shall find much in experience but little in books,'—jottings 'which come home to men's business and bosoms,'—such are Bacon's Essays, described pretty much in his own terms.
Compositions of this sort naturally suffer now and then from the lack of method and precision. Bacon sometimes employs a word in ambiguous senses. Thus, when he writes about Truth, the term Truth stands at first for the correspondence of thought with fact, and afterwards for the virtue of truthfulness, which is quite a different matter. 'Envy' is used to denote, not only what we commonly understand by the name, but also malevolence and popular discontent. Within the limits of a short Essay, Beauty is variously analysed with curious inconsistency [1].
Bacon's strength appears to the best advantage in his speculations on character and conduct,—in the practical sagacity (not always wisdom of the highest order,) of his maxims for managing one's fellow men. Here we have the teaching of an expert whose career had familiarised him with the wiles and artifices of courtiers and officials,—the teaching of one who had himself been an 'actor upon the stage,' and who was also a shrewd observer of life.
In the history of English literature, Bacon ranks among the creators of our modern prose[2]. His position as a classic is secure. With greater versatility than Ascham, or Sidney, or Hooker, he produced masterpieces in more styles than one. Yet it was almost an accident that he wrote in English at all. He felt no confidence in the enduring stability of his native tongue. If a book of his was to 'live and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not,' it must be translated into Latin. 'These modern languages,' he says, 'will at one time or another play the bank-rowte with books.'
Though his style, varying with the requirements of his
- ↑ For the substance of the remarks contained in this paragraph and the next I am indebted to Mr Reynolds (Introduction to Bacon's Essays, pp. xxii—xxv). The whole of Mr Reynolds's Introduction deserves careful and repeated reading.
- ↑ See Bacon's Essays, edited by Messrs Storr and Gibson, Introduction, pp. Ixxii Ixxiv.
