CCCclxiv LIFE OF BACON. 



young mind would be dazzled, and a young heart engaged 

 by the gorgeous and chivalric style which pervaded all 

 things, and which a romantic queen loved and encouraged : 

 life seemed a succession of splendid dramatic scenes, and 

 the gravest business a well-acted court masque; the 

 mercenary place-hunter knelt to beg a favour with the 

 devoted air of a knight errant ; and even sober citizens put 

 on a clumsy disguise of gallantry, and compared their 

 royal mistress to Venus and Diana. There was nothing 

 to revolt a young and ingenuous mind : the road to power 

 was, no doubt, then as it is now, but, covered with tapestry 

 and strewed with flowers, it could not be suspected that 

 it was either dirty or crooked. He had also that common 

 failing of genius and ardent youth, which led him to 

 be confident of his strength rather than suspicious of his 

 weakness: and it was his favourite doctrine, that the 

 perfection of human conduct consists in the union of con 

 templation and action, a conjunction of the two highest 

 planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and 

 Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action ; but he 

 should have recollected that Jupiter dethroned Saturn, 

 and that civil affairs seldom fail to usurp and take captive 

 the whole man. He soon saw his error: how futile the 

 end, how unworthy the means ! but he was fettered by 

 narrow circumstances, and his endeavours to extricate 

 himself were vain. 



Entrance Into active life he entered, and carried into it his 

 powerful mind and the principles of his philosophy. As a 

 philosopher he was sincere in his love of science, intrepid 

 and indefatigable in the pursuit and improvement of it: 

 his philosophy is &quot; discover improve. &quot;(a) He was 



(a) God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror, or glass, capable of 

 the image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression 



