"She was by birth second to none, but unto the first in the realm; yet she measured only greatness by goodness, making nobility but the mirror of virtue, as able to shew things worthy to be seen, as apt to draw many eyes to behold it; she suited her behaviour to her birth, and ennobled her birth with her piety, leaving her house more beholden to her for having honoured it with the glory of her virtues, than she was to it, for the titles of her degree; she was high-minded in nothing but in aspiring to perfection and in the disdain of vice; in other things covering her greatness with humility among her inferiors, and shewing it with courtesy amongst her peers.

Of the carriage of herself, and her sober government it may be sufficient testimony, that envy herself was dumb in her dispraise, finding in her much to repine at, but nought to reprove: the clearness of her honour I need not to mention, she having always armed it with such modesty as taught the most untemperate tongues to be silent in her presence, and answered their eyes with scorn and contempt that did but seem to make her an aim to passion; yea, and in this behalf, as almost in all others, she hath the most honourable and known ladies of the land, so common and known witnesses, that those that least loved her religion, were in love with her demeanour, delivering their opinions in open praises. How mildly she accepted the check of fortune, fallen upon her without desert, experience has been a most manifest proof; the temper of her mind being so easy that she found little difficulty in taking down her thoughts to a mean degree, which true honour, not pride, has raised to a former height. Her faithfulness and love, where she found true friendship, is written with tears in many eyes, and will be longer registered in grateful memories of divers that have tried her in that kind, avowing her for secrecy, wisdom, and constancy, to be a miracle in that sex: yea, when she found least kindness in others, she never lost it in herself, more willingly suffering, than offering wrong, and often weeping for their mishaps, whom though less loving her, she could not but affect.

Of the innocency of her life, in general, all can aver, that as she was grateful many ways, and memorable for virtues, so was she free from all blemish of any vice, using, to her power, the best means to keep continually an undefiled conscience. Her attire was ever such as might both satisfy a curious eye, and yet bear witness of a sober mind; neither singular nor vain, but such as her peers of least report used.

If our souls be possessed in our patience, surely her soul was truly her own, whose rock, though often stricken with the rod of adversity, never yielded any more than to give issue of eye-streams; and though these, through the tenderness of her nature and aptness of her sex, were the customary tributes that her love paid more to her friends than her own misfortunes, yet were they not accompanied with distempered words or ill seeming actions; reason never forgetting decency, though remembering pity.

Her devotions she daily observed, offering the daily sacrifice of an innocent heart, and stinting herself to her times of prayer, which she performed with so religious a care as well shewed that she knew

how high a Majesty she served. I need not write how dutifully she discharged all the behoofs of a most loving wife, since that was the commonest theme of her praise; yet this may be said without improof to any, that whosoever in this behalf may be counted her equal, none can justly be thought her superior: where she owned, she payed duty; where she found, she turned courtesy: wheresoever she was known, she deserved amity; desirous of the best, yet disdaining none but evil company, she was readier to requite benefits than revenge wrongs; more grieved than angry with unkindness of friends, when either mistaking or misreport occasioned any breaches; for if their words carry credit, who entered deepest into her thoughts, they have acquitted her from all spice of malice, not only against her friends, whose dislikes were but a retire to slip further into friendship, but even her greatest enemies, to whom if she had been a judge as she was a suppliant, I assuredly think she would have redressed, but not revenged her wrongs. In sum, she was an honour to her predecessors, a light to her age, and a pattern to her posterity; neither was her conclusion different from her premises, or her death from her life; she shewed no dismay, being warned of her danger, carrying in her conscience the safe conduct of innocency. But having sent her desires to heaven before, with a mild countenance and a most calm mind, in more hope than fear, she expected her own passage; she commended both her duty and goodwill to all her friends, and cleared her heart from all grudge towards her enemies, wishing true happiness to them both, as best became so soft and gentle a mind, in which anger never stayed but as an unwelcome stranger."

One more short passage, and we have done.

"There is in this world continual interchange of pleasing and greeting accidence, still keeping their succession of times, and overtaking each other in their several courses; no picture can be all drawn of the brightest colours, nor a harmony consorted only of trebles; shadows are needful in expressing of proportions, and the bass is a principal part in perfect music; the condition here alloweth no unmeddled joy, our whole life is temperate between sweet and sour, and we must all look for a mixture of both: the wise so wish: better that they still think of worse, accepting the one if it come with liking, and bearing the other without impatience, being so much masters of each other's fortunes, that neither shall work them to excess. The dwarf groweth not on the highest hill, nor the tall man loseth not his height in the lowest valley; and as a base mind, though most at ease, will be dejected, so a resolute virtue in the deepest distress is most impregnable."

Goodness of nature and kindness of heart, although not of themselves sufficient to obtain their possessor a passport to literary immortality, frequently communicate a charm to his writings, which in some measure supplies the place of genius. This charm, united with the purest morality, distinguishes in a pecu

liar manner the compositions of Father Southwell. But he had genius too; in addition to the moral beauty which we both see and feel in his works, there are constant traces of a fervid and poetical imagination. He seems, however, almost afraid to trust himself in the fairy land of poetry, lest he should imbibe some of its illusions. One consequence of which is, that in his poetical pieces his genius is much more restrained than in his prose compositions. While the former are in general marked by gentleness and simplicity, the latter are characterized by energy and passion.

Besides the works already mentioned, Southwell wrote the Rules of Good Life, and a supplication to Queen Elizabeth. Of his various compositions, many editions were published, but they have all now become uncommonly scarce.

ART. VII. Franc. Baconis de Verulamio, summi Anglia Cancellarii, Novum Organum Scientiarum.

"Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia."

Lugd. Bat. 1645.

After a cursory view of Lord Bacon's Essays, and of his Advancement of Learning, we endeavoured, in a former number, to explain the object and some of the excellencies and defects of his Novum Organum; and particularly his observations upon the defects of our senses, and of our judgements: the Idols by which we are constantly warped," The Idols of the Tribe," whose temples are universal and worshippers every where. We now proceed to make a few, and only a few, observations upon the remaining species of idols; for, to use Bacon's own words,

"It is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial place, or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention."

And next, therefore, of

Idols of the Den, or the Defects of Individuals.

Individual defects of the senses are not, Bacon says, within the limits of the Novum Organum: and he is not very copious in his observations upon individual defects of the judgement; but this subject ought, as it seems to us, to comprize the whole doctrine of mental discipline, as far as it relates to

making the mind pliant at any time to acquire any sort of knowledge. Bacon, however, contents himself with stating, that,

"Besides the general aberrations of human nature, we, every one of us, have our particular den or cavern, which refracts and corrupts the light of nature: either because every man has his respective temper, education, acquaintance, course of reading, and authorities, or from the difference of impressions, as they happen in a mind prejudiced or prepossessed, or in one that is calm, and equal."

Upon Inability at particular times to acquire knowledge, the Novum Organum does not contain any observations; and it is only casually remarked in his Advancement of Learning, where he says,

"There is a kind of culture of the mind which is built upon this ground, that the minds of all mortals are at some times in a more perfect state: at other times in a more depraved state. The objects, therefore, of this culture are, the fixation of good times and the obliteration of bad times, that the good seasons may be cherished and the evil crossed and expunged out of the calendar; and to attain this two seasons are chiefly to be observed, the one when the mind is best disposed to a business, the other when it is worst; that by the one, we may be well forward on our way; by the latter we may, by a strenuous contention, work out the knots and stondes of the mind, and make it plain for other occasions."

Upon inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge, there are some observations in the Novum Organum and in the Advancement of Learning, not only upon the causes and varieties of this sort of Idolatry, but upon its consequences and remedies.

"From the attachment, (he says,) of individuals to particular studies, either because they believe themselves to have been the authors and inventors, or because they have bestowed much thought upon them, or from other accidents of their lives, or from their natural conformation, they are so warped to particular truths, as to have a partial or total inability to acquire other sorts of knowledge."

From the infinite variety of this class of Idols, we shall select two specimens; and first:

Of ability to view either only the differences, or only the correspondencies of things.

Of which Bacon says,

"The great and radical difference of capacities as to philosophy and the sciences lies here, that some are stronger and fitter to observe the differences of things, and others to observe their correspondencies:

for a steady and sharp genius can fix its contemplations, and dwell and fasten upon all the subtlety of differences, whilst a sublime and ready genius perceives and compares the smallest and most general agreements of things.-Ingenia autem sublimia et discursiva etiam tenuissimas et catholicas rerum similitudines et agnoscunt et componunt."

If this observation of Bacon's is well founded, no man ever existed to whom these epithets were more peculiarly applicable, than Bacon himself: for, of all the extraordinary properties of his wonderful mind, his constant observation of what, we, in common parlance, call trifles, appears to us to be one of the most extraordinary.

66 See," he says, "the little cloud upon glass or gems or blades of swords, and mark well the discharge of that cloud, and you shall perceive that it ever breaks up first in the skirts, and last in the midst. May we not learn from this the force of union, even in the least quantities and weakest bodies, how much it conduceth to preservation of the present form and the resisting of a new. In like manner, icicles, if there be water to follow them, lengthen themselves out in a very slender thread, to prevent a discontinuity of the water; but if there be not a sufficient quantity to follow, the water then falls in round drops, which is the figure that best supports it against discontinuation; and at the very instant when the thread of water ends, and the falling in drops begins, the water recoils upwards to avoid being discontinued. So in metals, which are fluid upon fusion, though a little tenacious, some of the mettled mass frequently springs up in drops, and sticks in that form to the sides of the crucible. There is a like instance in the looking-glasses, commonly made of spittle by children, in a loop of rush or whalebone, where we find a consistent pellicule of water."

Possessing this peculiar property himself, Bacon constantly admonishes his readers of its importance.

"The eye of the understanding," (he says,)" is like the eye of the sense for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances."

And again :

"He who cannot contract the sight of his mind as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty: and should consider, as an oracle, the saying of the poor woman to the haughty prince, who rejected her petition as a thing below his dignity to notice" then cease to reign:" for it is certain, that whoever will not attend to matters because they are too minute or trifling, shall never obtain command or rule over nature.

And again :

Certainly this may be averred for truth, that they be not the highest instances, that give the best and surest information. This is not unaptly exprest in the tale, so common, of the philosopher, that while he gazed upward to the starres fell into the water for if he had