Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/239

 55. Queen Elizabeth was wont to say of her instructions to great officers, "That they were like to garments, strait at the first putting on, but did by and by wear loose enough."

56. Mr. Marbury the preacher would say, "That God was fain to do with wicked men, as men do with frisking jades in a pasture, that cannot take them up, till they get them at a gate. So wicked men will not be taken up till the hour of death."

57. Thales, as he looked upon the stars, fell into the water; whereupon it was after said, "That if he had looked into the water he might have seen the stars, but looking up to the stars he could not see the water."

58. The hook of deposing King Richard the Second, and the coming in of Henry the Fourth, supposed to be written by Doctor Hayward, who was committed to the Tower for it, had much incensed Queen Elizabeth; and she asked Mr. Bacon, being then of her learned counsel, "Whether there was any treason contained in it?" Mr. Bacon intending to do him a pleasure, and to take off the queen's bitterness with a merry conceit, answered, "No, madam, for treason I cannot deliver opinion that there is any, but very much felony." The queen, apprehending it gladly, asked, "How? and wherein?" Mr. Bacon answered, "Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus."

59. Mr. Popham, when he was speaker, and the Lower House had sat long, and done in effect nothing; coming one day to Queen Elizabeth, she said to him; "Now, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Lower House?" He answered, "If it please your majesty, seven weeks." 60. Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who was a poor man's son, and his father's house ill thatched, so that the sun came in in many places, would sport with his ignobility, and say, "He was nato di casa illustre: son of an illustrious house." 61. When the King of Spain conquered Portugal, he gave special charge to his lieutenant, that the soldiers should not spoil, lest he should alienate the hearts of the people: the army also suffered much scarcity of victual. Whereupon the Spanish soldiers would afterwards say, "that they had won the king a kingdom, as the kingdom of heaven used to be won: by fasting and abstaining from that that is another man's."

62. Cicero married his daughter to Dolabella that held Cæsar's party: Pompey had married Julia, that was Cæsar's daughter. After, when Cæsar and Pompey took arms one against the other, and Pompey had passed the seas, and Cæsar possessed Italy, Cicero stayed somewhat long in Italy, but at last sailed over to join with Pompey; who when he came unto him, Pompey said, "You are welcome, but where left you your son-in-law?" Cicero answered, "With your father-in-law."

63. Nero was wont to say of his master Seneca, "That his style was like mortar of sand without lime." 64. Sir Henry Wotton used to say, "That critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes." 65. Queen Elizabeth being to resolve upon a great officer, and being by some, that canvassed for others, put in some doubt of that person whom she meant to advance, called for Mr. Bacon, and told him, "She was like one with a lantern seeking a man;" and seemed unsatisfied in the choice she had of men for that place. Mr. Bacon answered her, "That he had heard that in old time there was usually painted on the church walls the day of doom, and God sitting in judgment, and St. Michael by him with a pair of balances; and the soul and the good deeds in the one balance, and the faults and the evil deeds in the other: and the soul's balance went up far too light. Then was our lady painted with a great pair of beads, who cast them into the light balance, and brought down the scale: so, he said, place and authority, which were in her hands to give, were like our lady's beads, which though men, through divers imperfections, were too light before, yet when they were cast in, made weight competent." 66. Mr. Savill was asked by my Lord of Essex his opinion touching poets. Who answered my lord; "that he thought them the best writers, next to those that writ prose." 67. Mr. Mason of Trinity College sent his pupil to another of the fellows, to borrow a book of him, who told him, "I am loath to lend my books out of my chamber, but if it please thy tutor to come and read upon it in my chamber he shall as long as he will." It was winter, and some days after the same fellow sent to Mr. Mason to borrow his bellows; but Mr. Mason said to his pupil, "I am loath to lend my bellows out of my chamber, but if thy tutor would come and blow the fire in my chamber he shall as long as he will." 68. Nero did cut a youth, as if he would have transformed him into a woman, and called him wife; there was a senator of Rome that said secretly to his friend, "It was a pity Nero's father had not such a wife." 69. Galba succeeded Nero, and his age being much despised, there was much license and confusion in Rome; whereupon a senator said in full senate, "It were better live where nothing is lawful, than where all things are lawful." 70. In Flanders, by accident a Flemish tiler fell from the top of a house upon a Spaniard, and killed him, though he escaped himself; the next of the blood prosecuted his death with great violence, and when he was offered pecuniary recompense, nothing would serve him but "lex talionis;" whereupon the judge said to him, "that if he did urge that kind of sentence, it must be, that he should go up to the top of the house, and then fall down upon the tiler." 71. Queen Elizabeth was dilatory enough in