Notes.
BACON'S ESSAYS, BY MARKBY.
Mr. Markby has recently published his promised edition of Bacon's Essays; and he has in this, as in his edition of the Advancement of Learning, successfully traced most of the passages alluded to by Lord Bacon. The following notes relate to a few points which still deserve attention:
Essay I. On Truth:—"The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest.">[ By "beautified" is here meant "set off to advantage," "embellished."
Essay II. On Death.—
Many of the thoughts in the Essays recur in the "Exempla Antithetorum," in the 6th book De Augmentis Scientiarum. With respect to this Essay, compare the article "Vita," No. 12., in vol. viii. p. 360. ed. Montagu.
"You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved.">[ Query, What books are here alluded to?
"Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa.">[ Mr. Markby thinks these words are an allusion to Sen. Ep. xxiv. § 13. Something similar also occurs in Ep. xiv. § 3. Compare Ovid, Heroid. x. 82.: "Morsque minus pœnæ quam mora mortis habet."
"Galba, with a sentence, 'Feri si ex re sit populi Romani.'">[ In addition to the passage of Tacitus, quoted by Mr. Markby, see Sueton. Galb. c. 20.