The vigour of his mind did not sink with his fall from power. For a while, indeed, it was broken and disturbed by the rock on which he had dashed; but soon his thoughts, bursting into a new channel, flowed onward with their accustomed, full, and majestic course. BURNETT, GEORGE, 1807, Specimens of English Prose Writers, vol. II, p. 344.

He has in general inspired a fervour of admiration which vents itself in indiscriminate praise, and is very adverse to a calm examination of the character of his understanding, which was very peculiar, and on that account described with more than ordinary imperfection, by that unfortunately vague and weak part of language which attempts to distinguish the varieties of mental superiority. . . . It is easy to describe his transcendent merit in general terms of commendation; for some of his great qualities lie on the surface of his writings. But that in which he most excelled all other men, was the range and compass of his intellectual view and the power of contemplating many and distant objects together without indistinctness or confusion, which he himself has called "discursive" or "comprehensive" understanding. This wide ranging intellect was illuminated by the brightest Fancy that ever contented itself with the office of only ministering to Reason: and from this singular relation of the two grand faculties of man, it has resulted, that his philosophy, though illustrated still more than adorned by the utmost splendour of imagery, continues still subject to the undivided supremacy of Intellect. No

man ever united a more poetical style to a less poetical philosophy. One great end of his discipline is to prevent mysticism and fanaticism from obstructing the pursuit of truth.-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1816-46, On the Philosophical Genius of Lord Bacon and Mr. Locke.

His character was then an amazing insight into the limits of human knowledge and acquaintance with the landmarks of human intellect, so as to trace its past history or point out the path to future inquiries, but when he quits the ground of contemplation of what others have done or left undone to project himself into future discoveries, he becomes quaint and fantastic, instead of original. His strength

was in reflection, not in production; he was the surveyor, not the builder, of the fabric of science. He had not strictly the constructive faculty. He was the principal pioneer in the march of modern. philosophy, and has completed the education and discipline of the mind for the acquisition of truth, by explaining all the impediments or furtherances that can be applied to it or cleared out of its way. In a word, he was one of the greatest men this country has to boast, and his name deserves to stand, where it is generally placed, by the side of those of our greatest writers, whether we consider the variety, the strength, or splendour of his faculties, for ornament or use. HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1820, Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, p. 215.

In his historical authorities, is often inaccurate. I could give half a dozen instances from his Apophthegms only.BYRON, LORD, 1821, Poetical Works, vol. IX, p. 448, note.

It is scarcely possible to read a page of his works without seeing that the love of knowledge was his ruling passion; that his real happiness consisted in intellectual delight. How beautifully does he state this when enumerating the blessings attendant upon the pursuit and possession of knowledge.-MONTAGU, BASIL, 1834, The Life of Francis Bacon, p. ccclxxviii.

His eloquence, though not untainted with the vicious taste of his age, would alone have entitled him to a high rank in literature. He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable. In wit, if by wit he meant the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have been nothing in common, he never had an equal-not even Cowley-not even the author of "Hudibras." Indeed, he possessed this faculty, or rather this faculty possessed him, to a morbid degree-MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1834, Lord Bacon, Edinburgh Review, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

That Shakespeare's appearance upon a soil so admirably prepared was neither marvellous nor accidental is evidenced even by the corresponding appearance of such a contemporary as Bacon. Scarcely can anything be said of Shakespeare's position generally with regard to mediæval poetry which does not also bear upon the

position of the renovator Bacon with regard to mediæval philosophy. Neither knew nor mentioned the other, although Bacon was almost called upon to have done so in his remarks upon the theatre of his day. It may be presumed that Shakespeare liked Bacon but little, if he knew his writings and life, that he liked not his ostentation, which, without on the whole interfering with his modesty, recurred too often in many instances; that he liked not the fault-finding which his ill-health might have caused, nor the narrow-mindedness with which he pronounced the histrionic art to be infamous, although he allowed that the ancients regarded the drama as a school for virtue; nor the theoretic precepts of worldly wisdom which he gave forth; nor, lastly, the practical career which he lived. Before his mind, however, if he had fathomed it, he must have bent in reverence. For just as Shakespeare was an interpreter of the secrets of history and of human nature, Bacon was an interpreter of lifeless nature. GERVINUS, G. G., 1849-62, Shakespeare Commentaries, tr. Bunnett, p. 884.

No English writer has surpassed him in fervor and brilliancy of style, in force of expression, or in richness of magnificence of imagery. Keen in discovering analogies where no resemblance is apparent to common eyes, he has sometimes indulged, to excess, in the exercise of this talent. But in general his comparisons are not less clear and apposite than full of imagination and meaning. He has treated of philosophy with all the splendor, yet none of the vagueness, of poetry. Sometimes, too, his style possesses a degree of conciseness very rarely to be found in the compositions of the Elizabethan age.-MILLS, ABRAHAM, 1851, The Literature and the Literary Men of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, p. 388.

If I were asked to describe Bacon as briefly as I could, I should say that he was the liberator of the hands of knowledge.-HUNT, LEIGH, 1851, Table Talk, p. 84.

I refer to him, because I fancy that many have a notion of his books on the Interpretation of Nature as very valuable for scientific men, and his books on Morals and Politics as very wise for statesmen and men of the world, but not as friends. They form this notion

because they suppose, that the more we know of Bacon himself, the less sympathy we should have with him. I should be sorry to hold this opinion, because I owe him immense gratitude; and I could not cherish it if I thought of him, even as the sagest of book-makers and not as a human being. I should be sorry to hold it, because if I did not find in him a man who deserved reverence and love, I should not feel either the indignation or the sorrow which I desire to feel for his misdoings. MAURICE, FREDERICK DENISON, 1856-74, The Friendship of Books and Other Lectures, ed. Hughes, p. 11.

Many thanks for the Bacon which you found in the Barrow. It all amounts to wondrous little, if, as you say, Bacon was known to the Cambridge men generally. How could Bacon be so little quoted? The conceits of which that age was fond were taken out of puerility by him, and made into wit and covered with taste. And yet they knew nothing of him to speak of. Newton's silence is emphatic. When I have time and opportunity I intend to work out the thesis, "That Newton was more indebted to the Schoolmen than to Bacon, and probably better acquainted with them."-DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS, 1858, Memoir, Letter to the Rev. Dr. Whewell, Oct. 10, p. 296.

Newton was anything but illiterate. He knew Bacon. His silence is most marked. How could he avoid every possible amount of mention of Bacon on every possible subject? I never said he did not know Bacon; I only said he could not be proved to have known of his existence. Nor can he. I think he has taken such pains not to be known to know him as cannot be attributed to accident. --DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS, 1861, Memoir, Letter to the Rev. Dr. Whewell, Jan. 20, p. 305.

What is true of Shakespeare is true of Bacon. Bacon thought in parables. Of the astounding versatility of his thought, of the universality of its reach, the subtlety of its discrimination, the practical Machiavellian omniscience of motive good and evil, it is difficult by words to convey any adequate idea. But the plasticity of his thought is always the humble servant of his omnipresent imagination. His intellect is always at the mercy of his fancy. for a clothing. All his intellectual facts

Of Bacon, more than of any other writer, it may be said that "in the very dust of his writings there is gold. FARRAR, FREDERIC WILLIAM, 1869-73, Families of Speech.

There is nothing in English prose superior to his diction.-TAINE, H. A.,

1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. I, bk. ii, ch. i, p. 216.

Read a page of Macaulay, and you exhaust the thought at a single perusal. Read a page of Bacon twenty times, and at each reading you will discover new meanings, unobserved before. That haze which the naked eye could not penetrate is found by the telescope to be a nebula, composed of innumerable distinct stars. The one writer informs, the other stimulates, the mind. The one enlightens, the other inspires. The first communicates facts and opinions; the second floods and surcharges you with mental life.MATHEWS, WILLIAM, 1872, Getting on in the World, p. 245.

Bacon's range of subjects was wide, and his command of words within that range as great as any man could have acquired. He took pains to keep his vocabulary rich. From some private notes that have been preserved, we see that he had a habit of jotting down and refreshing his memory with varieties of expression on all subjects that were likely to occur for discussion. He uses a great many more obsolete words than either Hooker or Sidney. To be sure, the language of the feelings and the language of theology have changed less than the language of science. But in his narrative and in his "Essays, as well as in his scientific writings, Bacon shows a decided preference now and then for "inkhorn terms."-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1872-80, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 241.

His utterances are not infrequently marked with a grandeur and solemnity of tone, a majesty of diction, which renders it impossible to forget, and difficult

even to criticise them. . There is no author, unless it be Shakespeare, who is so easily remembered or so frequently quoted. . . . The terse and burning words, issuing, as it were, from the lips of an irresistible commander.-FowLER, THOMAS, 1881, Francis Bacon, (English Philosophers), p. 202.

In the matter of diction he uses more obsolete words than either Hooker or Sidney, but he is immeasurably superior to them both in the perspicuity of his sentences which, though occasionally involved, as a rule allow us to see into his thoughts with great distinctness. The aphoristic style of his essays is worthy of all praise, and he may be considered the first English master of antithesis: it was perhaps his work in this direction which gave his peculiar bent to the literature of the early part of the 17th century.— FLETCHER, C. R. L., 1881, The Development of English Prose Style, p. 10.

Bacon was always much more careful of the value of aptness of a thought than of its appearing new and original. Of all great writers he least minds repeating himself, perhaps in the very same words; so that a simile, an illustration, a quotation pleases him, he returns to it he is never tired of it; it obviously gives him satisfaction to introduce it again and again. CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM, 1884 -88, Bacon, (English Men of Letters), p. 29.

Imagination is a compound of intellectual power and feeling. The intellectual power may be great, but if it is not accompanied with feeling, it will not minister to feeling; or it will minister to many feelings by turns, and to none in particular. As far as the intellectual power of a poet goes, few men have excelled Bacon. He had a mind stored with imagery, able to produce various and vivid illustrations of whatever thought came before him; but these illustrations touched no deep feeling; they were fresh, original, racy, fanciful, picturesque, a play of the head that never touched the heart. man was by nature cold; he had not the emotional depth or compass of an average Englishman. Perhaps his strongest feeling of an enlarged or generous description was for human progress, but it did not rise to passion; there was no fervour, no fury in it. Compare him with Shelley on

The

the same subject, and you will see the difference between meagreness and intensity of feeling. What intellect can be, without strong feeling, we have in Bacon; what intellect is, with strong feeling, we have in Shelley. The feeling gives the tone to the thoughts; sets the intellect at work to find language having its own intensity, to pile up lofty and impressive circumstances; and then we have the poet, the orator, the thoughts that breathe, and the words that burn. Bacon wrote on many impressive themes-on

Truth, on Love, on Religion, on Death, and on the Virtues in detail; he was always original, illustrative, fanciful; if intellectual means and resources could make a man feel in these things, he would have felt deeply; yet he never did.-BAIN, ALEXANDER, 1884, Practical Essays, p. 16.

Bacon's style varied almost as much as his handwriting; but it was influenced more by the subject-matter than by youth or old age. Few men have shown equal versatility in adapting their language to the slightest shade of circumstance and purpose. His style depended upon whether he was addressing a king, or a great nobleman, or a philosopher, or a friend; whether he was composing a State paper, pleading in a State trial, magnifying the Prerogative, extolling Truth, discussing studies, exhorting a judge, sending a New Year's present, or sounding a trumpet to prepare the way for the Kingdom of Man over Nature. It is a mistake to suppose that Bacon was never florid till he grew old. On the contrary, in the early "Devices," written during his connection with Essex, he uses a rich exuberant style and poetic rhythm; but he prefers the rhetorical question of appeal to the complex period. On the other hand. in all his formal philosophical works, even in the "Advancement of Learning," published as early as 1605, he uses the graver periodic structure, though often illustrated with rich metaphor.

In his estimation, literary style was a snare quite as often as a help.-ABBOTT, EDWIN ABBOTT, 1885, Francis Bacon, An Account of His Life and Works, pp. 447,

453.

Illustrious beyond all others except Shakespeare in his intellect, and, with whatever infirmities, still not less than

noble in his moral mind.-TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, 1885, Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 195.

In Bacon, as far as was possible in one man, the learning of the age met and mingled. All the Romance-i. e., at that date all the literary-languages of Europe, were part of his province. In his pages all the classics-save Homer and the Greek dramatists-are rifled to enrich the "Globus Intellectualis." All the philosophies of the West and most of the little then known of science, come within his ken. His criticisms of history are generally sound, as are his references to the dicta and methods of previous authors, and his quotations, though somewhat overlaid, are always illuminating. He had no pretension to the minute scholarship of a Casaubon or a Scaliger; but his grasp of the Latin tongue was firm, and his use of it facile.-NICHOL, JOHN, 1888, Francis Bacon, His Life and Philosophy, Part i, p. 18.

The highest literary merit of Bacon's "Essays" is their combination of charm and of poetic prose with conciseness of expression and fulness of thought. But the oratorical and ideal manner in which, with his variety, he sometimes wrote, is best seen in his "New Atlantis," that imaginary land in the unreachable seas. -BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1896, English Literature, p. 109.

In his English works, considered alone, we have to confess a certain poverty. He who thought it the first distemper of learning, that men should study words. and not matter, is now in the singular condition of having outlived his matter, or, at least, a great part of it, while his words are as vivid as ever. We could now wish that he could have been persuaded to "hunt more after choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clear composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses," qualities which he had the temerity to profess to despise. -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 130.

In Bacon's sentences we may often find remarkable condensation of thought in few words. One does not have to search for two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff. . . . His work abounds in illustrations, analogies, and striking imagery. HALLECK, REUBEN POST, 1900, History of English Literature, pp. 124, 125.