12 J. HOPKINSON" — ANNrVEKSARY ADDRESS : 



Early in this same year Bacon publislies the first edition of his 

 * Essays,' ten in number. They were reprinted in 1598, 1604, and 

 1606, increased to thirty-eight in 1612, and finally to fifty-eight in 

 1625. They are the most popular of all his works, and are replete 

 with original thought, apt qiiotations, and practical advice. "They 

 still," Prof. Eowler says, "retain their ground as classics, and, 

 some time or other during his life, every educated Englishman is 

 certain to read them." They arc undoubtedly utilitarian, as they 

 were meant to be, and exceptions may be taken to some passages 

 in them as inculcating uuAVorthy means to attain worthy ends, as 

 when a man is advised to have "dissimulation in seasonable use, 

 and a power to feign if there be no remedy;" but a higher moral 

 tone usually pervades them. Selfish aims and motives are strongly 

 deprecated, as in the following quotations (from the edition of 

 1625) : — " I take goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal 

 of men, which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia. . . . This 

 of all virtues and dignities of the mind is the greatest, being the 

 character of the Deity, and without it man is a busy, mischievous, 

 wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin." " Wisdom for 

 a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is 

 the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat 

 before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the 

 badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of 

 crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour." "An ant is 

 a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or 

 garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves 

 waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and 

 society, and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others, 

 specially to thy King and country. It is a poor centre of a man's 

 actions, himself.'''' 



A few passages culled almost at random, may convey a better 

 idea of the general character of the Essays : — " In taking revenge 

 a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is 

 superior. . . . That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and 

 wise men have enough to do with things present and to come." 

 "Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are 

 incensed or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but 

 adversity doth best discover virtue." "A crowd is not company, 

 and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling 

 cymbal, where there is no love." " Defer not charities until death, 

 for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather 

 liberal of another man's than of his own." Bacon delighted in 

 such aphorisms as these, so concise that not a word can be spared ; 



