12 DR. RAWLEY'S LIFE OF BACON. 



He was no plodder upon books ; though he read much, and 

 that with great judgment, and rejection of impertinences inci- 

 dent to many authors ; for he would ever interlace a moderate 

 relaxation of his mind with his studies, as walking, or taking 

 the air abroad in his coach l , or some other befitting recreation ; 

 and yet he would lose no time, inasmuch as upon his first and 

 immediate return he would fall to reading again, and so suffer 

 no moment of time to slip from him without some present 

 improvement. 



His meals were refections of the ear as well as of the stomach, 

 like the Nodes Attica, or Convivia Deipno-sophistarum, wherein 

 a man might be refreshed in his mind and understanding no less 

 than in his body. And I have known some, of no mean parts, 

 that have professed to make use of their note-books when they 

 have risen from his table. In which conversations, and other- 

 wise, he was no dashing man 2 , as some men are, but ever a 

 countenancer and fosterer of another man's parts. Neither was 

 he one that would appropriate the speech wholly to himself, 01 

 delight to outvie others, but leave a liberty to the co-assessors 

 to take their turns. Wherein he would draw a man on and 

 allure him to speak upon such a subject, as wherein he was 

 peculiarly skilful, and would delight to speak. And for himself, 

 he contemned no man's observations, but would light his torch 

 at every man's candle. 



His opinions and assertions were for the most part binding, 

 and not contradicted by any ; rather like oracles than discourses ; 

 which may be imputed either to the well weighing of his sen- 

 tence by the scales of truth and reason, or else to the reverence 

 and estimation wherein he was commonly had, that no man 

 would contest with him ; so that there was no argumentation, 

 or pro and con (as they term it), at his table : or if there 

 chanced to be any, it was carried with much submission and 

 moderation. 



I have often observed, and so have other men of great account, 

 that if he had occasion to repeat another man's words after him, 

 he had an use and faculty to dress them in better vestments and 



1 In the Latin version Rawley adds gentle exercise on horseback and playing at 

 bowls : Equitationem, non citam sed lentam, globorum lusum, et id genus exercitia. 



2 The word dash is used here in the same sense in which Costard uses it in Love's 

 Labour's Lost : " There, an't please you ; a foolish, mild man ; an honest man, 

 look you, and soon dashed:" Rawley means that Bacon was not a man who used his 

 wit, as some do, to put his neighbours out of countenance : Convivantiiim neminem ant 

 alias collonuenlium jmdore suffundere gloria sibi duxit, sicut nonuulli ycstiuiit. 



