LIFE OF BACON 



poets and historians ; by whom the love of our country is 

 taught, perhaps, if only one mode is adopted, best taught, 

 in the midst of Troy s flames : and friendship by Nisus 

 eagerly sacrificing his own life to save his beloved Euryalus : 

 and with such slight information we are suffered to embark 

 upon our voyage, without any direct instruction as to the 

 tempests by which we may be agitated ; by which so many, 

 believing they are led by light from heaven, are wrecked 

 and lost; and so few reach the true haven of a well ordered 

 mind ; &quot; that temple of God which he graceth with his 

 perfection and blesseth with his peace, not suffering it to be 

 removed although the earth be removed, and although the 

 mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.&quot; 



At some future time it may be deemed worthy of con 



sideration whether inquiry ought not to be made of the 



nature of each passion, and the harmony which results 



from the exact and regular movement of the whole, (z) 



Greatness In the fall of the year Bacon expressed to the Lord Chan- 



of Britain. cellor an j nc ii nat i n to write a history of Great Britain ;(a) 



and he prepared a work, inscribed to the King, upon its 



true greatness. 



&quot; Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint.&quot; 



In this work in which, he says, he has not any purpose 

 vainly to represent this greatness, as in water, which shews 

 things bigger than they are, but rather, as by an instrument 

 of art, helping the sense to take a true magnitude and 

 dimension, he intended an investigation of the general 



(z} Saville was Provost of Eton. On Sept. 21 the King partook of a 

 banquet at Eton College, and knighted Saville : this letter must therefore 

 have been written after the 21st Sept. ; and it seems to have been written in 

 1604, as it is a rudiment of that part of the Advancement of Learning which 

 relates to universities, and was published in 1605. 



() See vol. xii. p. 69. 



