As

of anger are chiefly three; first, to be too sensible | matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay. of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and, therefore, tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry, they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of: the next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered, to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much, or more, than the hurt itself; and, therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger; wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont to say, "telam honoris crassiorem." But in all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time, and to make a man's self believe that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come; but that he foresees a time for it, and so to still himself in the mean time, and reserve it.

To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution: the one, of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate and proper; for "communia maledicta" are nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society: the other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a fit of anger; but howsoever you show bitterness, do not act any thing that is not revocable.

For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed to incense them; again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt: and the two remedies are by the contraries: the former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business, for the first impression is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

LVIII. OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. SOLOMON Saith, "There is no new thing upon the earth;" so that as Plato had an imagination that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Solomon giveth his sentence, "That all novelty is but oblivion:" whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth as well above ground as below. There is an abstruse astrologer that saith, if it were not for two things that are constant, (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time,) no individual would last one moment: certain it is, that the

The great winding-sheets that bury all things in
oblivion are two; deluges and earthquakes.
for conflagrations and great droughts, they do not
merely dispeople, but destroy. Phaeton's car went
but a day: and the three years' drought in the time
of Elias, was but particular, and left people alive.
As for the great burnings by lightnings, which are
often in the West Indies, they are but narrow; but
in the other two destructions, by deluge and earth-
quake, it is further to be noted, that the remnant
of people which happen to be reserved, are com-
monly ignorant and mountainous people, that can
give no account of the time past; so that the ob-
livion is all one as if none had been left. If you
consider well of the people of the West Indies, it
is very probable that they are a newer or a younger
people than the people of the old world; and it is
much more likely that the destruction that hath
heretofore been there, was not by earthquakes, (as
the Egyptian priest told Solon, concerning the
island of Atlantis, that it was swallowed by an
earthquake,) but rather, that, it was desolates by
a particular deluge: for earthquakes are seldom in
those parts: but on the other side, they have such
pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia, and Africa,
and Europe, are but brooks to them. Their Andes
likewise, or mountains, are far higher than those
with us; whereby it seems, that the remnants of
generations of men were in such a particular de
luge saved. As for the observation that Machiavel
hath, that the jealousy of sects doth much extin-
guish the memory of things; traducing Gregory
the Great, that he did what in him lay to extin-
guish all heathen antiquities; I do not find that
those zeals do any great effects, nor last long; as
it appeared in the succession of Sabinian, who did
revive the former antiquities.

The vicissitude, or mutations, in the superior globe, are no fit matter for this present argument. It may be Plato's great year, if the world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing the state of like individuals, (for that is the fume of those that conceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these things below, than indeed they have,) but in gross. Comets, out of question, have likewise power and effect over the gross and mass of things; but they are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in their journey, than wisely observed in their effects; especially in their respective effects; that is, what kind of comet for magnitude, colour, version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven, or lasting, produceth what kind of effects.

There is a toy, which I have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low Countries, (I know not in what part) that every five and thirty years the same kind and suit of years and weathers comes about again; as great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers with

concurrence.

little heat, and the like, and they call it the people have invaded the northern, but contrariprime it is a thing I do the rather mention, be-wise; whereby it is manifest that the northern cause, computing backwards, I have found some tract of the world is in nature the more martial region: be it in respect of the stars of that hemisphere, or of the great continents that are upon the north; whereas the south part, for aught that is known, is almost all sea; or, (which is most apparent,) of the cold of the northern parts, which is that, which, without aid of discipline, doth make the bodies hardest, and the courage warmest.

But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men's minds most. The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. To speak, therefore, of the causes of new sects, and to give some counsel concerning them, as far as the weakness of human judgment can give stay to so great revolutions.

Upon the breaking and shivering of a great state and empire, you may be sure to have wars; for great empires, while they stand, do enervate and destroy the forces of the natives which they have subdued, resting upon their own protecting forces; and then, when they fail also, all goes to ruin, and they become a prey; so was it in the decay of the Roman empire, and likewise in the empire of Almaigne, after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather; and were not unlike to befal to Spain, if it should break. The great accessions and unions of kingdoms do likewise stir up wars: for when a state grows to an overpower, it is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow; as it hath been seen in the states of Rome, Turkey, Spain, and others. Look when the world hath fewest barbarous people, but such as commonly will not marry, or generate, except they know means to live, (as it is almost everywhere at this

When the religion formerly received is rent by discords, and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal, and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may doubt the springing up of a new sect: if then also there should arise any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof; all which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not, for it will not spread: the one is the supplanting, or the opposing of authority established; for nothing is more popular than that; the other is the giving license to pleasures and a voluptuous life: for as for speculative heresies, (such as were in ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians,) though they work mighti-day, except Tartary,) there is no danger of inundaly upon men's wits, yet they do not produce any great alterations in states; except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three manner of plantations of new sects; by the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst mira-casting what part should stay at home, and what cles, because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature: and I may do the like of superlative and admirable holiness of life. Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses; to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors, by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness.

The changes and vicissitude in wars are many, but chiefly in three things; in the seats, or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from east to west; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars, (which were the invaders,) were all eastern people. It is true, the Gauls were western, but we read but of two incursions of theirs; the one to Gallo-Græcia, the other to Rome: but east and west have no certain points of heaven; and no more have the wars, either from the east or west, any certainty of observation: but north and south are fixed; and it hath seldom or never been seen that the far southern.

tions of people: but when there be great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life and sustentation, it is of necessity that once in an age or two they discharge a portion of their people upon other nations, which the ancient northern people were wont to do by lot;

should seek their fortunes. When a warlike state grows soft and effeminate, they may be sure of a war: for commonly such states are grown rich in the time of their degenerating; and so the prey inviteth, and their decay in valour encourageth a war.

As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule and observation: yet we see even they have returns and vicissitudes; for certain it is, that ordnance was known in the city of the Oxidrakes, in India; and was that which the Macedonians called thunder and lightning, and magic; and it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in China above two thousand years. The conditions of weapons, and their improvements, are, first, the fetching afar off; for that outruns the danger, as it is seen in ordnance and muskets; secondly, the strength of the percussion; wherein likewise ordnance do exceed all arietations, and ancient inventions: the third is, the commodious use of them; as that they may serve in all wea thers, that the carriage may be light and manage able, and the like.

For the conduct of the war; at the first, men
F

iested extremely upon number; they did put the | them together for a time; in the declining age of wars likewise upon main force and valour, point- a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning days for pitched fields, and so trying it out ing hath its infancy, when it is but beginning, upon an even match; and they were more igno- and almost childish; then its youth, when it is rant in ranging and arraying their battles. After luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, they grew to rest upon number, rather competent when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old than vast; they grew to advantages of place, cun-age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust; but it is ning diversions, and the like; and they grew more skilful in the ordering of their battles.

APPENDIX TO ESSAYS.

NOTES TO ESSAYS.

metals rust; fluids turn sour; and in animals, when the spirit which held the parts together escapes, all things are dissolved, and return to their own natures or principles: the oily parts to themselves; the aqueous also to themselves, &c.; upon which necessarily ensues that odour, that unctnosity, that confusion of parts observable in putrefaction;" So true is it, that in nature all is beauty: that notwithstand-discourse thus: Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani ing our partial views and distressing associations, the forms of death, mis-shapen as we suppose them, are but the tendencies to union in similar natures.-To the astronomer, the setting sun is as worthy of notice as its golden beams of orient light.

the eastern hills; and I was strangely pleased when I saw something of this in Cicero; for I have been so push'd at by herds and flocks of people that follow any body that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, that I am grown afraid of any truth that seems chargeable with singularity: but therefore I say, glad I was when I saw Lælius in Cicero quam conciliavit ipsa natura, contracta res est, et adducta in angustum; ut omnis charitas, aut inter duos. aut inter paucos jungeretur.' Nature hath made friendships and societies, relations and endearments; and by something or other we relate to all the world; there is enough in every man that is willing to make him become our friend; but when men contract friendships, they inclose the commons: and what nature intended should be every rivers, and the strand of seas, and the air,-common to all the world; but tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love have made them proper and peculiar.”

See lastly his epitaph upon the monument raised by his affectionate and faithful Secretary, who lies at his feet; and although only a few letters of his name, scarcely legible, can now be traced, he will ever be remembered for his affec-man's, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like tionate attachment to his master and friend. Upon the monument which he raised to Lord Bacon, who appears sitting in deep but tranquil thought, he has inscribed this epitaph:

"The friendship is equal to all the world, and of itself hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. For thus the sun is the eye of the world; and he is indifferent to the Negro, or the cold Russian, to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand near the tropics, the scalded Indian or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills. But the fluxures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the north or south respectively change the emanations of his beams; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below, but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can. And some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattle, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of cattarhes and consumptions, apoplexies and dead palsies. But some have splendid fires and aromatic spices, rich wines and well-digested fruits, great wit and great courage, because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in his chambers of the east. Just so is it in friendships," &c.

NOTE G.

Referring to page 21.

very untruly, by a nuncio of the pope, returning from a cer"It was both pleasantly and wisely said, though I think tain nation where he served as lieger; whose opinion being asked touching the appointment of one to go in his place, be wished that in any case they did not send one that was too wise; because no very wise man would ever imagine what they in that country were like to do. And certainly it is an error frequent for men to shoot over, and to suppose deeper ends, and more compass-reaches than are; the Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part true:

"Di danari, di senno, e di fede,
Ce ne manco che non credi."

(There is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith than men do account upon.)

NOTE H.
Referring to page 23.

See the treatise de Augmentis, book viii. chapter 3, where the subject to which this note is annexed, is investigated. "Let states and kingdoms that aim at greatness by all means take heed how the nobility and grandees, and that

There are some observations upon Envy, in Taylor's Holy those which we call gentlemen, multiply too fast; for that Living.

It begins thus: "Love is the greatest thing that God can give us, for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it 'the band of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great commandment, and it is all the commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the law.' It does the work of all other graces, without any instrument but its own immediate virtue. For as the love to sin makes a man sin against all his own reason, and all the discourses of wisdom, and all the advices of his friends, and without temptation, and without opportunity: so does the love of God; it makes a man chaste without the laborious acts of fasting and exterior disciplines, temperate in the midst of feasts, and is active enough to choose it without any intermedial appetites, and reaches at glory through the very heart of grace, without any other arms but those of love." Then see his magnificent discourse on Friendship in his polemical discourses. "Christian charity is friendship to all the world; and when friendships were the noblest things in the world, charity was little, like the sun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the centre of a burning-glass; but Christian charity is friendship expanded, like the face of the sun when it mounts above |

makes the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain driven out of heart, and in effect nothing else but the nobleman's bondslaves and labourers. Even as you may see in coppice-wood, if you leave your studdles too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes:' as in a country, if the nobility be too many, the commons will be base and heartless, and you will bring it to that, that not the hundredth pole will be fit for an helmet; especially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army, and so there will be a great population and little strength. confirmed than in the examples of England and France, This which I speak of, hath been in no nation more clearly whereof England, though far inferior in territory and population, hath been nevertheless always an overmatch in arms, in regard the middle people of England make good soldiers, which the peasants of France do not. And herein the device of Henry the Seventh King of England, whereof I have spoken largely in the history of his life, was profound and admirable, in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land unto them, as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty, and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, or at least use fructuary, and not hirelings and mercenaries, and thus a country shall merit that character whereby Virgil expresses ancient Italy,

"Terra potens armis, atque ubere gleba." Neither is that state which is almost peculiar to England, and for any thing I know, hardly to be found anywhere else, except it be perhaps in Poland, to be passed over, I mean the