REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita. Vol. I, Containing, I. Opus Tertium,--II. Opus Minus,--III. Compendium Philosophiae. Edited by J.S. BREWER, M.A., Professor of English Literature, King's College, London, and Reader at the Rolls. Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Rolls. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts. 1859. 8vo. pp. c., 573.
Sir John Romilly has shown good judgment in including the unpublished works of Roger Bacon in the series of "Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," now in course of publication under his direction. They are in a true sense important memorials of the period at which they were written, and, though but incidentally illustrating the events of the time, they are of great value in indicating the condition of thought and learning as well as the modes of mental discipline and acquisition during the thirteenth century.
The memory of Roger Bacon has received but scant justice. Although long since recognized as one of the chief lights of England during the Middle Ages, the clinging mist of popular tradition has obscured his real brightness and distorted its proportions, while even among scholars he has been more known by reputation than by actual acquaintance with his writings. His principal work, his "Opus Majus," was published for the first time in London in 1733, in folio, and afterwards at Venice in 1750, in the same form. Down to the publication of the volume before us, it was the only one of his writings of much importance which had been printed complete, if indeed it is to be called complete,--the Seventh Part having been omitted by the editor, Dr. Jebb, and never having since been published.
The facts known concerning Roger Bacon's life are few, and are so intermingled with tradition that it is difficult wholly to separate them from it. Born of a good family at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, near the beginning of the thirteenth century, he was placed in early youth at Oxford, whence, after completing his studies in grammar and logic, "he proceeded to Paris," says Anthony Wood, "according to the fashion prevalent among English scholars of those times, especially among the members of the University of Oxford." Here, under the famous masters of the day, he devoted himself to study for some years, and made such progress that he received the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Returning to Oxford, he seems soon to have entered into the Franciscan Order, for the sake of securing a freedom from worldly cares, that he might the more exclusively give himself to his favorite pursuits. At various times he lectured at the University. He spent some later years out of England, probably again in Paris. His life was embittered by the suspicions felt in regard to his studies by the brethren of his order, and by their opposition, which proceeded to such lengths that it is said he was cast into prison, where, according to one report, he died wretchedly. However this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.[[9]] The references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread, and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to oblivion. But time slowly brings about its revenges; and the man whom his ignorant and stupid fellows thought fit to hamper and imprison, and whom popular credulity looked upon with that half-horror and half-admiration with which those were regarded who were supposed to have put their souls in pawn for the sake of tasting the forbidden fruit, is now recognized not only as one of the most profound and clearest thinkers of his time, but as the very first among its experimental philosophers, and as a prophet of truths which, then neglected and despised, have since been adopted as axioms in the progress of science. "The precursor of Galileo," says M. Hauréau, in his work on Scholastic Philosophy, "he learned before him how rash it is to offend the prejudices of the multitude, and to desire to give lessons to the ignorant."
The range of Roger Bacon's studies was encyclopedic, comprehending all the branches of learning then open to scholars. Brucker, in speaking of him in his History of Philosophy, has no words strong enough to express his admiration for his abilities and learning. "Seculi sui indolem multum superavit," "vir summus, tantaque occultioris philosophiae cognitione et experientia nobilis, ut merito Doctoris Mirabilis titulum reportaverit."[[10]] The logical and metaphysical studies, in the intricate subtilties of which most of the schoolmen of his time involved themselves, presented less attraction to Bacon than the pursuits of physical science and the investigation of Nature. His genius, displaying the practical bent of his English mind, turning with weariness from the endless verbal discussions of the Nominalists and Realists, and recognizing the impossibility of solving the questions which divided the schools of Europe into two hostile camps, led him to the study of branches of knowledge that were held in little repute. He recognized the place of mathematics as the basis of exact science, and proceeded to the investigation of the facts and laws of optics, mechanics, chemistry, and astronomy. But he did not limit himself to positive science; he was at the same time a student of languages and of language, of grammar and of music. He was versed not less in the arts of the Trivium than in the sciences of the Quadrivium.[[11]]
But in rejecting the method of study then in vogue, and in opposing the study of facts to that of questions which by their abstruseness fatigued the intellect, which were of more worth in sharpening the wit than in extending the limits of knowledge, and which led rather to vain contentions than to settled conclusions,--in thus turning from the investigation of abstract metaphysics to the study of Nature, Roger Bacon went so far before his age as to condemn himself to solitude, to misappreciation, and to posthumous neglect. Unlike men of far narrower minds, but more conformed to the spirit of the times, he founded no school, and left no disciples to carry out the system which he had advanced, and which was one day to have its triumph. At the end of the thirteenth century the scholastic method was far from having run its career. The minds of men were occupied with problems which it alone seemed to be able to resolve, and they would not abandon it at the will of the first innovator. The questions in dispute were embittered by personal feeling and party animosities. Franciscans and Dominicans were divided by points of logic not less than by the rules of their orders.[[12]] Ignorance and passion alike gave ardor to discussion, and it was vain to attempt to convince the heated partisans on one side or the other, that the truths they sought were beyond the reach of human faculties, and that their dialectics and metaphysics served to bewilder more than to enlighten the intellect. The disciples of subtile speculatists like Aquinas, or of fervent mystics like Bonaventura, were not likely to recognize the worth and importance of the slow processes of experimental philosophy.
The qualities of natural things, the limits of intellectual powers, the relations of man to the universe, the conditions of matter and spirit, the laws of thought, were too imperfectly understood for any man to attain to a comprehensive and correct view of the sources and methods of study and discovery of the truth. Bacon shared in what may he called, without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum."
The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic. Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III. and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the genius and learning of the philosopher.
The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement, burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this, too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his introduction.
"Inferior to its predecessors in the importance
of its scientific details and the illustration
it supplies of Bacon's philosophy, it is
more interesting than either, for the insight
it affords of his labors, and of the numerous
obstacles he had to contend with in the execution
of his work. The first twenty chapters
detail various anecdotes of Bacon's personal
history, his opinions on the state of
education, the impediments thrown in his
way by the ignorance, the prejudices, the
contempt, the carelessness, the indifference
of his contemporaries. From the twentieth
chapter to the close of the volume he pursues
the thread of the Opus Majus, supplying what
he had there omitted, correcting and explaining
what had been less clearly or correctly
expressed in that or in the Opus Minus. In
Chapter LII. he apologizes for diverging from
the strict line he had originally marked out,
by inserting in the ten preceding chapters his
opinions on three abstruse subjects, Vacuum,
Motion, and Space, mainly in regard to their
spiritual significance. 'As these questions,'
he says,' are very perplexing and difficult, I
thought I would record what I had to say
about them in some one of my works. In the
Opus Majus and Opus Minus I had not studied
them sufficiently to prevail on myself to
commit my thoughts about them to writing;
and I was glad to omit them, owing to the
length of those works, and because I was
much hurried in their composition.' From the
fifty-second chapter to the close of the volume
he adheres to his subject without further digression,
but with so much vigor of thought
and freshness of observations, that, like the
Opus Minus, the Opus Tertium may be fairly
considered an independent work."--pp.
xliv-xlv.[[13]]
The details which Bacon gives of his personal history are of special interest as throwing light upon the habits of life of a scholar in the thirteenth century. Their autobiographic charm is increased by their novelty, for they give a view of ways of life of which but few particulars have been handed down.
Excusing himself for the delay which had occurred, after the reception of the Pope's letter, before the transmission of the writings he had desired, Bacon says that he was strictly prohibited by a rule of his Order from communicating to others any writing made by one of its members, under penalty of loss of the book, and a diet for many days of bread and water. Moreover, a fair copy could not be made, supposing that he succeeded in writing, except by scribes outside of the Order; and they might transcribe either for themselves or others, and through their dishonesty it very often happened that books were divulged at Paris.
"Then other far greater causes of delay occurred, on account of which I was often ready to despair; and a hundred times I thought to give up the work I had undertaken; and, had it not been for reverence for the Vicar of the only Saviour, and [regard to] the profit to the world to be secured through him alone, I would not have proceeded, against these hindrances, with this affair, for all those who are in the Church of Christ, however much they might have prayed and urged me. The first hindrance was from those who were set over me, to whom you had written nothing in my favor, and who, since I could not reveal your secret [commission] to them, being bound not to do so by your command of secrecy, urged me with unutterable violence, and with other means, to obey their will. But I resisted, on account of the bond of your precept, which obliged me to your work, in spite of every mandate of my superiors....
"But I met also with another hindrance, which was enough to put a stop to the whole matter, and this was the want of [means to meet] the expense. For I was obliged to pay out in this business more than sixty livres of Paris,[[14]] the account and reckoning of which I will set forth in their place hereafter. I do not wonder, indeed, that you did not think of these expenses, because, sitting at the top of the world, you have to think of so great and so many things that no one can estimate the cares of your mind. But the messengers who carried your letters were careless in not making mention to you of these expenses; and they were unwilling to expend a single penny, even though I told them that I would write to you an account of the expenses, and that to every one of them should be returned what was his. I truly have no money, as you know, nor can I have it, nor consequently can I borrow, since I have nothing wherewith to repay. I sent then to my rich brother, in my country, who, belonging to the party of the king, was exiled with my mother and my brothers and the whole family, and oftentimes being taken by the enemy redeemed himself with money, so that thus being ruined and impoverished, he could not assist me, nor even to this day have I had an answer from him.
"Considering, then, the reverence due to you, and the nature of your command, I solicited many and great people, the faces of some of whom you know well, but not their minds; and I told them that a certain affair of yours must he attended to by me in France, (but I did not disclose to them what it was,) the performance of which required a large sum of money. But how often I was deemed a cheat, how often repulsed, how often put off with empty hope, how often confused in myself, I cannot express. Even my friends did not believe me, because I could not explain to them the affair; and hence I could not advance by this way. In distress, therefore, beyond what can be imagined, I compelled serving-men and poor to expend all that they had, to sell many things, and to pawn others, often at usury; and I promised them that I would write to you every part of the expenses, and would in good faith obtain from you payment in full. And yet, on account of the poverty of these persons, I many times gave up the work, and many times despaired and neglected to proceed; and indeed, if I had known that you would not attend to the settling of these accounts, I would not for the whole world have gone on,--nay, rather, I would have gone to prison. Nor could I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."[[15]]
There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties.
The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it. It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were despatched to the Pope. Bacon's diligence must have been as great as his learning. In speaking, in another part of the "Opus Tertium," of the insufficiency of the common modes of instruction, he gives incidentally an account of his own devotion to study. "I have labored much," he says, "on the sciences and languages; it is now forty years since I first learned the alphabet, and I have always been studious; except two years of these forty, I have been always engaged in study; and I have expended much, [in learning,] as others generally do; but yet I am sure that within a quarter of a year, or half a year, I could teach orally, to a man eager and confident to learn, all that I know of the powers of the sciences and languages; provided only that I had previously composed a written compend. And yet it is known that no one else has worked so hard or on so many sciences and tongues; for men used to wonder formerly that I kept my life on account of my excessive labor, and ever since I have been as studious as I was then, but I have not worked so hard, because, through my practice in knowledge, it was not needful."[[16]] Again he says, that in the twenty years in which he had specially labored in the study of wisdom, neglecting the notions of the crowd, he had spent more than two thousand pounds [livres] in the acquisition of secret books, and for various experiments, instruments, tables, and other things, as well as in seeking the friendship of learned men, and in instructing assistants in languages, figures, the use of instruments and tables, and many other things. But yet, though he had examined everything that was necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a guide to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done, with what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be sustained by Papal aid.[[17]]
The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult, when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies before the invention of printing. That with such impediments they were able to effect so much is wonderful; and their claim on the gratitude and respect of their successors is heightened by the arduous nature of the difficulties with which they were forced to contend. The value of their work receives a high estimate, when we consider the scanty means with which it was performed.
Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says,--"The books on philosophy by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public schools of learning or elsewhere. For instance, the most excellent books of Tully De Republica are nowhere to be found, so far as I can hear, and I have been eager in the search for them in various parts of the world and with various agents. It is the same with many other of his books. The books of Seneca also, the flowers of which I have copied out for your Beatitude, I was never able to find till about the time of your mandate, although I had been diligent in seeking for them for twenty years and more."[[18]] Again, speaking of the corruption of translations, so that they are often unintelligible, as is especially the case with the books of Aristotle, he says that "there are not four Latins [that is, Western scholars] who know the grammar of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Arabians; for I am well acquainted with them, and have made diligent inquiry both here and beyond the sea, and have labored much in these things. There are many, indeed, who can speak Greek and Arabic and Hebrew, but scarcely any who know the principles of the grammar so as to teach it, for I have tried very many."[[19]]
In his treatise entitled "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," which is printed in this volume for the first time, he adds in relation to this subject,--"Teachers are not wanting, because there are Jews everywhere, and their tongue is the same in substance with the Arabic and the Chaldean, though they differ in mode.... Nor would it be much, for the sake of the great advantage of learning Greek, to go to Italy, where the clergy and the people in many places are purely Greek; moreover, bishops and archbishops and rich men and elders might send thither for books, and for one or for more persons who know Greek, as Lord Robert, the sainted Bishop of Lincoln,[[20]] did indeed do,--and some of those [whom he brought over] still survive in England."[[21]] The ignorance of the most noted clerks and lecturers of his day is over and over again the subject of Bacon's indignant remonstrance. They were utterly unable to correct the mistakes with which the translations of ancient works were full. "The text is in great part horribly corrupt in the copy of the Vulgate at Paris, ...and as many readers as there are, so many correctors, or rather corruptors, ...for every reader changes the text according to his fancy."[[22]] Even those who professed to translate new works of ancient learning were generally wholly unfit for the task. Hermann the German knew nothing of science, and little of Arabic, from which he professed to translate; but when he was in Spain, he kept Saracens with him who did the main part of the translations that he claimed. In like manner, Michael Scot asserted that he had made many translations; but the truth was, that a certain Jew named Andrew worked more than he upon them.[[23]] William Fleming was, however, the most ignorant and most presuming of all.[[24]] "Certain I am that it were better for the Latins that the wisdom of Aristotle had not been translated, than to have it thus perverted and obscured, ...so that the more men study it the less they know, as I have experienced with all who have stuck to these books. Wherefore my Lord Robert of blessed memory altogether neglected them, and proceeded by his own experiments, and with other means, until he knew the things concerning which Aristotle treats a hundred thousand times better than he could ever have learned them from those perverse translations. And if I had power over these translations of Aristotle, I would have every copy of them burned; for to study them is only a loss of time and a cause of error and a multiplication of ignorance beyond telling. And since the labors of Aristotle are the foundation of all knowledge, no one can estimate the injury done by means of these bad translations."[[25]]
Bacon had occasion for lamenting not only the character of the translations in use, but also the fact that many of the most important works of the ancients were not translated at all, and hence lay out of the reach of all but the rare scholars, like himself and his friend Grostête, who were able, through their acquaintance with the languages in which they were written, to make use of them, provided manuscripts could be found for reading. "We have few useful works on philosophy in Latin. Aristotle composed a thousand volumes, as we read in his Life, and of these we have but three of any notable size, namely,--on Logic, Natural History, and Metaphysics; so that all the other scientific works that he composed are wanting to the Latins, except some tractates and small little books, and of these but very few. Of his Logic two of the best books are deficient, which Hermann had in Arabic, but did not venture to translate. One of them, indeed, he did translate, or caused to be translated, but so ill that the translation is of no sort of value and has never come into use. Aristotle wrote fifty excellent books about Animals, as Pliny says in the eighth book of his Natural History, and I have seen them in Greek, and of these the Latins have only nineteen wretchedly imperfect little books. Of his Metaphysics the Latins read only the ten books which they have, while there are many more; and of these ten which they read, many chapters are wanting in the translation, and almost infinite lines. Indeed, the Latins have nothing worthy; and therefore it is necessary that they should know the languages, for the sake of translating those things that are deficient and needful. For, moreover, of the works on secret sciences, in which the secrets and marvels of Nature are explored, they have little except fragments here and there, which scarcely suffice to excite the very wisest to study and experiment and to inquire by themselves after those things which are lacking to the dignity of wisdom; while the crowd of students are not moved to any worthy undertaking, and grow so languid and asinine over these ill translations, that they lose utterly their time and study and expense. They are held, indeed, by appearances alone; for they do not care what they know, but what they seem to know to the silly multitude."[[26]]
These passages may serve to show something of the nature of those external hindrances to knowledge with which Bacon himself had had to strive, which he overcame, and which he set himself with all his force to break down, that they might no longer obstruct the path of study. What scholar, what lover of learning, can now picture to himself such efforts without emotion,--without an almost oppressive sense of the contrast between the wealth of his own opportunities and the penury of the earlier scholar? On the shelves within reach of his hand lie the accumulated riches of time. Compare our libraries, with their crowded volumes of ancient and modern learning, with the bare cell of the solitary Friar, in which, in a single small cupboard, are laid away a few imperfect manuscripts, precious as a king's ransom, which it had been the labor of years to collect. This very volume of his works, a noble monument of patient labor, of careful investigation, of deep thought, costs us but a trivial sum; while its author, in his poverty, was scarcely able, without begging, to pay for the parchment upon which he wrote it, as, uncheered by the anticipation that centuries after his death men would prize the works he painfully accomplished, he leaned against his empty desk, half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who should be worthy to be put into comparison with the philosopher of the thirteenth century?
The general scheme of Bacon's system of philosophy was at once simple and comprehensive. The scope of his thought had a breadth uncommon in his or in any time. In his view, the object of all philosophy and human learning was to enable men to attain to the wisdom of God; and to this end it was to be subservient absolutely, and relatively so far as regarded the Church, the government of the state, the conversion of infidels, and the repression of those who could not be converted. All wisdom was included in the Sacred Scriptures, if properly understood and explained. "I believe," said he, "that the perfection of philosophy is to raise it to the state of a Christian law." Wisdom was the gift of God, and as such it included the knowledge of all things in heaven and earth, the knowledge of God himself, of the teachings of Christ, the beauty of virtue, the honesty of laws, the eternal life of glory and of punishment, the resurrection of the dead, and all things else.[[27]]
To this end all special sciences were ordained. All these, properly speaking, were to be called speculative; and though they each might be divided into two parts, the practical and the speculative, yet one alone, the most noble and best of all, in respect to which there was no comparison with the others, was in its own nature practical: this was the science of morals, or moral philosophy. All the works of Art and Nature are subservient to morals, and are of value only as they promote it. They are as nothing without it; as the whole wisdom of philosophy is as nothing without the wisdom of the Christian faith. This science of morals has six principal divisions. The first of these is theological, treating of the relations of man to God and to spiritual things; the second is political, treating of public laws and the government of states; the third is ethical, treating of virtue and vice; the fourth treats of the revolutions of religious sects, and of the proofs of the Christian faith.
"This is the best part of all philosophy." Experimental science and the knowledge of languages come into use here. The fifth division is hortatory, or of morals as applied to duty, and embraces the art of rhetoric and other subsidiary arts. The sixth and final division treats of the relations of morals to the execution of justice.[[28]] Under one or other of these heads all special sciences and every branch of learning are included.
Such, then, being the object and end of all learning, it is to be considered in what manner and by what methods study is to be pursued, to secure the attainment of truth. And here occurs one of the most remarkable features of Bacon's system. It is in his distinct statement of the prime importance of experiment as the only test of certainty in the sciences. "However strong arguments may be, they do not give certainty, apart from positive experience of a conclusion." "It is the prerogative of experiment to test the noble conclusions of all sciences which are drawn from arguments." All science is ancillary to it.[[29]] And of all branches of learning, two are of chief importance: languages are the first gate of wisdom; mathematics the second.[[30]] By means of foreign tongues we gain the wisdom which men have collected in past times and other countries; and without them the sciences are not to be pursued, for the requisite books are wanting in the Latin tongue. Even theology must fail without a knowledge of the original texts of the Sacred Writings and of their earliest expositors. Mathematics are of scarcely less importance; "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other physical science,--what is more, cannot discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedies." "The sciences cannot be known by logical and sophistical arguments, such as are commonly used, but only by mathematical demonstrations."[[31]] But this view of the essential importance of these two studies did not prevent Bacon from rising to the height from which he beheld the mutual importance and relations of all knowledge. We do not know where to find a clearer statement of the connection of the sciences than in the following words:--"All sciences are connected, and support each other with mutual aid, as parts of the same whole, of which each performs its work, not for itself alone, but for the others as well: as the eye directs the whole body, and the foot supports the whole; so that any part of knowledge taken from the rest is like an eye torn out or a foot cut off."[[32]]
Such, then, in brief, appears to have been Bacon's general system of philosophy. He has nowhere presented it in a compact form; and his style of writing is often so corrupt, and his use of terms so inexact, that any exposition of his views, exhibiting them in a methodical arrangement, is liable to the charge of possessing a definiteness of statement beyond that which his opinions had assumed in his own mind. Still, the view that has now been given of his philosophy corresponds as nearly as may be with the indications afforded by his works. The details of his system present many points of peculiar interest. He was not merely a theorist, with speculative views of a character far in advance of those of the mass of contemporary schoolmen, but a practical investigator as well, who by his experiments and discoveries pushed forward the limits of knowledge, and a sound scholar who saw and displayed to others the true means by which progress in learning was to be secured. In this latter respect, no parts of his writings are more remarkable than those in which he urges the importance of philological and linguistic studies. His remarks on comparative grammar, on the relations of languages, on the necessity of the study of original texts, are distinguished by good sense, by extensive and (for the time) exact scholarship, and by a breadth of view unparalleled, so far as we are aware, by any other writer of his age. The treatise on the Greek Grammar--which occupies a large portion of the incomplete "Compendium Studii Philosophiae," and which is broken off in the middle by the mutilation of the manuscript--contains, in addition to many curious remarks illustrative of the learning of the period, much matter of permanent interest to the student of language. The passages which we have quoted in regard to the defects of the translations of Greek authors show to how great a degree the study of Greek and other ancient tongues had been neglected. Most of the scholars of the day contented themselves with collecting the Greek words which they found interpreted in the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, Origen, Martianus Capella, Boëthius, and a few other later Latin authors; and were satisfied to use these interpretations without investigation of their exactness, or without understanding their meaning. Hugo of Saint Victor, (Dante's "Ugo di Sanvittore è qui con elli,") one of the most illustrious of Bacon's predecessors, translates, for instance, mechanica by adulterina, as if it came from the Latin moecha, and derives economica from oequus, showing that he, like most other Western scholars, was ignorant even of the Greek letters.[[33]] Michael Scot, in respect to whose translations Bacon speaks with merited contempt, exhibits the grossest ignorance, in his version from the Arabic of Aristotle's History of Animals, for example, a passage in which Aristotle speaks of taming the wildest animals, and says, "Beneficio enim mitescunt, veluti crocodilorum genus afficitur erga sacerdotem a quo enratur ut alantur," ("They become mild with kind treatment, as crocodiles toward the priest who provides them with food,") is thus unintelligibly rendered by him: "Genus autem karoluoz et hirdon habet pacem lehhium et domesticatur cum illo, quoniam cogitat de suo cibo." [[34]] Such a medley makes it certain that he knew neither Greek nor Arabic, and was willing to compound a third language, as obscure to his readers as the original was to him. Bacon points out many instances of this kind; and it is against such errors--errors so destructive to all learning--that he inveighs with the full force of invective, and protests with irresistible arguments. His acquirements in Greek and in Hebrew prove that he had devoted long labor to the study of these languages, and that he understood them far better than many scholars who made more pretence of learning. Nowhere are the defects of the scholarship of the Middle Ages more pointedly and ably exhibited than in what he has said of them. But, although his knowledge in this field was of uncommon quality and amount, it does not seem to have surpassed his acquisitions in science. "I have attempted," he says in a striking passage, "with great diligence, to attain certainty as to what is needful to be known concerning the processes of alchemy and natural philosophy and medicine.... And what I have written of the roots [of these sciences] is, in my judgment, worth far more than all that the other natural philosophers now alive suppose themselves to know; for in vain, without these roots, do they seek for branches, flowers, and fruit. And here I am boastful in words, but not in my soul; for I say this because I grieve for the infinite error that now exists, and that I may urge you [the Pope] to a consideration of the truth."[[35]] Again he says, in regard to his treatise "De Perspectiva," or On Optics,--"Why should I conceal the truth? I assert that there is no one among the Latin scholars who could accomplish, in the space of a year, this work; no, nor even in ten years."[[36]] In mathematics, in chemistry, in optics, in mechanics, he was, if not superior, at least equal, to the best of his contemporaries. His confidence in his own powers was the just result of self-knowledge and self-respect. Natural genius, and the accumulations of forty years of laborious study pursued with a method superior to that which guided the studies of others, had set him at the head of the learned men of his time; and he was great enough to know and to claim his place. He had the self-devotion of enthusiasm, and its ready, but dignified boldness, based upon the secure foundation of truth.
In spite of the very imperfect style in which he wrote, and the usually clumsy and often careless construction of his sentences, his works contain now and then noble thoughts expressed with simplicity and force. "Natura est instrumentum Divinae operationis," might be taken as the motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's "errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur; infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed tightly within.
There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and on the Nullity of Magic,"[[37]] in one of which he describes some of its qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition under an enigma.[[38]] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power; and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."[[39]]
There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus, machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus; such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that a man may sit in the middle of the machine, turning an engine, by which wings artificially disposed are made to beat the air after the manner of a bird in flight. Also, an instrument, small in size, for raising and depressing almost infinite weights, than which nothing on occasion is more useful: for, with an instrument of three fingers in height, and of the same width, and of smaller bulk, a man might deliver himself and his companions from all danger of prison, and could rise or descend. Also, an instrument might be easily made by which one man could draw to himself a thousand men by force and against their will, and in like manner draw other things. Instruments can be made for walking in the sea or in rivers, even at the bottom, without bodily risk: for Alexander the Great made use of this to see the secrets of the sea, as the Ethical Astronomer relates. These things were made in ancient times, and are made in our times, as is certain; except, perhaps, the machine for flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known any one who had seen it, but I know a wise man who thought to accomplish this device. And almost an infinite number of such things can be made; as bridges across rivers without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject with words becoming a philosopher:--"Yet wise men are now ignorant of many things which the common crowd of students [vulgus studentium] will know in future times."[[40]]
It is much to be regretted that Roger Bacon does not appear to have executed the second and more important part of his design, namely, "to assign the causes and methods" of these wonderful works of Art and Nature. Possibly he was unable to do so to his own satisfaction; possibly he may upon further reflection have refrained from doing so, deeming them mysteries not to be communicated to the vulgar;--"for he who divulges mysteries diminishes the majesty of things; wherefore Aristotle says that he should be the breaker of the heavenly seal, were he to divulge the secret things of wisdom."[[41]] However this may have been, we may safely doubt whether the inventions which he reports were in fact the result of sound scientific knowledge, whether they had indeed any real existence, or whether they were only the half-realized and imperfect creations of the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming of things to come.
The matters of interest in the volume before us are by no means exhausted, but we can proceed no farther in the examination of them, and must refer those readers who desire to know more of its contents to the volume itself. We can assure them that they will find it full of vivid illustrations of the character of Bacon's time,--of the thoughts of men at an epoch of which less is commonly known than of periods more distant, but less connected by intellectual sympathy and moral relations with our own. But the chief interest of Bacon's works lies in their exhibition to us of himself, a man foremost in his own time in all knowledge, endowed by Nature with a genius of peculiar force and clearness of intuition, with a resolute energy that yielded to no obstacles, with a combination so remarkable of the speculative and the practical intellect as to place him in the ranks of the chief philosophers to whom the progress of the world in learning and in thought is due. They show him exposed to the trials which the men who are in advance of their contemporaries are in every age called to meet, and bearing these trials with a noble confidence in the final prevalence of the truth,--using all his powers for the advantage of the world, and regarding all science and learning of value only as they led to acquaintance with the wisdom of God and the establishment of Christian virtue. He himself gives us a picture of a scholar of his times, which we may receive as a not unworthy portrait of himself. "He does not care for discourses and disputes of words, but he pursues the works of wisdom, and in them he finds rest. And what others dim-sighted strive to see, like bats in twilight, he beholds in its full splendor, because he is the master of experiments; and thus he knows natural things, and the truths of medicine and alchemy, and the things of heaven as well as those below. Nay, he is ashamed, if any common man, or old wife, or soldier, or rustic in the country knows anything of which he is ignorant. Wherefore he has searched out all the effects of the fusing of metals, and whatever is effected with gold and silver and other metals and all minerals; and whatever pertains to warfare and arms and the chase he knows; and he has examined all that pertains to agriculture, and the measuring of lands, and the labors of husbandmen; and he has even considered the practices and the fortune-telling of old women, and their songs, and all sorts of magic arts, and also the tricks and devices of jugglers; so that nothing which ought to be known may lie hid from him, and that he may as far as possible know how to reject all that is false and magical. And he, as he is above price, so does he not value himself at his worth. For, if he wished to dwell with kings and princes, easily could he find those who would honor and enrich him; or, if he would display at Paris what he knows through the works of wisdom, the whole world would follow him. But, because in either of these ways he would be impeded in the great pursuits of experimental philosophy, in which he chiefly delights, he neglects all honor and wealth, though he might, when he wished, enrich himself by his knowledge."
Popular Music of the Olden Time. A Collection of Ancient Songs, Ballads, and Dance-Tunes, Illustrative of the National Music of England. With Short Introductions to the Different Reigns, and Notices of the Airs from Writers of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also, a Short Account of the Minstrels. By W. Chappel, F.S.A. The whole of the Airs harmonized by G. A. McFarren. 2 vols. pp. 384, 439. London: Cramer, Beale, & Chappell. New York: Webb & Allen.
In tracing the history of the English nation, no line of investigation is more interesting, or shows more clearly the progress of civilization, than the study of its early poetry and music. Sung alike in the royal palaces and in the cottages and highways of the nation, the ballads and songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they possess a value peculiarly their own.
The industry and learning of Percy, Warton, and Ritson have rendered a thorough acquaintance with early English poetry comparatively easy; while in the work whose comprehensive title heads this article the research of Chappell presents to us all that is valuable of the "Popular Music of the Olden Time," enriched by interesting incidents and historical facts which render the volumes equally interesting to the general reader and to the student in music. Chappell published his collection of "National English Airs" about twenty years ago. Since that time, he tells us in his preface, the increase of material has been so great, that it has been advisable to rewrite the entire work, and to change the title, so that the present edition has all the freshness of a new publication, and contains more than one hundred and fifty additional airs.
The opening chapters are devoted to a concise historical account of English minstrelsy, from the earliest Saxon times to its gradual extinction in the reigns of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth; and while presenting in a condensed form all that is valuable in Percy and others, the author has interwoven in the narrative much curious and interesting matter derived from his own careful studies. Much of romantic interest clusters around the history of the minstrels of England. They are generally supposed to have been the successors of the ancient bards, who from the earliest times were held in the highest veneration by nearly all the people of Europe, whether of Celtic or Gothic origin. According to Percy, "Their skill was considered as something divine; their persons were deemed sacred; their attendance was solicited by kings; and they were everywhere loaded with honors and rewards." Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, on their migration into Britain, retained their veneration for poetry and song, and minstrels continued in high repute, until their hold upon the people gradually yielded to the steady advance of civilization, the influence of the printing-press, and the consequent diffusion of knowledge. It is to be borne in mind that the name, minstrel, was applied equally to those who sang, and accompanied their voices with the harp, or some other instrument, and to those who were skilled in instrumental music only. The harp was the favorite and indeed the national instrument of the Britons, and its use has been traced as far back as the first invasion of the country by the Saxons. By the laws of Wales, no one could pretend to the character of a freeman or gentleman, who did not possess or could not play upon a harp. Its use was forbidden to slaves; and a harp could not be seized for debt, as the simple fact of a person's being without one would reduce him to an equality with a slave. Other instruments, however, were in use by the early Anglo-Saxons, such as the Psaltery, the Fiddle, and the Pipe. The minstrels, clad in a costume of their own, and singing to their quaint tunes the exploits of past heroes or the simple love-songs of the times, were the favorites of royalty, and often, and perhaps usually, some of the better class held stations at court; and under the reigns of Henry I. and II., Richard I., and John, minstrelsy flourished greatly, and the services of the minstrels were often rated higher than those of the clergy. These musicians seem to have had easy access to all places and persons, and often received valuable grants from the king, until, in the reign of Edward II., (1315,) such privileges were claimed by them, that a royal edict became necessary to prevent impositions and abuses.
In the fourteenth century music was an almost universal accomplishment, and we learn from Chaucer, in whose poetry much can be learned of the music of his time, that country-squires could sing and play the lute, and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol (viol-de-gamba) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by ladies,--a practice which in these modern times would be considered a violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an unmannerly instrument for a woman." In Elizabeth's time vocal music was held in the highest estimation, and to sing well was a necessary accomplishment for ladies and gentlemen. A writer of 1602 says to the ladies, "It shall be your first and finest praise to sing the note of every new fashion at first sight." That some of the fair sex may have carried their musical practice too far, like many who have lived since then, is perhaps indicated in some verses of that date which run in the following strain:--
"This is all that women do:
Sit and answer them that woo;
Deck themselves in new attire,
To entangle fresh desire;
After dinner sing and play,
Or, dancing, pass the time away."
To many readers one of the most interesting features of Chappell's work will be the presentation of the original airs to which were sung the ballads familiar to us from childhood, learned from our English and Scotch ancestors, or later in life from Percy's "Reliques" and other sources; and the musician will detect, in even the earliest compositions, a character and substance, a beauty of cadence and rhythmic ideality, which render in comparison much of our modern song-music tamer, if possible, than it now seems. Here are found the original airs of "Agincourt," "All in the Downs," "Barbara Allen," "The Barley-Mow," "Cease, rude Boreas," "Derry Down," "Frog he would a-wooing go," "One Friday morn when we set sail," "Chanson Roland," "Chevy Chace," and scores of others which have rung in our ears from nursery-days.
The ballad-mongers took a wide range in their writings, and almost every subject seems to have called for their rhymes. There is a curious little song, dating back to 1601, entitled "O mother, a Hoop," in which the value of hoop-skirts is set forth by a fair damsel in terms that would delight a modern belle. It commences thus:--
"What a fine thing have I seen to-day!
O mother, a Hoop!
I must have one; you cannot say Nay;
O mother, a Hoop!"
Another stanza shows the practical usefulness of the hoop:--
"Pray, hear me, dear mother, what I have been taught:
Nine men and nine women o'erset in a boat;
The men were all drowned, but the women did float,
And by help of their hoops they all safely got out."
The fashion for hoops was revived in 1711, in which year was published in England "A Panegyrick upon the Late, but most Admirable Invention of the Hoop-Pettycoat." A few years later, (1726,) in New England, a three-penny pamphlet was issued with the title, "Hoop Petticoats Arraigned and Condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God," by which it would seem that our worthy ancestors did not approve of the fashion. In 1728 we find hoop-skirts and negro girls and other "chattels" advertised for sale in the same shop!
The celebrated song, "Tobacco is an Indian weed," is traced to George Withers, of the time of James I. Perhaps no song has been more frequently "reset"; but the original version, as is generally the case, is the best.
One of the most satisfactory features of Chappell's work is the thoroughness with which he traces the origin of tunes, and his acute discrimination and candid judgment. As an instance of this may be mentioned his article on "God save the Queen"; and wherever we turn, we find the same evidence of honest investigation. So far as is possible, he has arranged his airs and his topics chronologically, and presented a complete picture of the condition of poetry and music during the reigns of the successive monarchs of England. The musician will find these volumes invaluable in the pursuit of his studies, the general reader will be interested in the well-drawn descriptions of men, manners, and customs, and the antiquary will pore over the pages with a keen delight.
The work is illustrated with several specimens of the early style of writing music, the first being an illuminated engraving and fac-simile of the song, "Sumer is icumen in,"--the earliest secular composition, in parts, known to exist in any country, its origin being traced back to 1250. It should have been mentioned before this that the very difficult task of reducing the old songs to modern characters and requirements, and harmonizing them, has been most admirably done by McFarren, who has thus made intelligible and available what would otherwise be valuable only as curiosities.
1. Folk-Songs. Selected and edited by John Williamson Palmer, M.D. Illustrated with Original Designs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. Small folio. pp. xxiii., 466.
2. Loves and Heroines of the Poets. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1861. Quarto, pp. xviii., 480.
3. A Forest Hymn. By William Cullen Bryant. With Illustrations of John A. Hows. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1861. Small quarto, pp. 32.
We have no great liking for illustrated books. Poems, to be sure, often lend themselves readily to the pencil; but, in proportion as they stand in need of pictures, they fall short of being poetry. We have never yet seen any attempts to help Shakspeare in this way that were not as crutches to an Indian runner. To illustrate poetry truly great in itself is like illuminating to show off a torchlight-procession. We doubt if even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly illuminated,--
"laughing leaves
That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned ";
but the line of those artists ended with Frà Angelico, whose works are only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime. Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie. There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better done than usual. The engravings make a part of the page, and the designs, with few exceptions, are happy. Numerous fac-similes of handwriting are added for the lovers of autographs; and in point of printing, it is beyond a question the handsomest and most tasteful volume ever produced in America. The Riverside Press may fairly take rank now with the classic names in the history of the art. But it is for the judgment shown in the choice of the poems that the book deserves its chief commendation. Our readers do not need to be told who Dr. Palmer is, or that one who knows how to write so well himself is likely to know what good writing is in others. We have never seen so good and choice a florilegium. The width of its range and its catholicity may be estimated by its including William Blake and Dibdin, Bishop King and Dr. Maginn. It would be hard to find the person who would not meet here a favorite poem. We can speak from our own knowledge of the length of labor and the loving care that have been devoted to it, and the result is a gift-book unique in its way and suited to all seasons and all tastes. Nor has the binding (an art in which America is far behind-hand) been forgotten. The same taste makes itself felt here, and Matthews of New York has seconded it with his admirable workmanship.
In Mr. Stoddard's volume we have a poet selecting such poems as illustrate the loves of the poets. It is a happy thought happily realized. With the exception of Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, the choice is made from English poets, and comes down to our own time. It is a book for lovers, and he must be exacting who cannot find his mistress somewhere between the covers. The selection from the poets of the Elizabethan and Jacobian periods is particularly full; and this is as it should be; for at no time was our language more equally removed from conventionalism and commonplace, or so fitted to refine strength of passion with recondite thought and airy courtliness of phrase. The book is one likely to teach as well as to please; for, though everybody knows how to fall in love, few know how to love. It is a mirror of womanly loveliness and manly devotion. Mr. Stoddard has done his work with the instinct of a poet, and we cordially commend his truly precious volume both to those
"who love a coral lip
And a rosy cheek admire,"
and to those who
"Interassured of the mind,
Are careless, eyes, lips, hands, to miss";
for both likings will find satisfaction here. The season of gifts comes round oftener for lovers than for less favored mortals, and by means of this book they may press some two hundred poets into their service to thread for the "inexpressive she" all the beads of Love's rosary. The volume is a quarto sumptuous in printing and binding. Of the plates we cannot speak so warmly.
The third book on our list deserves very great praise. Bryant's noble "Forest Hymn" winds like a river through edging and overhanging greenery. Frequently the designs are rather ornaments to the page than illustrations of the poem, and in this we think the artist is to be commended. There is no Birket Foster-ism in the groups of trees, but honest drawing from Nature, and American Nature. The volume, we think, marks the highest point that native Art has reached in this direction, and may challenge comparison with that of any other country. Many of the drawings are of great and decided merit, graceful and truthful at the same time.
The Works of Lord Bacon, etc., etc. Vols. XI. and XII. Boston: Brown & Taggard. 1860.
We have already spoken of the peculiar merits which make the edition of Messrs. Heath and Spedding by far the best that exists of Lord Bacon's Works. It only remains to say, that the American reprint has not only the advantage of some additional notes contributed by Mr. Spedding, but that it is more convenient in form, and a much more beautiful specimen of printing than the English. A better edition could not be desired. The two volumes thus far published are chiefly filled with the "Life of Henry VII." and the "Essays"; and readers who are more familiar with these (as most are) than with the philosophical works will see at once how much the editors have done in the way of illustration and correction.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1]
Some time after, the Bey of Tunis ordered Eaton to send his ship, the Gloria, with despatches to the United States. Eaton sent her to Leghorn, and sold her at a loss. "The flag of the United States," he wrote, "has never been seen floating in the service of a Barbary pirate under my agency."
[2]
The Administration was saturated with this petty parsimony, as may be seen in an extract from a letter written by Madison to Eaton, announcing the approach of Dale and his ships:--"The present moment is peculiarly favorable for the experiment, not only as it is a provision against an immediate danger, but as we are now at peace and amity with all the rest of the world, and as the force employed would, if at home, be at nearly the same expense, with less advantage to our mariners." Linkum Fidelius has given the Jeffersonian plan of making war in two lines:--
"We'll blow the villains all sky-high,
But do it with e-co-no-my."
[3]
About this time came Meli-Meli, Ambassador from Tunis, in search of an indemnity and the frigate.
[4]
Massachusetts gave him ten thousand acres, to be selected by him or by his heirs, in any of the unappropriated land of the Commonwealth in the District of Maine. Act Passed March 3d, 1806
[5]
He remained in Sicily until 1809, when he was offered the Beyship of Derne by his brother. He accepted it; two years later, fresh troubles drove him again into exile. He died in great poverty at Cairo. Jusuf reigned until 1832, and abdicated in favor of a son. A grandson of Jusuf took up arms against the new Pacha. The intervention of the Sultan was asked; a corps of Turkish troops entered Tripoli, drove out both Pachas, and reannexed the Regency to the Porte.
[6]
The scene of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated retreat from the British. A place of frequent resort for Federal editors in those days.
[7]
In attempting to describe my own sensations, I labor under the disadvantage of speaking mostly to those who have never experienced anything of the kind. Hence, what would he perfectly clear to myself, and to those who have passed through a similar experience, may be unintelligible to the former class. The Spiritualists excuse the crudities which their Plato, St. Paul, and Shakspeare utter, by ascribing them to the imperfection of human language; and I may claim the same allowance in setting forth mental conditions of which the mind itself can grasp no complete idea, seeing that its most important faculties are paralyzed during the existence of those conditions.
[8]
The recent experiments in Hypnotism, in France, show that a very similar psychological condition accompanies the trance produced by gazing fixedly upon a bright object held near the eyes. I have no doubt, in fact, that it belongs to every abnormal state of the mind.
[9]
See The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon containing the Wonderful Things that he did in his Life, also the Manner of his Death; with the Lives and Deaths of the Conjurors Bungye and Vandermast. Reprinted in Thom's Early English Romances.
[10]
Historia Crit. Phil. Period. II. Pars II. Liber II. Cap. iii. Section 23.
[11]
A barbarous distich gives the relations of these two famous divisions of knowledge in the Middle Ages:--
"Gramm loquitur, Dia verba docet, Rhet verba colorat,
Mus canit, Ar numerat, Geo ponderat, Ast
colit astra."
[12]
See Hauréau, De la Philosophie Scolastique, II. 284-5.
[13]
Mr. Brewer has in most respects performed his work as editor in a satisfactory manner. The many difficulties attending the deciphering of the text of ill-written manuscripts and the correction of the mistakes of ignorant scribes have been in great part overcome by his patience and skill. Some passages of the text, however, require further revision. The Introduction is valuable for its account of existing manuscripts, but its analysis of Bacon's opinions is unsatisfactory. Nor are the translations given in it always so accurate as they should be. The analyses of the chapters in side-notes to the text are sometimes imperfect, and do not sufficiently represent the current of Bacon's thought; and the volume stands in great need of a thorough Index. This omission is hardly to be excused, and ought at once to be supplied in a separate publication.
[14]
This sum was a large one. It appears that the necessaries of life were cheap and luxuries dear at Paris during the thirteenth century. Thus, we are told, in the year 1226, a house sold for forty-six livres; another with a garden, near St. Eustache, sold for two hundred livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400 francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers. Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.
[15]
Opus Tertium. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.
[16]
Opus Tertium. Cap. xx. p. 65.
[17]
Opus Tertium. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century, "quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum juvent sapientes cum magna virtute." "Horum quos enumeravimus omnium defectuum remedia," says the Bacon of the seventeenth century, " ...opera sunt vere basilica; erga quae privati alicujus conatus et industria fere sic se habent ut Mercurius in bivio, qui digito potest in viam intendere, pedem inferre non potest."--De Aug. Scient. Lib. II. Ad Regem Suum.
A still more remarkable parallelism is to be found in the following passages. "Nam facile est dicere, fiant scripture completae de scientiis, sed nunquam fuerunt apud Latinos aliquae condignae, nec fient, nisi aliud consilium habeatur. Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc, nisi dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis rex magnificus, sicut est dominus rex Franciae. Aristoteles quidem, auctoritate et auxiliis regum, et maxime Alexandri, fecit in Graeco quae voluit, et multis millibus hominum usus est in experientia scientiarum, et expensis copiosis, sicut historiae narrant." (Opus Tertium, Cap. viii.) Compare with this the following passage from the part of the De Augmentis already cited:--"Et exploratoribus ac speculatoribus Naturae satisfaciendum de expensis suis; alias de quamplurimis scitu dignissimis nunquam fiemus certiores. Si enim Alexander magnam vim pecuniae suppeditavit Aristoteli, qua conduceret venatores, aucupes, piscatores et alios, quo instructior accederet ad conscribendam historiam animalium; certe majus quiddam debetur iis, qui non in saltibus naturae pererrant, sed in labyrinthis artium viam sibi aperiunt."
Other similar parallelisms of expression on this topic are to be found in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these two great philosophers borrowed his famous doctrine of "Idols" from the classification of the four chief hindrances to knowledge by his predecessor. But the supposition wants foundation, and there is no reason to suppose that Lord Bacon was acquainted with the works of the Friar. The Rev. Charles Forster, in his Mahometanism Unveiled, a work of some learning, but more extravagance, after speaking of Roger Bacon as "strictly and properly an experimentalist of the Saracenic school," goes indeed so far as to assert that he "was the undoubted, though unowned, original when his great namesake drew the materials of his famous experimental system." (Vol. II. pp. 312-317.) But the resemblances in their systems, although striking in some particulars, are on the whole not too great to be regarded simply as the results of corresponding genius, and of a common sense of the insufficiency of the prevalent methods of scholastic philosophy for the discovery of truth and the advancement of knowledge. "The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning pervade both works," the Opus Majus and the Novum Organum.--Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages, III. 431. See also Hallam, Literature of Europe, I. 113; and Mr. Ellis's Preface to the Novum Organum, p. 90, in the first volume of the admirable edition of the Works of Lord Bacon now in course of publication.
[18]
Opus Tertium. Cap. xv. pp. 55, 56.
[19]
Id. Cap. x. p. 33.
[20]
The famous Grostête,--who died in 1253. "Vir in Latino et Graeco peritissimus," says Matthew Paris.
[21]
Comp. Studii Phil. Cap. vi.
[22]
Opus Minus, p. 330.
[23]
This was Michael Scot the Wizard, who would seem to have deserved the place that Dante assigned to him in the Inferno, if not from his practice of forbidden arts, at least from his corruption of ancient learning in his so-called translations. Strange that he, of all the Schoolmen, should have been honored by being commemorated by the greatest poet of Italy and the greatest of his own land! In the Notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, his kinsman quotes the following lines concerning him from Satchell's poem on The Right Honorable Name of Scott:--
"His writing pen did seem to me to be
Of hardened metal like steel or acumie;
The volume of [his book] did seem so large to me
As the Book of Martyrs and Turks Historie."
[24]
Comp. Studii Phil. Cap. viii. p. 472.
[25]
Comp. Studii Phil. Cap. viii. p. 469.
[26]
Comp. Studii Phil. Cap. viii. p. 473.
[27]
Opus Tertium, Cap. xxiv. pp. 80-82.
[28]
Opus Tertium. Capp. xiv., xv., pp. 48-53.
[29]
Id. Cap. xiii. pp. 43-44.
[30]
Id. Cap. xxviii. p. 102.
[31]
Opus Majus. pp. 57, 64.
[32]
Opus Tertium. Cap. iv. p. 18.
[33]
See Hauréau: Nouvel Examen de l'Édition des Oeuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor. Paris, 1869. p. 52.
[34]
Jourdain: Recherches sur les Traductions Latines d'Aristote. Paris, 1819. p. 373.
[35]
Opus Tertium. Cap. xii. p. 42.
[36]
Id. Cap. ii. p. 14.
[37]
Reprinted in the Appendix to the volume edited by Professor Brewer. A translation of this treatise was printed at London as early as 1597; and a second version, "faithfully translated out of Dr. Dee's own copy by T. M.," appeared in 1659.
[38]
"Sed tamen sal petræ LURU VOPO VIR CAN UTRIET sulphuris; et sic facies tonitruum et coruscationem, si scias artificium. Videas tamen utrum loquar ænigmate aut secundum veritatem." (p. 551.) One is tempted to read the last two words of the dark phrase as phonographic English, or, translating the vir, to find the meaning to be, "O man! you can try it."
[39]
This expression is similar in substance to the closing sentences of Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourse at Montpellier on the Powder of Sympathy, in 1657. "Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and faint-heartedness, or rather, a gross weakness of the Understanding, to pretend any effects of charm or magick herein, or to confine all the actions of Nature to the grossness of our Senses, when we have not sufficiently consider'd nor examined the true causes and principles whereon 'tis fitting we should ground our judgment: we need not have recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties.
"'Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit.'"
[40]
Nullity of Magic, pp. 532-542.
[41]
Comp. Stud. Phil. p. 416.