32 J. HOPKINSON ANNITEESAEY ADDRESS : 



"Bacon," says Naville, "made the necessity of observation to rest 

 upon tlie Divine power, in presence of which we must humble 

 ourselves ; Descartes makes confidence in our reason to rest upon 

 the idea of the Divine goodness, to which we must trust ourselves." 

 Both men strongly urged the necessity of our throwing aside 

 all prejudice ; divesting our minds of every preconceived idea. 

 Bacon says: "It is humbly, with a sense of reverential fear, and 

 after having, in a manner, purified themselves from every pre- 

 conceived idea, that men must approach the grand book of creation 

 and unroll its pages ; regard it in long contemplation, meditate upon 

 it, and religiously impress themselves with it." 



It seems strange that while some of Bacon's biographers, such as 

 Hawley, Montague, and Hep worth Dixon, extol his character and 

 scarcely admit that he had a fault, others, such as Campbell and 

 Macaulay, condemn it and scarcely credit him with a single virtue. 

 Of his greatness there can be no question, but was his life a good 

 and virtuous one for the time in which he lived ? In endeavouring 

 to answer this question we should take into consideration that the 

 standard of morality has been vastly raised during the last three 

 centuries, and also that it is impossible for us in this age of 

 freedom to fully realise the difficult position of a courtier in his 

 day, and especially of one with a strong sense of duty to his 

 Sovereign, and a deep feeling of sympathy with the people. We 

 probably know more about the life of Francis Bacon than we do 

 about the life of any other man of a bygone age, for he kept 

 nearly everything he wrote, — every rough di-aft of a letter, even of 

 those he never sent, and also the memoranda he made, sometimes 

 in cypher, for his own use only, — and nearly everything has been 

 preserved and printed, so that we can often, as it were, read his 

 very thoughts. But we cannot know all. For truly 



" Old Time moves slowly, though he knows no stay, 

 And steals our voices as he creeps away, 

 Unseen himself, he hides from mortal view 

 Things that are seen, and things unseen doth shew." 



"We ought therefore to form our idea of the character of a man 

 who lived some centuries ago rather from the opinions of his 

 contemporaries, especially his servants and most intimate friends, 

 than from our own interpretation of the fragmentary evidence 

 which comes down to us. It will suffice to quote a few passages 

 from the opinions expressed of Francis Bacon by two of his intimate 

 friends, Toby Matthew and Ben Jonson, and two of his servants, 

 his domestic apothecary, Peter Boiiner, and his chaplain, amanuensis, 

 and biographer, Dr. Rawley. 



