Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones.
Ben Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:
His language, _where he could spare and pass by a jest_, was nobly
censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more
weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he
uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own
graces.... The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make
an end.
From Macaulay:
He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by his
exertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the King’s heart
was set—the union of England and Scotland. It was not difficult for
such an intellect to discover many irresistible arguments in favor of
such a scheme. He conducted the great case of the _Post Nati_ in the
Exchequer Chamber; and the decision of the judges—a decision the
legality of which may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which
must be acknowledged—was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous
management.
Again:
While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of
law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble
treatise on the _Advancement Of Learning_, which at a later period was
expanded into the _De Augmentis_, appeared in 1605.
The _Wisdom Of The Ancients_, a work which, if it had proceeded from
any other writer, would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit
and learning, was printed in 1609.
In the mean time the _Novum Organum_ was slowly proceeding. Several
distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see portions of
that extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest admiration of
his genius.
Even Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the _Cogitata Et Visa_, one of
the most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great
oracular volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that “in all
proposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master
workman”; and that “it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over
did abound with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and
with worthy contemplations of the means to procure it.”
In 1612 a new edition of the _Essays_ appeared, with additions
surpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality.
Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon’s attention from a work the most
arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty
powers could have achieved, “the reducing and recompiling,” to use his
own phrase, “of the laws of England.”
To serve the exacting and laborious offices of Attorney-General and
Solicitor-General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man
for hard work, but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just
described, to satisfy his. He was a born worker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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