Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/86

Rh The love of classical learning, breadth of view, benevolence, and wit are qualities which distinguish alike the essays of Michel de Montaigne and Francis Bacon.

Montaigne observes of the moral insensibility of Francesco Guicciardini, his cold, passionless manner of depicting a great national tragedy, the decline and fall of his own country after the French invasion of 1494, "among the many motives and counsels on which he adjudicates, he never attributes any one of them to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these were quite extinct in the world." Bacon had doubtless read Montaigne's opinion of Guicciardini, in the second book of his Essais. He had undoubtedly read Guicciardini's L'historia d'italia, either in the original, or what is more likely, in the translation of Geoffrey Fenton, The Historie of Guicciardin (1579). Fenton's Guicciardini was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, and was a popular translation from the Italian, running to three editions during her reign and one in King James's time. There is a certain likeness between Guicciardini and Bacon in both career and character. Benedetto Yarchi, his contemporary and fellow-historian, writes of Guicciardini, "Messer Francesco, besides his noble birth, his riches and his academical degree, and besides having been Governor and Viceroy of the Pope, was highly esteemed and enjoyed a great reputation; not only for his knowledge, but for his great practical acquaintance with the affairs of the world and the actions of men. Of such he would Rh