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yo.451,NoVEMBEKX3,lS58.] IHB .tBADBB. 12...
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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, &0
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BACON'S HISTORIES AND ESSAYS. Tlie Works...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Yo.451,Novembekx3,Ls58.] Ihb .Tbadbb. 12...
yo . 451 , NoVEMBEKX 3 , lS 58 . ] IHB . tBADBB . 1219
Literature, Science, Art, &0
LITERATURE , SCIENCE , ART , & c
Bacon's Histories And Essays. Tlie Works...
BACON'S HISTORIES AND ESSAYS . Tlie Works of Francis Bacon . Collected and Edited by Messrs . Speading , Ellis , and Heath . Vol . VI . Literary and Professional Works . Vol . I . Longman and Co . This great work approaches completion . live volumes , the last of which was noticed by us a few weeks ago , contain his philosophical writings . Two more , the first of which lies before us , will contain liis literary and professional productions . And the whole undertaking will be made complete by three or four further volumes , devoted to his Occasional works ; " letters , speeches , memorials , tracts , addressed to the passing business of the time , & c . "
We have already freely and heartily expressed our conviction of the painstaking and appreciative way in which the editors are discharging their duties . After perusing this volume , we can only reiterate , and indeed express , our enhanced conviction of the obligation which is gradually accumulating in their favour from the students of England and the world . The History of the Reign of King Henry VIL ., and the cognate historical tractates ; the-ripe and suggestive Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral , by which Bacon is best known to general readers ^ and which may be
regarded as containing the outward and exoteric expression of his philosophical views ; and the De ¦ Sapientid Yelerwn , in which the doctrine of the Myth , elaborated in . our day by German philologers and' historians , is clearly indicated and foreshadowed , are hi this volume laid before us with the sainc rigid accuracy of text , the same amplitude of prefatory explanation and requisite comment , the same fulness of illustration from sources obvious and recondite , as challenged our commendation and ap-« proval when we had to record our opinion of the manner in which the several parts of the List ' auraiio
Magna were laid before us . Mr . Carlyle , who could not write books but for the preparatory labours of Dryasdust , against whom he is constantly sneering , knows well how to elaborate into ethical teaching and literary workmanship the slabs which he iinds ready hewn for him in the quarries of careful investigation . And the very admiration you must accord , nolens volens , to such a deseriber ' of portraits delineated by the patient brush of humbler artists , and arranger of facts
deposited for him by industry in memoirs and archives , involves , in exact proportion to its intensity , a rendering of no small sliarc of it to the ladder on which ho builds his flights , and then tries to kick angrily from under him . Our editors , it is not un charitable to suppose , Mr . Curlyle would include in the Dryasdust family . But wo are thankful for small mercies , and without one word of depreciation of prophets and heroes , or of veracities , immensities , and infinities , Mr . Garlylc will not shake or sneer from us the conviction of the immense
obligations under which , not only scholarship , but thought and progress lie to commentators of all sorts—Souligcrs , JBou'tlcys , Valpys , Basil Montagues , and the throe editors of this work . "We cannot think it any fanciful application , or wresting of the intent and tendency of tho Baconian method aud philosophy , to allege that since its promulgation and general acceptation as the inevitable canon of inquiry , an entirely now dignity and ¦ v alue has been attached to the labours of -those who , without teaching or generalisation , discover single facts—build forward , with Dutch industry , ono rood or foot more of tho terra lirma of
substantial knowledge into the ocean of tho unfuthomod unknown . The acquisition may not bo of instant application and use . But it may be ono consecutive step , iiulisponsulile in its plaoo , to tho futuro result , nil instant uo being fulfillod , which shull give to tho mind a new gouoral truth , a now startingpoint ^ for a similar further journey . Oi the fact may lo . tho ono item wanted to round ofT and ooinplcta" somo ostato of theory or generalisation . Its discoverer may have been led to it by mcro industry , or ho may 1 ' iavo hit upon it by acoiclout . He knows nut , probably , tho uses to which others may apply it . To him ' it 18 a mqn'o fuel , teaching nothing but its own
exis tence , or perhaps merely confirming convictions already fortified to repletion with evidence . To another it is often the one elemeut , long waited for , sometimes confidently expected , which shall constitute the very keystone of an arch thrown over a gulf of doubt and darkness . It may be , that of the incomplete arc , the two segments have been long finished and cemented . Tlieir fabricator may have despaired of their junction and solidity . Already , after long delay aud hopefulness , he may sadly have commenced to take down the temporary scaffolding of hypothesis and conjecture , by which for long he has provisionally and expectantly maintained them , amid the gibes and taunts of the timid and the pedantic—when Dryasdust unexpectedly passes .
With the community and interchange of idea which the method of the Novuni Orgauiem makes essential , he takes out his discovery and shows it to the custodian of the almost finished fabric . With a faint ray of hope , he receives and investigates it , tries it , tests it , places it in the void , and , to his own joy and the surprise of his interlocutor , proves . that it dovetails with undeniable exactitude into the cavity , and finishes a structure over which man can ever after travel to and from either shore , looking , as he traverses , with pride and joy into the depths of the abyss , once dangerous and impassable , but now mirroring in its peaceful bosom the glories of surrounding nature and the calm expanse of the firmament of aspiration .
Such a dignity do we ardently believe Bacon and his method hare shed over all investigation . Who that has followed , ever so humbly , in Bacon ' s footsteps , who that labours and inquires , whether choosing , for his , field the affairs of human life , the movements of the . spheres , the great dynamic forces of universal matter , or the quick and exciting combinations of chemical elements , docs not know by his own experience the full truth of what-we have written ? It is in this spirit that Mr . Spedding has discharged his oUicc . He says : — In order to detect inaccuracies I have endeavoured ( besides consulting the moat recent histories ) to determine , wherever I could dp so from authentic sources , the exact dates of the transactions related ; and where
I have found them inconsistent with the narrative , or have otherwise detected or seen reason to suspect any rror , 1 have noticed the fact , not confining myself to cases in which the error seems to be of consequence , but correcting positive misstateraents of every kind ; for it 13 impossible to sny of any fact that it is of no consequence , unless you could know how it could . be combined with other facts , and what inferences it may be made to support . About a third part of the volume is taken up with the History of 'the Reign of 'King Henry VI ( . To this work a special interest attaches . It was the first work composed bv Bacon after his fall , and
was the fruit of his first few months of leisure . It is historically interesting as the opening portion of an uncompleted work , the advisability of the undertaking of which Bacon recommended many years before lie himself commenced it- *—a History of England from the Union of the Roses to the Union of the Crowns . He wrote it in little more than one long vacation . Ample and interesting in tho main , it is in some respects inaccurato , composed , as it was , with little aid from previous labours , away from documentary material , in tho literary seclusion of Gorlmmbury . Tho work has been tho subject of much disparagement , and in no quarters more than in those where the largest indebtedness to what it affords existed Tho text , of this otlition is the result of a careful collation of the maruisoript in
the British Museum with the first English edition and the Latin translation prepared under Bacon ' s pwu eyo . Nothing is placed in the text from tho last source , but large quotations from it ore given in foot-notes , when there is suflicicut discrepancy of expression and statement to make an illustrative gloss advisable . From other historical sources correct ioius tuul emendations are adduced , and important omissions supplied . Tho texl , carefully revised ,. reinmus in its own simplicity j and all details necessary to amplitude ol" viow and correctness of judgment aiv , in addition , uHorded . Bacon ' s dotract ors liavo urfjvd over and over again a charge , if substantiated , damnatory to tho historical value of the work . They have avowed that "ill was written with other objects than , tlioso of ' w faithful
historian ; written not to reproduce a true image of Henry VII ., but to flatter the humour of James I ., by drawing such a picture of his aucestor as should , indirectly reflect honour on himself . " A long quotation from Sir James Mackintosh ' s " History of England , " in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia , urging this accusation , is given by the editor , and he proceeds , as we think , with substantial completeness , to refute it . He admits that Bacon wrote the book to p lease the King , but only in the sense avowed by him in the dedication , as being of interest to linn specially as the record of the reign of a near ancestor , through descent from whom he gained his second throne , and who resembled him in his stronsr desire to remove the
likelihood of war from his country and his subjects . But that the portraiture of Henry was meant also to stand for his great grandson , and that the praise bestowed upon the one was also accordingly to be made applicable to the other ( and this is the substance of the allegation made by Sir James Mackintosh and others ) , is disproved by the two facts that Bacon had recommended the era and its ruler for his-r toric delineation fifteen years before his disgrace , and before the possibility of a motive for the conciliation of a sovereign not yet estranged ; and that the estimate advanced by Bacon , of Xing Henry , is not so uniformly favourable as to have been likely to mollify Kill " James , even if its application to him were intended . The portraiture of Henry , by
Bacon , was much more moderate than the views given of his character and policy by joreyious chroniclers , such as Stove and Speed . Insofar as his estimate was new , it introduced into the popular opinion of the Tudor king nothing but detraction . A very valuable further confirmation of this view , is incorporated with the editor ' s preface . He gives , from an incomplete manuscript , now first printed , an estimate of Henry ' s -character written by Bacon in 1605 , of exactly the same complexion and tenor as that given by him to the world in 1 G 22 . The opening sentence of this fragment is curious , as containing the well-known dictum given by him elsewhere in similar words , " The books which arc written do in their kinds
represent the faculties of the mind of man : Poesy , his imagination ; Philosophy , his reason ; and History , his memory . " Of the value of the history , and tho importance of the epoch it chronicles , it is useless to speak . It presents a king , removed from the highest wisdom or virtue , but of rare sagacity and clearheadedness , the first monarch in England , ruling by himself alone , his own prime minister and representative in every department of a stato just beginning to burst into the glory aud fame to which his illustrious son and granddaughter royally and loyally conducted it .
. Following the sequence of the component ; parts of the volume , and passing over , as of minor importance , the fragments on Henry VIII . and the History of Great Britain , we come to the short sketch of the lifo nud reign of Queen Elizabeth , written in Latin , and entitled , //; Felicem Mentoriam TLlizabetluc . Tho execution is somewhat unequal , the Latin far from classical , far from tho exccllenco of such modern Latiuity as Buchanan ' s , or even some of Bacon ' s philosophical works . And the perusal of the whole justifies . the statement of his contemporary , John Chamberlain , " Mothiuks ho doth languescere towards the end . " But on many grounds , especially in regard to those passages in which ho speaks of tho trial and fate of Elizabeth ' s mother , tne tract is valuable and important . With u
selfregard very justifiable , bo starts by maintaining that to tho execution of such a work , monkish and closet studios aro a less appropriate qualification than public experience of allairs and governiiiont . Ami , indeed , what ho knew of tho Slate lunisul !' , and what ho must , have learned from his fuliier , highly filled him for liis tusk . The g'tat ot tlio work , and the inlenfc of its tit lo , his own wonts sulllciontly explain ¦ :- — " Juirinn in omm mouioria cst muliobroimpi'rimn ; rurbr in en fuliuilns ; niriasima cum felicitate diuluriiirns . ' Ilia vcro quadraffottimum qimri . uin ivt ? ni sni annum oomplovit ; nequc lumen fulieilnli suto suporstea lull . . Do liac folicitale pauoa du'ero inatituij luiquo in lauilcs exeurroro . Nam hudom homines
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 13, 1858, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13111858/page/11/
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