“Unfit to stand the civil storm of state, And through the rude 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 joined. The great deliverer he! who, from the gloom Of cloister’d monks, and jargon-teaching schools, Led forth the true Philosophy, there long Held in the magic chain of words and forms.”--THOMSON. Lord Bacon, “the illustrious subject of the following inscription, was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord-keeper of the great seal under Elizabeth, who was married to Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, a lady of the most profound erudition and brilliant talents. Francis, the illustrious son of such distinguished parents, was born in the year 1560, and even in his infancy gave indications of the most uncommon abilities, united with the greatest and most unwearied assiduity in the pursuit of knowledge and investigation of truth; his cleverness gained him, even in his earliest youth, the admiration of Elizabeth. At Cambridge, where [Illustration: FRANCIS. BACON. BARO DE VERULAM. S. ALBANS VICᵐᵉˢ. SEU NOTIORIBUS TITULIS. SCIENTIARUM LUMEN. FACUNDIÆ LEX. SIC SEDEBAT. QUI. POSTQUAM OMNIA NATURALIS SAPIENTIÆ ET CIVILIS ARCANA EVOLVISSET NATURÆ DECRETUM EXPLEVIT--‘COMPOSITA SOLVANTUR’ Aⁿᵒ. Dⁿⁱ. MDCXXVI. ÆTAT. LXVI. TANTI VIRI MEM. THOMAS MEAUTYS SUPERSTITIS CULTOR DEFUNCTI ADMIRATOR. H. P.[80] ] he completed his education, his talents obtained universal applause. While prosecuting his studies at the university, he detected the fallacies of the then customary mode of philosophizing, which at a more mature age he published to the world, and laid down those laws which opened the way to all the brilliant and surprising discoveries of modern days. His university education being completed, he commenced his travels, from which the unexpected death of his father suddenly recalled him; upon which he applied himself to the study of the common law, at Gray’s Inn, and soon elevated himself to the highest dignities of his profession. But his character was not without a blemish--‘humanum est errare;’ and even the illustrious Bacon fell from the giddying height he had so proudly attained. After his disgrace, he applied himself wholly to literary and philosophical pursuits, enriching the world with his discoveries, and enlightening it by his reasonings. His love for philosophy was the immediate cause of his death, of which the following narrative is given by Aubrey, in his MSS., which are now deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford:--