vanity in themselves; like unto varnish, that makes ceilings not only shine, but last. . . . . . Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation. And amongst those arts there is none better than that which Plinius Secundus speaketh of, which is to be liberal of praise and commendation to others, in that wherein a man's self hath any perfection. For, saith Pliny, very wittily, 'In commending another you do yourself right, for he that you commend is either superior to you in that you commend, or inferior. If he be inferior, if he be to be commended, you much more; if he be superior, if he be not to be commended, you much less.' Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.

The Fifty-fifth, "Of Honour and Reputation," is one of the original Ten published in 1597. This is one of its sections :

The true marshalling of the degrees of sovereign honour are these in the first place are conditores imperiorum, founders of states and commonwealths, such as were Romulus, Cyrus, Cæsar, Ottoman, Ismael. In the second place are legislatores, lawgivers, which are also called second founders, or perpetui principes, because they govern by their ordinances after they are gone; such were Lycurgus, Solon, Justinian, Edgar, Alphonsus of Castile, the Wise, that made the Siete Patridas. In the third place are liberatores,† or salvatores; such as compound the long miseries of civil wars, or deliver their countries from servitude of strangers or tyrants; as Augustus Cæsar, Vespasianus, Aurelianus, Theodoricus, King Henry the Seventh of England, King Henry the Fourth of France. In the fourth place are propagatores, or propugnatores imperii,§ such as in honour able wars enlarge their territories or make noble defence against invaders. And in the last place are patres patriæ, which reign justly and make the times good wherein they live. Both which last kinds need no examples, they are in such number.

The Fifty-sixth, which was first published in 1612, is entitled "Of Judicature.' "The following are extracts :Judges ought to remember that their office is jus dicere and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law or give law. Else will it be like the authority claimed by the

*Perpetual sovereigns.

+ Deliverers.

+ Saviours.

§ Extenders or defenders of the state.

Fathers of their country.

Church of Rome, which under pretext of exposition of Scripture doth not stick to add and alter, and to pronounce that which they do not find; and by show of antiquity to introduce novelty. Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things integrity is their portion and proper virtue; 'Cursed' (saith the law) is he that removeth the landmark.' The mislayer of a mere stone is to blame, but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of land-marks, when he defineth amiss of lands and property. One foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples; for these do but corrupt the stream, the other corrupteth the fountain. A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way by raising valleys and taking down hills; so when there appeareth on either side an high hand, violent prosecution, cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a judge seen, to make inequality equal, that he may plant his judgment as upon ar even ground. Qui fortiter emuugit, elicit sanguinem;* and where the wine-press is hard wrought, it yields a harsh wine that tastes of the grape-stone. Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws, especially in case of laws penal; they ought to nave care, that that which was meant for terror be not turned into rigour, and that they bring not upon the people that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos;t for penal laws pressed are a shower of snares upon the people. Therefore let penal laws, if they have been sleepers of long, or if they be grown unfit for the present time, be by wise judges confined in the execution, Judicis officium est, ut res, ita tempora rerum, &c.‡ In causes of life and death, judges ought (as far as the law permitteth) in justice to remember mercy; and to cast a severe eye upon the example, but a merciful eye upon the person.

The parts of a judge in hearing are four: to direct the evidence; to moderate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said; and to give the rule or sentence. Whatsoever is above these is too much, and proceedeth either of glory and willingness to speak, or of impatience to hear, or of

*Wringing the nose brings blood.

He will rain snares upon them.

It is the office of a judge to consider not only the facts but the times and circumstances of the facts.

shortness of memory, or of want of a staid and equal attention It is a strange thing to see, that the boldness of advocates should prevail with judges; whereas they should imitate God, in whose seat they sit, who represseth the presumptuous and giveth grace to the modest. But it is more strange that judges should have noted favourites, which cannot but cause multiplication of fees and suspicion of by-ways. There is due from the judge to the advocate some commendation and gracing where causes are well handled and fair pleaded, especially towards the side which obtaineth not; for that upholds in the client the reputation of his counsel, and beats down in him the conceit of his cause. There is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advocates, where there appeareth cunning counsel, gross neglect, slight information, indiscreet pressing, or an over bold defence. And let not the counsel at the bar chop with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew, after the julge hath declared his sentence; but on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party to say, his counsel or proofs were not heard.

...

From the Fifty-seventh, "Of Anger," which first appeared in 1625, we extract a single paragraph :

:

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it, which is a thing easily done if a man will give law to himself in it.

The Fifty-eighth, "Of the Vicissitude of Things," was another of those added by the author to his last edition. It begins thus:

Solomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth.' So that as Plato had an imagination, 'That all knowledge was but remembrance;' so Solomon giveth his sentence, "That all novelty is but oblivion.**

*A little lower down comes a sentence which in Mr. Montagu's and most of the common editions stands:-" As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not merely dispeople, but destroy.' In the edition of Bacon's works in 2 vols. 8vo., Lond. 1843, it is given:-" As for conflagrations and great droughts, they do merely dispeople and destroy." Both these

And it is thus wound up:

In the youth of a state arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state learning, and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning hath its infancy when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly its old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust. But

it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude lest we become giddy. As for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and therefore not fit for this writing.

Two Essays are commonly added in the modern impressions; the one entitled "A Fragment of an Essay on Fame;" the other, "Of a King." The Fragment on Fame was first published in 1657 by Dr. Rawley in the first edition of the Resuscitatio; and there can be no doubt of its authenticity. The following is the latter part of it, being about the half of what we have :

Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius, by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to remove the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations, by a fame that he cunningly gave out, how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continual giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment. And it is a usual thing with the bashaws, to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Grecia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his

readings are equally inconsistent with the context. The true reading may be gathered from the Latin:-Illae populum penitus non absorbent aut destruunt; that is, "they do not merely [for altogether, completely] dispeople or destroy."

G

bridge of ships which he had made athwart the Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples, and the more they are the less they need to be repeated, because a man meeteth with them everywhere: therefore let all wise governors have as great a watch and care over fames, as they have of the actions and designs themselves.

Rawley notes that "the rest was not finished." In a copy of the second edition of the Resuscitatio (1661) in the British Museum we find a MS. note in an old hand stating that the Essay is continued in another piece contained in that collection, entitled "The Image (or Civil Character) of Julius Cæsar;" but this appears to be a mere fancy, and a mistaken one. The piece on Julius Cæsar was written by Bacon in Latin, from which what is given in the second and third editions of the Resusci tatio is a translation by Rawley; and there is no probability that it was designed to have any connexion with this English Essay on Fame.

The Essay "Of a King was first published along with another tract entitled "An Explanation what manner of persons those should be that are to execute the power or ordinance of the King's prerogative," in 1642, in a 4to. pamphlet, in which both are attributed to Bacon; and the Essay and Explanation were reprinted in the volume called The Remains, 1648, and in the re-impression of that volume in 1656 with the new title of The Mirror of State and Eloquence. But they are not included in any of the three editions of the Resuscitatio (1657, 1661, 1671); nor are they noticed by Tenison in the Baconiana (1679). The external evidence therefore is unfavourable to the authenticity of the Essay; for the collection called The Remains is of no authority. The style and manner of thinking, however, are, at least in some places, not unlike Bacon, although the formal division into numbered paragraphs (which may have been the work of a transcriber) is peculiar. The following paragraphs, for instance, might very well have been written by Bacon:

1. A king is a mortal god on earth, into whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud and