Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/63

Rh and to different statesmen, and, to secure its perpetuity, he exerted himself with his friends to procure a translation of it into Latin, which, in the decline of his life, he accomplished.

As a philosopher, Bacon, who beheld all things from a cliff, thus viewed the intellectual globe, dilating his sight to survey the whole of science, and contracting it so that the minutest object could not escape him.

Sweet as such speculations were to such a mind: pleasing as the labour must have been in surmounting the steeps: delightful to tarry upon them, and painful to quit them, he did not suffer contemplation to absorb his mind; but, as a statesman, he was ever in action, ever advancing the welfare of his country. These opposite exertions were the necessary result of his peculiar mind; for, as knowledge takes away vain admiration; as no man marvels at the play of puppets who has been behind the curtain, Bacon could not have been misled by the baubles by which common minds are delighted; and, as he had examined the nature of all pleasures, and felt that knowledge and benevolence, which is ever in its train, surpassed them all; the chief source of his happiness, wherever situated, must have consisted in diminishing evil and in promoting good.

With his delicate health and intense love of knowledge, he ought in prudence to have shunned the broad way and the green, and retreated to contemplation; but it was his favourite opinion that, "in this theatre of man's life, God and angels only should be lookers-on; that contemplation and action ought ever to be united, a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest, and Jupiter, the planet of action." He could not, thus thinking, but engage in active life; and, so engaged, he could not but act in obedience to the passion by which he was alone animated; by exerting himself and endeavouring to excite others to promote the public good. We find him, therefore, labouring as a statesman and a patriot to improve the condition of Ireland; to promote the union of England and Scotland; to correct the errors which had crept into our religious establishments, and to assist in the amendment of the law; and, not content with the fruits of his own exertions, calling upon all classes of society to co-operate in reform.

To professional men he says, "I hold that every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they to endeavour themselves by way of amends, to be a help and ornament." And he admonishes the king, that, "as a duty to himself, to the people, and to the King of kings, he ought to erect temples, tombs, palaces, theatres, bridges, make noble roads, cut canals, grant multitude of charters and liberties for comfort of decayed companies and corporations; found colleges and lectures for learning and the education of youth; institute orders and fraternities for nobility, enterprise, and obedience; but, above all, establish good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world." On the first day of the ensuing year he thus presented, as a new year's gift, to the king, a discourse touching the plantation of Ireland: "I know not better how to express my good wishes of a new year to your majesty, than by this little book, which in all humbleness I send you. The style is a style of business, rather than curious or elaborate. And herein I was encouraged by my experience of your majesty's former grace, in accepting of the like poor field-fruits touching the union. And certainly I reckon this action as a second brother to the union. For I assure myself that England, Scotland, and Ireland, well united, is such a trefoil as no prince except yourself, who are the worthiest, weareth in his crown." In this discourse, his knowledge of the miseries of Ireland, that still neglected country, and of the mode of preventing them, with his heartfelt anxiety for her welfare, appears in all his ardent endeavours, by all the power he possessed, to insure the king's exertions for "this desolate and neglected country, blessed with almost all the dowries of nature, with rivers, havens, woods, quarries, good soil, temperate climate, and a race and generation of men, valiant, hard and active, as it is not easy to find such confluence of commodities, if the hand of man did join with the hand of nature; but they are severed,–the harp of Ireland is not strung or attuned to concord. This work, therefore, of all others most memorable and honourable, your majesty hath now in hand; specially, if your majesty join the harp of David, in casting out the evil spirit of superstition, with the harp of Orpheus, in casting out desolation and barbarism." His exertions respecting the union of England and Scotland were, both in and out of parliament, strenuous and unremitted. He spoke whenever the subject was agitated. He was a member of every committee that was formed to carry it into effect: he prepared the certificate of the commissioners appointed to treat of the union: and he was selected to report the result of a conference with the Lords; until, exhausted by fatigue, he was compelled to intercede with the House that he might be assisted by the co-operation of other members in the discharge of these arduous duties; and, it having been decided by all the judges, after an able argument of Bacon's, that all persons born in Scotland after the king's commission were natural born subjects, he laboured in parliament to extend these privileges to all Scotland, that the rights enjoyed by the children should not be withheld from their parents.

The journals of the Commons contain an outline of many of his speeches, of which one upon the