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INTRODUCTION.

I. RAWLEY'S LIFE OF BACON.1

FRANCIS BACON, the glory of his age and nation, the adorner and ornament of learning, was born in York House, or York Place, in the Strand, on the 22d day of January in the year of our Lord 1560. His father was that famous counselor to Queen Elizabeth, the second prop of the kingdom in his time, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, a lord of known prudence, sufficiency, moderation, and integrity. His mother was Ann Cook, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, unto whom the erudition of King Edward the Sixth had been committed; a choice lady, and eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, being exquisitely skilled, for a woman, in the Greek and Latin tongues. These being the parents, you may easily imagine what the issue was like to be; having had whatsoever nature or breeding could put into him.

His first and childish years were not without some mark of eminency; at which time he was endued with that pregnancy and towardness of wit as they were presages of that deep and universal apprehension which was manifest in him afterward, and caused him to be taken

1 First published in 1657, and afterwards, with slight additions, in 1661. The text is here modernized in spelling, punctuation, and the writing out of numbers; otherwise it follows the edition of 1657, only inserting in their proper places the three new sentences added in 1661. The reprint in Spedding, Ellis, and Heath's edition of Bacon's Works (1. 3-18) is not quite exact.

notice of by several persons of worth and place, and especially by the Queen; who (as I have been informed) delighted much then to confer with him, and to prove him with questions; unto whom he delivered.himself with that gravity and maturity above his years that Her Majesty would often term him The young Lord Keeper. Being asked by the Queen how old he was, he answered with much discretion, being then but a boy, That he was two years younger than Her Majesty's happy reign; with which answer the Queen was much taken.

At the ordinary years of ripeness for the university, or rather something earlier, he was sent by his father to Trinity College in Cambridge, to be educated and bred. under the tuition of Doctor John Whitgift, then Master of the College, afterwards the renowned Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate of the first magnitude for sanctity, learning, patience, and humility; under whom he was observed to have been more than an ordinary proficient in the several arts and sciences. Whilst he was commorant in the university, about sixteen1 years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell into the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever Yascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to his dying day.

After he had passed the circle of the liberal arts, his father thought fit to frame and mold him for the arts of state, and for that end sent him over into France with Sir Amyas Paulet, then employed Ambassador Lieger into France; by whom he was after a while held fit to be

1 The original has 16, and so in similar cases.

entrusted with some message or advertisement to the Queen; which having performed with great approbation, he returned back into France again, with intention to continue for some years there. In his absence in France his father the Lord Keeper died, having collected (as I have heard of knowing persons) a considerable sum of money, which he had separated, with intention to have made a competent purchase of land for the livelihood of this his youngest son (who was only unprovided for; and though he was the youngest in years, yet he was not the lowest in his father's affection); but the said purchase being unaccomplished at his father's death, there came no greater share to him than his single part and portion of the money dividable amongst five brethren; by which means he lived in some straits and necessities in his younger years. For as for that pleasant site and manor of Gorhambury, he came not to it till many years after, by the death of his dearest brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a gentleman equal to him in height of wit, though inferior to him in the endowments of learning and knowledge; unto whom he was most nearly conjoined in affection, they two being the sole male issue of a second venter.

Being returned from travel, he applied himself to the study of the common law, which he took upon him to be his profession; in which he obtained to great excellency, though he made that (as himself said) but as an accessary, and not as his principal study. He wrote several tractates upon that subject, wherein, though some great masters of the law did outgo him in bulk, and particularities of cases, yet in the science of the grounds and mysteries of the law he was exceeded by none. In this way he was after a while sworn of the Queen's Counsel Learned Extraordinary—a grace (if I err not) scarce known before. He seated himself, for the commodity of his studies and practice, amongst the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, of

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