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OF STUDIES.

(From the Essays: ed. 1625.)

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.

To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar.

They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large except they be bounded in by experience.

Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them :

For they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others: but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books, are like common distilled waters, flashy things.

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Reading maketh a full man; conference, a ready man; and writing, an exact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores.2 If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases:

So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

1 Studies pass into manners (form character). Ovid, Her. xv. 83. 2 Dividers of cumin seed, hair-splitters.

NOTES.

Lat. ed. copious and wellinformed.'

Studies. The Lat. ed. of 1638 is fuller: | Full. 'Studies and the reading of books.'

Is the humour of a scholar. Lat. ed.: 'tastes altogether of the school, and does not succeed well.'

Confute. Lat. ed.: 'engage in battles
of discussion.'

Not curiously, not with diligent care
(Lat. cura). Lat. ed.: 'not much
time to be spent in turning them
over.' See contrast in next clause.
Arguments. See note, page 132.
Flashy. Lat. ed.: 'insipid, tasteless.'

Conference. Lat. ed.: 'discussions and conversations.'

Abeunt &c. Mr Arber (to whose
reprint we are much indebted) quotes
Bacon's own paraphrase: 'Studies
have an influence and operation upon
the manners of those that are con-
versant in them.' (Advancement of
Learning, Book I.)

Stond, stand, stop; = impediment.
Reins, kidneys. Lat. renes. The

'reins' of a horse, &c., must be distinguished: through French from Lat. retinere (to hold back or in). Cymini sectores. Mr Arber quotes: 'Antoninus Pius. . . . was called Cymini Sector, a carver or divider

of cumin seed, which is one of the
least seeds: such patience he had
and settled spirit, to enter into the
least and most exact differences of
causes.'
(Advancement of Learn-

ing, Book I.)

An abrupt succession of paragraphs containing 'dispersed medita-tions' on the subject. Elaborate balance. Contrast Bacon's "essay" with later examples—such as Addison's or Lamb's.

OF ADVERSITY.

(From the Essays: ed. 1625.)

1

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.1 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.2 This would have done better in poesy, where transcendences 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 :' lively describing Christian resolution; that saileth, in the frail bark of the flesh, thorough the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean. The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude: which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the 2 Epistle 53.

1 Epistle 66.

blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks 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.

:

NOTES.

Seneca, a Roman philosopher (about | To have in one. 5 B.C.-65 A.D.).

The Stoics formed one of the sects of
Greek philosophers. The school
was founded by Zeno about 300 B.C.
The name is taken from the Painted
Portico (Stoa poikile), the porch or
building where Zeno taught, which
was adorned with the paintings of
Polygnotus. The leading philoso-
phers of the Roman period of
stoicism, whose writings are extant,
belong to the time of the Empire:
Seneca, Epictetus (above, page 142),
and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus (121-180 A.D.).

To be admired (Lat. mirabilia): to be
regarded with wonder; to be con-
sidered as unusually and specially
good, being unexpected.
Miracles. There is here a subtle play
upon the derivation of the word
'miracles' (Lat. miracula, wonderful
things), ranking them among mira-
bilia.

Instead of the indefinite demonstrative pronoun 'one,' Bacon (like many other writers) frequently uses 'a man.' For an obvious reason he could not say ‘a man' here. Or is 'in one' = 'combined'? Frailty is Lat. fragilitatem modified by French influence. We have 'fragile' side by side with 'frail.' Security, firmness, unshakableness; opposed to 'frailty.' Transcendences (Lat. trans-scend-entia, beyond-climb-ing), speeches, thoughts, &c., rising higher than the ordinary reach of men. Strange, from Lat. extraneus (from extra, outside), through O. Fr. estrange.

Hercules (in Greek, Hēraclēs), the most famous of ancient heroes, son of Zeus (Jupiter). The wonderful deeds he performed have rendered his name proverbial in the expression of extraordinary physical strength and resolution.

Unbind: un denotes reversal of the
action of the simple verb.
Prometheus (Pro-me'theus), the Titan,
was chained by Zeus to a pillar,
where he endured perpetual torture,
his liver being daily consumed by an
eagle and nightly restored. He had
stolen fire from heaven, at which
Zeus was exceedingly enraged; for
the father of the gods had withdrawn
fire from mortals in revenge for a
deception previously practised upon
him by Prometheus.
The Titan was
released from his suffering by Her-
cules, who killed the eagle.

The great ocean: the 'Ocean Stream'
(Milton) of the early Greek writers,
who supposed the sea to be a river
flowing round the earth.

Lively, here an adverb: in modern use,
an adjective—as (below) 'a lively
work.' 'Livelily,' the regular adv.,
sounds ill; but Bacon uses it else-
where. Cf. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., i. 8:
'Such as keep them (the laws of
reason) resemble most lively in their
voluntary actions' the course of
nature. So 'cowardly' (Shak.,
1 Hen. IV., I. iii. 63, above); 'un-
seemly' (Collins, Ode to Evening,

18, below); 'godly' in Tit. ii. 12: 'We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;' with which cf. Jude, 15: 'to convince all that are ungodly (adj.) among them of all their ungodly (adj.) deeds, which they have ungodly (adv.) committed.' In such cases, the use of the adj. form as adv. is convenient and easy, partly through the frequency of 'ly' as adverbial termination, partly through the awkwardness of doubling it. In a mean, in moderate language; in expressions less high, or grand, than I have been using. Temperance, moderation, self-restraint, in a wide sense. Distastes: opposed to 'comforts.' Cf. Advancement of Learning, Book I.: 'to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distaste or repining.'

Incensed, burnt. An older form is 'to

incend.' Latimer uses 'cense.' Discover, remove the cover, bring to light, shew. Cf. 'dis' with 'un' (above). But. Too strong for all the opposition between the statements. 'While' would be quite strong enough.

Much balanced structure, sometimes improvable. Compare this ' essay' with the foregoing.

BEN JONSON.-1573-1637.

BEN JONSON, the greatest of our dramatists that were contemporary with Shakspeare and survived him, was a posthumous child. He was educated at Westminster School at the expense of Camden the antiquary—

'Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, and all I know.'

If he next went to St John's College, Cambridge, for a few weeks, he presently engaged in bricklaying, his step-father's business; and this he soon left in disgust and took to soldiering in the Netherlands. Here, as he told Drummond of Hawthornden, he had, 'in the face of both camps, killed one enemy, and taken spolia opima from him.' He

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