"He (Bacon) after he had survaied all the Records of Antiquity, after the volume of men, betook himselfe to the study of the volume of the world; and having conquerd whatever books possest, set upon the Kingdome of Nature and carried that victory very farre."
Speaking of him as a boy his biographer[6] describes his memory as "fixed and methodical," and in another place he says "His judgment was solid yet his memory was a wonder."
The extent of his reading at this time had been very wide. He had already taken all knowledge to be his province, and was with that industry which was beyond the capacity of his contemporaries rapidly laying the foundations which subsequently justified this claim.
Chapter IV.
AT CAMBRIDGE.
Francis Bacon went to reside at Trinity College, Cambridge, in April, 1573, being 12 years and 3 months of age. While the plague raged he was absent from the end of August, 1574, until the beginning of March following. He finally left the University at Christmas, 1575, about one month before his fifteenth birthday.
Rawley says he was there educated and bred under the tuition of Dr. John Whitgift,[7] then master of the College, afterwards the renowned Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate of the first magnitude for sanctity, learning, patience, and humility; under whom he was observed to have been more than an ordinary proficient in the several arts and sciences.
Amboise, in the "Discours sur la vie de M. Bacon," prefixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," Paris, 1631, says: "Le jugement et la mémoire ne furent jamais en aucun home au degrè qu'ils estoient en celuy-cy; de sorte qu'en bien peu de temps il se rendit fort habile en toutes les sciences qui s'apprennent au Collège. Et quoi que deslors il fust jugé capable des charges les plas importantes, nean-moins pour ne tomber dedans la mesme faute que sont d'ordinaire les jeunes gens de son estoffe, qui par une ambition trop précipitée portent souvent au maniement des grandes affaires un esprit encore tout rempli des crudités de l'escole, Monsieur Bacon se voulut acquérir cette science, qui rendit autres-fois Ulysse si recommandable et luy fit mériter le nom de sage, par la connoissance des mœurs de tant de nations diverses." That is all that can be said about his career at Cambridge except that Rawley adds:
"Whilst he was commorant in the University, about sixteen years of age (as his lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first fell into the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man; in which mind he continued to his dying day."