Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

360 A censure of this nature has been applied by some to Dr. Johnson, and possibly with some reason.

361 To start the subject.

362 Requires to be bridled.

363 He quotes here from Ovid: “Boy, spare the whip, and tightly grasp the reins.”—Met. ii. 127.

364 One who tests or examines.

365 The galliard was a light active dance, much in fashion in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

366 Hits at, or remarks intended to be applied to, particular individuals.

367 A slight or insult.

368 A sarcastic remark.

369 The old term for colonies.

370 He perhaps alludes covertly to the conduct of the Spaniards in extirpating the aboriginal inhabitants of the West India Islands, against which the venerable Las Casas so eloquently but vainly protested.

371 Of course, this censure would not apply to what is primarily and essentially a convict colony; the object of which is to drain the mother country of its impure superfluities.

372 Times have much changed since this was penned, tobacco is now the staple commodity, and the source of “the main business” of Virginia.

373 To labor hard.

374 Marshy; from the French marais, a marsh.

375 Gewgaws, or spangles.

376 He alludes to Ecclesiastes v. 11, the words of which are somewhat varied in our version: “When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?”

377 “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city.”—Proverbs x. 15; xviii. 11.

378 “In his anxiety to increase his fortune, it was evident that not the gratification of avarice was sought, but the means of doing good.”

379 “He who hastens to riches will not be without guilt.” In our version the words are: “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.”—Proverbs xxviii. 22.

380 Pluto being the king of the infernal regions, or place of departed spirits.

381 Rent-roll, or account taken of income.

382 Wait till prices have risen.

383 “In the sweat of another’s brow.” He alludes to the words of Genesis iii. 19: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”

384 Planter of sugar-canes.

385 “Wills and childless persons were caught by him, as though with a hunting-net.”—Tacit. Ann. xiii. 42.

386 “Pythoness,” used in the sense of witch. He alludes to the witch of Endor, and the words in Samuel xxviii. 19. He is, however, mistaken in attributing these words to the witch: it was the spirit of Samuel that said, “To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.”

387 “But the house of Æneas shall reign over every shore, both his children’s children, and those who shall spring from them.”—Æn. iii. 97.

388 “After the lapse of years, ages will come in which Ocean shall relax his chains around the world, and a vast continent shall appear, and Tiphys shall explore new regions, and Thule shall be no longer the utmost verge of earth.”—Sen. Med. ii. 375.

389 He was king of Samos, and was treacherously put to death by Orœtes, the governor of Magnesia, in Asia Minor. His daughter, in consequence of her dream, attempted to dissuade him from visiting Orœtes, but in vain.—Herod. iii. 124.

390 Plut. Vit. Alex. 2.

391 “Thou shalt see me again at Philippi.”—Appian Bell. Civ. iv. 134.

392 “Thou, also, Galba, shalt taste of empire.”—Suet. Vit. Gall. 4.

393 Hist. v. 13.

394 Suet. vit. Domit. 23.

395 Catherine de Medicis, the wife of Henry II. of France, who died from a wound accidentally received in a tournament.

396 James I. being the first monarch of Great Britain.

397 “The eighty-eighth will be a wondrous year.”

398 “Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Knights, satirizes Cleon, the Athenian demagogue. He introduces a declaration of the oracle, that the Eagle of hides (by whom Cleon was meant, his father having been a tanner), should be conquered by a serpent, which Demosthenes, one of the characters in the play, expounds as meaning a maker of sausages. How Lord Bacon could for a moment doubt that this was a mere jest, it is difficult to conjecture. The following is a literal translation of a portion of the passage from The Knights (l. 197): “But when a leather eagle with crooked talons shall have seized with its jaws a serpent, a stupid creature, a drinker of blood, then the tan-pickle of the Paphlagonians is destroyed; but upon the sellers of sausages the deity bestows great glory, unless they choose rather to sell sausages.”

399 This is a very just remark. So-called strange coincidences, and wonderful dreams that are verified, when the point is considered, are really not at all marvellous. We never hear of the 999 dreams that are not verified, but the thousandth that happens to precede its fulfilment is blazoned by unthinking people as a marvel. It would be a much more wonderful thing if dreams were not occasionally verified.