Hapless in his choice, Unfit to stand the civil storm of state, And through the smooth barbarity of courts, With firm, but pliant virtue, forward still To urge his course; him for the studious shade Kind Nature form’d; deep, comprehensive, clear, Exact, and elegant; in one rich soul, Plato, the Stagyrite and Tully join’d. The great deliverer he! It is gratifying to turn from the melancholy scenes exhibited by the political life of Bacon, to behold him in his study in the deep search of truth; no contrast is more striking than that between the chancellor and the philosopher, or, as Macaulay has well termed it, “Bacon seeking for truth, and Bacon seeking for the Seals—Bacon in speculation, and Bacon in action.” From amidst clouds and darkness we emerge into the full blaze and splendor of midday light. We now find Bacon wholly devoting himself to the pursuits for which nature adapted him, and from which no extent of occupation could entirely detach him. The author redeemed the man; in the philosopher and the poet there was no weakness, no corruption. Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair. Here the writer yielded not to _vitia temporis_; but combated them with might and main, with heart and soul. In 1623, he published the _Life of Henry VII._ In a letter addressed to the Queen of Bohemia with a copy, he says pathetically: “’Time was I had honor without leisure, and now I have leisure without honor.” But his honor without leisure had precipitated him into “bottomless perdition;” his leisure without honor retrieved his name, and raised him again to an unattainable height. In the following year, he printed his Latin translation of the _Advancement of Learning_, under the title of _De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum_. This was not, however, a mere translation; for he made in it omissions and alterations; and appears to have added about one third new matter; in short, he remodelled it. His work, replete with poetry and beautiful imagery, was received with applause throughout Europe. It was reprinted in France in 1624, one year after its appearance in England. It was immediately translated into French and Italian, and was published in Holland, the great book-mart of that time, in 1645, 1650, and 1662. In 1624, he solicited of the King a remission of the sentence, to the end, says he, “that blot of ignominy may be removed from me and from my memory with posterity.” The King granted him a full pardon. But he never more took his seat in the House of Lords. When the new Parliament met, after the accession of Charles the First, age, infirmity, and tardy wisdom had extinguished the ambition of Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans. When the writ of summons to the Parliament reached him, he exclaimed: “I have done with such vanities!”