7 MRS

wahr 10-5-29 ~ 248169-9

5

INTRODUCTION

I

"Francis Bacon, the glory of his age and nation, the adorner and ornament of learning, was born in York House, or York Place, in the Strand, on the two and twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord 1560 (old style). His father was that famous counsellor to Queen Elizabeth, the second prop of the kingdom in his time, Sir Nicholas Bacon, knight, lordkeeper of the great seal of England; a lord of known prudence, sufficiency, moderation, and integrity. His mother Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook; unto whom the erudition of King Edward the Sixth had been committed, a choice lady, and eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, being exquisitely skilled, for a woman, in the Greek and Latin tongues. These being the parents, you may easily imagine what the issue was like to be; having had whatsoever nature and breeding could put into him.” 1

Very little is known of Bacon's early life. At the age of thirteen he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge. His three years at the University ended in disappointment. He was oppressed with the barrenness of the current intellectual atmosphere. Just such a feeling of disappointment with university education was a little later to be expressed by Descartes, whose in

1 Dr. Rawley's Life of Bacon, published 1657; reprinted by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, Bacon's Works, vol. I; this reference, vol. I, p. 3.