one of the ingredients is the flesh of a dragon, used as food by the Ethiopians, we are told, and prepared as follows:

'Where there are good flying dragons, by the art which they possess, they draw them out of their dens, and have bridles and saddles in readiness, and they ride upon them, and make them bound about in the air in a violent manner, that the hardness and toughness of the flesh may be reduced, as boars are hunted and bulls are baited before they are killed for eating.'

nature.

Or (3) the art of making gold finer than fine gold, which transcends the power of alchemy. 3. It investigates the secrets of Here we find the suggestion that the fire-works made by children, of saltpetre, might lead to the invention of a formidable weapon of war; that character may be changed by changing the air. When Alexander applied to Aristotle to know whether he should exterminate certain tribes which he had discovered, as being irreclaimably barbarous, the philosopher replied: 'If you can alter their air, permit them to live; if not, put them to death.'

Hence, it appears, the leading purpose of the Opus Majus is the progress of knowledge, and, to this end, the reform of scientific method. A wonderful work, if we but consider the circumstances of its origin, alike wonderful in plan and in detail,-the encyclopædia of the classic century of scholasticism.

Style. Plain, methodical, clear, animated, energetic, as of a large, earnest soul profoundly penetrated with the vastness of its mission and the brevity of its opportunity.

Rank. A giant among his contemporaries, standing out in picturesque and impressive contrast. To them he was a wonder, and they styled him, 'Doctor Mirabilis.' As a student at Paris, he mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, an accomplishment which not more than five men in England then possessed. The story was current that he had discovered a receipt for teaching any one 'in a very few days Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic.' His works, full of sound and exact knowledge, cover the whole range of science and philosophy,- Mathematics, Mechanics, Optics, Astronomy, Geography, Chronology, Chemistry, Magic, Music, Medicine, Grammar, Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Theology. He stood upon a lofty eminence, and looked forward three centuries when his dreams were to take substantial form. He gave a receipt for making gunpowder, learned perhaps from the Arabs, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur. Afterwards it was

told how the fiend, to whom the heretical wizard sold himself, carried away his victim in a whirlwind of fire. He knew that there were different kinds of gas, or air as he calls it, and tells us that one of these puts out a flame. He invented the schoolboy's favorite experiment of burning a candle under a bell-glass to prove that when the air is exhausted the candle goes out. He predicts that one day ships will go on the water without sails, and carriages run on the roads without horses, and that travellers will use flying machines. He constructed lenses, burning glasses, and knew the theory of the telescope if he did not make one. He says:

'We can place transparent bodies (that is, glasses) in such a form and position between our eyes and other objects that the rays shall be refracted and bent towards any place we please, so that we shall see the object near at hand, or at a distance, under any angle we please; and thus from an incredible distance we may read the smallest letter, and may number the smallest particles of sand, by reason of the greatness of the angle under which they appear.'

To-day, however high the philosopher may rise above the multitude, his elevation is seen to be the reward of energy and labor. But in Bacon's time, men's thoughts were less clear, they could catch no glimpse of the intervening path; and when they saw him above them, but knew not how he was raised and supported, he became to them an object of suspicion and terror- a magician,—and feelings of envy probably induced the few tacitly to sanction the opinion of the many. Thus, the Famous History of Fryer Bacon, compiled in the sixteenth century, represents him before the king and queen in the act of displaying his skill in the black art. He waves his wand, and entrancing music is heard; waves it once more, and five dancers enter, who dance, and vanish in the order of their coming; waves it again, and a table laden with choicest viands is spread before them; yet again, and again, while the room fills with richest perfumes and the liveries of sundry nations pass and fade. He makes a Brazen Head, by which, if he could make this head to speake (and heare it when it speakes), then might hee be able to wall all England about with brasse.' From a high hill, with his mathematical glasses' he fires the public buildings of a besieged town, and amid the uproar gives the signal for the king's assault:

Thus through the art of this learned man the king got this strong towne, which hee could not doe with all his men without Fryer Bacon's helpe.'

A keen and systematic thinker who, without being completely dissevered from his national antecedents and surrounding, seeks to divert into other and profitable channels that subtlety of the schoolmen which was growing forests of erudition without fruit. In this he is an accurate representative of the English mind on one of its most striking sides, and the forerunner of his greater namesake, who will exhibit the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning. The Opus Majus is the prototype, in spirit, of Lord Bacon's Novum Organum.

Character. His keen thirst for knowledge, his patience, his energy, appear forcibly in words like these:

'From my youth up, I have labored at the sciences and tongues. I have sought the friendship of all men among the Latins who had any reputation for knowledge. I have caused youths to be instructed in languages, geometry, arithmetic, the construction of tables and instruments, and many needful things besides.'

Again:

'During the twenty years that I have especially labored in the attainment of wisdom, abandoning the path of common men, I have spent on these pursuits more than two thousand pounds, not to mention the cost of books, experiments, instruments, tables, the acquisition of languages, and the like. Add to all this the sacrifices I have made to procure the friendship of the wise, and to obtain well instructed assistants.'

Of the difficulties in the way of such studies as he had resolved to pursue:

'Without mathematical instruments no science can be mastered, and these instruments are not to be found among the Latins, and could not be made for two or three hundred pounds. Besides, better tables are indispensably necessary, tables on which the motions of the heavens are certified from the beginning to the end of the world without daily labor; but these tables are worth a king's ransom, and could not be made without a vast expense. I have often attempted the composition of such tables, but could not finish them through failure of means and the folly of those whom I had to employ.'

As a teacher, he was devoted to those whom he taught. Of the boy sent to Rome, he writes to the pope:

'When he came to me as a poor boy, I caused him to be nurtured and instructed for the love of God, especially since for aptitude and innocence I have never found so towardly a youth. Five or six years ago I caused him to be taught in languages, mathematics, and optics, and I have gratuitously instructed him with my own lips since the time that I received your mandate. There is no one at Paris who knows so much of the root of philosophy, though he has not produced the branches, flowers, and fruit because of his youth, and because he has had no experience in teaching. But he has the means of surpassing all the Latins if he live to grow old and goes on as he has begun.'

Neither his confidence in the power of the human intellect nor his devotion to physical studies materialized his faith or abated his humility. Wisely he says:

'Man is incapable of perfect wisdom in this life; it is hard for him to ascend towards perfection, casy to glide downwards to falsehoods and vanities: let him then not boast of his wisdom or extol his knowledge. What he knows is little and worthless, in respect of that which he believes without knowing; and still less, in respect of that which he is ignorant of. He is mad who thinks highly of his wisdom; he most mad, who exhibits it as something to be wondered at.'

Popular legend, which transforms him into a powerful conjurer, always represents him to have been a beneficent one, courageous and modest.

Influence. Upon his own age not great. The seed he let drop, fell for the most part on a barren soil. The master-conception was itself drying up. Science was extinguished in idle raving and inanity. Bacon himself says:

'Never was there so great an appearance of wisdom nor so much exercise of study in so many Faculties, in so many regions, as for this last forty years. Doctors are dispersed everywhere, in every castle, in every burgh, and especially by the students of two Orders, which has not happened except for about forty years. And yet there was never so much ignorance, so much error.'

He sought, in opposition to the spirit of his times, to divert the interest of his contemporaries from scholastic subtleties to the study of nature, and gained from his own Order a prison. To us he has left a treasure of the most solid knowledge of his century, of worthy and wise speculations. He is, moreover, an interesting and instructive example of real greatness born before its time, uttering its thoughts in Golgotha, standing alone on heights unknown, and by its very isolation forming no school and leaving no disciples.

INITIATIVE PERIOD.

CHAPTER IV.

FEATURES.

If there be any such thing as a philosophy of history, real or possible, it is in virtue of there being certain progressive organizing laws in which the fretful lives of each of us are gathered into and subordinated in some larger unity, through which age is linked to age, as we move forward, with an horizon expanding and advancing.-Froude.

Politics. The chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a continental empire. The greatest victories of the Middle Ages were gained at this time against great odds by the English armies. A French king was brought captive to London, an English one was crowned at Paris. But after a long and bloody struggle, with many bitter regrets the contest was abandoned, and from that hour no British government has seriously and steadily pursued the dream of great conquests on the Continent.

Confined within the limits of the island, the warlike people employed in civil strife those arms which had carried terror beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps. The barons, ceasing to plunder the French, were by the force of habit, eager to plunder one another. Ireland and Scotland, subjugated by the Plantagenets, were impatient under the yoke. The former had never, since the days of Henry II, been able to expel the foreign invaders. The latter, as we have seen, vindicated her independence under the wise and valiant Bruce. Both were far behind England in wealth and civilization.

Kings overstepped the constitutional line. They possessed many lucrative and formidable rights which enabled them to punish any who thwarted them, and to reward any who enjoyed their favor. Persons obnoxious to the government were frequently imprisoned merely by the mandate of the sovereign. Taxes were imposed without the assent of the estates of the