FRANCIS BACON. 7 



little bannuotting-liousc, adorned witli i>Teat curiosity, having the 

 liberal arts beautifully de])iotcd on its walls, over them the pictures 

 of such learned men as had excelled in each, and under them verses 

 expressive of the benefits derived from their study." [3Iontagtie.) 

 The very names of these arts give a curious insight into the know- 

 ledge of the time. They are Grammar, Arithmetic, Logic, Music, 

 llhetoric. Geometry, and Astrology. 



Lady Ann Bacon was a woman of great piety and much learning, 

 being proficient in Latin, Greek, and several modem languages. 

 This was not so remarkable in those days as we may imagine, for 

 Queen Elizabeth delivered an extempore oration in Latin at Cam- 

 bridge University, and one in Greek at Oxford. Nevertheless it is 

 worth mention that Francis Bacon's father and mother were both 

 talented, and to his mother's abilities he doubtless owed his educa- 

 tion in early life. She was devoted to her sons, gave them good 

 advice long after they had arrived at man's estate, as loving 

 mothers do to this day, sent them farm and dairy produce from 

 Gorhambury, and sometimes when she had the means even paid 

 their debts, at the same time lecturing them well on their extrava- 

 gance. Anthony asks for a long carpet from Gorhambury. His 

 mother is loth to part with it ; he has had one already ; what can 

 he want with another ? But she sends it to him, to his house at 

 Twickenham ; what matters it to her ? — she can strew rushes on 

 the floor as of old ; and when she dies he will live at Gorhambury. 



Bright, thoughtful, and rather precocious is Francis Bacon as a 

 child, and delicate in constitution then and throughout his life. 

 AVhen asked his age by the Queen, he replies: "Two years 

 younger than your Majesty's happy reign;" and she calls him her 

 young Lord Keeper. Although frequently at Court, he must have 

 spent many of his days of childhood " on the green slopes and in 

 the leafy woods of Gorhambury," fully alive to the beauties of 

 Nature, and having his interest in literature and science awakened 

 by his father's pursuits, and perhaps his curiosity aroused by the 

 allegorical representation of the liberal arts which adorned the 

 walls of the banqueting-house ; while we may be sure that his 

 mother instilled into him those deeply religious feelings which, 

 notwithstanding his failings, remained with him through life. 



At the early age of twelve (in April, 1573) he goes to Cambridge 

 wdth his brother Anthony to study under Whitgift, and in less 

 than three years (at Christmas, 1575) he leaves the University 

 with a firm conviction of the unfruitfulness of the Aristotelian 

 philosophy, a profound disbelief in its infallibility, and a settled 

 resolve to try to discover a better method of studying nature. But 



