paration against Cæsar, saith, 'Consilium Pompeii plane Themistocleum est; putat enim, qui mari potitur, eum rerum potiri;' '43 and without doubt, Pompey had tired out Cæsar, if upon vain confidence he had not left that way. We see the great effects of battles by sea: the battle of Actium decided the empire of the world; the battle of Lepanto arrested the greatness of the Turk.44 There be many examples where sea-fights have been final to the war but this is when princes, or states, have set up their rest upon the battles. But thus much is certain;. that he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will; whereas those that be strongest by land are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. Surely, at this day, with us of Europe the vantage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great; both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and because the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary to the command of the seas.

The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect of the glory and honour which reflected upon men from the wars in ancient time. There be now, for martial encouragement, some degrees and orders of chivalry, which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscuously upon soldiers and no soldiers; and some remembrance perhaps upon the escutcheon, and some hospitals for maimed soldiers, and such like things; but in ancient times, the trophies erected upon the place of the victory; the funeral laudatives 45 and monuments for those that died in the wars; the crowns and garlands personal;46 the style of Emperor 47 which the great kings of the world after borrowed; the triumphs 48 of the generals upon their return; the great donatives and largesses upon the disbanding of the armies, were things able to inflame all men's courages; but above all, that of the triumph amongst the Romans was not pageants, or gaudery, but one of the wisest and noblest institutions that ever was ;

for it contained three things; honour to the general, riches to the treasury out of the spoils, and donatives to the army: but that honour, perhaps, were not fit for monarchies, except it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his sons; as it came to pass in the times of the Roman emperors, who did impropriate 49 the actual triumphs to themselves and their sons, for such wars as they did achieve in person, and left only for wars achieved by subjects, some triumphal garments and ensigns to the general.

To conclude: no man can by care taking (as the Scripture saith), 'add a cubit to his stature,' 50 in this little model of a man's body; but in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes, or estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as we have now touched, they may sow greatness to their posterity and succession: but these things are commonly not observed, but left to take their chance.

J.

NOTES ON ESSAY XXIX.

'Themistocles.' He was a famous Athenian statesman and general (B. C. 514-449), who won the battle of Salamis over the Persians, and secured the supremacy of Athens over Sparta.

2. 'censure'-opinion, judgment; and not necessarily (as in our day) given by way of disapproval.

'Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment'-Hamlet.

'Will you go

To give your censures in this weighty business?'-SHAKEspeare.

3. holpen a little with a metaphor '-the license being taken of stretching the remark a little, by transferring it from an individual statesman to statesmen generally.

4. cunningly '-cleverly. See note 2, Essay XXII.

5. arts and shifts'-devices habitually and deliberately practised, and petty artifices adopted only for the occasion.

6. negotiis pares '-equal to their work. He is speaking of men who, though able to continue successfully the management of a state already well-ordered and prosperous, would yet be

quite unable to raise a state from a low position to one of greatness.

7. 'argument'-subject. Cf.:

'That to the height of this great argument

I may assert Eternal Providence'-Milton's Paradise Lost, i.

8. 'fall under measure '—come with the range of calculation: just as revenue may be computed, and population counted, and cities estimated by plans, maps, and lists.

9. Matt. xiii, 31.

10. 'stout'-valiant, bold.

'The stout-hearted are spoiled'-Ps. lxxvi, 5.

'The character of a bold, stout, magnanimous man'-CLARENdon.

II. 'Virgil.'

'Hic tantum boreæ curamus frigora, quantum
Aut numerum lupus, aut torrentia flumina ripas'

12. in the plains of Arbela.'

·

-Eclogues, vii, 51.

Alexander the Great won the battle of Arbela over the Persians, B.C. 331, in one of the plains between the river Tigris and the mountains of Kurdistan, called after the neighbouring town of Arbela. 13. Tigranes'- -an Armenian sovereign, who impudently styled himself 'King of Kings;' he was son-in-law of Mithridates, King of Pontus, with whom he took refuge after being defeated by the Romans. The Roman consul, Lucullus, with a small army gained a complete victory over him.

14.

' odds'-difference; superiority of one over the other. See note 6, Essay XXI.

15. Solon' (seventh century B. C.) one of the so-called Seven Sages of Greece, and the celebrated legislator of Athens. The account of his famous visit to Croesus, King of Lydia, is no doubt, in most respects, mythical.

16. 'mercenary'-hired foreign soldiers (which are the only resource in case of an effeminate people).

17.

mew them '-moult them, shed them; literally change them, from the French muer, Latin mutare.

Hence a mew is a place of confinement for hawks while moulting; and then the word becomes transferred, especially in the plural mews, to any place of confinement, as for horses. Cf. To mew up your tender kinsman '—Shakespeare's King John.

18. Gen. xlix, 9, 14, 15.

19. empire-great rule, possession of great power, or influence over others.

20.

staddles '-young trees. Hence to staddle a wood is to clear away the large trees and leave the young ones standing; and staddle-roof is the name of the covering of a rick fastened down to it by staddles or rick-pins.

21.

hundred poll '—one out of every hundred. ' in regard '-in respect that; because. 23. King Henry the Seventh.'

22.

24.

Bacon is referring to the Statute 4 Henry VII, 16, 19, which enacted that every house of husbandry in the kingdom that had twenty acres of land or more attached to it should be maintained and kept up for ever, and used and occupied with the land. The object of this law, re-enacted by Henry VIII, was to prevent the conversion of arable land into pasture land, as was the tendency in consequence of the rapid growth of the wool trade, but which threw many agricultural labourers out of employ.

'A land strong in arms and in the fertility of the soil'-Æneid, i, 531.

25. Nebuchadnezzar's tree.' Dan. iv, 10: I saw, and, behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.' 26. 'naturalisation'-conferring the rights and privileges of native subjects upon foreigners.

27. to think’. -as for thinking.

28. 'nice'-fastidious, very particular.

29. 'jus civitatis'—right of citizenship; consisting, as he enumerates below, not only of right of trading, right of marriage, right of inheriting, but also the right of voting, and the right of holding office in the state.

30. Pragmatical Sanction '—a name derived from the Byzantine empire, and denoting the decrees promulgated by sovereigns. The special pragmatica here referred to is probably one issued by Philip IV of Spain, granting privileges to married persons, and larger ones to those who had six children.

31. 'rid-attend to, get rid of.

32. 'contain '-restrict, confine.

33. habilitations'—qualifications. So Bacon speaks of persons who are not habilitate to serve in Parliament.'

34. Romulus bequeathed as a legacy to the Romans that they should earnestly attend to military affairs. The use of intend as a transitive verb equivalent to attend to was formerly very

common:

'Having no children, she did with singular care and tenderness intena the education of Philip'-Bacon's Henry VII.

35. 'flash'-moment, very short time.

36. stood upon '—enlarged upon; dwelt longer upon in speech. 37. quarrel'-ground, cause. See note 21, Essay VIII.

38. prest'-ready (Latin paratus, French prêt).

39.

'tacit conformity of estate'-an understood desire to make every government like one's own.

40. It is an advantage to be always,' etc.

41. Has the power of arbitrating and directing, and having its wishes respected.

42. abridgment of a monarchy '-a little monarchy in itself.

M

43.

The plan of Pompey is thoroughly Themistoclean; for he thinks that whoever has the mastery of the sea has the mastery of everything.'

44. The battle of Actium was won by Augustus over Antony, B.C. 31; that of Lepanto over the Turks in 1571.

45. Orations in praise of fallen victors.

46. 'personal'-bestowed as rewards upon separate persons. 47. 'style of Emperor.' The title imperator is really a military one, and was commonly given by soldiers to a general after

a victory.

48. triumphs'—triumphal processions.

49. 'impropriate’—appropriate, take. So also the appropriation of church property by laymen is called impropriation.

50. Matt. vi, 27.

ANALYSIS OF ESSAY XXIX.

I. Of statesmen :

1. Many are incompetent.

2. Some can manage a government already settled.
3. Few could make a small state great.

II. The true greatness of an estate consists

1. Not in towns, arsenals, armories, etc.

2. Nor in numerical strength of army.

3. But in the mettle and breed' of the people (examplesBattle of Arbela; Tigranes; Solon).

III. How greatness is to be attained:

1. Beware of overtaxing.

2. Encourage yeomen and 'free servants' (i.e. military retainers).

3. Facilitate naturalisation; on this subject take warning by the Spartans, and follow the example of the Romans.

4. Leave sedentary and in-door arts to foreigners.

5. Let the nation learn to love and profess war.

6. Be awake to every just occasion for war.

7. The mastery of the sea is itself an immense power.

8. Assign glory and honour to warriors.

IV. By war kings can add greatness and amplitude to their kingdoms.

XXX.-OF REGIMENT OF HEALTH. (1597, enlarged 1612, and again 1625.)

THERE is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and