LIFE OF BACON. Ill 



Bacon s health was always delicate, and his tempera 

 ment was of such sensibility, as to be affected, even to 

 fainting, by very slight alterations in the atmosphere; a 

 constitutional infirmity which seems to have attended him 

 through life.(g) 



While he was yet a child, the signs of Genius, for which 

 he was in after life distinguished, could not have escaped 

 the notice of his intelligent parents. They must have been 

 conscious of his extraordinary powers, and of their respon 

 sibility that, upon the right direction of his mind, his 

 future eminence, whether as a statesman or as a philoso 

 pher, almost wholly depended. 



He was cradled in politics ; he was not only the son of 

 the Lord Keeper, but the nephew of Lord Burleigh. He 

 had lived from his infancy amidst the nobility of the reign 

 of Elizabeth, who was herself delighted, even in his child 

 hood, to converse with him, and to prove him with ques 

 tions, which he answered with a maturity above his years, 

 and with such gravity that the Queen would often call him 

 her young Lord Keeper.(A) Upon the Queen s asking him, 

 when a child, how old he was, he answered, &quot; two years 

 younger than your majesty s happy reign.&quot; 



But there were dawnings of genius of a much higher 

 nature, (x) When a boy, while his companions were 

 diverting themselves near to his father s house in St. 

 James s Park, he stole to the brick conduit to dis 

 cover the cause of a singular echo;(c) and, in his twelfth 



(g) See note G at the end. 



(/*) See note H at the end. 



O) See Paradise Regained, B.I. &quot; When I was yet a child/ &c. See 

 Burns : &quot; I saw thee seek the sounding shore/ &c. See Beattie s Minstrel ; 

 &quot; Baubles he heeded not,&quot; &c. 



(c) The laws of sound were always a subject of his thoughts. In the third 

 century of the Sylva, he says, &quot; we have laboured, as may appear, in this 



