country; and we by no means abandon the hope that there will arise and come forth some man among posterity, who will be able to receive and digest all that is best in what we deliver; and whose care it will be to cultivate and perfect such things. Therefore, by the blessing of the Deity, to tend to this object, to open up the fountains, to discover the useful, to gather guidance for the way, shall be our task; and from this we shall never, while we remain in life, desist." (XI.) 23. _His Piety._--We may add, that the spirit of piety as well as of hope which is seen in this passage, appears to have been habitual to Bacon at all periods of his life. We find in his works several drafts of portions of his great scheme, and several of them begin with a prayer. One of these entitled, in the edition of his works, "The Student's Prayer," appears to me to belong probably to his early youth. Another, entitled "The Writer's Prayer," is inserted at the end of the Preface of the _Instauratio_, as it was finally published. I will conclude my notice of this wonderful man by inserting here these two prayers. "To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications; that he, remembering the calamities of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would please to open to us new refreshments out of the fountains of his goodness for the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are divine; neither that, from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds towards divine mysteries. But rather, that by our mind thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith's." "Thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy goodness, returneth to thy glory. Thou, after thou hadst reviewed the works which thy hands had made, beheldest that everything was very good, and thou didst rest with complacency in them. But man, reflecting on the works which he had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could by no means acquiesce in them. Wherefore, if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy Sabbath. We humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us; and that thou, by our hands, and also by the hands of others on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largess of new alms to thy family of mankind. These things we commend to thy everlasting love, by our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us. Amen." FOOTNOTES: