ciences, observatories, balloons,
submarines, the modification of species, and several others--were
foreshadowed with a strange mixture of cold reason and poetic intuition.
_De Sapientia Veterum_ is a fanciful attempt to show the deep meaning
underlying ancient myths,--a meaning which would have astonished the myth
makers themselves. The _History of Henry VII_ is a calm, dispassionate, and
remarkably accurate history, which makes us regret that Bacon did not do
more historical work. Besides these are metrical versions of certain
Psalms--which are valuable, in view of the controversy anent Shakespeare's
plays, for showing Bacon's utter inability to write poetry--and a large
number of letters and state papers showing the range and power of his
intellect.

BACON'S PLACE AND WORK. Although Bacon was for the greater part of his life
a busy man of affairs, one cannot read his work without becoming conscious
of two things,--a perennial freshness, which the world insists upon in all
literature that is to endure, and an intellectual power which marks him as
one of the great minds of the world.

Of late the general tendency is to give less and less prominence to his
work in science and philosophy; but criticism of his _Instauratio_, in view
of his lofty aim, is of small consequence. It is true that his "science"
to-day seems woefully inadequate; true also that, though he sought to
discover truth, he thought perhaps to monopolize it, and so looked with the
same suspicion upon Copernicus as upon the philosophers. The practical man
who despises philosophy has simply misunderstood the thing he despises. In
being practical and experimental in a romantic age he was not unique, as is
often alleged, but only expressed the tendency of the English mind in all
ages. Three centuries earlier the monk Roger Bacon did more practical
experimenting than the Elizabethan sage; and the latter's famous "idols"
are strongly suggestive of the former's "Four Sources of Human Ignorance."
Although Bacon did not make any of the scientific discoveries at which he
aimed, yet the whole spirit of his work, especially of _the Organum_, has
strongly influenced science in the direction of accurate observation and of
carefully testing every theory by practical experiment. "He that regardeth
the clouds shall not sow," said a wise writer of old; and Bacon turned
men's thoughts from the heavens above, with which they had been too busy,
to the earth beneath, which the