Ix 



LIFE OF BACON. 



wayward child, and with all the affection of a friend, from 

 a deep feeling of his constant regard, and the grateful recol 

 lection of what, in the common world, would be deemed of 

 more importance, an act of pecuniary kindness, not, as in 

 these cases is generally supposed, to purchase, but to pro 

 cure his liberty of thought and action. 



Of his relative duties to the Queen and to Essex no man 

 was a more competent judge than Bacon: no man was 

 better, none so well grounded in the true rules of this 

 difficult part of moral science. In his tract on Duty, in 

 the Advancement of Learning, he truly says, &quot; There is 

 formed in every thing a double nature of good ; the one as 

 every thing is a total or substantive in itself, the other as 

 it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter 

 is in degree the greater and the worthier. This double 



o o 



nature of good and the comparative thereof is much more 

 engraven upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the 

 conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more 

 precious than the conservation of life and being, according 

 to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when 

 being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, 

 and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance 

 by his friends about him, that he should not hazard him 

 self to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, 

 Necesse est ut earn non ut vivam. &quot; (r) And when Essex 

 proffered him assistance, he, weighing these duties, admo 

 nished his friend that this was not to interfere with his 

 duty to his sovereign. His words were, &quot; I must and will 

 ever acknowledge my lord s love, trust, and favour towards 

 me, after the Queen had denied me the solicitor s place, 

 when he said, You have spent your time and thoughts in 

 my matters; I die, these were his very words, if I do not 

 somewhat towards your fortune. My answer, I remember, 



(r) See note 3 Z at the end. 



