Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients

191 “It is not profane to deny the existence of the deities of the vulgar; but, to apply to the divinities the received notions of the vulgar, is profane.”—Diog. Laert. x. 123.

192 He alludes to the native tribes of the continent of America and the West Indies.

193 He was an Athenian philosopher, who, from the greatest superstition, became an avowed atheist. He was proscribed by the Areiopagus for speaking against the gods with ridicule and contempt, and is supposed to have died at Corinth.

194 A Greek philosopher, a disciple of Theodorus the atheist, to whose opinions he adhered. His life was said to have been profligate, and his death superstitious.

195 Lucian ridiculed the follies and pretensions of some of the ancient philosophers; but though the freedom of his style was such as to cause him to be censured for impiety, he hardly deserves the stigma of atheism here cast upon him by the learned author.

196 “It is not for us now to say, ‘Like priest like people,’ for the people are not even so bad as the priest.” St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, preached the second Crusade against the Saracens, and was unsparing in his censures of the sins then prevalent among the Christian priesthood. His writings are voluminous, and by some he has been considered as the latest of the fathers of the Church.

197 “A superior nature.”

198 “We may admire ourselves, conscript fathers, as much as we please; still, neither by numbers did we vanquish the Spaniards, nor by bodily strength the Gauls, nor by cunning the Carthaginians, nor through the arts the Greeks, nor, in fine, by the inborn and native good sense of this our nation, and this our race and soil, the Italians and Latins themselves; but through our devotion and our religious feeling, and this, the sole true wisdom, the having perceived that all things are regulated and governed by the providence of the immortal Gods, have we subdued all races and nations.”—Cic. de. Harus. Respon. 9.

199 The justice of this position is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. The superstitious man must have some scruples, while he who believes not in a God (if there is such a person), needs have none.

200 Time was personified in Saturn, and by this story was meant its tendency to destroy whatever it has brought into existence.—Plut. de Superstit. x.

201 The primary motive power.

202 This Council commenced in 1545, and lasted eighteen years. It was convened for the purpose of opposing the rising spirit of Protestantism, and of discussing and settling the disputed points of the Catholic faith.

203 Irregular or anomalous movements.

204 An epicycle is a smaller circle, whose centre is in the circumference of a greater one.

205 To account for.

206 Synods, or councils.

207 At the present day called attachés.

208 He probably means the refusing to join on the occasion of drinking healths when taking wine.

209 Something to create excitement.

210 “The heart of kings is unsearchable.”—Prov. v. 3.

211 Commodus fought naked in public as a gladiator, and prided himself on his skill as a swordsman.

212 Making a stop at, or dwelling too long upon.

213 After a prosperous reign of twenty-one years, Diocletian abdicated the throne, and retired to a private station.

214 After having reigned thirty-five years, he abdicated the thrones of Spain and Germany, and passed the last two years of his life in retirement at St. Just, a convent in Estremadura.

215 Philost. vit. Apoll. Tyan. v. 28.

216 “The desires of monarchs are generally impetuous and conflicting among themselves.”—Quoted rightly, A. L. ii. xxii. 5, from Sallust (B. J. 113).

217 He was especially the rival of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and was one of the most distinguished sovereigns that ever ruled over France.

218 An eminent historian of Florence. His great work, which is here alluded to, is, “The History of Italy during his own Time,” which is considered one of the most valuable productions of that age.

219 Spoken badly of. Livia was said to have hastened the death of Augustus, to prepare the accession of her son Tiberius to the throne.

220 Solyman the Magnificent was one of the most celebrated of the Ottoman monarchs. He took the Isle of Rhodes from the Knights of St. John. He also subdued Moldavia, Wallachia, and the greatest part of Hungary, and took from the Persians Georgia and Bagdad. He died A. D. 1566. His wife Roxolana (who was originally a slave called Rosa or Hazathya), with the Pasha Rustan, conspired against the life of his son Mustapha, and by their instigation this distinguished prince was strangled in his father’s presence.

221 The infamous Isabella of Anjou.

222 Adulteresses.

223 He, however, distinguished himself by taking Cyprus from the Venetians in the year 1571.

224 He was falsely accused by his brother Perseus of attempting to dethrone his father, on which he was put to death by the order of Philip, B. C. 180.

225 Anselm was Archbishop of Canterbury in the time of William Rufus and Henry the First. Though his private life was pious and exemplary, through his rigid assertion of the rights of the clergy he was continually embroiled with his sovereign. Thomas à Becket pursued a similar course, but with still greater violence.

226 The great vessel that conveys the blood to the liver, after it has been enriched by the absorption of nutriment from the intestines.

227 This is an expression similar to our proverb, “Penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

228 A subdivision of the shire.

229 The Janizaries were the body-guards of the Turkish sultans, and enacted the same disgraceful part in making and unmaking monarchs, as the mercenary Prætorian guards of the Roman Empire.

230 “Remember that thou art a man.”