is full, but badly arranged and edited. Of numerous editions of individual works, or portions of the whole, the following are good:—Œuvrcs Phllosophiques de Bacon, par Bouillet, 3 vols., 1834; Essays, by Whately, 5th ed., 1866, and by W. A. Wright, 1862; Novum Organum, by Kitchin (1855); Translation by the same (1855); Advancement of Learning, by W. A. Wright.
Philosophy.—Besides the Introductions in Ellis and Spedding's edition, the following may be noticed:—Kuno Fischer, Franz Bacon und seine Nachfolger, 2d ed., 1875 (1st ed., 1856, trans, into English by Oxenford, 1857); Rémusat, Bacon, sa vie, &c., 1857 (2d ed., 1858); Craik, Bacon, his Writings and his Philosophy, 3 vols. 1846-7 (new ed., 1860); A. Dorner, De Baconis Philosophia, Berlin, 1867; Liebig, Ueber Francis Bacon von Verulam und die Methode der Naturforschung, 1863; Lasson, Ueber Baco von Verulam's wissenschaftliche Principien, 1860; Böhmer, Ueber F. Bacon von Verulam, 1864. (r. ad.)
BACON, John, who may be considered the founder of the British school of sculpture, was born Nov. 24, 1740. He was the son of Thomas Bacon, cloth-worker in Southwark, whose forefathers possessed a considerable estate in Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice in Mr Crispe's manufactory of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the email ornamental pieces of china, but by his great skill in moulding he soon attained the distinction of being modeller to the work. The produce of his labour he devoted to the support of his parents, then in somewhat straitened circumstances. While engaged in the porcelain works he had an opportunity of seeing the models executed by different sculptors of eminence, which were sent to be burned at an adjoining pottery. An observation of these productions appears to have immediately determined the direction of his genius; he devoted himself to the imitation of them with so much success, that in 1758 a small figure sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts received a prize, and the highest premiums given by that society were adjudged to him nine times between the years 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship he also improved the method of working statues in artificial stone, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and, during the course of his early efforts in this art, was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically called getting out the points), by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose, which has since been adopted by many sculptors both in this and other countries. This instrument possesses many advantages above those formerly employed; it is more exact, takes a correct measurement in every direction, is contained in a small compass, and can be used upon either the model or the marble. In the year 1769 he was adjudged the first gold medal given by the Royal Academy, and in 1770 was made an associate of that body. He shortly afterwards exhibited a figure of Mars, which gained him considerable reputation, and he was then engaged to execute a bust of George III, intended for Christ Church, Oxford. He secured the king's favour, and retained it throughout life. His great celebrity now procured him numerous commissions, and it is said, that of sixteen different competitions in which he was engaged with other artists, he was unsuccessful in one case only. Considerable jealousy was entertained against him by other sculptors, and he was commonly charged with ignorance of classic style. This charge he repelled by the execution of a noble head of Jupiter Tonans, and many of his emblematical figures are in perfect classical taste. On the 4th of August 1799, he was suddenly attacked with inflammation, which occasioned his death in little more than two days, in the 59th year of his age. He left a widow, his second wife, and a family of six sons and three daughters. Of his merit as a sculptor, the universal reputation of his works affords decisive proof, and his various productions which adorn St Paul's Cathedral, London, Christ Church and Pembroke College, Oxford, the Abbey Church, Bath, and Bristol Cathedral, give ample testimony to his powers. Perhaps his best works are to be found among the monuments in Westminster Abbey. (See Memoir of the late John Bacon, R.A., by the Rev. Richard Cecil: London, 1811.)
BACON, Sir Nicholas, lord keeper of the great seal in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst in Kent in 1510, and educated at the university of Cambridge, after which he travelled in France, and made some stay at Paris. On his return he settled in Gray's Inn, and applied himself with such assiduity to the study of the law, that he quickly distinguished himself; and, on the dissolution of the monastery of St Edmund's Bury in Suffolk, he obtained a grant of several manors from King Henry VIII., then in the thirty-sixth year of his reign. Two years later he was promoted to the office of attorney in the court of wards, which was a place of both honour and profit. la this office he was continued by King Edward VI.; and in 1552 he was elected treasurer of Gray's Inn. His great moderation and prudence preserved him through the dangerous reign of Queen Mary. Very early in the reign of Elizabeth he was knighted; and in 1558 he succeeded Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York, as keeper of the great seal of England; he was at the same time made one of the queen's privy council. As a statesman, he was remarkable for the clearness of his views and the wisdom of his counsels, and he had a considerable share in the settling of ecclesiastical questions. That he was not unduly elated by his preferments, appears from the answer he gave to Queen Elizabeth when she told him his house at Redgrave was too little for him, "Not so, madam," returned he, "but your majesty has made me too great for my house." On only one occasion did he partially lose the queen's favour. He was suspected of having assisted Hales, the clerk of the hanaper, in his book on the succession, written at the time of Lady Catherine Grey's unjust imprisonment. Bacon was deprived of his seat at the council, and it was even contemplated to deprive him of the seal also. He seems, however, to have quickly regained his position, and to have stood as high in the royal favour as before. He died on the 26th of February 1579, having held the great seal more than twenty years, and was buried in St Paul's, London, where a monument, destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666, was erected to his memory. Granger observes that he was the first lord keeper who ranked as lord chancellor; and that he had much of that penetrating genius, solidity, judgment, persuasive eloquence, and comprehensive knowledge of law and equity, which afterwards shone forth with such splendour in his illustrious son.
BACON, Roger. The 13th century, an age peculiarly rich in great men, produced few, if any, who can take higher rank than Roger Bacon. He is in every way worthy to be placed beside such thinkers as Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas. These had an infinitely wider renown in their day, while he was ignored by his contemporaries and neglected by his successors; but modern criticism has restored the balance in his favour, and is even in danger of going equally far in the opposite direction. Bacon, it is now said, was not appreciated by his age because he was so completely in advance of it; he is a 16th or 17th century philosopher, whose lot has been by some accident cast in the 13th century; he
