LINES. "And peace at last is nigh! A sign is on thy brow, a token sent, The o'erwearied dust from home: no breeze flits by, When thou hast entered Heaven, Oh! pray for those Whose spirits, like thine own are weary here, Farewell when life's tumultuous day is o'er- Charleston, S. C. Thy cheek hath lost its bloom- And the fresh fragrance of life's flowery morn, But on thy calm, and palely-pensive brow, A light, serene and soft, That beams from the Madonna's face divine, It speaks of suffering borne, and almost past, How drear is Earth to thee! Thou standest lone, Where in thy darkened and o'erclouded path, And o'er them thy sad heart in anguish grieves, I gaze upon thy face, So pale and calm Feeling, there is no pow'r on earth to give Thy trust once fetter'd here, is raised above- Yet sometimes will thy soul Dissolve in tears, When like a loosened falcon memory mounts Thy Heaven of youthful years, READINGS FROM LORD BACON. NO. 1. The present age is characterized by the unprecedented variety and extent of its production. The Patent Office is already filled to repletion with inventions of all sorts, from steam propellers and electric telegraphs, down to cooking stoves and churns. Every department of science aud art has received, and is constantly receiving, accessions (more or less valuable) to the means and contrivances for assisting its researches or perfecting its processes. The California discoveries, for instance, have applied a new stimulus to the proverbial ingenuity of our Yankee brethren, and the result is some scores of improved gold-washers, good, bad, and indifferent. We saw, not long since, a list of new patents, allowed in one week, to sundry applicants. They embraced an odd medley of things, from a machine for making solid-headed pins, to a new-fangled model for an accoucheur's chair. How many patents were refused, during the same week which brought forth the twenty-five or thirty that were permitted to see the light, the report did not inform us. On the whole, the effect of this activity, so far as regards our physical comfort and well-being, Where past delights, like gorgeous cloud-piles seen, is very beneficial. Many projectors, doubtless, Float o'er the deep and beautiful serene. throw away their time and money in unprofitable attempts. Much labor is wasted, that might be expended to greater advantage, as well to the public, as to the individuals themselves. But, here and there, an idea is struck out, which contributes largely in itself to the convenience of mankind, and leads the way to results of still greater importance. These remarks apply, in a great degree, to the labors of the intellect, and to literary productions, as well as to those of a merely physical character. The press groans under its constantly increasing burdens. This engine, in common with with all others, has been prodigiously enlarged in its capacity for work: but steam-boilers, cranks, toggle-joints, and rotary cylinders, are all inadequate to the mighty tasks which are daily accumulated around them. Were Sisyphus and Ixion 'just now released from the "rotation in office" which they have so long exercised under the dy-bloody daggers, the fungous growth of the Malenasty of the Heathen Gods, and translated to the factor's Register-or, too often, some prurient employments of a printing office in the nineteenth story, reeking in every line with profligacy and century, we doubt if they would find much reason vice. Those who travel much upon the great to rejoice at the exchange. thoroughfares of the country—nay, even those But we fear that the number and novelty of who resort frequently to the bookstores of our new works in the department of literature, in cities, towns and villages, know well that this their influence upon the welfare of mankind, are picture is not overcharged. It is true, that in less to be commended than the multiplicity of respectable shops, the grosser productions are contrivances in the mechanic arts. We do not either excluded, or kept out of sight in a drawer, mean to undervalue the important discoveries of or upon a back shelf. But even here, the mass the age in pure science, its extended acquaint- of the current, marketable literature is made up ance with all quarters of the globe, its advances of empty novels, and catch-penny publications, in government and laws, its wider views of jus- which are devoured with morbid curiosity, and tice and benevolence in all the relations of men which leave the mind relaxed and enervate, unfit towards each other, whether as members of the and unwilling to apply itself to works of real same community, or of different and distant na- utility and truth. One popular form in which tions. Nor do we we mean to depreciate the this sort of reading is "got up" for the trade, is intellectual contributions of a lighter character; the so-called literature of the cheap periodicals in poetry and belles-lettres, or in the splendid and “ family newspapers." There are some creations of fancy, which have elevated so high honorable exceptions to be made, out of the senthe true standard of fictitious writings. We could tence that we would pronounce if we had the not be so insensible to the merit of the great power. But the great mass of them, with their names, which will render the nineteenth century prose and poetry woven and printed, month after illustrious in the eyes of future ages. But we month, just as mechanically as the cottons and cannot blind ourselves to a great and growing calicoes of the factories, and with far less variety mischief—we trust it may not be a lasting one-of pattern, deserve the auto da fé, to which Don which springs out of this facility of production, Quixote's curate and barber devoted his luckless and is fostered by the restless love of excitement tales of chivalry, quite as much as the most sensethat belongs to our times. "Cheap literature"-less of these old romancers. cheap in its cost, worthless in itself, dear in its The result of all this is, that the amount of pernicious effect upon the minds of its readers-useful information, acquired by the mass of readthis cheap literature is the curse of the present ers, and the development of their moral and mengeneration; and we fear that like other curses, tal faculties, are lamentably disproportioned to its consequences may be felt, even by posterity. the increased facilities for diffusing the one and The reading public of this day is not found, as awakening the other. Supply and demand regof old, only in cloisters and colleges, in public li-ulate one another in this matter, as in the more braries, in the quiet study, or at the domestic familiar concerns of life. The solid and substanhearth. Not there alone, nor even for the most tial works of intellect are circulated and read but part, do we find the consumers of printed matter. little more than they were in times when the cost In taverns, in steamboats, in rail-road cars, in all of production put them beyond the reach of peothe various places where men are hurried to and ple of limited means. The taste to appreciate fro, by the feverish activity of business, and the them is wanting-they meet with a slow salelocomotive impulse of the times-in all these re- they are crowded out of the market by the ephesorts must we look for the vast majority of read-meral pamphlets and periodicals in question. It ers. You shall not step into a ferry boat, which is often said, by way of excuse, that people read conveys you in five minutes, from New York to the latter, who would not read any thing else, if Brooklyn, but you are beset by three or four these were absent. In the first place we answer, youngsters, with baskets of "cheap literature," that it were as well to read nothing, as to read who earn a livelihood for themselves and a profit one-half of them; and far better to read nothing for their employers, by thus levying contributions than the other half. But in the second place, it upon the wayfarer. It has become emphatically is not true. The child, who is pampered with true, that he who runs may read" but alas! cakes and comfits, will probably pout and turn he seldom reads, as the inspired writer would away at first from food of a plain and wholesome have admonished him to do. It saves time and character. But the calls of hunger will soon money, to pick up for a few shillings such wares overcome his transient disgust: and when the as are thrust into his hands by these colporteurs pernicious luxury is not to be had, he will be reof trash: and he selects, for the day's amusement, conciled to the meat, which is to give health and some absurd tale, redolent of burnt cork and vigor to his bodily frame. Nor will it be other wise with the mind. Its desire of occupation | thereunto, is a thing very improbable: we see it will, in no long time, familiarize it with the use is accounted an error to commit a natural body of "books which are books," and replace the dis- to empiric physicians, which commonly have a eased love of excitement with a salutary appe- few pleasing receipts, whereupon they are contite for the fruits of knowledge and wisdom. fident and adventurous, but know neither the It has more than once occurred to us, that causes of diseases, nor the complexion of patients, something might be done towards effecting this nor the peril of accidents, nor the true method change, by occasional selections from those wri- of cures: we see it is a like error to rely upon tings, of which the merit is much more generally advocates or lawyers, which are only men of admitted upon trust, than known from actual ac- practice, and not grounded in their books, who quaintance. While all who claim the English are many times easily surprised, when matter for their mother tongue, are proud of the fame falleth out besides their experience, to the prewhich it derives from Bacon, Milton and Locke, judice of the causes they handle:* so, by like very few have taken the trouble to look into the reason, it cannot be but a matter of doubtful contitle-deeds of their intellectual sovereignty. Per- sequence, if States be managed by empiric stateshaps, a few specimens, taken here and there, men, not well mingled with men grounded in treating of such topics as are easily understood, learning. But, contrariwise, it is almost withmay interest the general reader, and induce him out instance contradictory, that ever any governto drink more deeply at the fount itself. With ment was disastrous that was in the hands of this view, we propose at present to quote some learned governors. For howsoever it hath been passages from the first of these immortal authors: ordinary with politic ment to extenuate and disand, unless we greatly mistake our subscribers, able learned men by the names of pedants; yet they will find them quite as acceptable as the in the records of time it appeareth, in many paraverage of modern contributions to literature. It ticulars, that the governments of princes in miwill hardly escape their notice how many super-nority (notwithstanding the infinite disadvantage ficial pages of the moderns are hammered out of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled from some solid and condensed thought of the great philosopher. the government of princes of mature age, even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which Let us take up for example his treatise on the is, that by that occasion the State hath been in Advancement of Learning. In this work, pre- the hands of pedants: for so was the state of paratory to the great reform in the method, as Rome for the first five years, which are so much well as the objects, of scientific research, to which magnified during the minority of Nero, in the his mighty genius opened the way, he takes a hands of Seneca, a pedant: so it was again for review of the whole field of human knowledge; ten years space or more, during the minority of pointing out what portions of it had been culti-Gordianus the younger, with great applause and vated, and to what extent-what portions yet lay contentation, in the hands of Misitheus, a pelay waste and untilled-where intellectual labor dant: so it was before that, in the minority of had been misapplied and wasted—and where it Alexander Severus, in like happiness, in hands had been rewarded with greater or less degrees of success. And this review is preceded by a *There may be some among the free and enlightenvindication of learning from the reproaches which ed citizens of this great and growing confederacy," to have sometimes been cast upon it, and an illus-whom these ideas may appear obsolete: for the maxim of tration of its true influence in elevating the char-political equality has extended its influence to things social, professional, literary and scientific and its frequent acter, and promoting the happiness, of the hu- result is, that every man, however untaught (nay, the less man race. We do not assert for this perform-taught the better) is competent to take care of the lives ance a perfection, which belongs to no work of and fortunes of his fellow citizens, individually and colmental intellect: but we find infinitely more rea- lectively, in the capacity of doctor, lawyer or statesman, son to admire the surprising extent and compre-absence of "human learning and vain philosophy" exulon any and every emergency. We have even heard the hensiveness of his views, joined to his thorough ted in by religionists, who seemed to think that their caand minute knowledge of details, than to dwell pacity for religious light was thereby increased, though it upon the few blemishes and defects, that may ap-had obviously not much assisted their faculty of radia pear in the full blaze of that light, which his own tion. But the progress of education will correct all this hand has let in upon it. in time. In proportion as we acquire knowledge ourselves, we appreciate its value, and respect its possession, The objections, that learning unfits its posses-in those more gifted than ourselves. It was not a jewelsors for the duties of government, and that it ler, but a barn-yard fowl who preferred the grain of corn breeds a spirit of insubordination among the gov-to the diamond. erned, are thus replied to: "And for matter of policy and government, that learning should rather hurt, than enable Bacon probably remembered what his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, had written of himself-" a speculative man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex, than to promote public business." not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the learning doth make the minds of men gentle, women, who were aided by the teachers and pre- generous, maniable and pliant to government; ceptors. Nay, let a man look into the govern- whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwartment of the bishops of Rome, as by name, into ing, and mutinous; and the evidence of time the government of Pius Quintus, and Sextus doth clear this assertion, considering that the Quintus, in our times, who were both at their most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and been most subject to tumults, seditions, and he shall find that such popes do greater things, changes. and proceed upon truer principles of estate than "Neither is certainly that other merit of learnthose which have ascended to the papacy from ing, in repressing the inconveniences, which grew an education and breeding in affairs of estate and from man to man, much inferior to the former, courts of princes: for although men bred in of relieving the necessities which arise from nalearning are perhaps to seek in points of conve- ture; which merit was lively set forth by the nience, and accommodating for the present,* ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus' thewhich the Italians call “ragioni de stato," where- atre, when all beasts and birds assembled; and of the same Pius Quintus could not have spoken forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, with patience, terming them inventions against some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociareligion and the moral virtues; but, on the other bly together, listening to the airs and accords of side, to recompense that, they are perfect in those the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased same plain grounds of religion, justice, honor, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every and moral virtue, which, if they be well and beast returned to his own nature: wherein is watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of aptly described the nature and condition of men, those other, no more than of physic in a sound who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires or well dieted body. Neither can the experience of profit, of lust, of revenge; which, as long as of one man's life furnish examples and precedents for the events of one man's life: for, as it happeneth sometimes that the grandchild or other descendant, resembleth the ancestor more than the son; so, many times, occurrences of present times may sort better with ancient examples than with those of the latter or immediate times: and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning than one man's means can hold way with a common purse. “Again, for that other conceit, that learning should undermine the reverence of laws and government it is assuredly a mere depravation and calumny without all shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy, that they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained, but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion. "But this appeareth more manifestly, when kings themselves, or persons of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular estates, are endued with learning. For, although he might be thought partial to his own profession, that said, 'Then should people and estates be happy, when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings:' yet so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and governors there have been ever the best times: for, howsoever kings may have their imperfections in their passions and customs; yet, if they be illuminate by learning, they have those *The whole of this passage deserves more consideration notions of religion, policy, and morality, which than such lessons are likely to receive from the politicians do preserve them, and refrain them from all ruof our own country and our own times. It strikes at two inous and peremptory errors and excesses; whispernicious errors which are tacitly acquiesced in by a large proportion of all parties, and openly professed by a few. pering evermore in their ears, when counsellors The first of these errors is that a man may be dishonest and servants stand mute and silent. And senain political affairs but perfectly upright in his private deal- tors or counsellors likewise, which be learned, do ings: and the second is, that the rules of truth and jus- proceed upon more safe and substantial princitice, which are binding on individuals, lose their obligaples, than counsellors, which are only men of tion when applied to the conduct of nations. There can be but one standard of morals for men, whether in private experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar or public stations; and he who is untrue to it in one re-off, whereas the other discover them not till they lation can pay respect to it in another from motives of come near hand, and then trust to the agility of policy alone. Nor can governments, which are but agen- their wit, to ward off or avoid them.". cies in the hands of a few men, for the benefit of all, rise superior to the laws of morality, which are equally binding on the consciences of the men who rule, and the men who are ruled. VOL. XVI-5 As it is not our design to attempt any thing like an analysis of the works of Lord Bacon, but rather, like the Scholasticus in the Greek story, to offer a brick or two as specimens of the ma- | vana contemnere ;" and the same happened to terials whereof the house is built-we shall con- Columbus in the western navigation. But, in clude this paper with some other quotations intellectual matters it is much more common; as taken from the treatise already mentioned on the Advancement of Learning. EXTREME LOVE OF ANTIQUITY OR NOVELTY IN may be seen in most of the propositions of Euelid; which, till they be demonstrate, they seem strange to our assent: but, being demonstrate, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation, (as the lawyers speak,) as if we had known them before." THE TRUE END OF LEARNING. "There are some other rather peccant humors than formed diseases (of learning :) which, nevertheless, are not so secret and intrinsic, but that they fall under a popular observation and "But the greatest error of all the rest is the traducement, and are therefore not to be passed mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest over. The first of these is the extreme affecting end of knowledge: for men have entered into a of two extremities; the one antiquity, the other desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes novelty; wherein it seemeth the children of time upon a natural curiosity, and inquisitive appedo take after the nature and malice of the fa- tite; sometimes to entertain their minds with vather. For as he devoureth his children so one riety and delight; sometimes for ornament and of them seeketh to devour and suppress the reputation; and sometimes to enable them to other: while Antiquity envieth there should be victory of wit and contradiction; and most times new additions, and Novelty cannot be content for lucre and profession: and seldom sincerely to add but it must deface: surely the advice of to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the prophet is the true direction in this matter, the benefit and use of men: as if there were State super vias antiquas, et videte quænam sit sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest via recta et bona, et ambulate in ea.' Antiquity a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse for deserveth that reverence, that men should make a wandering and variable mind to walk up and a stand thereupon and discover what is the best down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state way; but when the discovery is well taken, then for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort to make progression. And to speak truly, An- or commanding ground, for strife and contention; tiquitas sæculi, juventus mundi.' These times are or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storethe ancient times, when the world is ancient, and house, for the glory of the Creator, and the renot those which we account ancient ordine ret- lief of man's estate. But this is that, which will rogrado,' by a computation backwards from our- indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemselves. plation and action may be more nearly and straitAnother error, induced by the former, is a ly conjoined and united together than they have distrust that any thing should be now to be found been; a conjunction like unto that of the two out, which the world should have missed and highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and passed over, so long time; as if the same objec- contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil tion were to be made to time, that Lucian mak- society and action: how beit, I do not mean, eth to Jupiter and other the heathen gods; of when I speak of use and action, that end before which he wondereth that they begot so many mentioned, of the applying of knowledge to luchildren in old time, and begot none in his time; cre and profession; for I am not ignorant how and asketh, whether they were become septuage- much that diverteth and interrupteth the prosenary, or whether the law Papia, made against cution and advancement of knowledge, like unto old men's marriages, had restrained them. So the golden ball thrown before Atalanta, which it seemeth, men doubt whether time is become while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, past children and generation; wherein, contra- the race is hindered; riwise, we see commonly the levity and incon* 'Declinat cursus, aurumque volubile tollit.' stancy of men's judgments, which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done; and, as Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socsoon as it is done, wonder again that it was no rates, to call philosophy down from heaven to sooner done; and as we see in the expedition of converse upon the earth; that is, to leave natuAlexander into Asia, which at first was pre- ral philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge judged as a vast and impossible enterprise: and only to manners and policy. But as both heaven yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy to make no more and earth do conspire and contribute to the use of it than this,* “Nil aliud, quam bene ausus est and benefit of man; so the end ought to be, from *"It was merely a discreet daring, which despised trifles." *"Forsakes the course, and lifts the rolling gold." |