authority was lost for ages: it was found at last by a native of our own country (the author of Novum Organum3), whose name as a philosopher, and parti cularly as a logician, does more honour to England than his did to Stagyra; who threw open the prison in which Science had been held captive, and once more set her free; and who with a bold and virtuous sacrilege tore the laurel from that dark and deified philoso. pher, which he had so long and so injuriously worn4.” Bancroft, the poet, attempted to laud sir Francis Bacon, in his scarce book of Epigrams, 1639, but made sad bombastic work of it: e. g. "Had I a tongue of all frier Bacon's brasse Which should (they say) have wall'd this island round, The earl of Mulgrave, in his Panegyric on Hobbes, truly says, that "Bacon's universal wit Does admiration through the world begets." • Whence the substance of the following comparison: “the empirical philosophers are like to pismires; they only lay up and use their store: the naturalists are like the spiders; they spin all out of their own bowels: but give me a philosopher, who like the bee hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own virtue." Lord Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 565, edit. 1765. 4 • Chart and Scale of Truth, vol.i. p. 353. • Dryden's Miscell. Poems, vol. iii. p. 45 Davies of Hereford addressed him as the "alllearned knight," whose health the muse, which he embosomed, drank in Helicon, as to her bel-amour: and Ben Jonson has an animated compliment to him on his sixtieth birthday, which hails him as "Son to the grave wise keeper of the seal, Sir Richard Steele, in No. 25 of the Guardian, has passed a free and well-founded censure on lord Bacon's History of Henry the Seventh: but he concludes with this liberal consideration in favour of his lordship, that he lived in an age wherein chaste and correct writing was not in fashion, and when pedantry was the mode even at court; so that it is no wonder if the prevalent humour of the times bore down his genius, though superior in force perhaps to any of his countrymen that have either gone before or succeeded him.] 6 Scourge of Folly, p. 193. 7 British Poets, vol. iv. p. 582. THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF SUFFOLK, 2 [THE naval commander and statesman, who was summoned to parliament by writ, Dec. 7, 1597, is surmised by Mr. Ritson to be the nobleman who composed verses in the Ashmolean MSS. 781 or 60713. In May 1603, according to Dugdale 4, he was made choice of for one of the king's privy council, and July 21, next ensuing, advanced to the dignity of earl of Suffolk; after which he was appointed lord chamberlain of the king's household, and in 1614, lord high treasurer of England, in which great office he continued but few years 5. He built the Bibliographia Poetica, p. 383. 3 Opportunity has not occurred to the editor of procuring any transcript from these manuscripts. * Baronage, tom. iii. p. 279. From Cole's MSS. vol. xxxiii. p. 461, it appears he was high steward of the university of Cambridge in 1600. 5 Weldon says, the earl of Suffolk was turned out of his place for Cranfield the projector. Court of King James, p. 141. But according to Carte, he was accused of having embezzled a great part of the money received from the Dutch for the cautionary towns, which was destined to the payment of the army in Ireland, the fleet, the artillery, and other necessary services; and either for this reason, or because he was father-inlaw to the late favourite (Carr earl of Somerset), was deprived of his post of treasurer. The earl, he adds, was in the general opinion of the world deemed guiltless of any considerable |