echo;[1] and, in his twelfth year he was meditating upon the laws of the imagination.[2]
At the early age of thirteen, it was resolved to send him to Cambridge, of which university, he, with his brother Anthony, was matriculated as a member, on the 10th of June, 1573.[3] They were both admitted of Trinity College, under the care of Dr. John Whitgift,[4] a friend of the lord keeper's, then master of the college, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and distinguished through life, not only for his piety, but for his great learning, and unwearied exertions to promote the public good.
What must have passed in his youthful, thoughtful, ardent mind, at this eventful moment, when he first quitted his father's house to engage in active life? What must have been his feelings when he approached the university, and saw in the distance, the lofty spires, and towers, and venerable walls, raised by intellect and piety, "and hollowed by the shrines where the works of the mighty dead are preserved and reposed,[5] and by the labours of the mighty living, with joint forces directing their strength against nature herself, to take her high towers, and dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty God of his goodness shall permit?"[6]
"As water," he says, "whether it be the dew of heaven, or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may by union comfort and sustain itself, and for that cause the industry of man hath made and framed spring heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed; as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same. All tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge of cares and troubles; much like the stations which Virgil prescribeth for the hiving of bees:
Principio sedes apihus statioque petenda,
Quo neque sit ventis aditus, etc.
- ↑ The laws of sound were always a subject of his thoughts. In the third century of the Sylva, he says, "we have laboured, as may appear, in this inquisition of sounds diligently; both because sound is one of the most hidden portions of nature, and because it is a virtue which may be called incorporeal and immateriate, whereof there be in nature but few."As one of the facts, he says in his Sylva Sylvarum, (Art. 140,) "There is in St. James's fields a conduit of brick, unto which joineth a low vault; and at the end of that a round house of stone; and in the brick conduit there is a window; and in the round house a slit or rift of some little breadth: if you cry out in the rift, it will make a fearful roaring at the window. The cause is, for that all concaves, that proceed from more narrow to more broad, do amplify the sound at the coming out.
- ↑ In the tenth century of the Sylva, after having enumerated many of the idle imaginations by which the world then was, and, more or less, always will be, misled, he says, "With these vast and bottomless follies men have been in pan entertained. But we, that hold firm to the works of God, and to the sense, which is God's lamp, lucerna Dei spiraculum hominis, will inquire with all sobriety and severity, whether there be to be found in the footsteps of nature, any such transmission and influx of immateriate virtues: and what the force of imagination is, either upon the body imaginant, or upon another body."He then proceeds to state the different kinds of the power of imagination, saying it is in three kinds: the first, upon the body of the imaginant, including likewise the child in the mother's womb; the second is, the power of it upon dead bodies, as plants, wood, stone, metal, &c.; the third is, the power of it upon the spirits of men and living creatures; and with this last we will only meddle.The problem therefore is, whether a man constantly and strongly believing that such a thing shall be; as that such a one will love him; or that such a one will grant him his request; or that such a one shall recover a sickness, or the like, it doth help any thing to the effecting of the thing itself.In the solution of this problem he, according to his custom, enumerates a variety of instances, and, among others, the following fact, which occurred to him when a child, for he left his father's house when he was thirteen.For example, he says, I related one time to a man, that was curious and vain enough in these things, that I saw a kind of juggler, that had a pair of cards, and would tell a man what card he thought. This pretended learned man told me, that it was a mistaking in me; for, said he, it was not the knowledge of man's thought, (for that is proper to God,) but it was the enforcing of a thought upon him, and binding his imagination by a stronger, that he could think no other card. And thereupon he asked me a question or two, which I thought he did but cunningly, knowing before what used to be the feats of the juggler. Sir, said he, do you remember whether he told the card the man thought himself, or bade another to tell it. I answered, (as was true,) that he bade another tell it. Whereunto he said, so I thought; for, said he, himself could not have put on so strong an imagination, but by telling the other the card, who believed that the juggler was some strange man, and could do strange things, that other man caught a strong imagination. I hearkened unto him, thinking for a vanity he spoke prettily. Then he asked me another question; saith he, do you remember whether he bade the man think the card first, and afterwards told the other man in his ear what he should think, or else that he did whisper first in the man's ear, that he should tell the card, telling that such a man should think such a card, and after bade the man think a card: I told him, as was true, that he did first whisper the man in the ear, that such a man should think such a card; upon this the learned man did much exult, and please himself, saying, lo, you may see that my opinion is right; for if the man had thought first, his thought had been fixed; but the other imagining first, bound his thought. Which, though it did somewhat sink with me, yet I made lighter than I thought, and said, I thought it was confederacy Between the juggler and the two servants; though, indeed, I had no reason so to think; for they were both my father's servants, and he had never played in the house before.
- ↑ An. 1573, June 10. Antonius Bacon Coll. Trin. Convict. i. admissus in matriculam Acad. Cantabr.Franciscus Bacon Coll. Trin. Convict. i. admissus in matriculam academiæ Cantabr. eodem die et anno. (Regt. Acad.)
- ↑ See the Biog. Brit. In 1565, Whitgift so distinguished himself in the pulpit, that the lord keeper recommended him to the queen.
- ↑ But the works touching books are chiefly two; first, Libraries, wherein, as in famous shrines, the relics of the ancient saints, full of virtue, are reposed. Secondly, New Editions of Authors, with correct impressions; more faithful Translations, more profitable flosses, more diligent annotations; with the like train furnished and adorned.
In a letter to Sir Thomas Bodley, he says, "and the second copy I have sent unto you, not only in good affection, hut in a kind of congruity, in regard of your great and rare desert of learning. For books are theshrines where the saint is, or is believed to be. And you, having built an ark to save learning from deluge, deserve propriety in any new instrument or engine, whereby learning should be improved or advanced."— Steph. 19. - ↑ Nor doth our trumpet summon, and encourage men to tear and rend one another with contradictions; and in a civil rage to bear arms, and wage war against themselves; but rather, a peace concluded between them, they may with joint force direct their strength against Nature herself; and take her high towers, and dismantle her fortified holds; and I thus enlarge the borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty God in his goodness shall permit.— Adv. Learn.
