130 BACON'S ESSAYS 



goeth alone or moveth upon greater means, if they have 

 never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it. 

 They that are glorious must needs be factious ; for all 

 bravery stands upon comparisons. They must needs be 

 violent, to make good their own vaunts. Neither can 

 they be secret, and therefore not effectual ; but according 

 to the French proverb, Beaucoup de bruit, peu de fruit, 

 'Much bruit, little fruit.' Yet certainly there is use of 

 this quality in civil affairs. Where there is an opinion 

 and fame to be created either of virtue or greatness, these 

 men are good trumpeters. Again, as Titus Livius noteth 

 in the case of Antiochus and the Aetolians, 'There are 

 sometimes great effects of cross lies' ; as if a man that 

 negociates between two princes, to draw them to join in a 

 war against the third, doth extol the forces of either of 

 them above measure, the one to the other : and sometimes 

 he that deals between man and man, raiseth his own credit 

 with both, by pretending greater interest than he hath in 

 either. And in these and the like kinds, it often falls out 

 that somewhat is produced of nothing ; for lies are sufficient 

 to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. 



In military commanders and soldiers, vain-glory is an 

 essential point ; for as iron sharpens iron, so by glory one 

 courage sharpeneth another. In cases of great enterprise 

 upon charge and adventure, a composition of glorious 

 natures doth put life into business ; and those that are of 

 solid and sober natures have more of the ballast than of 

 the sail. In fame of learning, the flight will be slow 

 without some feathers of ostentation. Qtui de contemnendd 

 gloria libros scribunt, nomen suum inscribunt. 



Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of ostentation. 

 Certainly vain-glory helpeth to perpetuate a man's 

 memory; and virtue was never so beholding to human 

 nature, as it received his due at the second hand. Neither 

 had the fame of Cicero, Seneca, Plinius Secundus, borne 

 her age so well, if it had not been joined with some vanity 

 in themselves ; like unto varnish, that makes ceilings not 

 only shine but last. But all this while, when I speak of 

 vain-glory, I mean not of that property that Tacitus doth 



