CCCCXXX11 LIFE OF BACON. 



or clime wherein I was born, but having, in my riper years 

 and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find 

 myself bound by the principles of grace and the law of 

 mine own reason to embrace no other religion than this, (a) 

 Prayers. From his Prayers, found after his death, his piety 

 cannot be mistaken. (6) They have the same glory around 



(a) See Sir Thomas Browne s Religio Medici, of which my excellent 

 friend, Charles Lamb has, with his usual sweet and deep feeling, thus 

 spoken : &quot; I wonder and admire his entireness in every subject that is 

 before him. lie follows it, he never wanders from it, and he has no occasion 

 to wander; for whatever happens to be the subject, he metamorphoses all 

 nature into it. In that treatise on some urns dug up in Norfolk, how 

 earthy, how redolent of graves and sepulchres is every line ! You have now 

 dark mould, now a thigh-bone, now a skull, then a bit of a mouldered 

 coffin, a fragment of an old tomb-stone with moss in its &quot; Hie jacet,&quot; a 

 ghost or a winding-sheet, or the echo of a funeral psalm wafted on a 

 November wind ; and the gayest thing you shall meet with shall be a silver 

 nail or a gilt &quot; Anno Domini,&quot; from a perished coffin top.&quot; 



The whole of the passage is as follows : &quot; For my religion, though there 

 be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all, 

 as the general scandal of my profession, the natural course of my studies, 

 the indifferency of my discourse, and behaviour in matters of religion, 

 neither violently defending one nor with common ardour or contention 

 opposing another, yet in despight hereof I dare without usurpation assume 

 the honourable style of a Christian : not that I merely owe this title to the 

 font, my education, or clime wherein 1 was born, as being bred up either 

 to confirm those principles my parents instilled into my unwary under 

 standing, or by a general consent proceed in the religion of my country ; 

 but having in my riper years and confirmed judgment seen and examined 

 all, I find myself obliged, by the principles of grace and the law of mine 

 own reason, to embrace no other name than this. Neither doth herein my 

 zeal so far make me forget the general charity I owe unto humanity, as 

 rather to hate than pity Turks, Infidels, and Jews, rather contenting myself 

 to enjoy that happy style than maligning those who refuse so glorious a 

 title. But because the name of Christian is become too general to express 

 our faith, to be particular, I am of that reformed new-cast religion, wherein 

 I dislike nothing but the name : of the same belief our Saviour taught, the 

 apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and the martyrs confirmed.&quot; 



(&) Vol. vii. p. 3. Of the prayers the first, entitled, &quot; A Prayer, or 

 Psalm, made by the Lord Chancellor of England,&quot; is in the Resuscitatio $ 



