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there are some men, I think, that stand otherwise persuaded. Death finds not a worse friend than an alderman, to whose door I never knew him welcome; but he is an importunate guest, and will not be said nay.

And though they themselves shall affirm, that they are not within, yet the answer will not be taken; and that which heightens their fear is, that they know they are in danger to forfeit their flesh, but are not wise of the payment day: which sickly uncertainty is the occasion that, for the most part, they step out of this world unfurnished for their general account, and being all unprovided, desire yet to hold their gravity, preparing their souls to answer in scarlet.

Thus I gather, that death is disagreeable to most citizens, because they commonly die intestate this being a rule, that when their will is made, they think themselves nearer a grave than before now they, out of the wisdom of thousands, think to scare destiny, from which there is no appeal, by not making a will, or to live longer by protestation of their unwillingness to die. They are for the most part well made in this world, accounting their treasure by legions, as men do devils, their fortune looks towards them, and they are willing to anchor at it, and desire, if it be possible, to put the evil day far off from them, and to adjourn their ungrateful and killing period.

No, these are not the men which have bespoken death, or whose looks are assured to entertain a thought of him.

8. Death arrives gracious only to such as sit in darkness, or lie heavy burdened with grief and irons; to the poor Christian, that sits bound in the galley; to despairful widows, pensive prisoners, and deposed kings: to them whose fortune runs back, and whose spirit mutinies; unto such death is a redeemer, and the grave a place for retiredness and rest.

These wait upon the shore of death, and waft unto him to draw near, wishing above all others to see his star, that they might be led to his place, wooing the remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and to break them off before the hour.

9. But death is a doleful messenger to an usurer, and fate untimely cuts their thread; for it is never mentioned by him, but when rumours of war and civil tumults put him in mind thereof.

And when many hands are armed, and the peace of a city in disorder, and the foot of a common soldier sounds an alarm on his stairs, then perhaps such a one, broken in thoughts of his moneys abroad, and cursing the monuments of coin which are in his house, can be content to think of death, and, being hasty of perdition, will perhaps hang himself, lest his throat should be cut; provided that he may do it in his study, surrounded with wealth, to which his eye sends a faint and languishing salute, even upon the

turning off; remembering always, that he have time and liberty, by writing, to depute himself as his own heir.

For that is a great peace to his end, and reconciles him wonderfully upon the point.

10. Herein we all dally with ourselves, and are without proof till necessity. I am not of those that dare promise to pine away myself in vain-glory, and I hold such to be but feat boldness, and them that dare commit it to be vain. Yet, for my part, I think nature should do me great wrong, if I should be so long in dying, as I was in being born.

To speak truth, no man knows the lists of his own patience; nor can divine how able he shall be in his sufferings, till the storm come; the perfectest virtue being tried in action; but I would, out of a care to do the best business well, ever keep a guard, and stand upon keeping faith and a good conscience.

11. And if wishes might find place, I would die together, and not my mind often, and my body once; that is, I would prepare for the messengers of death, sickness and affliction, and not wait long, or be attempted by the violence of pain.

Herein I do not profess myself a Stoic, to hold grief no evil, but opinion, and a thing indifferent.

But I consent with Cæsar, that the suddenest passage is easiest, and there is nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die, than the quieted conscience, strengthened with opinion that we shall be well spoken of upon earth by those that are just, and of the family of virtue; the opposite whereof, is a fury to nian, and makes even life unsweet.

Therefore, what is more heavy than evil fame deserved? Or, likewise, who can see worse days than he that yet living doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation?

I have laid up many hopes, that I am privileged from that kind of mourning, and could wish the like peace to all those with whom I wage love.

12. I might say much of the commodities that death can sell a man; but briefly, death is a friend of ours, and he that is not ready to entertain him, is not at home. Whilst am, my ambition is not to fore-flow the tide; I have but so to make my interest of it, as I may account for it; I would wish nothing but what might better my days, nor desire any greater place than the front of good opinion. I make not love to the continuance of days, but to the goodness of them; nor wish to die, but refer myself to my hour, which the great Dispenser of all things hath appointed me; yet as I am frail, and suffered for the first fault, were it given me to choose, I should not be earnest to see the evening of my age; that extremity of itself being a disease, and a mere return into infancy: so that if perpetuity of life might be given me, I should think what the Greek poet said, Such an age is a mortal evil.

And since I must needs be dead, I require it may not be done before mine enemies, that I be not stript before I be cold; but before my friends. The night was even now; but that name is lost; it is not now late, but early. Mine eyes begin now to discharge their watch, and compound with this fleshly weakness for a time of perpetual rest; and I shall presently be as happy for a few hours, as I had died the first hour I was born.

["Few have spent more time over his (Bacon's) writings than I have, and nobody can have estimated him more highly as a philosopher. In

intellect I always thought him next to Shakespeare, great as a philosopher, as a poet, and incomparably the most universal genius that ever existed."-W. S. Landor.

"The opinions contained in his Essays-observations and precepts on man and society-are perhaps the most permanent evidence of his sagacity. In this field he was thoroughly at home; the study of mankind occupied the largest part of his time. It may be said that to men wishing to rise in the world by politic management of their fellowmen, Bacon's Essays are the best handbook hitherto published."William Minto.]

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FORTUNA.-Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things she gave them so as she might ask them again without their trouble-she might take them from them, not pull them; to keep always a distance between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses, but no ill can happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed; yet that which happens to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason what he accounts it, and will make it.

CONSILIA.-No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err if he will take no other's counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

JACTURA VITE.-What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! In scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark

corner.

NATURA NON EFFETA.-I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the same, like herself, and when she collects her strength is abler still. Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.

a fair fortune, and a family to go to to be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the fiddlers of such a town than go home.

IMPERTINENS.-A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from; gallop down any steep hill to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent: one that touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spake to him of garlic, he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging, as if they went by one and the same destiny.

NON NOVA RES LIVOR.-Envy is no new thing, nor was it born only in our times. The ages past have brought it forth, and the coming ages will, So long as there are men fit for it, quorum odium virtute relicta placet, it will never be wanting. It is a barbarous envy to take from those men's virtues, which, because thou canst not arrive at, thou impotently despairest to imitate. Is it a crime in me that I know that which others had not yet known but from me? or that I am the author of many things which never would come in thy thought but that I taught them? It is a new but a foolish way you have found out, that whom you cannot equal, or come near in doing, you would destroy or ruin with evil speaking; as if you had bound both your wits and natures prentices to slander, and then came forth the best artificers when you could form the foulest calumnies.

HOMERI ULYSSES-DEMACATUS PLUTARCHI. MARITUS IMPROBUS.-He hath a delicate wife, Ulysses, in Homer, is made a long-thinking man

before he speaks, and Epaminondas is celebrated by Pindar to be a man, that though he knew much, yet he spoke but little. Demacatus, when on the bench, was long silent, and said nothing. One asking him if it were folly in him or want of language he answered, "A fool could never hold his peace." For too much talking is ever the index of a fool.

"Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi ;

Is morbos animi namque tacendo teget." Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno, the philosopher, to be passed over with the note of ignorance, who being invited to a feast in Athens, where a great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was the only person that said nothing at the table, one of them with courtesy asked him, "What shall we return from thee, Zeno, to the prince, our master, if he asks us of thee?" "Nothing," he replied, "more but that you found an old man in Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups." It was near a miracle to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but amongst cups makes it fully a wonder.

ARGUTE DICTUM.-It was wittily said upon one that was taken for a great and grave man so long as he held his peace, "This man might have been a counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of the ward."

ACUTIUS CERNUNTUR VITIA QUAM VIRTUTES. — There is almost no man but sees clearer and sharper the vices in a speaker than the virtues. And there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken foolishly, than that can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently. "The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue," said the witty comic poet; and it appears not in anything more than in that nation whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange, would needs sell it, and to draw buyers, proclaimed the virtues of it. "Nothing ever thrived on it," saith he. owner of it ever died in his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged, bare, and bald as your hand. Nothing was ever reared there; not a duckling or a goose.' Hospitium fuerat calamitatis. Was not this man like to sell it?

"No

MEMORIA.-Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail! it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca, the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous one! not only to receive, but to hold. I myself could in my youth have repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past forty: since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books that I have

read, and poems of some selected friends, which I have liked to charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me, but shaken with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities; it may perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made better and serviceable: Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I trust to it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, and oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently called for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find presently from it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for will come: and what I sought with trouble, will offer itself when I am quiet. Now, in some men I have found it as happy as nature, who, whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently, as if they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own vexation.

DEUS IN CREATURIS.-Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; but not as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads Him; but as the divine, the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too curious. For to utter truth of God (but as he thinks only) may be dangerous; who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so much as He hath revealed or coņimanded, it is not only lawful but necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause of our wickedness.

VERITAS PROPRIUM HOMINIS.-Truth is a man's proper good; and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it: no statesmau or patriot should. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says, he hates him worse than hell-mouth, that utters one thing with his tongue, and keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason: for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face than it had, ere long. As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old."

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cumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power, would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong." He replied, "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause," and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

OTIUM-STUDIORUM.-Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies. The mind is like a bow, the stronger by being unbent. But the temper in spirits is all, when to command a man's wit, when to favour it. I have known a man vehement on both sides, that knew no mean, either to intermit his studies, or call upon them again. When he hath set himself to writing, he would join night to day, press upon himself without release, not minding it, till he fainted; and when he left off, resolve himself into all sports and looseness again, that it was almost a despair to draw him to his book; but once got to it, he grew stronger and more earnest by the ease. His whole powers were renewed; he would work out of himself what he desired; but with such excess, as his study could not be ruled; he knew not how to dispose his own abilities, or husband them, he was of that immoderate power against himself. Nor was he only a strong but an absolute speaker and writer; but his subtlety did not show itself; his judgment thought that a vice; for the ambush hurts more that is hid. He never forced his language, nor went out of the highway of speaking, but for some great necessity, or apparent profit; for he denied figures to be invented for ornament, but for aid; and still thought it an extreme madness to bind or wrest that which ought to be right

how much more profitable the bitterness of truth were, than all the honey distilling from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but poison. But now it is come to that extreme folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that flatters them modestly, or sparingly, is thought to malign them. If their friend consent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he is nevertheless an enemy. When they do all things the worst way, even then they look for praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter them, with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. They have livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, that wait their turns, as my lord has his feasts and guests.

DE VITA HUMANA. -I have considered our whole life is like a play; wherein every man forgetful of himself is in travail with expression of another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot (when it is necessary) return to ourselves; like children that imitate the vices of stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to another nature, as it is never forgotten.

DE PIIS ET PROBIS.-Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times. God did never let them be wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the rest. These, sensual men thought mad, because they would not be partakers or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of the world, and contemned the play of fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators.

ILLITERATUS PRINCEPS. A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes. All his government is groping. In sovereignty it is a most happy thing not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable not to be counselled. And how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the best counsellors (which are books); for they neither flatter us, nor hide from us? He may hear, you will say; but how shall he always be sure to hear truth? or be counselled the best things, not the sweetest? They say princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. Which is an argument, that the good counsellors to princes are the best instruments of a good age. For though the prince himself be of a most prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best pilots have needs of mariners, besides sails, anchor, and other tackle.

ADULATIO.-I have seen that poverty makes men do unfit things; but honest men should not do them; they should gain otherwise. Though a man be hungry, he should not play the parasite. That hour wherein I would repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me to be rich. But flattery is a fine pick-lock of tender ears; especially of those whom fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity and authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For indeed men could never be taken in that abundance with the springes of others' flattery, if CHARACTER PRINCIPIS-ALEXANDER MAGNUS, they began not there; if they did but remember-If men did know what shining fetters, gilded

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miseries, and painted happiness, thrones and sceptres were, there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them: there would be no more principalities than princes: for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their fells. Who were his enemies before, being a private man, become his children now he is public. He is the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots." A man may milk a beast till the blood come: churn milk, and it yieldeth | butter; but wring the nose, and the blood followeth. He is an ill prince that so pulls his subjects' feathers, as he would not have them grow again that makes his exchequer a receipt for the spoils of those he governs. No, let him keep his own, not affect his subjects': strive rather to be called just than powerful. Not, like the Roman tyrants, affect the surnames that grow by human slaughters: neither to seek war in peace, nor peace in war; but to observe faith given, though to an enemy. Study piety toward the subject; show care to defend him. Be slow to punish in divers cases; but be a sharp and severe avenger of open crimes. Break no decrees, or dissolve no orders, to slacken the strength of laws. Choose neither magistrates civil nor ecclesiastical, by favour or price: but with long disquisition and report of their worth, by all suffrages. Sell no honours, nor give them hastily; but bestow them with counsel, and for reward; if he do, acknowledge it (though late), and mend it. For princes are easy to be deceived: and what wisdom can escape, where so many courtarts are studied? But above all, the prince is to remember, that when the great day of account comes, which neither magistrate nor prince can shun, there will be required of him a reckoning for those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which he must provide. And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in the judges, or the magistrates be found rated at a price, what justice or religion is to be expected? which are the only two attributes make kings a-kin to God; and is the Delphic sword, both to kill sacrifices, and to chastise offenders.

AMOR NUMMI.-Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty. Oh! but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp, is the thing! what a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious? we serve our avarice; and not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at

hand, and near us, that he knew were profitable for us; but the hurtful he laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish; and bring them forth, when God and nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us, if we would contemn necessary. What need hath nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? she requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough, but such a state, for which a man may be brought into a premunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? Oh! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet, and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds, and parks, coops and garners he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness, than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions: but we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures; and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom, and what a foreign king could bring hither? Also to make himself gazed and wondered at, laid forth as it were to the show, and vanish all away in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few hours, entertain and take up our whole lives? when even it appeared as superfluous to the possessors, as to me that was a spectator. The bravery was shown, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself, it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing to place our happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all, Famine ends famine.

DECIPIMUR SPECIE.-There is a greater reverence had of things remote or strange to us, than of much better, if they be nearer, and fall under our sense. Men, and almost all sorts of creatures, have their reputation by distance. Rivers, the farther they run and more from their spring, the broader they are, and greater, and where our original is known, we are the less confident: among strangers we trust fortune. Yet a man may live as renowned at home, in his own country, or a private village, as in the whole world; for it is virtue that gives glory-that will endenizen a man everywhere. It is only that can naturalise him. A native, if he be vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as an alien.

POESIS, ET PICTURA-PLUTARCH.-Poetry and picture are arts of a like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy. For they both invent, feign, and devise many things, and accommodate all they invent to the use and service of nature. Yet of the two, the pen is more noble than the

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