An Account of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon, Volume 1

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1880
 

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Page 57 - 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 experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries ; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it...
Page 659 - Your majesty may truly perceive, that, though I cannot challenge to myself either invention, or judgment, or elocution, or method, or any of those powers; yet my offering is care and observance : and as my good old mistress was wont to call me her watch-candle, because it pleased her to say, I did continually burn, and yet she suffered me to waste almost to nothing...
Page 650 - ... realm, doth cause a want, and doth cause likewise an overflow ; both of them inconvenient, and one of them dangerous. For by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry, and apprentices for trade : and on the other side, there being more scholars...
Page 56 - 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.
Page 482 - Sir Francis Bacon was married yesterday to his young wench in Maribone Chapel. He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and his wife such store of fine raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it draws deep into her portion.
Page 650 - ... there being more scholars bred than the state can prefer and employ; and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion to the preparative, it must needs fall out, that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations, and unprofitable for that in which they are brought up ; which fills the realm full of indigent, idle, and wanton people, which are but
Page 147 - The third, a goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine...
Page 54 - I think happeneth rarely among men : for I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that he set me about, whether it were matter of advice or otherwise, but, neglecting the queen's service, mine own fortune, and in a sort my vocation, I did nothing but advise and ruminate with myself, to the best of my understanding, propositions and memorials of any thing that might concern his lordship's honour, fortune, or service.
Page 300 - I would light nowhere but at my sovereign's feet, though she suffered me to be bruised with my fall. And till her Majesty — that knows I was never bird of prey — finds it to agree with her will and her service that my wings should be imped again, I have committed myself to the niue. No power but my God's and my sovereign's can alter this resolution of
Page 365 - Mr. Attorney, — I thought best, once for all, to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me. You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion.

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