DR. ABBOTT'S "FRANCIS BACON." *
DEL. ABBOTT'S qualifications for writing an account of the life and writings of Lord Bacon are numerous. His acquaintance with his subject is profound, his style is clear and scholarlike, his sentiments are sound and judicious. Unfortunately, on the other hand, he lacks entirely the true biographer's touch. He loses himself in details, be arranges those details badly, and the portrait which he has painted of Lord Bacon, so far from standing ont of the canvas, shows dim and blurred. Or, to drop all metaphor, though it would be impertinent in the extreme to call Dr. Abbott's book dull, it is beyond all question tedious,—so tedious, indeed, that when we had finished it we wished that we could treat it as Browning treated a certain" delectable treatise," and then "fetch out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis, &c." Yet, as we write this, we feel that we are doing Dr. Abbott some injustice ; but the plain facts of the case are these. The life and character of Bacon have been handled by so many able pens that no place was left for a biography of the great Chan- cellor, unless from the hand of a writer of abnormal genius, and that Dr. Abbott is not. So that in travelling with him for a guide over the old familiar ground, our sensations are akin to those which a novel-reader might feel if some ill-advised novelist were to re-cast for his benefit the stories of Rob Boy or Kenil- worth. This comparison hardly runs on all fours ; but let it pass. An example, we hope, will make our meaning clear. Whose cheek has not flushed, whose heart has not swollen, over Macaulay's account of Bacon's behaviour towards "a poor old clergyman of the name of Peacham ?" The most sensitive of readers might peruse Dr. Abbott's account, and his pulses would not beat a second quicker. Indeed, there is something almost comic in his remark, that "from no point of view can Bacon's conduct in Peacham's trial be pronounced creditable." Is that the way to speak of a transaction which enabled Macaulay to set the hall-mark of his scathing invective on Bacon's brow for ever ? And then, forsooth, when the poor, old, tortured, and virtually murdered clergyman is left to die in prison, Dr. Abbott blandly informs the reader that "it is re- freshing to turn from Bacon's management of Peacham's trial to a little piece of Bacon's English, a specimen of his grand yet familiar style." Refreshing, perhaps, but certainly confusing, for this "little piece of Bacon's English " is nothing more than a full-page extract from "some notes of a speech which he delivered about Michaelmas, 1614, in the Star Chamber, on a case of deer-stealing,"—an extract, too, we make bold to say, which neither for its intrinsic excellence, nor for any other conceivable reason, deserved to be printed at all except
in a collected edition of Bacon's works. Foisted as they are here into the body of the narrative, sentences like the following are scarcely "tolerable, and not to be en- dured :"—" Forests, parks, and chases are an excellent remedy against surcharge of people, and too many of inhabitants, that
Francis Bacon : an Account of hie Life end WC T:.8. By Edwin A. Abbott, D.D. London : Macmillan and Co. the land through it grow not to slattery. And the green spots of the Bing are an excellent ornament to the beauty of the realm." The pages from which these extracts are taken will quite justify, we believe, the adverse criticisms we have felt compelled to make on Dr. Abbott's narrative ; and with regard to his examination of Lord Bacon's works we have little to say. There are readers, no doubt, who can profit by the précis or analysis of a great work, and to such Dr. Abbott's examination may be recommended. But with the exception of the Essays, which will always be read, it may be doubted whether the writings of Bacon, in any large proportion, will ever be much studied again. The causes of this are patent,—all that Bacon has to say on philosophical subjects can be found said much more clearly elsewhere. He was a magnificent writer, no doubt ; but his philosophy was always open to the charge brought against it by the celebrated Hervey. And indeed Dr. Abbott himself makes no secret of his view that it is Bacon's literary style which secures immortality for his works, and not their intrinsic merits. About that style, indeed, there can be no two opinions. It is splendid to the last degree, and no less flexible than splendid. Yet here, again, the age may be said to have outgrown this glorious style,—we mean for all practical purposes. It is true that Bacon ever and anon, and evidently always at will, breaks into direct and simple sentences which Cobbett might equal but could not surpass ; but as a rule, his style, with all its graces and beauties, must be pro- nounced just a little bit long-winded. It is no blame to Bacon that it is so. He wrote to suit the taste of his own generation ; and as we see from the- eulogies of Ben Jonson and other excellent judges, he :succeeded as few others have done. Still, when the question is whose style should be studied with a view to a modern writer's own composition, it will assuredly not be Lord Bacon's. We do not, however, sup- pose that Dr. Abbott would hold a different opinion,—and we have been led into the above observations because it happens that some of Bacon's works have been especially impounded, if we may use such a phrase, by the Examiners of this generation, —and we strenuously object to the use which some of those Examiners have made of those writings.
Many years have passed since Macaulay wrote the famous article on Lord Bacon, which Jeffrey hailed as splendid and prope divinum. It set an impression in the minds of English readers which time has only made deeper. Attempts of no ordinary kind have been made to shake that impression, and notably Mr. Spedding's. But though Mr. Spedding was a writer of so high and noble a nature that Dean Church did not hesitate to say of him that his name alone was almost a guarantee for the justness of the cause he takes up, Dean Church, on the whole, corroborates Macaulay. And this, we think, will, popularly speaking, decide the question ; for Dean Church's monograph on Bacon, in Mr. John Morley's "English Men of Letters," is so supremely good that it will enjoy, beyond a doubt, a very wide and durable circulation. We think, indeed, that it should be read in connection with Macaulay's Essay. for the Dean is not more entirely Macaulay's master in criticism than his inferior as a painter of historical pictures. And as Macaulay's impassioned rhetoric has now been countersigned by competent authorities, his attack on Bacon may be read with unalloyed pleasure, and should be weighed by every one who cares to examine Bacon's curiously compounded character. Dr. Abbott, we are glad to see, supports Macaulay quite as uncompromisingly as Dean Church does ; and his solution of what he calls the problem of Bacon's character, is the most interesting portion of his book. Before we examine it, it may be worth while to notice very briefly some other solutions which have recently been offered of this problem. Dean Church's theory was that Bacon's life was a double one—the life of high. thinking and the put-on worldly life—and that these two lives go on side by side, "the tvorldly one often interfering with the life of thought and discovery, and partly obscuring it ; but yet always leaving it paramount in his own mind." There is much to be said for this theory, which is characteristic of the subtle and gentle appreciation which Dean Church has formed of Bacon's character. And it is, in fact, the very gentleness of this writer's nature which renders his refusal to listen to Mr. Spedding's pleading so important. Bat his refusal is uncompromising ;— " With all his greatness, his splendid genius, his magnificent ideas, his enthusiasm for truth, his passion to be a benefactor of his kind, with all the charm that made him loved by good and worthy friends ; amiable, courteous, patient ; delightful as a companion, ready to take any trouble, there was in Bacon's 'self' a deep and fatal flaw—he was a pleaser of man. There was in him that subtle fault, noted and named both by philosophy and religion, in the ammo; of Aristotle, the eirepteweipeozo; of
St. Paul, which is more common than is pleasant to think, even in good people, and when it becomes dominant in a character, is ruinous to truth and power." Now this, we think, is very finely said indeed, and the Dean's rapier is a better weapon than Macaulay's bludgeon. Yet we hardly like even to "hesitate dislike" of Macaulay's treatment of Bacon. He does well to be angry with Bacon's want of magnanimity, and to make his readers share that anger. Still, the "problem," as Dr.
Abbott calls it, can hardly be solved by Macaulay's method.
Ingratitude and cruelty are the worst vices to which men are liable. Ingratitude and cruelty Bacon showed, as few have showed them, towards Essex and Peacham. And yet one feels instinctively that Bacon was not precisely what the world calls an ungrateful man, and he was certainly not a cruel one. Difficulties of a similar kind arise with regard to the other failings of Bacon. But we need not here refer to them. If a single key will serve to unlock the secrets of a mind like Bacon's, the key which Dr. Abbott offers seems as good as any. Professor Gairdner argues on somewhat similar lines; but his contention that Bacon was a great statesman by nature, and felt irresistibly driven to struggle for "the high places and good things of this world" in order to serve his country, is untenable. Bacon was far indeed from being a great statesman in the highest sense of the word; and his own fall was accelerated, and, perhaps, even caused, by the fact that he had misunderstood the pressure which his Parliament was able to bring upon James. Be this as it may, Dr. Abbott's solution, which is neither so subtle as Dean Church's nor so trenchant as Macaulay's, practically comes to this, that Bacon was careless of the means, having satisfied himself that his ends were good :—
"He was not by nature the fittest timber to make a politique of ; but he undertook to become a politique, and having undertaken it, he took Machiavelli's advice so far as concerns the lesser arts of self- advancement, and hardened himself in order to subsist. But although he did this systematically and unblushingly, he never forgot that his real calling was to further the Kingdom of Man overNature, and that to this all the fruits of his civil successor must be devoted. Supported by this never-failing consciousness, in the midst of all his schemes for self-advancement, he could never feel like a commonplace self- seeker. When he seeks wealth and stoops to take doubtful gifts, he never became sordid or avaricious ; even when he perverts the truth or recommends falsehood to the King, we gaze on him as a portent, with sorrow rather than with pity or unmixed contempt. Something of the support that religion gives its votaries was afforded to Bacon by philosophy ; and just as a Jesuit's simulation may be more mischievous, but must always be less vulgar, than that of a selfish man of the world, so it was with the paltry immoralities of the founder of the new philosophy. Even while creeping in the service of the great cause he did not feel himself to be mean at all, much less the meanest of mankind, nor did his contemporaries feel him to be so, nor can we ; and yet on sufficient occasion he could creep like a very serpent."
Such is Dr. Abbott's defence of Bacon. It is not a defence that can easily be impugned, for Bacon may have felt all that is here imputed to him. Yet we prefer Dean Church's explanation of the two ; and we do so with the more confidence, because at the end of that "long cleansing work of five years' expiation" we find Bacon as ready and as willing as ever to "misspend his talents in things for which he was least fit;" and it seems incredible to suppose that he could then cherish any hopes of forwarding his nobler schemes by doing so. In point of fact, no final solution of a problem like this can ever be reached. Bacon has left abundant materials for this world to form its judgment concerning him ; but the world seems unable to do anything of the kind. There was never so great a man who had less real greatness of character; and that he deceived himself about the extent of his own meanness is alike probable and natural. We disagree with Dr. Abbott in some of his views ; but we are glad to recommend his book for the spirit in which it is written. He does not seek to hide Bacon's sins and weaknesses ; and if he errs in being "reluctant to part from such a man as from an enemy," his error is, at least, a noble one.
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