XIV LIFE OF BACON. 



statues are some of brass ; some of marble and touchstone ; 

 some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned ; 

 some of iron ; some of silver ; some of gold.&quot; (m) 



Such is the splendour of the portico, or ante-room. 

 Passing beyond it, every thing is to be found which ima 

 gination can conceive or reason suggest, (ri) 



(m} This entrance to Bacon s college always forces itself on my mind, 

 when I visit the University Library of Cambridge : in which I see the 

 portrait of Mr. Thomas Nicholson, known by the name of Maps, the pro 

 prietor of a circulating library, a* laborious pioneer in literature. Under 

 his feet are some relics from classic ground, more valuable, perhaps, for 

 their antiquity than for their beauty. Delightful as is the love of antiquity, 

 this artificial retrospective extension of our existence (see Shakespeare s 

 Sonnet 123), might it not be adoned, in the present times, by casts from 

 the Elgin marbles, of which the cost does not exceed 200. By one 

 of the universities (I think it is of Dublin) these casts have been procured. 

 Let any parent of the mind, who considers the various modes by which 

 the heart of a nation is formed (which is beautifully described in Hamsden s 

 sermon on the Cessation of Hostilities), look in Boydell s Shakespeare, at 

 Barry s Cordelia, to be found, most probably, in the Fitzwilliam collection: 

 and let him compare it with the magnificent affecting fainting female in 

 the Elgin marbles, and he will see the benefit which would result from 

 the university containing these valuable relics. 



(ri) We have large and deep caves of several depths : the deepest are 

 sunk six hundred fathom, and some of them are digged and made under 

 great hills and mountains ; so that if you reckon together the depth of the 

 hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles 

 deep : these caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coagu 

 lations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use 

 them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of 

 new artificial metals., by compositions and materials. 



We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and 

 some of them likewise set upon high mountains, so that the vantage of the 

 hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these 

 places we call the upper region. We use these towers, according to their 

 several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation, and 

 for the view of divers meteors, as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the 

 fiery meteors. 



We have great lakes, both salt and fresh; whereof we have use for the 

 fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies : for we 



