Again-

“All practice is to discover or to work. Men discover themselves in trust, in passion, at unawares, and of necessity, when they would have somewhat done and cannot find an apt pretext. If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have interest in him, and so govern him."

Paragraphs.-In connection with the paragraph may be noticed. a peculiarity in the composition of the Essays. As a rule, Bacon's paragraphs are, comparatively, very good; he has a sense of method and good arrangement. In the Advancement of Learning' he adheres to a simple scheme; and the sentences of separate paragraphs are not inconsecutive nor complicated, as Hooker's sometimes are. But the Essays are of a peculiar structure. They are not, nor are they intended to be, consecutive expositions; each is a string of detached reflections and maxims bearing upon the same subject. The author's intention is more apparent in his first edition; he there distinguishes the transitions by the obsolete mark ¶. Thus, in the passage quoted from the Essay on Studies, there are four such marks, one at the head of each of the four different tacks-showing that he changed his tack advisedly, and not from confusion.

Figures of Speech-Similitudes.—Bacon's pages are very thickly strewn with similitudes. The first edition of the Essays is less figurative than the latest edition; the enlargements of the original ten often consist of additional figures.

That his earlier writings should be less figurative, accords with the character of his figures. They are not elaborated like the figures of Jeremy Taylor or Carlyle: his first care was the plain expression of his meaning; he made little effort to obtain similitudes, but took them rather when they came of themselves. He is sometimes spoken of as an imaginative writer; but this is not accurate if imagination is held to imply poetical feeling his imagery is not evoked to gratify any poetical feeling refined or unrefined, but partly for purposes of illustration, aud partly in the exercise of his incontinent quickness to discover analogy. This appears the moment we look at any number of his similitudes together. They are taken almost exclusively from familiar objects and operations in nature and human life. In his narrative their number is more within bounds, and they are usually very graphic; in the Essays they are often superfluous.

We shall exemplify his similitudes at some length, as the best way of showing that they are taken from familiar things, and that they are more illustrative than poetical :

"For Pope Alexander, finding himself pent and locked up by a league and association of the principal States of Italy, that he could not make his

way for the advancement of his own house (which he immoderately thirsted after), was desirous to trouble the waters in Italy, that he might fish the better."

When Henry was threatened with a Scotch war, a Cornish insurrection, and the pretender Perkin Warbeck all at once, he judged it

"His best and surest way to keep his strength together in the seat and centre of his kingdom; according to the ancient Indian emblem-in such a swelling season, to hold his hand upon the middle of the bladder that no side might rise."

After recounting Henry's fine calculations regarding the action of Continental powers, he says:

"But those things were too fine to be fortunate and succeed in all parts; for that great affairs are commonly too rough and stubborn to be wrought upon by the finer edges or points of wit."

The following is the opening sentence of the fragment on Henry VIII. :—

"After the decease of that wise and fortunate king, King Henry the Seventh, who died in the height of his prosperity, there followed (as useth to do when the sun setteth so exceeding clear) one of the fairest mornings of a kingdom that hath been known in this land or anywhere else."

He very often uses these metaphors taken from the phenomena of the weather. At the outset of his reign, Henry, in his account of peace and calms, "did much overcast his fortunes, which proved for many years together full of broken seas, tides, and tempests." When the King has passed through any of his troubles, it is "fair weather" again. The news of Perkin Warbeck's claims " comes thundering and blazing" from abroad. So in the Essay on Seditions he says that "as there are certain hollow blasts of wind, and secret swellings of seas before tempests, so are there in States.' Perhaps his most favourite figures are those taken from medicine and surgery: he is fond of likening individuals and societies to a body, and supposing them subject to disease, or operated on by a physician or surgeon. Thus

"The King of Scotland laboured under the same disease that King Henry did (though more mortal, as it afterwards appeared), that is, discontented subjects, apt to rise and raise tumult."

So with King Henry, insurrection was "almost a fever that took him every year." In his punishment of treason, Henry "commonly drew blood (as physicians do), rather to save life than to spill it." A good many figures of this kind might be picked from the Essays. Thus

"It were too long to go over all the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind-sometimes purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping the diges

tion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and ulcerations thereof, and the like."

Again, regarding seditions, he says:

"To give moderate liberty for griefs and discontentments to evaporate (so it be without too great insolence or bravery) is a safe way. For he that turneth the humours back, and maketh the wound bleed inwards, endangereth malign ulcers and pernicious imposthumations."

His well-known figure concerning Truth has a more poetical tone than his figures usually have :

"This same Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights."

This was written after his fall. It is worth noticing that, in these latest Essays, both the subjects and the illustrations show a growing sense of the pleasures of retirement.

A

Other figures than similitudes occur in Bacon's writing. "corrective spice" of antithesis runs through all his works; sometimes conducing to clearness and force, sometimes amusing with its ingenuity. It is illustrated in extracts under various heads. Of the abrupt figures he makes very little use; his style is too grave and sober. At the same time he knows their effect in declamation, and introduces them upon occasion. See an instance at p. 251.

QUALITIES OF STYLE.

Simplicity. The best evidence of the general intelligibility of Bacon's style is that so little has been said about it. He is neither markedly Latinised nor markedly familiar; he is perhaps less affected than any of his contemporaries. In his Advancement of Learning,' addressed to King James, he seems to humour the pelantry of the monarch, and introduces not a few Latin quotations without translating them. In his other works there is less of this; there is little obstruction to our getting at his meaning, except an occasional technical term. And through all his writings the numerous homely and pointed illustrations make his meaning abundantly luminous.

Clearness. In perspicuity of arrangement, he is much superior to any of the Elizabethan writers. To quote the arrangement of his Novum Organum' (see p. 243) is hardly pertinent, seeing that it was written in Latin; still, it may be referred to as an example of his orderly and simple method. The order of topics in the Advancement of Learning' is also both simple and free from confusion. His classification of the sciences, though deficient as a scientific classification for modern purposes, being superseded by

the vast enlargement of the subjects of human knowledge in recent times, is a very lucid division so far as it goes, and as "a small globe of the intellectual world" was very serviceable in its day. The divisions are so clear, and proceed upon distinctions so familiar, that though the subdivision is carried to the eighth degree, there is not the least perplexity to any mind of ordinary education.

We cannot concede to him the praise of scientific precision; indeed he often affirms fundamental resemblance where the resemblance is only slender and superficial. Distinctness in the use of words was no part of his scheme of philosophical reformation; the confusion of ambiguous terms in science could not begin to be felt until science was more advanced.

Still, in one of the subjects that his practical life brought him to consider, we find him aware of the danger of loosely applying the same term to things not precisely alike. With reference to the religious disputes of the time, he objected to the term priest for a clergyman; minister, he said, or presbyter, would be better, and the term priest should be reserved for the sacrificing priests under the old law.

This

Apart from rigid exactness, Bacon has in an eminent degree what is called incisiveness of style; his words and figures go straight to the point. His remarks on Studies are a good example of making a statement clear by giving counter-statements. art of style appears in all his writings. True, he often uses the "but" of contrast where there is no real opposition, and merely to indicate a fresh start: nevertheless he does make frequent and effective use of contrast for purposes of exact expression. Thus―

"There followed this year, being the second of the King's reign, a strange accident of state, whereof the relations which we have are so naked, as they leave it scarce credible; not for the nature of it (for it hath fallen out oft), but for the manner and circumstance of it, especially in the beginnings." Here we have, in a less finished form, the scrupulosity of qualifi cation that is so marked a feature in the style of De Quincey. The following sentence, which is more finished, contains a vividly incisive use of contrast:

"Neither was the King's nature and customs greatly fit to disperse such mists, but contrariwise he had a fashion rather to create doubts than assur

ance.

The passages italicised in the two following contain ingenious distinctions clearly expressed :—

"For the opinion of plenty is amongst the causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge nevertheless is not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the enchanters."

Towards removing all hindrances to the pursuit of knowledge, he says:

"The endeavours of a private man may be but as an image in a crossway, that may point at the way, but cannot go it."

Strength. The quality of strength in his style is intellectual rather than emotional. In his narrative there is very little expression of feeling; the strength comes chiefly from conciseness, secured by comprehensive statement, pregnant metaphor, and occasional strokes of epigrammatic condensation. The following is a fair specimen of his way of relating events; in disentangling a variety of motives or exhibiting negotiations, he allows himself greater amplitude:

"At York there came fresh and more certain advertisement that the Lord Lovell was at hand with a great power of men, and that the Staffords were in arms in Worcestershire, and had made their approaches to the city of Worcester to assail it. The King, as a prince of great and profound judgment, was not much moved with it, for that he thought it was but a rag or reinnant of Bosworth Field, and had nothing in it of the main party of the house of York. But he was more doubtful of the raising of forces to resist the rebels than of the resistance itself, for that he was in a core of people whose affections he suspected. But the action enduring no delay, he did speedily levy and send against the Lord Lovell to the number of three thousand men, ill armed, but well assured (being taken some few out of his own train, and the rest out of the tenants and followers of such as were safe to be trusted), under the conduct of the Duke of Bedford. And as his manner was to send his pardons rather before the sword than after, he gave commission to the Duke to proclaim pardon to all that would come in, which the Duke, upon his approach to the Lord Lovell's camp, did perform. And it fell out as the King expected; the heralds were the great ordnance.

The effect of the vigorous expression is enhanced by the penetrating ingenuity and freshness of the thought. We spoke of this in our survey of his character. The pleasure of reading him is almost purely dependent upon the exercise of the intellect. How little gratification he affords to ordinary human feeling will be made apparent by a single example. Contrast the following with Hooker's manner of approaching a similar theme; Bacon's subtlety is at work to discover arguments where Hooker is lost in adoration:

"First, therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning; for all learning is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original; and therefore we must look for it by another name, that of wisdom or sapience, as the Scriptures call it.

"It is so, then, that in the work of the creation we see a double emanation of virtue from God; the one referring more properly to power, the other to wisdom; the one expressed in making the subsistence of the matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form. This being supposed, it is to be observed that for anything which appeareth in the history of the creation,