Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/376

 248 NOTES TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. And Tucker, in his most valuable work on the Light of Nature pursued, in his chapter on vanity, says, &quot; We find in fact that the best and greatest men, those who have done the most essential services t^ mankind, have been the most free from the impulses of vanity. Lycurgus and Solon, those two excellent lawgivers, appear to have had none : Socrates, the prime apostle of reason, Euclid and Hip pocrates, had none : whereas Protagoras with his brother sophists, Diogenes, Epicurus, Lucretius, the Stoics who were the bigots, and the latter Academies who were the free thinkers of antiquity, were overrun with it. And among the moderns, Boyle, Newton, Locke, have made large improve ments in the sciences without the aid of vanity; while some others I could name, having drawn in copiously of that in- I toxicating vapour, have laboured only to perplex and obscure them.&quot; Thomas Carlysle, in his Life of Schiller, just published, says, &quot;The end of literature was not, in Schiller s judgment, to amuse the idle, or to recreate the busy, by showing spectacles for the imagination, or quaint paradoxes and epigrammatic disquisitions for the understanding: least of all was it to gratify in any shape the selfishness of its professors, to mi nister to their malignity, their love of money, or even of fame. For persons who degrade it to such purposes, the deepest con tempt of which his kindly nature could admit was at all times in store. Unhappy mortal! says he to the literary trades man, the man who writes for gain, Unhappy mortal ! that with science and art, the noblest of all instruments, cffectest and attemptest nothing more, than the day drudge with the meanest ! That in the domain of perfect freedom bearest about in thee the spirit of a slave! As Schiller viewed it, genuine literature includes the essence of philosophy, religion, art; whatever speaks to the immortal part of man. The daughter, she is likewise the nurse of all that is spiritual and exalted in our character. The boon she bestows is truth; truth not merely physical, political, economical, such as the sensual man in us is perpetually demanding, ever ready to reward, and likely in general to find ; but the truth of moral feeling, truth of taste, th;it inward truth in its thousand mo difications, which only the most ethereal portion of our na ture can discern, but without which that portion of it lan guishes and dies, and we are left divested of our birthright, thenceforward of the earth earthy, machines for earning and enjoying no longer worthy to be called the Sons of Hea ven. The treasures of literature are thus celestial, imperish able, beyond all price: with her is the shrine of our best hopes, the palladium of pure manhood; to be among the guardians and servants of this is the noblest function that can be entrusted to a mortal. Genius, even in its faintest scintillations, is the inspired gift of God; a solemn mandate to its owner to go forth and labour in his sphere, to keep alive the sacred fire among his brethren, which the heavy and polluted atmosphere of this world is forever threatening to extinguish. Woe to him if he neglect this mandate, if he hear not its small still voice &amp;lt; Woe to him if he turn this inspired gift into the servant of his evil or ignoble passions ; if he offer it on the altar of vanity, if he sell it for a piece of money !&quot; The most apparent extraordinary influence of ambition, which is but a form of the love of excelling, is in the conduct of Lord Bacon in his political life, who appears to have been attracted by worldly distinction, although he well knew its emptiness, and well knew &quot;how much it diverteth and inter- rupteth the prosecution and advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which while ehe goeth aside and stoopeth to take up the race is hindered.&quot;* That Bacon s real inclination was for contemplation, ap pears in the following letters : &quot; To rny Lord Treasurer Burgh- ley, (A. D. 1591.) &quot;My lord, with as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service, and your honourable correspondence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your lordship. I wax now somewhat ancient ; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed ; and I do not fear that action fchall impair it ; because I account my ordinary course of Mudy and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bear a mind, in some middle place that I could discharge, to serve her majesty ; not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour; nor under Jupiter, that lovetj? business, for the contemplative planet carrieth me auay wholly: but as a man Morn under an excellent sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of nil men s abilities. I!-siili s I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater part of my thoughts are to deserve well, if 1 were able of my friends, and namely of your lordship; who being tlm Alias of this commonwealth, the honour of my house, and the se cond founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever 1 am, to do you ser- me : for though I cannot accuse myself, that 1 am either pro digal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends : for I have taken all knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities: the other with blind exped ients and auricular traditions, and impostures, halh com- lilted so many spoils; I hope I should bring in industrious bservations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vainglory, or nature, or, if one take it favourably, philanthropic, is so fixed in my mind, as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man s own ; which is a thing I greatly affect. And for your lordship, perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other. And if your lord ship shall find now or at any time, that I do seek or affect any place, whereunto any that is nearer unto your lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest man. And if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty: but this I will do, I will sell the nheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and beconih some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, which, he said, lay so deep. This which I have writ unto your lordship, is rather thoughts than words, being set down without all art, disguising, or reservation: wherein I have done honour both to your lordship s wisdom, in judging that that will be best believed of your lordship which is truest; and to your lordship s good nature, in retaining no thing from you. And even so, I wish your lordship all hap piness, and to myself means and occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do your service. From my lodging at Gray s-Inn.&quot; &quot;To the Lord Treasurer Burghley. It may please your good lordship, I am to give you humble thanks for your favourable opinion, which by Mr. Secretary s report I find you conceive of me. for the obtaining of a good place, which some of my honourable friends have wished unto me nee opinHnti. I will use no reason to persuade your lordship 8 mediation, but this, that your lordship, and my other friends, shall in this beg my life of the queen ; for I see well the bar will be my bier, as I must and will use it, rather than my poor estate or reputation shall decay.&quot; &quot;To my Lord of Essex. For as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters of the Spaw, that give a stomach ; but rather they quench appetite and desires.&quot; A letter of recommendation of his service to the Earl of Northumberland, a few days before Queen Elizabeth s death. &quot;To be plain with your lordship, it is very true, and no winds or noises of civil matters can blow this out of my head or heart, that your great capacity and love towards studies and contemplations of a higher and worthier nature, than popular, a nature rare in the world, and in a person of your lordship s quality almost singular, it is to me a great and chief motive to draw my affection and admiration towards you.&quot; &quot;To Mr. Matthew.&quot; Written, as it seems, when he had made progress in the Novum Organum, probably about 1609. &quot;I must confess my desire to be, that my writings should not court the present time, or some few places, in such sort as might make them either less general to persons, or less per manent in future ages. As to the Instauration your so full approbation thereof I read with much comfort, by how much more my heart la upon it; and by how much less I expected consent and concuirence in a matter so obscure. Of .bis I
 * See page 174 of this voln