I M: :;M;Y 



TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



HERTFORDSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



-fl, of Con,, 



AXNIVERSART ADDRESS. 

 FRANCIS BACON. 



JUL 20 



!-lttRAt> 



By the President, John Hopkinsox, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.B.M.S., 



F.E.Met.Soc. 



Delivered ai (he Annual Meeting, 12 th February, 1892, at Watford. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — 



The historian of some centuries hence, in chronicling the 

 progress of England in science, literature, industry, and com- 

 merce, in national prosperity and international influence, will 

 probably point out two epochs in which such progress has been 

 most notable, each epoch marked by the reign of a Queen beloved 

 of her subjects and sympathising with them, in each case a reign 

 of long duration. The Elizabethan era is the earlier of these, the 

 Yietorian, the later. Which of these eras our future historian 

 will consider pre-eminent on the whole, we cannot yet predict, but 

 certain it is that the age of Elizabeth has been justly termed the 

 golden era of English literature, and that no other period can 

 boast such a galaxy of men of genius and enterprise. 



For this was the age of Knox, Hooker, and Whitgift ; of 

 Shakespeare, Spenser, and Ben Jonson ; of Bacon, Harvey, and 

 Gilbert ; of Holinshed, Stowe, and Camden ; of Raleigh, Drake, 

 and Martin Frobisher. And the spark of genius did not alone 

 alight upon our own country, for in the Elizabethan age lived 

 Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler ; Guido and Riibens ; and 

 Cervantes ; while at its close France saw her greatest metaphysical 

 philosopher, Descartes, and Belgium her greatest portrait-painter, 

 Vandyke. 



Of these illustrious men two mighty intellects tower far above 

 the rest. Shakespeare is the greatest poet. Bacon the greatest 

 philosopher, the world has ever seen. It would be invidious, nay, 



VOL. VII. — PART I. 1 



