity College, Cambridge.
Even in those days, when people went to college early, this was
young.

For three years Bacon remained at college and then he went to
France with the English ambassador. While he was in France his
father died and Bacon returned home. At eighteen he thus found
himself a poor lad with his future to make and only his father's
great name and his own wits to help him. He made up his mind to
take Law as his profession. So he set himself quietly to study.

He worked hard, for from the very beginning he meant to get on,
he meant to be rich and powerful. So he bowed low before the
great, he wrote letters to them full of flattery, he begged and
promised.

Bacon is like a man with two faces. We look at one and we see a
kindly face full of pity and sorrow for all wrong and pain that
men must suffer, we see there a longing to help man, to be his
friend. We look at the other face and there we see the greed of
gain, the desire for power and place. Yet it may be that Bacon
only strove to be great so that he might have more power and
freedom to be pitiful. In spite of Bacon's hard work, in spite
of his flattery and begging, he did not rise fast. After five
years we find him indeed a barrister and a Member of Parliament,
but among the many great men of his age he was still of little
account. He had not made his mark, in spite of the fact that the
great Lord Burleigh was his uncle, in spite of the fact that
Elizabeth had liked him as a boy. Post after post for which he
begged was given to other men. He was, he said himself, "like a
child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and
lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and
so in infinitum. I am weary of it."

But one friend at court he found in the Earl of Essex, the
favorite of Elizabeth, the rival of Raleigh. Essex, however, who
could win so much favor for himself, could win none for Francis
Bacon. Being able to win nothing from the Queen, on his own
account Essex gave his friend an estate worth about 1800 pounds.
But although that may have been some comfort to Bacon, it did not
win for him greatness in the eyes of the world, the only greatness
for which he longed. As to the Queen, she made use of him when
it pleased her, but she had no love for him. "Though she cheered
him much with the bounty of her countenance," says an early
writer of Bacon's life, his friend and chaplain,* "yet she never
cheered him with the bounty of her hand." It was, alas, that
bounty of the hand that Bacon begged for and stooped for all
through his life. Yet he cared nothing for money for its own
sake, for what he had, he spent carelessly. He loved to keep
high state, he loved grandeur, and was always in debt.

* William Rawley.

Essex through all his brilliant years when the Queen smiled upon
him stuck by his friend, for him he spent his "power, might,
authority and amity" in vain. When the dark hours came and Essex
fell into disgrace, it was Bacon who forgot his friendship.

You will read in history-books of how Essex, against the Queen's
orders, left Ireland, and coming to London, burst into her
presence one morning before she was dressed. You will read of
how he was disgraced and imprisoned. At first Bacon did what he
could for his friend, and it was through his help that Essex was
set free. But even then, Bacon wrote to the Earl, "I confess I
love some things much better than I love your lordship, as the
Queen's service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her
favour, the good of my country, and the like. Yet I love few
persons better than yourself, both for gratitude's sake, and for
your own virtues."

Set free, Essex rushed into passionate, futile rebellion. Again
he was made prisoner and tried for high treason. It was then
that Bacon had to choose between friend and Queen. He chose his
Queen and appeared in court against his friend. To do anything
else, Bacon told himself, had been utterly useless. Essex was
now of no more use to him, he was too surely fallen. To cling to
him could do not good, but would only bring the Queen's anger
upon himself also. And yet he had written: "It is friendship
when a man can say to himself, I love this man without respect of
utility. . . . I make him a portion of my own wishes."

He wrote that as a young man, later he saw nothing in friendship
beyond use.

The trial of Essex must have been a brilliant scene. The Earl
himself, young, fair of face, splendidly clad, stood at the bar.
He showed no fear, his bearing was as proud and bold as ever,
"but whether his courage were borrowed and put on for the time or
natural, it were hard to judge."* The Lord Treasurer, the Lord
High Steward, too were there and twenty-five peers, nine earls,
and sixteen barons to try the case. Among the learned counsel
sat Bacon, a disappointed man of forty. There was nothing to
single him out from his fellows save that he was the Earl's
friend, and as such might be looked upon to do his best to save
him.

*John Chamberlain.

As the trial went on, however, Bacon spoke, not to save, but to
condemn. Did no memory of past kindliness cross his mind as he
likened his friend to "Cain, that first murderer," as he
complained to the court that too much favor was shown to the
prisoner, that he had never before heard "so ill a defense of
such great and notorious treasons." The Earl answered in his own
defense again and yet again. But at length he was silent. His
case was hopeless, and he was condemned to death. He was
executed on 25th February, 1601.

Perhaps Bacon could not have saved his friend from death, but had
he used his wit to try at least to save instead of helping to
condemn, he would have kept his own name from a dark blot. But a
greater betrayal of friendship was yet to follow. Though Essex
had been wild and foolish the people loved him, and now they
murmured against the Queen for causing his death. Then it was
thought well, that they should know all the blackness of his
misdeeds, and it was Bacon who was called upon to write the story
of them.

Even from this he did not shrink, for he hoped for great rewards.
But, as before, the Queen used him, and withheld "the bounty of
her hand"; from her he received no State appointment. He did
indeed receive 1200 pounds in money. It was scarcely as much as
Essex had once given him out of friendship. To Bacon it seemed
too small a reward for his betrayal of his friend, even although
it had seemed to mean loyalty to his Queen. "The Queen hath done
somewhat for me," he wrote, "though not in the proportion I
hoped." And so in debt and with a blotted name, Bacon lived on
until Queen Elizabeth died. But with the new King his fortunes
began to rise. First he was made Sir Francis Bacon, then from
one honor to another he rose until he became at last Lord High
Chancellor of England, the highest judge in the land. A few
months later, he was made a peer with the title of Baron Verulam.
A few years later at the age of sixty he went still one step
higher and became Viscount St. Albans.

Bacon chose the name of Baron Verulam from the name of the old
Roman city Verulamium which was afterwards called St. Albans. It
was near St. Albans that Bacon had built himself a splendid
house, laid out a beautiful garden, and planted fine trees, and
there he kept as great state as the King himself.

He had now reached his highest power. He had published his great
work called the Novum Organum or New Instrument in which he
taught men a new way of wisdom. He was the greatest judge in the
land and a peer of the realm. He had married too, but he never
had any children, and we know little of his home life.

It seemed as if at last he had all he could wish for, as if his
life would end in a blaze of glory. But instead of that in a few
short weeks after he became Viscount St. Albans, he was a
disgraced and fallen man.

He had always loved splendor and pomp, he had always spent more
than he could afford. Now he was accused of taking bribes, that
is, he was accused of taking money from people and, instead of
judging fairly, of judging in favor of those who had given him
most money. He was accused, in fact, of selling justice. That
he should sell justice is the blackest charge that can be brought
against a judge. At first Bacon could not believe that any one
would dare to attack him. But when he heard that it was true, he
sank beneath the disgrace, he made no resistance. His health
gave way. On his sick-bed he owned that he had taken presents,
yet to the end he protested that he had judged justly. He had
taken the bribes indeed, but they had made no difference to his
judgments. He had not sold justice.

He made his confession and stood to it. "My lords," he said, "it
is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships be
merciful to a broken reed."

Bacon was condemned to pay a fine of 40,000 pounds, to be
imprisoned during the King's pleasure, never more to have
office of any kind, never to sit in Parliament, "nor come
within the verge of the Court."

"I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years,"
said Bacon afterwards. "But it was the justest censure in
Parliament that was these two hundred years."

Bacon's punishment was not as heavy as at first sight it seems,
for the fine was forgiven him, and "the king's pleasure," made
his imprisonment in the Tower only a matter of a few days.

And now that his life was shipwrecked, though he never ceased to
long to return to his old greatness, he gave all his time to
writing and to science. He spent many peaceful hours in the
garden that he loved. "His lordship," we are told, "was a very
contemplative person, and was wont to contemplate in his
delicious walks." He was generally accompanied by one of the
gentlemen of his household "that attended him with ink and paper
ready to set down presently his thoughts."*

*J. Aubrey.

He was not soured or bitter. "Though his fortunes may have
changed," says one of his household,* "yet I never saw any change
in his mien, his words, or his deeds, towards any man. But he
was always the same both in sorrow and joy, as a philosopher
ought to be."

*Peter Boerner, his apothecary and secretary.

Bacon was now shut out from honorable work in the world, but he
had no desire to be idle. "I have read in books," he wrote,
"that it is accounted a great bliss to have Leisure with Honour.
That was never my fortune. For time was I had Honour without
Leisure; and now I have Leisure without Honour. But my desire is
now to have Leisure without Loitering." So now he lived as he
himself said "a long cleansing week of five years." Then the end
came.

It was Bacon's thirst for knowledge that caused his death. One
winter day when the snow lay on the ground he drove out in his
coach. Suddenly as he drove along looking at the white-covered
fields and roads around, the thought came to him that food might
be kept good by means of snow as easily as by salt. He resolved
to try, so, stopping his coach, he went into a poor woman's
cottage and bought a hen. The woman killed and made ready the
hen, but Bacon was so eager about his experiment that he stuffed
it himself with snow. In doing this he was so chilled by the
cold that he became suddenly ill, too ill to return home. He was
taken to a house near "where they put him into a good bed warmed
with a pan"* and there after a few days he died.

*J. Aubrey.

This little story of how Bacon came by his death gives a good
idea of how he tried to make use of his philosophy. He was not
content with thinking and speculating, that is, looking at ideas.
Speculate comes from the Latin speculari, to spy out. He wanted
to experiment too. And although in those days no one had thought
about it, we now know that Bacon was quite right and that meat
can be kept by freezing it. And it is pleasant to know that
before Bacon died he was able to write that the experiment had
succeeded "excellently well."

In his will Bacon left his name and memory "to men's charitable
speeches, to foreign nations and to the next ages," and he was
right to do so, for in spite of all the dark shadows that hang
about his name men still call him great. We remember him as a
great man among great men; we remember him as the fore-runner of
modern science; we remember him for the splendid English in which
he wrote.

And yet, although Bacon's English is clear, strong, and fine,
although Elizabethan English perhaps reached in him its highest
point, he himself despised English. He did not believe that it
was a language that would live. And as he wanted his books to be
read by people all over the world and in all time to come, he
wrote his greatest books in Latin. He grieved that he had wasted
time in writing English, and he had much that he wrote in English
translated into Latin during his lifetime.

It seems strange to us now that in an age when Spenser and
Shakespeare had show the world what the English tongue had power
to do that any man should have been able to disbelieve in its
greatness. But so it was, and Bacon translated his books into
Latin so that they might live when English books "were not."

I will not weary you with a list of all the books Bacon wrote.
Although it is not considered his greatest work, that by which
most people know him is his Book of Essays. By an essay, Bacon
meant a testing or proving. In the short chapters of his essays
he tries and proves many things such as Friendship, Study, Honor;
and when you come to read these essays you will be surprised to
find how many of the sentences are known to you already. They
have become "household words," and without knowing it we repeat
Bacon's wisdom. But we miss in them something of human
kindliness. Bacon's wisdom is cool, calm, and calculating, and
we long sometimes for a little warmth, a little passion, and not
so much "use."

The essays are best known, but the New Atlantis is the book that
you will best like to read, for it is something of a story, and
of it I will tell you a little in the next chapter.

Chapter LIII BACON--THE HAPPY ISLAND

ATLANTIS was a fabled island of the Greeks which lay somewhere in
the Western Sea. That island, it was pretended, sank beneath the
waves and was lost, and Bacon makes believe that he finds another
island something like it in the Pacific Ocean and calls it the
New Atlantis. Here, as in More's Utopia, the people living under
just and wise laws, are happy and good. Perhaps some day you
will be interested enough to read these two books together and
compare them. Then one great difference will strike you at once.
In the Utopia all is dull and gray, only children are pleased
with jewels, only prisoners are loaded with golden chains. In
the New Atlantis jewels and gold gleam and flash, the love of
splendor and color shows itself almost in every page.

Bacon wastes no time in explanation but launches right into the
middle of his story. "We sailed from Peru," he says, "(where we
had continued by the space of one whole year) for China and
Japan, by the South Sea, taking with us victuals for twelve
months." And through all the story we are not told who the "we"
were or what their names or business. There were, we learn,
fifty-one persons in all on board the ship. After some month's
good sailing they met with storms of wind. They were driven
about now here, now there. Their food began to fail, and finding
themselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in
the world, they gave themselves us as lost. But presently one
evening they saw upon one hand what seemed like darker clouds,
but which in the end proved to be land.

"And after an hour and a half's sailing, we entered into a good
haven, being the port of a fair city, not great indeed, but well
built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea.

"And we, thinking every minute long till we were on land, came
close to the shore, and offered to land. But straightways we saw
divers of the people, with bastons in their hands, as it were
forbidding us to land; yet without any cries or fierceness, but
only as warning us off by signs that they made. Whereupon being
not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves what
we should do. During which time there made forth to us a small
boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in
his hand a tipstaff* of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with
blue, who came aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at
all. And when he saw one of our number present himself somewhat
before the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment
(somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the
leaves of writing-tables, but otherwise soft and flexible), and
delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written
in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the
School, and in Spanish, these words: 'Land ye not, none of you.
And provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days,
except ye have further time given you. Meanwhile, if ye want
fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship
needeth repair, write down your wants, and ye shall have that
which belongeth to mercy.'

*Staff of office.

"This scroll was signed with a stamp of Cherubim's wings, not
spread but hanging downwards, and by them a cross.

"This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a
servant with us to receive our answer. Consulting thereupon
among ourselves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing
and hasty warning us away troubled us much. On the other side,
to find that the people had languages and were so full of
humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign
of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and
as it were a certain presage of good.

"Our answer was in the Spanish tongue: 'That for our ship, it
was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds
than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill
case, so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger
of their lives.'

"Our other wants we set down in particular; adding, 'that we had
some little store of merchandise, which if it pleased them to
deal for, it might supply our wants without being chargeable unto
them.'

"We offered some reward in pistolets unto the servant, and a
piece of crimson velvet to be presented to the officer. But the
servant took them not, nor would scarce look upon them; and so
left us, and went back in another little boat which was sent for
him."

About three hours after the answer had been sent, the ship was
visited by another great man from the island. "He had on him a
gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamelot of an
excellent azure colour, far more glossy than ours. His under
apparel was green, and so was his hat, being in the form of a
turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans.
And the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it. A
reverend man was he to behold.

"He came in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons
more only in that boat, and was followed by another boat, wherein
were some twenty. When he was come within a flight shot of our
ship, signs were made to us that we should send forth some to
meet him upon the water; which we presently did in our shipboat,
sending the principal man amongst us save one, and four of our
number with him.

"When we were come within six yards of their boat they called to
us to stay, and not to approach further, which we did. And
thereupon the man whom I before described stood up, and with a
loud voice in Spanish, asked 'Are ye Christians?'

"We answered, 'We were'; fearing the less, because of the cross
we had seen in the subscription.

"At which answer the said person lifted up his right hand towards
heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth (which is the gesture
they use when they thank God) and then said: 'If ye will swear
(all of you) by the merits of the Saviour that ye are not
pirates, nor have shed blood lawfully or unlawfully within forty
days past, you may have licence to come on land.'

"We said, 'We were all ready to take that oath.'

"Whereupon one of those that were with him, being (as it seemed)
a notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the
attendants of the great person, which was with him in the same
boat, after his lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud: 'My
lord would have you know, that it is not of pride or greatness
that he cometh out aboard your ship; but for that in your answer
you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by
the Conservator of Health of the city that he should keep a
distance.'

"We bowed ourselves towards him, and answered, 'We were his
humble servants; and accounted for great honour and singular
humanity towards us that which was already done; but hoped well
that the nature of the sickness of our men was not infectious.'

"So he returned; and a while after came the notary to us aboard
our ship, holding in his hand a fruit of that country, like an
orange, but of colour between orange-tawny and scarlet, which
cast a most excellent odour. He used it (as it seemeth) for a
preservative against infection.

"He gave us our oath; 'By the name of Jesus and of his merits,'
and after told us that the next day by six of the clock in the
morning we should be sent to, and brought to the Strangers' House
(so he called it), where we should be accommodated of things both
for our whole and for our sick.

"So he left us. And when we offered him some pistolets he
smiling said, 'He must not be twice paid for one labour,'
meaning, as I take it, that he had salary sufficient of the State
for his service. For (as I after leaned) they call an officer
that taketh rewards, twice paid."

So next morning the people landed from the ship, and Bacon goes
on to tell us of the wonderful things they saw and learned in the
island. The most wonderful thing was a place called Solomon's
House. In describing it Bacon was describing such a house as he
hoped one day to see in England. It was a great establishment in
which everything that might be of use to mankind was studied and
taught. And Bacon speaks of many things which were only guessed
at in his time. He speaks of high towers wherein people watched
"winds, rain, snow, hail and some of the fiery meteors also."
To-day we have observatories. He speaks of "help for the sight
far above spectacles and glasses," also "glasses and means to see
small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, as the shapes
and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems,
which cannot otherwise be seen." To-day we have the microscope.
He says "we have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes,
in strange lines and distances," yet in those days no one had
dreamed of a telephone. "We imitate also flights of birds; we
have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats
for going under water," yet in those days stories of flying-ships
or torpedoes would have been treated as fairy tales.

Bacon did not finish The New Atlantis. "The rest was not
perfected" are the last words in the book and it was not
published until after his death. These words might almost have
been written of Bacon himself. A great writer, a great man,--but
"The rest was not perfected." He put his trust in princes and he
fell. Yet into the land of knowledge--

"Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last;
The barren wilderness he passed,
Did on the very border stand
Of the blest promised land,
And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit
Saw it himself and shew'd us it.
But life did never to one man allow
Time to discover worlds and conquer too;
Nor can so short a line sufficient be,
To fathom the vast depths of nature's sea.
The work he did we ought t'admire,
And were unjust if we should more require
From his few years, divided twixt th' excess
Of low affliction and high happiness.
For who on things remote can fix his sight
That's always in a triumph or a fight."*

*Abraham Cowley, To the Royal Society.