Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts, twenty-eight plays. The principal are Old Fortunatus, The Honest Whore, and Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed. In the last, he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had ridiculed him in The Poetaster. In the Honest Whore are found those beautiful lines so often quoted:
... the best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare."
Chapter XVI.
Bacon, and the Rise of the New Philosophy.
[Birth and Early Life]. [Treatment of Essex]. [His Appointments]. [His Fall]. [Writes Philosophy]. [Magna Instauratio]. [His Defects]. [His Fame]. [His Essays].
Birth and Early Life of Bacon.
Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.
Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as "Diu Britannici regni secundum columen." His mother was Anne Cook, a person of remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and kindly called by the queen "her little lord keeper." Ben Jonson refers to this when he writes, at a later day:
England's high chancellor, the destined heir
In his soft cradle to his father's chair.