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The Essays of Francis Bacon/V Of Adversity

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The Essays of Francis Bacon (1908)
by Francis Bacon, edited by Mary Augusta Scott
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V. Of Adversity.[1]

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum secundarum optabilia; adversarum mirabilia.[2] Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God. Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei.[3] This would have done better in poesy,[4] where transcendences[5] ​are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery;[6] nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian; that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus,[7] (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh thorough the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean.[8] The virtue of Prosperity is temperance; the virtue of Adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; Adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in ​describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities[9] of Salomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad[10] and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed[11] or crushed: for Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue.



  1. ↑ This essay was first printed in the edition of 1625, after Bacon had experienced the height of prosperity as Lord Chancellor and the depth of adversity in his degradation and fall.
  2. ↑ Ilia bona optabilia, haec mirabilia sunt. L. Annaei Senecae ad Lucilium Epistularum Moralium Liber VII. Epistula IV. 29.
  3. ↑ Ecce res magna, habere inbecillitatem hominis, securitatem dei. L. Annaei Senecae ad Lucilium Epistularum Moralium Liber VI. Epistula I. 12.
  4. ↑ Poesy. Poetry.

    "Music and poesy use, to quicken you."
    Shakspere. The Taming of the Shrew. i. 1.

  5. ↑ Transcendence. Elevation, loftiness (of thought).
  6. ↑ Mystery. Hidden meaning, as in the word 'myth,' which is a fable containing elements of truth.
  7. ↑ Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, one of the Titans. He formed men of clay, and animated them with fire brought from heaven. For this Jupiter sent Mercury to bind him to the Caucasus, where a vulture preyed upon his liver until killed by Hercules. 'Prometheus' means 'the Foreknower,' as in Mrs. Browning's drama, Prometheus Bound,

    "Unto me the foreknower."

    W. M. Rossetti, in his Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley, p. 97, places Shelley's drama, Prometheus Unbound, 1820, "at the summit of all latter poetry." "It is the ideal poem of perpetual and triumphant progression—the Atlantis of Man Emancipated." Prometheus; or the State of Man, in Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, is Bacon's version of the myth of Prometheus.
  8. ↑ To speak in a mean. To speak with moderation.

    "the golden mean, and quiet flow,
    Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife."

    Wordsworth. Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part III. Sacheverel. 13–14.
  9. ↑ Felicities. Prosperous circumstances, successes.
  10. ↑ Sad. Dark-colored. "This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a clean virtuoso—a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the curled back of a mug-ewe." Scott. The Monastery. Introductory Epistle.
  11. ↑ Incensed. Enkindled, set on fire. "The same Mr. Bettenham [Reader of Gray's Inn] said: That virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell, till they be broken and crushed." Bacon. Apophthegmes New and Old. 253.
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