Vol. I. No. 42 
Manchester Church May 
Extend Call to Palmer Pastor. 
Rev. M. Oakman Patton of Palmer, 
- who will preach at the Congregational 
church in Manchester tomorrow, is 
looked upon as a most favorable can- 
didate for the vacant pastorate. He 
preached in Manchester some weeks 
REV. M. OAKMAN PATTON, 
OF PALMER. 
ago and made a very strong impres- 
sion upon his congregation, as a result 
of which the committee have asked 
him to preach here again. 
Mr. Patton is by no means a 
Stranger in this section. He was for 
several years pastor of the Congrega- 
tional church in Newburyport, where 
he made a splendid record as a 
worker. 
As pastor of the Congregational 
church in Palmer, his present charge, 
he has met with pronounced success. 
He is an influential worker among the 
young people and has strengthened 
the church and young people’s socie- 
ties there, materially. Mrs. Patton’s 
health is quite poorly, and should a 
call be extended Mr. Patton to come 
to Manchester, this fact as much as _ 
anything else might lead him to give 
up his large field there. 
BEVERLY, MASS., SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1905 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
AWEEKLY JOURNAL: DEVOTED-TO-THE BEST: INTERESTS-OF THENORTH-SHORE: 
EF LEVON, 
Three Cents 
MASTERS OF 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
Francis Bacon, 1563 — 1626. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
Francis Bacon, son of the Keeper 
of the Great Seal of Queen Elizabeth, 
is known in the peerage as Baron of 
Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and 
Lord High Chancellor of England. 
To us he is known by his name, 
Francis Bacon, a name like George 
Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 
greater than any title can make it. 
Bacon rose rapidly to influence, 
obtaining at the age of twenty-eight 
the appointment of Counsel Extraor- 
dinary to the Queen, and might have 
secured further preferment, had he 
not by his opposition to large subsi- 
dies, which had been applied for, given 
offence to the sovereign. He began 
his literary life with resolutions worthy 
of Milton. ‘For myself,” he says, 
‘‘T found that I was fitted for nothing 
so well as for the study of truth.” It 
was his ambition to ‘make all learning 
his province.’”’ His ‘‘ Essays’”’ and 
other writings are a mine of intellec- 
tual wealth, combining in a remarka- 
ble degree conciseness of expression 
with fulness of thought. They are 
like treasure ships laden with the 
precious ore of distant climes, for he 
may be said to have made all learning 
his debtor. Izaak Walton calls him 
“the great secretary of nature and all 
learning.” Bacon was no doubt one 
of the greatest intellects the world has 
ever seen, one of the “great, creative 
minds”’ in the realm of thought, and 
his massive and luminous intellect was 
disposed to clothe its ideas in the 
most sumptuous dress. ‘‘In no other 
writer,” it has been said, ‘is so much 
profound thought to be found, ex- 
pressed in such splendid eloquence.” 
His style, like that of many other 
great writers of his age, may be over- 
loaded at times with learning, but it is 
stately and melodious. 
Bacon is perhaps better known and 
more truly estimated now than in his 
own generation ; and he himself seems 
to have had some presentiment of this 
posthumous fame, his last Will con- 
taining this remarkable passage : ‘“My 
name and memory I leave to foreign 
nations and to my own country, after 
some time is passed over.” It is safe 
to say that the world, with all the 
increase of science and literary culture, 
will always be indebted to this great 
man. Ben Jonson no doubt voiced 
the sentiment of later times quite as 
much as of his own. ‘‘ My conceit of 
his person was never increased toward 
him by his place or honors ; but I have 
and do reverence him for the greatness 
that was only proper to himself; in 
that he seemed to me by his work one 
of the greatest men and most worthy 
of admiration that had been in many 
ages. In his adversity I ever prayed 
God would give him strength, for 
greatness he could not want.” 
Bacon’s ‘“‘ Essays or Counsels, Civil 
and Moral,’’ are the best known and 
most read of his works. For just, 
original, striking observations, for 
reach of thought, variety and extent 
of view, sheer solid sense, and admira- 
ble sagacity, such Essays as those on 
Travel, Studies, Riches, Truth, Athe- 
ism, can never be surpassed. His 
philosophical works, as the ‘““Advance- 
ment of Learning,” and the “ Novum 
Organum,”’ were written in Latin, as 
was the custom of the time, and are 
monuments of stately erudition and 
profound thought. He wrote a His- 
tory of Henry VII., planned a Digest 
of Law, a Natural History, and even 
a romance; his ‘‘Apophthegms,”’ 
which Macaulay calls the best collec- 
tion of jests in the world, were dictated 
from memory on a day when illness 
rendered him incapable of serious 
study ; so versatile and multifarious 
were this man’s abilities. And he was 
of note as a speaker as well as writer. 
Ben Jonson says of him : ‘‘ There hap- 
pened in my time one noble _ speaker, 
who was full of gravity in his speak- 
ing. No manever spoke more neatly, 
more pressly, more weightily, or suf- 
fered less emptiness, less idleness in 
