Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/124

cxvi than the fire of the temple, which went not out by day or by night. He saw it in the loveliness of his own beautiful description of the blessings of government. "In Orpheus's theatre all beasts and birds assembled, and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, 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 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, of 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."

In gradual reform of the law, his exertions were indefatigable. He suggested improvements both of the civil and criminal law: he proposed to reduce and compile the whole law; and in a tract upon universal justice, "Leges Legum," he planted a seed which, for the last two centuries, has not been dormant, and is now just appearing above the surface. He was thus attentive to the ultimate and to the immediate improvement of the law: the ultimate improvement depending upon the progress of knowledge. "Veritas temporis filia dicitur, non authoritatis:" the immediate improvement upon the knowledge by its professors in power, of the local law, the principles of legislation, and general science.

So this must ever be. Knowledge cannot exist without the love of improvement. The French chancellors, D'Aguesseau and L'Hôpital, were unwearied in their exertions to improve the law; and three works upon imaginary governments, the Utopia, the Atlantis, and the Armata, were written by English chancellors.

So Sir William Grant, the reserved, intellectual master of the rolls, struck at the root of sanguinary punishment, when, in the true spirit of philosophy, he said, "Crime is prevented, not by fear, but by recoiling from the act with horror which is generated by the union of law, morals, and religion. With us they do not unite; and our laws are a dead letter."

So, too, by the exertions of the philosophic and benevolent Sir Samuel Romilly, who was animated by a spirit public as nature, and not terminated in any private design, the criminal law has been purified; and, instead of monthly mas sacres of young men and women, we, in our noble times, have lately read that "there has not been one execution in London during the present shrievalty."—With what joy, with what grateful remembrance has this been read by the many friend; of that illustrious statesman, who, regardless of the senseless yells by which he was vilified, went right onward in the improvement of law, the advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of charity.

Such were Bacon's public exertions.—In private life he was always cheerful and often playful, according to his own favourite maxim, "To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting."

The art of conversation, that social mode of diffusing kindness and knowledge, he considered to be one of the valuable arts of life, and all that he taught he skilfully and gracefully practised. When he spoke, the hearers only feared that he should be silent, yet he was more pleased to listen than to speak, "glad to light his torch at my man's candle." He was skilful in alluring his company to discourse upon subjects in which they were most conversant. He was ever happy to commend, and unwilling to censure; and when he could not assent to an opinion, he would set forth its ingenuity, and so grace and adorn it by his own luminous statement, that his opponent could not feel lowered by his defeat.

His wit was brilliant, and when it flashed upon any subject, it was never with ill-nature, which, like the crackling of thorns, ending in sudden darkness, is only fit for a fool's laughter; the sparkling of his wit was that of the precious diamond, valuable for its worth and weight, denoting the riches of the mine.

He had not any children; but, says Dr. Rawley, the want of children did not detract from his good usage of his consort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endowments, besides a robe of honour which he invested her withal, which she wore until her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death."

He was religious, and died in the faith established in the church of England.

Bacon has been accused of servility, of dissimulation, of various base motives, and their filthy brood of base actions, all unworthy of his high birth, and incompatible with his great wisdom, and the estimation in which he was held by the noblest spirits of the age. It is true that there were men in his own time, and will be men in all times, who are better pleased to count spots in the sun than to rejoice in its glorious brightness. Such men have openly libelled him, like Dewes and Weldon, whose falsehoods were detected as soon as uttered, or have fastened upon certain ceremonious compliments and dedications, the fashion of his day, as a sample of his servility, passing over his noble letters to the queen, his lofty contempt for the Lord Keeper Puckering, his open dealing with Sir Robert Cecil and with