A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2
John Stuart Mill · en
3. FRANCIS BACON (+1561-1626+), one of the greatest of English thinkers,
and one of our best prose-writers, was born at York House, in the
Strand, London, in the year 1561. He was a grave and precocious child;
and Queen Elizabeth, who knew him and liked him, used to pat him and
call him her “young Lord Keeper”-- his father being Lord Keeper of the
Seals in her reign. At the early age of twelve he was sent to Trinity
College, Cambridge, and remained there for three years. In 1582 he was
called to the bar; in 1593 he was M.P. for Middlesex. But his greatest
rise in fortune did not take place till the reign of James I.; when, in
the year 1618, he had risen to be Lord High Chancellor of England. The
title which he took on this occasion-- for the Lord High Chancellor is
chairman of the House of Lords-- was +Baron Verulam+; and a few years
after he was created +Viscount St Albans+. His eloquence was famous in
England; and Ben Jonson said of him: “The fear of every man that heard
him was lest he should make an end.” In the year 1621 he was accused of
taking bribes, and of giving unjust decisions as a judge. He had not
really been unconscientious, but he had been careless; was obliged to
plead guilty; and he was sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be
imprisoned in the Tower during the king’s pleasure. The fine was
remitted; Bacon was set free in two days; a pension was allowed him; but
he never afterwards held office of any kind. He died on Easter-day of
the year 1626, of a chill which he caught while experimenting on the
preservative properties of snow.
4. His chief prose-works in English-- for he wrote many in Latin-- are
the +Essays+, and the +Advancement of Learning+. His +Essays+ make one
of the wisest books ever written; and a great number of English thinkers
owe to them the best of what they have had to say. They are written in a
clear, forcible, pithy, and picturesque style, with short sentences, and
a good many illustrations, drawn from history, politics, and science. It
is true that the style is sometimes stiff, and even rigid; but the
stiffness is the stiffness of a richly embroidered cloth, into which
threads of gold and silver have been worked. Bacon kept what he called a
+Promus+ or Commonplace-Book; and in this he entered striking thoughts,
sentences, and phrases that he met with in the course of his reading, or
that occurred to him during the day. He calls these sentences
“salt-pits, that you may extract salt out of, and sprinkle as you will.”
The following are a few examples:--
“That that is Forced is not Forcible.”
“No Man loveth his Fetters though they be of Gold.”
“Clear and Round Dealing is the Honour of Man’s Nature.”
“The Arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty Flatterers have
intelligence, is a Man’s Self.”
“If Things be not tossed upon the Arguments of Counsell, they will
be tossed upon the Waves of Fortune.”
The following are a few striking sentences from his +Essays+:--