PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF LORD BACON. 401 
_ Similar testimonies occur in many other publications of that 
day ; in the more obscure as well as the more noted. Indeed, 
there is no room whatever for doubt, that Bacon was generally 
considered as the chief promoter of genuine physics, at a pe- 
riod when the erection of the Royal Society, was of course 
"likely to bring forward. the name of any individual, whose la- 
bours had contributed, in a remarkable degree, to foster the 
growth of physical science., Cow ey, surely, will not be re- 
jected as an evidence of the general sentiment, merely be- 
cause he has recorded his testimony in verse. He was, as al- 
ready mentioned, a zealous advocate for a public institution, 
directed to the purposes of experimental philosophy ; and, on 
the establishment of the Royal Society, he addressed to it that 
celebrated Ode in which he represents Bacon as its Legislator. 
Dr Heynry Power calls Bacon “ the Patriarch of experimental 
“ philosophy ;” in a work published in 1664, in which he de- 
Vou. VIL. PLT. - BiBndy vids tails © 
of Bacon. The following passage is extracted from a very learned History of one 
of the earliest of these Academies.—*+ Sed, quz superest dicenda, supremam, et, 
ut nobis videtur, proximam condende Academiz enarrabimus occasionem. Scili- 
cet postquam, ineunte circiter priori seculo, non inter Britannos solum, sed universi 
quoque orbis incolas, immortalitati commendatissimus, Franciscus Baco de Ve- 
rulamio, supremus regni Britannici Cancellarius, variis jisque ad sapientiz normam 
elucubratissimis scriptis, utilissima emendande atque instaurandz historiz natu- 
ralis dedisset consilia, et absolutissimis rationibus firmasset : non Angli modo haud 
tncassum se monert atque excitart passt sunt, sed exter quoque gentes, imprimis Galli 
Italique, sanioris consilii patientes, tanta contentione cum qualibuscunque scientiis 
generatim, tum przcipue rerum naturalium studio animum intenderunt, adeo, 
ut ex illo tempore visi sint homines nihil, vel remotissimis naturz visceribus ab- 
strusum, quod non captis ex Baconis mente experimentis curiosius rimarentur, 
relicturi. Atque hic ardor, hac studia magnam quoque partem condiderunt Acade- 
miarum Soctetatumque hactenus memoratarum.” Bucuners, Academ. Nature Cu- 
wiosor. Hist. cap. i. § Ts 
