ESSAYS.

I.-OF TRUTH.

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate ;a and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in gidḍiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant, but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth

He refers to the following passage in the Gospel of St. John, xviii. 38: "Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all."

He probably refers to the "New Academy," a sect of Greek philosophers, one of whose moot questions was, "What is truth?" Upon which they came to the unsatisfactory conclusion that mankind has no criterion by which to form a judgment.

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best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy "vinum dæmonum," because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense the last was the light of reason:* and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poets that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to

"The wine of evil spirits."

d Genesis i. 3: "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."

At the moment when "The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life : and man became a living soul."—Genesis ii. 7.

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f Lucretius, the Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher, is alluded

He refers to the sect which followed the doctrines of Epicurus. The life of Epicurus himself was pure and abstemious in the extreme. One of his leading tenets was that the aim of all speculation should be to enable men to judge with certainty what course is to be chosen in order to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind. The adoption, however, of the term "pleasure," as denoting this object, has at allí periods subjected the Epicurean system to great reproach; which, in fact, is due rather to the conduct of many who, for their own purposes, have taken shelter under the system in name only, than to the tenets themselves, which did not inculcate libertinism. Epicurus admitted the existence of the Gods, but he deprived them of the characteristics of Divinity either as creators or preservers of the world.

the rest, saith yet excellently well :-"It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth" (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), "and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:"h so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaignei saith prettily, when

h Lord Bacon has either translated this passage of Lucretius from nemory, or has purposely paraphrased it. The following is the literal translation of the original: ""Tis a pleasant thing, from the shore, to behold the dangers of another upon the mighty ocean, when the winds are lashing the main: not because it is a grateful pleasure for any one to be in misery, but because it is a pleasant thing to see those misfortunes from which you yourself are free: 'tis also a pleasant thing to behold the mighty contests of warfare, arrayed upon the plains, without a share in the danger: but nothing is there more delightful than to Occupy the elevated temples of the wise, well fortified by tranquil learning, whence you may be able to look down upon others, and see them straying in every direction, and wandering in search of the path of life."

i Michael de Montaigne, the celebrated French Essayist. His Essays embrace a variety of topics, which are treated in a sprightly and entertaining manner, and are replete with_remarks indicative of strong native good sense. He died in 1592. The following quotation is from the second book of the Essays, c. 18:-"Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch, an ancient writer, paints in most disgraceful colours, when he says that it is 'affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men; it is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we

he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, saith he, “If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man;" surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that, when "Christ cr meth," he shall not "find faith upon the earth."

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. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher, and natural man, it was well said, "Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa." Groans and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks and

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imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God?"

St. Luke xviii, 8: "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith upon the earth?"

A portion of this Essay is borrowed from the writings of Seneca. See his Letters to Lucilius, B. iv. Ep. 24 and 82.

"The array of the death-bed has more terrors than death itself." This quotation is from Seneca.

• He probably alludes to the custom of hanging the room in black

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obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. 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; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety : Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.' A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make: for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment; "Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale.” Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, “Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant : "f Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool,s "Ut puto Deus fio:" :"h Galba with a sentence, "Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani," holding forth his neck; Septimus Severus in dispatch, "Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum,”k and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon

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where the body of the deceased lay, a practice much more usual in Bacon's time than at the present day.

"Reflect how often you do the same things; a man may wish to die, not only because either he is brave or wretched, but even because he is surfeited with life."

• “Livia, mindful of our union, live on, and fare thee well.”

"His bodily strength and vitality were now forsaking Tiberius, but not his duplicity."

This was said as a reproof to his flatterers, and in spirit is not unlike the rebuke administered by Canute to his retinue.

"I am become a Divinity, I suppose."

"If it be for the advantage of the Roman people, strike.” "If aught remains to be done by me, dispatch.'

These were the followers of Zeno, a philosopher of Citium, in Cyprus, who founded the Stoic school, or "School of the Portico," at Athens. The basis of his doctrines was the duty of making virtue the