this is easily expressed in words, but the thing itself cannot be come at without numerous turnings and windings, he next proposes an example of the exclusion or rejection, in Table 4, of those natures which are found not to be of the form of heat. The business of exclusion is not perfected till it terminates in the affirmative; or when the rejections have left but a few common principles, one of these is to be affirmed, if it account for the phenomena. He thought it would be useful, notwithstanding the imperfection of his tables, to allow the understanding, after weighing them well, to attempt the business of interpreting nature in the affirmative, on the strength of these and such others that may be procured. The attempt he calls, permissionem intellectus, sive interpretationem inchoatam, sive vindemiationem primam; a permission to the understanding, inchoate interpretation, or the first vintage of inquiry: and, accordingly, in Table 5, we have the vindemiatio prima de forma calidi; the first vintage, or dawn of inquiry, concerning the form of heat. The author having thus laid down tables that furnish the examples of the method of rejection or exclusion, as well as a specimen of the fruits, he proceeds to deliver the doctrine of instances, or the investigation of forms by prerogative instances, a doctrine of the first importance. The last sentence of Aph. 21, shows that the remaining parts of the Novum Organum were to have been comprised under nine general heads, and the author only lived to prosecute the first. "We, therefore, propose to treat, (1.) of prerogative instances; (2.) of the helps of induction; (3.) of the rectification of induction; (4.) of the method of varying inquiries, according to the nature of the subject; (5.) of prerogative natures for inquiry, or what subjects are to be inquired into first, what second; (6.) of the limits of inquiry, or an inventory of all the natures in the universe; (7.) of reducing inquiries to practice, or making them subservient to human uses; (8.) of the preliminaries of inquiry; (9.) and, lastly, of the ascending and descending scale of axioms." The author then enumerates twenty-seven PREROGATIVE INSTANCES, and enters at length into the properties of each, with illustrations and exceptions. We intended to have described them; and to have availed ourselves of the elegant commentaries of Mr. Professor Playfair; but this preliminary account has already extended too far; and we shall content ourselves with extracting the fifty-second, or concluding aphorism. "It must be observed, that in this our new machine for the understanding, we deliver a logic, not a philosophy: but as our logic directs the understanding, and instructs it, not like the common logic, to catch and lay hold of abstracted notions, as it were by the slender twigs, or tendrils, of the mind; but really enters, and cuts through nature, and discovers the virtues and actions of bodies, together with their laws as determined in matter; so that this knowledge flows not only from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things, and the universe; hence it is no wonder, that in order to give examples and illustrations of our art, we every where employ physical considerations and experiments. "We have here laid down twenty-seven prerogative instances, under the following titles: viz. 1. Instantiæ solitariæ, or solitary instances; 2. Instantiæ migrantes, or travelling instances; 3. Instantiæ ostensivæ, or glaring instances; 4. Instantiæ clandestinæ, or clandestine instances; 5. Instantiæ constitutivæ, or constituent instances; 6. Instantiæ conformes, or conformable instances; 7. Instantiæ monodicæ, or singular instances; 8. Instantia deviantes, or deviating instances; 9. Instantiæ limitaneæ, or frontier instances; 10. Instantiæ potestatis, or instances of power; 11. Instantiæ comitatus et hostiles, or accompanying and hostile instances; 12. Instantiæ subjunctivæ, or subjunctive instances; 13. Instantiæ fœderis, or instances of alliance; 14. Instantiæ crucis, or crucial instances; 15. Instantiæ divortii, or instances of divorce; 16. Instantiæ januæ, or instances of entrance; 17. Instantiæ citantes, or summoning instances; 18. Instantiæ viæ, or journeying instances; 19. Instantiæ supplementi, or supplemental instances; 20. Instantiæ persecantes, or lancing instances; 21. Instantiæ f virgæ, or instances of the staff; 22. Instantiæ curriculi, or instances of the course; 23. Doses naturæ, or doses of nature; 24. Instantiæ luctus, or instances of reluctance; 25. Instantiæ innuentes, or intimating instances; 26. Instantiæ polychrestæ, or sovereign instances; and 27. Instantiæ magicæ, or magical instances. And in point of information they assist either the sense or the understanding: the sense as the five instances of light; and the understanding, either by hastening the exclusion of the form, as the solitary instances; or by contracting, and more nearly indicating, the affirmation of the form, as the travelling, glaring, accompanying, and subjunctive instances: or by raising the understanding, and leading it to kinds, and common natures; and that either immediately, as the clandestine, and the singular instances, and instances of alliance; or in the next degree, as the constituent instances; or in the lowest degree, as the conformable instances: or again, by rectifying the understanding depraved by things whereto it is accustomed, as the deviating instances; or by conducting it to the great form or fabric of the universe, as the frontier instances; or lastly, by guarding it against false forms and causes, as the crucial instances, and instances of divorce. And as to practice, they either mark out, measure, or facilitate it. They mark it out by showing with what particulars we are to begin, to prevent labouring in vain, as the instances of power; or to what we should aspire, if it be attainable, as the intimating instances: the four mathematical ones measure and limit it; and the sovereign and magical ones facilitate it. "And of these twenty-seven instances, a collection of some should be made at first, as was above observed, (Aph. 32,) without waiting till we come to particular inquiries; and of this kind are the conformable, the singular, the deviating, and the frontier instances; the instances of power, of entrance, intimating, sovereign, and magical instances, because these either assist and rectify the understanding or the sense, or afford instruction with regard to practice in general; and for the rest, they are to be searched out when we make tables of view for the business of the interpreter, upon any particular subject. For the instances, honoured and ennobled with these prerogatives, are like a soul among vulgar instances of view; and as we said at first, a few of them serve instead of many; and therefore when we make tables, such instances are studiously to be sought out, and set down therein. The doctrine of them was also necessary to what we design to follow; and therefore a preparatory account thereof was here requisite. "And now we should proceed to the helps and rectification of induction, then to concretes, latent processes, concealed structures, &c. as mentioned in order, under the twenty-seven aphorisms; that at length, like faithful guardians, we might possess mankind of their fortunes, and release and free the understanding from its minority, upon which an amendment of the state and condition of mankind, and an enlargement of their power over nature, must necessarily ensue. For by the fall, man at once forfeited his innocency, and his dominion over the creatures, though both of them are in some measure recoverable, even in this life; the former by religion and faith; and the latter by arts and sciences. For the world was not made absolutely rebellious by the curse, but in virtue of that denunciation, 'In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread,' is at length, not by disputes, or indolent magical ceremonies, but by various labours, subdued, and brought in some degree to afford the necessaries of life." "Such," says Playfair, "were the speculations of Bacon, and the rules he laid down for the conduct of experimental inquiry, before any such inquiries had yet been instituted. The power and compass of a mind, which could form such a plan beforehand, and trace not merely the outline, but many of the most minute ramifications of sciences which did not yet exist, must be an object of admiration to all succeeding ages." The Third Part of the Instauration has been compounded for out of different tracts; of which the Parasceve (or Saturday Evening) of a natural and experimental History—a catalogue of particular histories-the A B C, Teacher of Nature-and a Preface to a Natural History are merely introductory arguments, for attempting and obtaining a surer natural and experimental philosophy. Then follow the titles of six particular monthly histories, the history of the Winds, the history of Rarity and Density, the history of Gravity and Levity, the history of the Sympathies and Antipathies of things, the history of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, and the history of Life and Death: three of these, the first, second, and last, have been preserved; but the aditus only of the other three are extant. This part is completed so far as the diligence of editors has extended, with some Questions concerning Metals, and some Thoughts on the Nature of Things. In the midst of much that looks like "wood, hay, and stubble," to a modern reader, there will be found" gold, and silver, and precious stones," of the greatest value; an aphorism that will stand the severest test, or an axiom that might shine, like a diamond, on the brow of Philosophy herself. Of the Fourth and Fifth Parts of the Instauration, we have only two brief and general intimations-the mere aditus of the intended treatises. The Opuscula Philosophica, or lesser pieces, would be sufficient of themselves to make good his claims as a philosopher. They either helped to prepare the way for his greater works, of which some of them were the germs, and afterwards formed portions; or they were the mere overflows of an active and exhaustless mind. We shall briefly notice two of them, The Wisdom of the Ancients, and the New Atlantis. The former of these writings, which appeared soon after the Advancement of Learning, is an attempt to deliver the supposed philosophy of the ancient fables, and was of course especially intended to propitiate the lovers of antiquity towards his meditated innovations. From the title we might be led to expect an account of the various systems of philosophy which prevailed amongst them; but the sole object is to interpret the meaning, and extract the hidden wisdom, of those fables, which have been transmitted to our time along with the ancient mythology. It is a serious attempt to indicate the useful, and reproduce the beautiful, from the apparently incongruous fictions of past ages; not "to write toys and trifles, and to assume the same liberty in applying, that the poets assumed in feigning." In his selection of these fables, the author has manifested his usual judgment. We find none of a strictly historical nature: they are all capable of a natural, moral, or political interpretation. The historical myths have given no small trouble to the student of antiquity. In some instances, as in the case of Livy, the predominant inspiration of whose narrative is the old Roman poems, all reasonable expectation is exceeded, if a Niebuhr can even separate, much more if he can extract, the fact from the fable; and it is perhaps the wiser plan in matters of so much uncertainty as ancient traditionary history, not to attempt the separation. Bacon has, therefore, wisely deserted this region of the fabulous domain, for one which promises to yield more important fruit. While it is evident, on the slightest examination, that these ancient fictions involve some important truths: "seeing some of them are observed to be so absurd and foolish in the very relation, that they show, and as it were proclaim, a parable afar off,”—it is at the same time an extremely difficult matter to ascertain the precise moral at which they point. But, as might have been conjectured, the most ancient are the least obscure; and accordingly, in selecting his specimens of the more lucid fable, Bacon has travelled beyond the more civilized period of Grecian history, beyond the time even of Homer and Hesiod, by whom " many of these fables, though selected and celebrated," seem not to have been invented to the "better times" of a yet earlier state of society. Referring to the fables which he has endeavoured to interpret, he says, "seeing they are diversely related by writers that lived near about one and the self-same time, we may easily perceive that they were common things derived from precedent memorials, that they became various by reason of the diverse ornaments bestowed on them by particular relations; and the consideration of this must need increase in us a great opinion of them, as not to be accounted either the effects of the times or inventions of poets, but as sacred relics or abstracted airs of better times, which by tradition from more ancient nations fell into the trumpets and flutes of the Grecians." Such is the kind of fables which Bacon deals with, with higher wisdom as an interpreter, than the ancients discovered as inventors. It so happens that the longest are the best; and we may refer the reader to the last section in the De Augmentis on Poetry, for " the learning" concerning them. The New Atlantis, which was not published until after the author's death, is the fragment of a philosophical romance, in which he intended to exhibit the model of an institution for the discovery of works, or a college and commonwealth for the interpretation of nature with a view to the arts of life. There is a Robinson Crusoe reality about it. The fiction possesses all the earnestness of a bonâ fide report from some newly-found country, where reason is the ruler, and man is becoming paramount. The author evidently availed himself of the spirit of enterprise that had been so recently excited and gratified, to direct its ardours and its energies into the strange land of probable wonders; and he who was but a prophet speaks like a missionary. This fragment was written in the maturity of his genius; and the fancy of so illustrating his own method shows the depth of his confidence in it, and the height of his expectations from it. We shall not deal so presumptuously with the reader, as to hint at the marvels so gravely described in this beginning of an account of Novus Orbis. These are the Opera Philosophica, which have won such lasting fame for their author, and exerted so powerful an influence on the world. The era of experimental investigation commences with them; and the principles, if not the manual directories, of his method, have been acted upon ever since. It does not derogate from his " titles manifold” to the respect and gratitude of his species, that he was no discoverer himself-that he explained no phenomena, and unfolded no physical law: he did neither; but he was, nevertheless, the master-spirit of those who did. He discovered the law of discovery, and was the first to interpret, after the most comprehensive survey of all existing knowledges, and the most profound inquiry into the condition of all mental achievements, the universal law of interpretation. He delivered the abstract precepts which "shut men up," as it were, to that philosophy of philosophies, of which he was the ablest and the first expounder, and of which the great discoverers are but the verifiers. We should more than exhaust the space allotted to a preface, were we to quote a tithe of the eulogies which have been lavished upon our author on account of these philosophical writings. The encomia of mere single sentences would fill a volume. But while we omit the innumerable extravaganzas, whether of home or foreign manufacture, which have been uttered in ancient or modern tongues, on this prolific theme; we may be allowed to select two poetical compliments which we have seldom seen quoted, and never in juxta-position, the one by his friend Herbert, on receiving the Great Instauration; and the other by Thomson in his celebrated apostrophe to England-each of which is highly characteristic of the period of its composition. "Quis iste tandem ? non enim vultu ambulat Duæ Notionum; veritatis Pontifex; Inductionis Dominus, et Verulamii; Rerum Magister unicus, at non Artium : Degentium olim Emancipator: luminis Now for the more modern compliment. "Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice, Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined. The great deliverer he, who from the gloom Of cloistered monks, and jargon-teaching schools, With radiant finger points to heaven again." We have now reviewed, in the most slight and cursory manner, the principal writings of FRANCIS BACON, the MORALIST, the POLITICIAN, the LAWYER, the ORATOR, the HISTORLAN the THEOLOGIAN, the POET, and the PHILOSOPHER the POET, and the PHILOSOPHER. In the course of our very brief examination, he has come before us in each of these high characters; distinguished in all, pre-eminent, if not peerless, in the last. All were combined to an unparalleled extent in this single individual; but all were subordinate to the Philosophical character, into which the rest may be resolved. Each of them must, of course, be taken into account in any estimate of such a genius; and after contemplating separately so great a variety and diversity of parts, our admiration is turned into absolute wonder, when we see them forming one harmonious whole. The imperial genius of philosophy is over all; and each in its turn, kindling under the lustre that radiates from this common centre, receives but to reflect back its splendours. Bacon must doubtless be considered as one of the most extraordinary men which the world has seen. There is scarcely a department of knowledge which he has not visited and improved. There is scarcely a book of solid merit published, in which his name does not occur, and in which his authority is not referred to. Whatever may be the subject, and wherever the literary or scientific labourer may be employed, there comes a light from this author, of illustration and guidance: and yet he was a man of practical pursuits, wending his way through this every-day world, as busy as the |