the Fifth, entitled 'Of Adversity,' which was also one of those added in the edition of 1625:

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired-Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia.' Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god-Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei.' This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery, nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian: That Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; livelily describing Christian resolution that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. We see in needle-works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

.......

The Sixth Essay, 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' was likewise new in 1625. The following are its most

material or striking passages:

Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, 'Livia sorted well with the arts of her hus band and dissimulation of her son, attributing arts or policy to Augustus and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius.'

These properties of arts, or policy and dissimulation, or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties, several, and to be distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half lights, and to whom, and when (which indeed are arts of state and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him, a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness: but if a man cannot attain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn: and at such times, when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith, and clearness of dealing, made them almost invisible. In few words,

mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides, to say truth, nakedness is uncomely as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal; for he that talketh what he knoweth will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down, that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral. And in this part it is good, that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self, by the tracks of his countenance is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words.

In conclusion, those advantages which are considered to belong to the practice of Simulation and Dissimulation having been enumerated, it is added :—

The first,

There be also three disadvantages to set it even. that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark. The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends. The third and greatest is, that it

D

depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action, which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature is to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign if there be no remedy.

Of the Seventh Essay, entitled' Of Parents and Children,' which is one of those first printed in 1612, it will be enough to give a few sentences at the beginning :

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears; they cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works are proper to men: and surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity.

We will transcribe the whole of the Eighth, entitled 'Of Marriage and Single Life,' also one of those first given in the collection of 1612:

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinencies. Nay, there are some others that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish, rich, covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, 'Such an one is a great rich man ; and another except to it, 'Yea, but he hath a great charge of children,' as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especi

ally in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives put men in mind of their wives and children. And I think the despising of marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet on the other side they are more cruel and hard hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their tenderness is not so often called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands; as was said of Ulysses, Vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.'* Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds both of chastity and obedience in the wife if she think her husband wise, which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, When a man should marry?-'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.' It is often seen that bad husbands have very good wives, whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband's kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fails if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent. for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

The Ninth Essay is entitled 'Of Envy,' (the word being here used in its modern sense, and not in that sometimes borne by the Latin invidia, hatred generally, or hatred arising merely from a wish to displace, in which it often occurs in other parts of Bacon's writings). It was first published in 1625. It commences thus:

* He preferred his old woman to immortality.

There be none of the affections which have een noted to

fascinate or bewitch but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects which are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing there be. We see, likewise, the Scripture calleth envy an evil eye; and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars, evil aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged in the act of envy an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye. Nay, some have been so curious as to note, that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph, for that sets an edge upon envy; and besides at such times the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the outward parts, and so meet the

blow.

And the following is the concluding paragraph:

We will add this in general, touching the affection of envy, that, of all other affections, it is the most importune and continual; for of other affections there is occason given but now and then. And therefore it was well said, 'Invidia festos dies non agit;'* for it is ever working upon some or other. And it is also noted, that love and envy do make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual. It is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for which cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is called the envious man, that soweth tares amongst the wheat by night: as it always cometh to pass that envy worketh subtilly and in the dark, and to the prejudice of good things, such as is the wheat.

The Tenth Essay, 'Of Love,' is in the collection of 1612. It is not very long, but a few sentences will convey the substance of the whole :

The stage is more beholden to love than the life of man: for as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a syren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one

* Envy keeps no holidays.