The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860

"who love a coral lipAnd 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.

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 beOf hardened metal like steel or acumie;The volume of [his book] did seem so large to meAs 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.