Did you ever see a bear? A bear is a creature as large as a small cow.—Some bears are black, some white, and some brown.
Bears live far away in the woods and mountains. They do not get together, as people do, and build houses: not they!
Every bear looks out for some hole in a tree, or cave in a rock, and there he makes his bed. If he can get enough to eat, he cares for nobody else.
When winter comes, bears of some kinds grow sleepy, and, crawling into a hole, or lying down beneath the shelter of thick trees, they shut their eyes and go to sleep. Like the little striped squirrel, and wood-chucks, and toads and lizards, they thus sleep till spring.
Lord Bacon.
The word bacon is usually applied to a piece of smoked pork, and sometimes means nothing more than ham. But, in the present case, it is applied to one of the greatest and most useful men that ever lived,—and this may show that the same word may signify very different things.
Now, this Lord Bacon—whose Christian name was Francis—as I have said, was a great and useful man; but what did he do? He was no warrior, and never fought a battle; he was no king, and never wore a crown; he was no giant, and never performed any great feat of bodily strength: but he did more for the good of mankind than any giant, king, or warrior. He taught the world how to think, how to reason, how to find out truth!
He was born in London, in the year 1561. He was bred a lawyer, and held office under Elizabeth, then queen of England. But, after a time, he offended the queen, and his hopes of high preferment were disappointed. After queen Elizabeth died, and James I. came to the throne, he was made a judge, and held several important stations, and at last was honored with the title of Viscount St. Albans—which meant that he was one of the nobles of the land; or, in other words, that he was to be called a lord.
But the offices and honors he enjoyed, were not the foundation of Bacon’s claims to the respect and gratitude of mankind. You must remember that he lived almost three hundred years ago; and then the people, even those who were learned, held many absurd opinions, and, what was the worst of all, they had false and foolish modes of reasoning. Thus it often happened, that even the learning and philosophy of those days rather led to error than to truth.