Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

153 The Low Countries had then recently emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of Spain. They were called the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands.

154 This passage may at first sight appear somewhat contradictory; but he means to say, that those who are first ennobled will commonly be found more conspicuous for the prominence of their qualities, both good and bad.

155 Consistent with reason and justice.

156 The periods of the Equinoxes.

157 “He often warns, too, that secret revolt is impending, that treachery and open warfare are ready to burst forth.”—Virg. Georg. i. 465.

158 “Mother Earth, exasperated at the wrath of the Deities, produced her, as they tell, a last birth, a sister to the giants Cœus, and Enceladus.”—Virg. Æn. iv. 179.

159 “Great public odium once excited, his deeds, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall.” Bacon has here quoted incorrectly, probably from memory. The words of Tacitus are (Hist. B. i. C. 7): “Inviso semel principe, seu bene, seu male, facta premunt,”—“The ruler once detested, his actions, whether good or whether bad, cause his downfall.”

160 “They attended to their duties; but still, as preferring rather to discuss the commands of their rulers, than to obey them.”—Tac. Hist. ii. 39.

161 He alludes to the bad policy of Henry the Third of France, who espoused the part of “The League,” which was formed by the Duke of Guise and other Catholics for the extirpation of the Protestant faith. When too late he discovered his error, and finding his own authority entirely superseded, he caused the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal De Lorraine, his brother, to be assassinated.

162 “The primary motive power.” He alludes to an imaginary centre of gravitation, or central body, which was supposed to set all the other heavenly bodies in motion.

163 “Too freely to remember their own rulers.”

164 “I will unloose the girdles of kings.” He probably alludes here to the first verse of the 45th chapter of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates.”

165 “Hence devouring usury, and interest accumulating in lapse of time; hence shaken credit, and warfare, profitable to the many.”—Lucan. Phars. i. 181.

166 “Warfare profitable to the many.”

167 “To grief there is a limit, not so to fear.”

168 “Check,” or “daunt.”

169 This is similar to the proverb now in common use: “’Tis the last feather that breaks the back of the camel.”

170 The state.

171 Though sumptuary laws are probably just in theory, they have been found impracticable in any other than infant states. Their principle, however, is certainly recognized in such countries as by statutory enactment discountenance gaming. Those who are opposed to such laws upon principle, would do well to look into Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees,” or “Private Vices Public Benefits.” The Romans had numerous sumptuary laws, and in the Middle Ages there were many enactments in this country against excess of expenditure upon wearing apparel and the pleasures of the table.

172 He means that they do not add to the capital of the country.

173 At the expense of foreign countries.

174 “The workmanship will surpass the material.”—Ovid, Met. B. ii. l. 5.

175 He alludes to the manufactures of the Low Countries.

176 Like manure.

177 Sometimes printed engrossing, great pasturages. By engrossing, is meant the trade of engrossers—men who buy up all that can be got of a particular commodity, then raise the price. By great pasturages is meant turning corn land into pasture. Of this practice great complaints had been made for near a century before Bacon’s time, and a law passed to prevent it.—See Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s History of Henry VIII.

178 The myth of Pandora’s box, which is here referred to, is related in the Works and Days of Hesiod. Epimetheus was the personification of “Afterthought,” while his brother Prometheus represented “Forethought,” or prudence. It was not Epimetheus that opened the box, but Pandora—“All-gift,” whom, contrary to the advice of his brother, he had received at the hands of Mercury, and had made his wife. In their house stood a closed jar, which they were forbidden to open. Till her arrival, this had been kept untouched; but her curiosity prompting her to open the lid, all the evils hitherto unknown to man flew out and spread over the earth, and she only shut it down in time to prevent the escape of Hope.

179 “Sylla did not know his letters, and so he could not dictate.” This saying is attributed by Suetonius to Julius Cæsar. It is a play on the Latin verb dictare, which means either “to dictate,” or “to act the part of Dictator,” according to the context. As this saying was presumed to be a reflection on Sylla’s ignorance, and to imply that by reason thereof he was unable to maintain his power, it was concluded by the Roman people that Cæsar, who was an elegant scholar, feeling himself subject to no such inability, did not intend speedily to yield the reins of power.—Suet. Vit. C. Jul. Cæs. 77, i. and Cf. A. L. i. vii. 12.

180 “That soldiers were levied by him, not bought.”—Tac. Hist. i. 5.

181 “If I live, there shall no longer be need of soldiers in the Roman empire.”—Flav. Vop. Vit. Prob. 20.

182 “And such was the state of feeling, that a few dared to perpetrate the worst of crimes; more wished to do so; all submitted to it.”—Hist. i. 28.

183 He probably alludes to the legends or miraculous stories of the saints; such as walking with their heads off, preaching to the fishes, sailing over the sea on a cloak, &c. &c.

184 This is a book that contains the Jewish traditions, and the rabbinical explanations of the law. It is replete with wonderful narratives.

185 This passage not improbably contains the germ of Pope’s famous lines:—

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

186 A philosopher of Abdera; the first who taught the system of atoms, which was afterwards more fully developed by Democritus and Epicurus.

187 He was a disciple of the last-named philosopher, and held the same principles; he also denied the existence of the soul after death. He is considered to have been the parent of experimental philosophy, and was the first to teach, what is now confirmed by science, that the Milky Way is an accumulation of stars.

188 Spirit.

189 Psalm xiv. 1, and liii. 1.

190 To whose (seeming) advantage it is; the wish being father to the thought.