FRANCIS BACON. 25 



majestic pomp ; sage and solemn ceremonies ; a recognition of 

 degrees, ranks, and orders in the State as being appointed by God 

 and necessary for the happiness of man ; a religion that combines 

 the charity and breadth of the New Testament with something of 

 the more earthly and material thoughts and ritual of the Old ; an 

 exaltation of material wealth, comfort, and prosperity, as being 

 the natural results of a devout pursuit of Science in an orderly 

 and religious country — such are the salient features of this most 

 interesting fragment." It is credited with having suggested the 

 foundation and programme of the Royal Society of London. 

 ' Certaine Psalmes in Yerse,' published in 1625, show that he 

 was not a poet, for there is a want of easy flow of words in his 

 poetry, and much of his prose is more poetically imaginative. He 

 could no more have written Shakespeare's ' Plays ' than Shake- 

 speare could have written the ' Novum Organum.'' 



It appears that during the last few years of his life Bacon 

 translated several of his works into Latin, "for the benefit of other 

 nations," Rawley says; but it was his idea, and an excusable one 

 in those days, that for a book to last for all time it must be printed 

 in the universal language. His Latin works are now least read, 

 and they have only been preserved from almost complete oblivion 

 by being translated into English and other modern languages. 



The last of his works to be noticed is the ' Sylva Si/lranim,^ 

 written just before his death and published by Dr. Rawley in 

 1627. This is a collection of what he calls " Experiments," which 

 relate to a great variety of subjects, physical, chemical, biological, 

 physiological, psychological, and medical, thrown together with 

 scarcely any method. But we should bear in mind that he only 

 intended this work to be a portion of a collection to be largely 

 added to from time to time by others, so that at some future period 

 a master mind might find a mass of material at hand from which to 

 build up a system of Natural History by sifting the wheat from 

 the chaff. In the Preface, Rawley says : " I have heard his 

 lordship speak complainingly, that his lordship . . . should be 

 forced to be a workman and a labourer, and to dig the clay and 

 bum the brick ; and more than that ... to gather the straw and 

 stubble over all the fields to burn the bricks withal." He felt that 

 he was not doing justice to himself in writing this book, and ex- 

 pressed the truth when he said to his chaplain that "if he should 

 have served the glory of his own name, he had better not to have 

 published this Natural History," but he thought that it was a 

 work which ought to be done, and "he knoweth that, except he 

 do it, nothing will be done." Nevertheless Prof. Fowler says of 



