quently to the service of the church, to hear sermons, to the administration of the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ, and died in the true faith, established in the Church of England." (a)

The internal evidence against the authenticity of the Parodoxes from the style is, that 1st. They in style, are in opposition to the whole tenor of Lord Bacon's works, which endeavours to make doubtful things clear, not clear things doubtful. (p)

perswade the world I have none at all, as the generall scandal of my profession, the natural course of my studies, the indifferency of my behaviour, and discourse in matters of religion, neither violently defending one, nor with that common ardour and contention opposing another; yet in despight hereof I dare, without usurpation, assume the honorable stile of a Christian; not that I meerely owe this stile to the font, my education or clime wherein I was borne as being bred up either to confirme those principles my parents instilled into my unwary understanding; or by a generall consent proceed in the religion of my countrey. But having, in my riper years, and confirmed judgment seene and examined all, I find myselfe obliged by the principles of grace, and the law of mine owne reason to embrace no other name but this; neither doth herein my zeale so fare make me forget the general charitie I owe unto humanity, as rather to hate than pity Turkes, Infidels and (what is worse) Jewes, rather contenting myself to enjoy that happy stile, than maligning those who refuse so glorious a title."

iii.

(a) Such are the words of Dr. Rawley. See ante page (p) In some part of his works, I do not recollect where, he says, "I endeavour not to inflate trifles into marvails, but to reduce marvails to plain things:" and Rawley, in his life of Lord Bacon, says, "In the composing of his books he had rather drive at a masculine and clear expression, than at any fineness or affectation of phrases, and would often ask if the meaning were ex

2d. The style of the Paradoxes, if they are supposed to contain an indirect attack upon Christianity, are in opposition to Lord Bacon's opinion of the proper style for religious controversy. "To search, he says, and rip up wounds with a laughing countenance, to intermix Scripture and scurrility sometimes in one sentence, is a thing far from the devout reverence of a Christian, and scant beseeming the honest regard of a sober man. • Non est major confusio quam serii et joci.' There is no greater confusion than the confounding of jest and earnest. The majesty of religion, and the contempt and deformity of things ridiculous, are things as distant as things may be. Two principal causes have I ever known of atheism; curious controversies, and profane scoffing. (b) 3d. They have not any resemblance to the style of Lord Bacon; they are neither poetical adorned by imagery, (c) nor learned enriched by rare quota

pressed plainly enough, as being one that accounted words to be but subservient, or ministeriall to matter; and not the principall. And if his stile were polite, it was because he could do no otherwise; neither was he given to any light conceits; or descanting upon words, but did ever, purposely and industriously avoyd them; for he held such things to be but digressions or diversions from the scope intended; and to derogate from the weight and dignity of the stile.

(b) See page 32 of this volume.

(c) As a specimen of his mode of illustrating by imagery, see the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii, page 63. In "Orpheus's theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled; and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening to the

tion, nor familiar illustrated by examples, (d) as in most of his philosophical works; nor written

airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."

(d) In the Treatise De Augmentis, lib. v. 2, upon literate experience or invention, not by art but by accident, he says, speaking of the error in supposing that experiments will succeed without due consideration of quantity of matter, "It is not altogether safe to rely upon any natural experiment, before proof be made both in a lesser, and greater quantity. Men should remember the mockery of Esop's housewife, who conceited that by doubling her measure of barley, her hen would daily lay her two eggs; but the hen grew fat, and laid none." As specimens of his familiar illustration, see also the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 44, when speaking of studies teeming with error, he says, "Surely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable; that, when he died, told his sons, that he had left unto them gold buried under ground in his vineyard; and they digged over all the ground, and gold they found none: but by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man's life." See again in exhibiting the nature of the philosophy of universals, " Philosopha Prima," the connection between all parts of nature, he says, "Is not the delight of

pressly (e) and weightily (f) as the Novum Organum but they seem remarkable only for antithesis, something like Fuller, without his spirit: a sort of dry Fuller, or, as he would say, Fuller's earth: or like the Essay on Death, published also in the Remains, and ascribed without authority to the same illustrious author. (d)

The evidence in favour of the authenticity' of the Paradoxes, from the style is, that-1. Aphorisms are the favorite style of Lord Bacon. (r) 2. the quavering upon a stop in music, the same with the playing of light upon the water?

'Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus:'"-See vol. ii, p. 124.

I could willingly indulge myself with the selection of other instances, but remembering the admonition that it is not granted to love and to be wise," I stop.

(e) Ben Jonson in his Discoveries says, Dominus Verulamius. One though he be excellent, and the chief, is not to be imitated alone; for no imitator ever grew up to his author: likeness is always on this side of truth; yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake 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 own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.

(f) Take for instance any of the Nervous Aphorisms, in the Novum Organum, and compare it with the sentences of the Paradoxes.

(d) See Preface to vol. i. P. 35.

(x) No man was, for his own sake, less attached to system

The paradoxes contain two of Lord Bacon's expressions; the one in the beginning of the 26th Paradox," He is often tossed and shaken, yet is as Mount Sion: he is a serpent and a dove."(u) The other in the 10th Paradox. "He lends and gives most freely, and yet he is the greatest usurer.”(a) 3rd. That although the Paradoxes do not contain any patent internal evidence of their authenticity, yet there is latent evidence from the dissimilarity of the style, as Lord Bacon, knowing how to discover the

or ornament than Lord Bacon. A plain, unadorned style in aphorisms, in which the Novum Organum is written, is, he invariably states, the proper style for philosophy. In the midst of his own arrangement, in the Advancement of Learning, he says: "The worst and most absurd sort of triflers are those who have pent the whole art into strict methods and narrow systems which men commonly cry up for the sake of their regularity and style." Then see Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 203.

(u) This union of the serpent and the dove is a favourite image of Lord Bacon's. See the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 237: "It is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced." See also vol. i. p. 205, in the Meditationes Sacræ, " of the innocency of the dove, and the wisdom of the serpent."

(a) See Apophthegm 148, in vol. i. p. 381, it is as follows: "They would say of the duke of Guise, Henry, that had sold and oppignerated all his patrimony, to suffice the great donatives that he had made; that he was the greatest usurer of France, because all his state was in obligations."