BACON. 
What frightens you thus, my good foil' fays the pried ; 
You murder’d, are forry, and have been confed. 
O father! my forrow will fcarce fave my bacon ; 
For’t was not that I murder’d, but that 1 was taken. Prior. 
Bacon (Roger), an Englifh monk of the Francifcan 
order, an amazing indance of genius and learning, was 
born near Ilcheder in Somerfetflure, in the year 1214.. He 
commenced his ftudies at Oxford; from whence he remo¬ 
ved to the univerfity of Paris, which at that time was ef- 
teemed the centre of literature; and where it feerns he 
made fuch a progrefs in the fciences, that he was edeented 
the glory of that univerfity, and was there greatly cared'ed 
by feveral of his countrymen, particularly by Rob. Groot- 
head or Grouthead, afterwards bidiop of Lincoln, his great 
friend and patron. Having taken the degree of doctor, he 
returned to England in 1240, and took the habit of the 
Francifcan order, being but about twenty-fix years of age ; 
but according to borne he became a monk before he left 
France. He now purfued his favourite dudy of experi¬ 
mental philofophy with unremitting ardour and adiduity. 
In this purfuit, in experiments, indruments, and in fcarce 
books, he informs us he fpent, in the courfe of twenty 
years, no lefs than 2000I. an amazing him in thofe days; 
and which him it feems was generoufly furnifiied to him 
by fome of the heads of the univerfity, to enable him the 
better to purfue his noble refearches. By fuch extraor¬ 
dinary talents, and amazing progrefs in the fciences, which 
in that ignorant age were fo little known to the red of man¬ 
kind, while they railed the admiration of the more intelli¬ 
gent few, could not fail to excite the envy of his illiterate 
fraternity, whofe malice he farther drew upon him by the 
freedom with which he treated the clergy in his writings, 
in which he fpared neither their ignorance nor their want of 
morals : thefe therefore found no difficulty in pofiTeffing the 
vulgdr wdth the notion of Bacon’s dealing with the devil. 
Under this pretence he was redrained from reading lec¬ 
tures ; his writings were confined to his convent; and at 
length, in 1278, he himfelf was imprifoned in his cell, at 
fixty-four years of age. However, being allowed the life 
of his books, he dill proceeded in the rational purfuit of 
knowledge, correcting his former labours, and writing fe¬ 
veral curious pieces. 
When Bacon had been ten years in confinement, Jerom 
de Afcoli, general of his order, who had condemned his 
doCtrine, was chofen pope by the name of Nicholas IV. 
and being reputed a perfon of great abilities, and one who 
had turned his thoughts to philofophicai dudies, Bacon 
refolved to apply to him for his difeharge; and, to (hew 
both the innocence and the ufefulnefs of his dudies, ad- 
drelfed to him a treadle On the Means of avoiding the In¬ 
firmities of Old Age. What effeCt this had on the pope 
does not appear; it did not at lead produce an immediate 
difeharge: however, towards the latter end of his reign, 
by the interpofition of fome noblemen, Bacon obtained his 
liberty*; after which he fpent the remainder of-his life in 
the college of his order, where he died in the year 1294, 
at eighty years of age, and was buried in the Francifcan 
church. Such are the few particulars which the mod dili¬ 
gent refearches have been able to difeovei* concerning the 
life of this very extraordinary man. Bacon’s printed 
works are, 1. Epidola Fratris Rogeri Baconis de Secretis 
Operibus Artis et Naturae, et de Nullitate Magiae: Paris, 
1542, in 4to. Bafil, 1593, in 8vo. 2. Opus Majlis: Lon¬ 
don, 1733, in fol. publilhed by Dr. Jebb. 3. Thefaurus 
Chemicus : Francf. 1603 and 1620, Thefe printed works 
of' Bacon contain a conliderable number of .effiiys, which 
have been confidered as didinCI books in the catalogue of 
his writings by Bale, Pitts, &c. but there remain alfo in 
different libraries feveral mannferipts not yet publilhed. 
"By an attentive perufal of his works, the reader is ado- 
ni'flied to find that this great luminary of the 13th century 
•was deeply Ikilled in all the arts and fciences, and in many 
of them made the mod important inventions and difcove- 
ries. He was, fays Dr. Peter Shaw, beyond all compan¬ 
ion the greated man of his time, and he might perhaps 
Vol.TI. No. 91. 
6 dj 
dand in competition wit'll the greated that have appeared 
fince. It is wonderful, confidering the ignorant age in 
which he lived, how he came by fuch a depth of know¬ 
ledge on all fubjefts. Mis writingS' are compofed with 
that elegance, concifenefs, and drength, and adorned with 
fuch jud and exquifite obfervations on nature, that, among 
all the chemids, we do not know his equal. In his che¬ 
mical writings, be attempts to (hew how imperfeft metals 
may be ripened into perfect ones; making, with Geber, 
mercury the common bafis of all metals, and fulphur the 
cement. His other phyfical writings diew no lefs genius 
and force of mind. In his treatife Of the Secret Works 
of Art and Nature, hefliews that a perlon perfectly ac¬ 
quainted with the manner obferved by nature in her opera¬ 
tions, would be able to rival, and even to fnrpafs, her. In 
another piece, Of the Nullity of Magic, he (hews, with’ 
great fagacity and penetration, whence the notion of it 
fprang, and how weak all pretences to it are. From a 
perufal of his works, adds the fame author, we find Bacon 
was no dranger to many of the capital difeoveries of (lie 
prefent and pad ages. Gunpowder he certainly knew ; 
thunder and lightning, he tells us, may be produced by 
art; for that fulphur, nitre, and charcoal, which when fe- 
parate have no fenfible effeCh, yet when mixed together in 
due proportion, and clofely confined, and fired, they yield 
a loud report. A more precife defeription of gunpowder 
cannot be given in words. He al(o mentions a fort of im- 
extinguifhable fire prepared by art: which (hews he was 
not unacquainted with phofpborus : and that he had a no¬ 
tion of the rarefaction of the air,'and the druCture of an 
air-pump, is pad contradiction. He w as the miracle, fays 
Dr. Freiiid, of the age he lived in, and the greated genius, 
perhaps, for mechanical knowledge, that ever appeared in 
the world (itice Archimedes. He appears likewife to have 
been mader of the whole fcience of optics: he has accu¬ 
rately deferibed the ufes of reading-glades, and diewn the 
way of making them. Dr. Freind adds, that he a 1 fb de- 
feribes the camera obfeura, and all forts of glades, which 
magnify or diminidi any objeCt, or bring it nearer to the 
eye, or remove it farther od‘. Bacon fays himfelf, that lie ' 
Had great numbers of burning-glades : and that there were 
none ever in life among the Latins, till his friend Peter de 
Mahara Curia applied himfelf to the making of them. 
That the telefcope was not unknown to him, appears from 
a paffage where he fays, that he was able to form glades 
in fuch a manner, with refpebf to our light and the objeCts, 
that the rays (hall be re fra Ted and reflected wherever we 
pleafe, fo that we may fee a thing under what angle we 
think proper, either near or at a didance, and be able to 
read the (mailed letters at an incredible dillance, and to ' 
count the dud and fand, on account of the greatnefs of the 
angle under which we fee the objeCts; and alfo that we 
(hall fcarcely fee the greated bodies near us, on account 
of the fmallnefs of the angle under which w e view them. 
His (kill in adronomy was amazing: he difeovered that 
error which occafioned the reformation of the calendar; 
one of the greated efforts, according to Dr. Jebb, of hu¬ 
man indudry: and his plan for correcting it was followed 
by pope Gregory XIII. with this variation, that Bacon 
would have had the correction to begin from the birth of 
our Saviour, whereas Gregory’s amendment reaches no 
higher than the Nicene council. 
Bacon (Sir Nicholas), lord keeper of the great feal in 
tlve reign of queen Elizabeth, was born 2t Chifieluirlt, in 
Kent, lii 1510, and educated at the univerfity of Cam¬ 
bridge ; after■ which lie travelled into France, and made 
fome day-at Paris. On his return, he fettled in Gray's 
Inn, and applied himfelf with fuch adiduity to the dudy 
of the law, that he quickly didinguiffied himfelf fo', that 
oil the di'ffiolution of the monadery of St. Edmund’s Bu¬ 
ry, in Suffolk, he had'a grant from Henry VIII. of feve¬ 
ral manors. In the thirty-eighth year Of the fame king; 
he was promoted to the office of attorney in the court of 
Wards, which was a place both of honour and profit. In 
this office he was coatiuued bv Edward .VI, and an 15.5 2 ha 
3 £ "’SIS 
