270 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 

 true, for, on a wintry March day, 1626, in the 

 neighbourhood of Barnet, he caught the chill 

 which ended his life while stuffing a fowl with 

 snow, to see if cold would delay putrefaction. 

 Harvey, who was working whilst Bacon was 

 writing, said of him : "He writes philosophy like 

 a Lord Chancellor." This, perhaps, is true, but 

 his writings show him a man, weak and pitiful 

 in some respects, yet with an abiding hope, a 

 sustained object in life, one who sought through 

 evil days and in adverse conditions " for the 

 glory of God and the relief of man's estate." 



Though Bacon did not make any one single 

 advance in natural knowledge though his pre- 

 cepts, as Whewell reminds us, " are now practically 

 useless " yet he used his great talents, his high 

 position, to enforce upon the world a new method 

 of wrenching from nature her secrets and, with 

 tireless patience and untiring passion, impressed 

 upon his contemporaries the conviction that there 

 was "a new unexplored Kingdom of Knowledge 

 within the reach and grasp of man, if he will be 

 humble enough, and patient enough, and truthful 

 enough to occupy it." 



The most sublime of English poets survived 

 our period by a few years. A comparison between 



