fame or usefulness based upon English books. As early as 1607 he desired to have the Advancement of Learning translated into Latin; but this was for his contemporaries in foreign parts-" the privateness of the language wherein it is written, excluding so many readers"1-at least, there is no mention of posterity. But after his downfall-when age, and infirmities, and poverty pressed on him, and he stretched forth a more eager expectation to those "future ages" to which he bequeathed his name and reputation-he repeatedly avows his belief that English books will not last. When he sends the Latin translation of the Advancement of Learning to the Prince, he says (1623): "It is a book, I think, will live, and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not; "2 in his dedication of the last edition of the Essays to Buckingham (1625) he conceives that "the Latin Volume of them (being in the universal language) may last as long as books shall last;" and in a letter to his intimate friend, Toby Matthew (1623), he more plainly avows both his regard for the opinion of "posterity" and his belief that posterity would not preserve works written in the "modern languages:"

"My labours are now most set to have those works which I had formerly published as that of Advancement of Learning, that of Henry VII., that of the Essays (being retractate and made more perfect) well translated into Latin by the help of some good pens which forsake me not. For these modern languages will at one time or other play the bank-rowtes 3 with books; and since I have lost much time with this age, I would be glad, as God shall give me leave, to recover it with posterity.`

It is very strange, and not a little sad, to think that, owing to this deeply-rooted distrust in the destiny of his native language, Bacon threw away (so far as we can see) much of the small portion of his life devoted to philosophy and literature. The very means that he took to insure fame have tended to deprive him of it. Who, except a scholar or two at the Universities, now reads, in the Latin, the De Augmentis, or the Novum Organum, or the Sapientia Veterum, or that book which was to "last as long as books shall last," the Latin translation

of the Essays? For the vast English-speaking race of the twentieth century, amid the increasing pressure of the claims of English authors, it seems probable that the Latin works on which Lord Bacon rested his fame with future ages, will be little better than waste paper. It will be the despised Advancement of Learning and the English Essays that will sustain his reputation as a master of words as long as the English language shall last. And the same disappointment of his expectations has befallen his Science. All that Bacon thought best in it is now unanimously rejected as worthless for present uses; and some have even denied that it was ever worth anything for use in the past. Hence it has come to pass that the man who, more than any other, protested against "Pygmalion's frenzy" of devotion to words, himself owes in great measure that existence which he coveted in the minds of posterity to his literary style. Posterity has taken the philosopher at his word and pronounced that he spoke the truth when, in mock-modesty, he declared that he himself was but "the trumpeter to call the wits together."

Yet while a general acquiescence must be given to this verdict, it must not be adopted without discrimination. If Bacon is now no more to us than a Master of words, it must be at least admitted that Bacon's words are not as other men's. It is not "the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of his works with tropes and figures," that constitute his claim to a literary immortality: it is that his words-to use his own expressionare "male," by which he meant not impotently ornamental, but generative of such thoughts as are potent to produce action. As long as infirm human nature remains what it is, few Englishmen will fail to learn something about their infirmities from the Essays, and to rise from their perusal with a quickened contempt for an objectless existence, and for those who, having an object, do not go straight towards it. Progress as the Sciences may, it is difficult to believe that the Advancement of Learning can ever become quite antiquated or superfluous; as long at least as it is not superfluous to inspire mankind with a confident, patient, and enthusiastic faith that there is an order

and correspondence in the whole Universe of Learning; that one Law rules all the provinces of animate and inanimate Nature; that it is the will of God that His children shall approach more closely to Him by searching out His ways in heaven and earth and in the human heart; that no imaginary flaming sword of divine jealousy need deter the student from drawing near to this Paradise of Knowledge; and that no Pillars of Hercules, with their antiquated ne plus ultra, need now be supposed to bar the voyage of the explorer who is bent on steering out from inland seas into the untraversed ocean. And in this sense the English works of Bacon may still be regarded as a Partus Masculus Temporis, a veritable Male Birth of Time, bearing the inscription Plus ultra, "There is more beyond," and justifying that prediction of the Prophet which the author of the Instauratio Magna proudly placed upon his title-page, Multi pertransibunt et augebitur Scientia. 1

APPENDIX I1

§ 63 PROFESSOR FOWLER'S DEFENCE OF BACON'S MORALITY

There have not been wanting modern defenders of Bacon's morality who are unwilling that he should be called in any sense a pupil of Machiavelli. "Nothing," says one of these,2 "can well be more remote either from what is ordinarily understood by Machiavellism, or from some of the actual utterances of Machiavelli himself, when taken in their literal sense, than such passages as the following, expressing, as I believe, Bacon's genuine sentiments: I take Goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia. This of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing; no better than a kind of vermin, &c.' 'Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it falls.' And the same advocate defends Bacon for teaching the Art of Selfadvancement, on the ground that a moralist is justified in giving "rules for bettering one's own fortune, provided, at least, that such rules are not likely to interfere with the general welfare."

Such a defence does not meet the case. It is not by showing that Bacon theoretically admires goodness that we can disprove the fact that he was influenced by Machiavelli. Machiavelli himself is as frank as his pupil in recognizing theoretically the badness of the Evil Arts which he systematises. 1 Note on p. 325.

2 Professor Fowler, Francis Bacon, p. 41.

"These ways," says the teacher," are cruel and contrary, not only to civil, but to Christian, and, indeed, human conversation; for which reason they are to be rejected by everybody; for certainly 'tis better to remain a private person than to make oneself king by the calamity and destruction of one's people. Nevertheless, he who neglects to take the first good way, if he would preserve himself, must make use of the bad."

It is not, therefore, by quoting theoretical condemnations of selfishness, or praises of truthfulness, that an advocate can hope to justify the morality of the Essays. The justification must be effected, if at all, by showing that Bacon does not "give rules for bettering one's fortunes" without " providing that such rules shall not interfere with the general welfare." But this cannot be shown. Against the enthusiastic eulogy of Goodness above quoted, we are forced to set the caution-true enough, but suspicious in a treatise great part of which is taken up with precepts concerning the art of "bettering one's fortunes"-that "extreme lovers of their country or masters were never fortunate, neither can they be."1 Against the statement that "clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature," we must place the admissions that, "No man can be secret except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation," 2 and that" the best composition and temperature is to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy." 3 As for politicians, tortuosity and deceit are considered by Bacon almost matters of necessity in them: "Such (envious) dispositions are the very errors of human nature, and yet they are the fittest timber to make great Politiques of, like to knee-timber, that is good for ships that are ordained to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm." 4 It is true that he dislikes and dreads the predominance of cunning: "Nothing," he says, “doth more hurt in a State than that cunning men pass for wise." But in his Essay on Truth he is obliged to admit that "mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better," though the metal is debased

1 Essays, xl. 32.

2 Ibid. vi. 76.

4 Ibid. xiii. 68, "knee-timber" is "crooked timber." 5 Ibid. xxii. 118.

3 lbid. vi. 110-113.