back, and whose spirit mutinies; unto such death is a redeemer, and the grave a place for retiredness and rest. These wait upon the shore of death, and waft unto him to draw near, wishing above all others, to see his star, that they might be led to his place, wooing the remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and to break them off before the hour. But death is a doleful messenger to an usurer, and fate untimely cuts their thread: for it is never mentioned by him, but when rumours of war and civil tumults put him in mind thereof. And when many hands are armed, and the peace of a city in disorder, and the foot of the common soldiers sounds an alarm on his stairs, then perhaps such a one, (broken in thoughts of his moneys abroad, and cursing the monuments of coin which are in his house), can be content to think of death, and (being hasty of perdition) will perhaps hang himself, lest his throat should be cut; provided that he may do it in his study, surrounded with wealth, to which his eye sends a faint and languishing salute, even upon the turning off; remembering always, that he have time and liberty, by writing, to depute himself as his own heir. For that is a great peace to his end, and reconciles him wonderfully upon the point. Herein we all dally with ourselves, and are without proof of necessity.' I am not of those that dare promise to pine away myself in vain-glory, and I hold such to be but feat boldness, and them that dare commit it to be vain. Yet for my part, I think nature should do me great wrong, if I should be so long in dying, as I was in being born.2 To speak truth, no man knows the lists of his own patience; nor can divine how able he shall be in his sufferings, till the storm come, (the perfectest virtue being tried in action,) but I would (out of a care to do the best business well) ever keep a guard, and stand upon keeping faith and a good conscience. And if wishes might find place, I would die together, and not my mind often, and my body once; that is, I would pre So the original. Modern editions read "till necessity:" probably a conjectural correction; and (I suspect) not the true reading. 2 them in the last sentence, and yet in this, are omitted in the original. pare for the messengers of death, sickness and affliction, and not wait long, or be attempted by the violence of pain. Herein I do not profess myself a Stoic, to hold grief no evil, but opinion, and a thing indifferent. But I consent with Cæsar, that the suddenest passage is easiest, and there is nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die, than the quieted conscience, strengthened with opinion that we shall be well spoken of upon earth by those that are just, and of the family of virtue; the opposite whereof is a fury to man, and makes even life unsweet. Therefore, what is more heavy than evil fame deserved? Or, likewise, who can see worse days, than he that yet living doth follow at the funerals of his own reputation? I have laid up many hopes, that I am privileged from that kind of mourning, and could wish the like peace to all those with whom I wage love. I might say much of the commodities that death can sell a man; but briefly, death is a friend of ours, and he that is not ready to entertain him, is not at home. Whilst I am, my ambition is not to fore-flow the tide; I have but so to make my interest of it, as I may account for it; I would wish nothing but what might better my days, nor desire any greater place than the front of good opinion. I make not love to the continuance of days, but to the goodness of them; nor wish to die, but refer myself to my hour, which the great dispenser of all things hath appointed me; yet as I am frail, and suffered for the first fault, were it given me to choose, I should not be earnest to see the evening of my age; that extremity of itself being a disease, and a mere return into infancy: so that if perpetuity of life might be given me, I should think what the Greek poet said, Such an age is a mortal evil. And since I must needs be dead, I require it may not be done before mine enemies, that I be not stript before I be cold; but before my friends. The night was even now; but that name is lost; it is not now late, but early. Mine eyes begin to discharge their watch, and compound with this fleshly weakness for a time of perpetual rest; and I shall presently be as happy for a few hours, as I had died the first hour I was born. PREFACE. THE treatise De Sapientia Veterum was first published in 1609, in a small duodecimo volume, carefully and beautifully printed in the elegant italic type then in use. It appears to have become speedily popular, and was once or twice reprinted during Bacon's life, and translated both into English and Italian. In 1623, he introduced three of the fables, revised and considerably enlarged, into the De Augmentis Scientiarum, as a specimen of one of the Desiderata. Two others he had designed for the foundation of an elaborate discussion of the philosophy of Democritus, Parmenides, and Telesius; of which a considerable fragment has been preserved. See Vol. III. p. 65. A year or two before his death he designed to include the whole volume among the Opera Moralia et Civilia, of which he was then preparing a collection, and in which it was afterwards published by Dr. Rawley, along with the Latin translations of the History of Henry VII., the Essays, the New Atlantis, and the Dialogue of a Holy War. There can be no doubt therefore that it was a work which he thought well of, and meant to live. Of the history of it all I know further is, that four of the fables,-namely, Metis sive Consilium, Soror Gigantum sive Fama, Cœlum sive Origines, and Proteus sive Materia,- are found in the same form in the fragment which I have entitled Cogitationes de Scientiâ Humanâ, and which I suppose to have been written before 1605. See Vol. III. p. 171. The object of the work was probably to obtain a more favourable hearing for certain philosophical doctrines of Bacon's own; for it seems certain that the fables themselves could never have suggested the ideas, however a man to whom the ideas had suggested themselves might find or fancy he found them in the fables. But the theory on which his interpretation |