BACON ON SEA POWER. [To ma EDIT= Or me "Srearrron."1
Sin,—What is the exact meaning of Bacon's femme remark that " to be master of the sea is an abridgement of a monarchy," quoted in your issue of February 6th P The general sense no doubt is that mastery of the sea is in effect mastery of the world. But why is maritime supremacy, which from the nature of the case must be world-wide in its extent, described as "an abridgement of a monarchy an epitome of sovereignty, or, as Dr. Abbott interprets the phrase in his note on the passage, "a monarchy in miniature"? The saying occurs in Essay No. XXIX., " Of the True Great- ness of Kingdoms and Eatates," towards the end.—I am, [The laws of England boiled down into a single book were called An Abridgement of the Laws, are. The book contained all the laws compressed into a little space. So sea power was regarded by Bacon as a kind of compressed empire—a whole empire in a cup—" potted" sovereignty, as we might say now.—En. Spectator.]
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