Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

593 Confined to a limited space.

594 The whole of the continent of America then discovered is included under this name.

595 Limited.

596Vide Plat. Tim. iii. 24, seq.

597 Mach. Disc. Sop. Liv. ii. 2.

598 Sabinianus of Volaterra was elected Bishop of Rome on the death of Gregory the Great, A. D. 604. He was of an avaricious disposition, and thereby incurred the popular hatred. He died in eighteen months after his election.

599 This Cicero speaks of as “the great year of the mathematicians.” “On the Nature of the Gods,” B. 4, ch. 20. By some it was supposed to occur after a period of 12,954 years, while, according to others, it was of 25,920 years’ duration.—Plat. Tim. iii. 38, seq.

600 Conceit.

601 Observed.

602 A curious fancy or odd conceit.

603 The followers of Arminius, or James Harmensen, a celebrated divine of the 16th and 17th centuries. Though called a heresy by Bacon, his opinions have been for two centuries, and still are, held by a large portion of the Church of England.

604 A belief in astrology, or at least the influence of the stars was almost universal in the time of Bacon.

605 Germany.

606 Charlemagne.

607 When led thither by Alexander the Great.

608 Striking.

609 Application of the “aries,” or battering-ram.

610 This fragment was found among Lord Bacon’s papers, and published by Dr. Rawley in his Resuscitatio.

611 Tac. Hist. ii. 80.

612 Cæs. de Bell. Civ. i. 6.

613 Tac. Ann. i. 5.

614Vide Herod. viii. 108, 109.

615 Varro distributes the ages of the world into three periods; viz: the unknown, the fabulous, and the historical. Of the former, we have no accounts but in Scripture; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets, such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier, and then again come back to Ovid, who, in his Metamorphoses, seems, in imitation perhaps of some ancient Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age, especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transformations.

616 Most of these fables are contained in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Fasti, and are fully explained in Bohn’s Classical Library translation.

617 Homer’s Hymn to Pan.

618 Cicero, Epistle to Atticus, 5.

619 Ovid, Metamorphoses, b. ii.

620 This refers to the confused mixture of things, as sung by Virgil:—

“Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta

Semina terrarumque animæque marisque fuissent;

Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis

Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis.”—

Ecl. vi. 81.

621 This is always supposed to be the case in vision, the mathematical demonstrations in optics proceeding invariably upon the assumption of this phenomenon.

622

“Torva leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam:

Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella.”

Virgil, Ecl. ii. 63.

623 Ovid, Rem. Amoris, v. 343. Mart. Epist.

624 Psalm xix. 1.