In the year l596 Bacon completed a valuable tract upon the elements and use of the common law. It consists in the first part of twenty-five legal maxims, as specimens selected from three hundred, in which he was desirous to establish in the science of law, as he was to establish in all science, general truths for the diminution of individual labour, and the foundation of future discoveries: and, his opinion being that general truths could be discovered only by an extensive collection of particulars, he proceeded in this work upon the plan suggested in his Novum Organum.
In the second part he explains the use of the law for the security of persons, reputation, and property; which, with the greatest anxiety to advance freedom of thought and liberty of action, he well knew and always inculcated, was to be obtained only by the strength of the law restraining and directing individual strength.[1] In Orpheus's Theatre, he says, "all beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, and some of quarrel, stood all sociably together, listening to the 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 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, and harangues; so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion."
His preface contains his favourite doctrine, that "there is a debt of obligation from every member of a profession to assist in improving the science in which he has successfully practised," and he dedicated his work to the queen, as a sheaf and cluster of fruit of the good and favourable season enjoyed by the nation, from the influence of her happy government, by which the people were taught that part of the study of a good prince was to adorn and honour times of peace by the improvement of the laws. Although this tract was written in the year 1596, and although he was always a great admirer of Elizabeth, it was not published till after his death.
The exertions which had been made by Essex to obtain the solicitorship for his friend, and his generous anxiety to mitigate his disappointment, had united them by the strongest bonds of affection.
In the summer of 1596, Essex was appointed to the command of an expedition against Spain; and though he was much troubled during the embarkation of his troops, by the want of discipline in the soldiery, chiefly volunteers, and by the contentions of their oilicers, too equal to be easily commanded, yet he did not forget the interests of Bacon, but wrote from Plymouth to the new-placed lord keeper, and all his friends in power, strongly recommending him to their protection.
In the early part of the year 1597 his first publication appeared. It is a small 12mo. volume of Essays, Religious Meditations, and a table of the Colours of Good and Evil. In his dedication to his loving and beloved brother, he states that he published to check the circulation of spurious copies, "like some owners of orchards, who gathered the fruit before it was ripe, to prevent stealing;" and he expresses his conviction that there was nothing in the volume contrary, but rather medicinable to religion and manners, and his hope that the Essays would, to use his own words, "be like the late new Halfpence, which, though the pieces were small, the silver was good."
The Essays, which are ten[2] in number, abound with condensed thought and practical wisdom neatly, pressly, and weightily stated,[3] and, like all his early works, are simple, without imagery. They are written in his favourite style of aphorisms, although each essay is apparently a continued work;[4] and without that love of antithesis and false glitter to which truth and justness of thought is frequently sacrificed by the writers of maxims.
Another edition, with a translation of the Meditationes Sacræ, was published in the next year; and a third in 1612, when he was solicitor-general; and a fourth in 1625, the year before his death.
The essays in the subsequent editions are much augmented, according to his own words; "I always alter when I add, so that nothing is finished till all his finished," and they are adorned by happy and familiar illustration, as in the essay of "Wisdom for a Man's self," which concludes in the edition of 1625 with the following extract, not to be found in the previous edition:—"Wisdom for a man's self is in many branches thereof a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it
- ↑ In societati civili, aut lex aut vis valet—Justitia Universalis.
- ↑ 1. Of Study.
2. Of Discourse.
3. Of Ceremonies and Respect.
4. Of Followers and Friends.
5. Suitors.
6. Of Expense.
7. Of Regiment of Health.
8. Of Honour and Reputation.
9. Of Faction.
10. Of Negociating. - ↑ See Ben Jonson's description of his speaking in parliament, ante. 25.
- ↑ The following ia selected as a specimen from his first essay "Of Study:"
¶Reade not to contradict, nor to believe, but to waigh and consider.
¶ Some bookes are to be tasted, others to he swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. That is, some bookes are to be read only in parties; others to be read but cursorily, and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention.
¶Histories make men wise, poets wittie, the mathematicks subtle, natural philosophie deepe, moral, grave; logicke, and rhetoricke able to contend.
