from the page of history by his princely pardon,” he received the favour he so much desired. At the age of sixty-one, Bacon retired to his country-seat at Gorhambury, having an income of about 2500_l._ His debts amounted to about 30,000_l._, of which he liquidated a third before his death. Apart from the noise and stir of life, Bacon more sedulously bent his mind to the cultivation of philosophy, his true field of labour. With the exception of his Reign of Henry the Seventh, and a tract written against the match between Prince Charles and the Infanta of Spain, the five last years of his life were spent in making philosophical experiments, and in moulding his works to a more perfect form. It was his great wish that what he had written should be translated into the general language of learning, Latin; consequently much of his time during this period was employed in translating himself, or revising the translations of his friends. His chief labour, however, was the reduction of his Instauration to a most highly finished state of aphorisms. He took incredible pains with this great performance. His biographer and editor, Dr. Rawley, declares that this work was revised and corrected, almost re-written, at least ten times, and finally left _unfinished_: for a book which taught what was known in the world, and wherein that knowledge was defective or pretended; which professed to teach a new system, by which general laws should be made for the foundation of true science; and which pointed out what remained to be known, was indeed rather the undertaking of many lives of manhood, than a few years of one suffering under a load of debt, disgrace, infirmity, and age. The peculiarity of Bacon’s philosophical doctrine may be expressed in few words. He found that the beliefs of learned men (apart from religious beliefs) rested upon the authority of one unquestionably great intelligence, Aristotle, who had invented laws of science, unfounded except in the speculations of his own mind, and many of them misunderstood by his idolizers. These laws were given or made, and facts were supposed to follow from them necessarily and without question. But Bacon proposed to found his general laws on actual experiments. So that when by a multitude of facts arising from this course of proceeding, laws should be produced which fairly accounted for phenomena, the application of such laws might farther become the confirmation of fresh and, it may be, more difficult, combinations. It is curious that Bacon’s own experiments should, for the most part, be so signally frivolous and inconclusive. This may be accounted for, in some measure, by the novelty of the method,—his own defence, for he was aware of the fact, is, “that he did not like to throw away any experiment, however seeming foolish, in case that some spark of truth should be contained in it, or suggested by it.” But he certainly did not possess the power of applying his own