CRITICISM BY TAINE. BACON'S mode of thought is by symbols, not by anaiysis; instead of explaining his idea, he transposes and translates it-translates it entire, to the smallest details, enclosing all in the majesty of a grand period or in the brevity of a striking sentence. Thence springs a style of admirable richness, gravity, and vigor, now solemn and symmetrical, now concise and piercing, always elaborate and full of color. There is nothing in English prose superior to his diction. When he has laid up his store of facts, the greatest possible, on some past subject, on some entire province of the mind, on the whole anterior philosophy, on the general condition of the sciences, on the power and limits of the human reason, he casts over all this a comprehensive view, as it were a great net-brings up a universal idea, condenses his idea into a maxim, and hands it to us with the words, "Verify and profit by it." FRIENDSHIP. NOTE.-The following extract is taken from one of Bacon's Essays, that on "Friendship.” IT had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech, "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god." For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards & NOTE.-3. whosoever, etc. The author of this sentence was Aristotle, a Greek philosopher. ANALYSIS.-1. had been hard. Give the meaning and dispose of the verb. 1, 2. to have put, etc. 5 aversation towards. What is this phrase in apposition with? society in any man hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation, such 10 as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen-as Epimenides the Candian, Nurna the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana-and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy Fathers of the Church. 15 But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little, Magna civitas, magna solitudo (a great 201 city is a great solitude),―because in a great town friends ceived help in his administration from the nymph Egeria. Empedocles, a Sicilian philosopher, who flourished about 450 B. C. Tradition says he threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna, that his mysterious disappearance might be taken as a proof of his divine origin. Apollo'nius, a follower of Pythagoras, who flourished during the reigns of Ves pasian and Domitian. Rome. Reigned B. C. 715– ANALYSIS.--8. Substitute a word for except. 16. But little. Give grammatical construction. are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which 23 the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not of humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and dis- 30 charge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in our body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You may take sarza to open the liver, steel 35 to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of 40 civil shrift or confession. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship NOTES.-25. to want, to lack. 29. of humanity, of human na27. solitude, loneliness. ture. ANALYSIS.-22. so that there. Parse these words. 24. Name the phrase in apposition with it. 28. Give the grammatical construction of he. 31. Name the antecedent of which. 32. Give the object of know. 35. Give the meaning of sarza. 36, 37. What do the infinitive phrases in these lines modify? What are the objective modifiers of take? Dispose of the two words but. 42. Name the full phrase in apposition with the subject It. 43. do set. Notice the use of the old form even in prose. whereof we speak-so great as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. 45 For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times 50 sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace or conversation; but the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them particeps curarum [sharers in cares], for 55 it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have 60 called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them. in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men. It is not to be forgotten what Comines observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy-namely, that 65 he would communicate his secrets with none, and least of all those secrets which troubled him most. Where 46-51. Write this sentence in modern English. 51 sorteth here means "leadeth." 60-63. Write in modern English. 64. It is, etc. Point out the phrase in apposition with It. 66. communicate his secrets with. What is the present form of ex pression? upon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely, Comines mought have made the 70 same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Louis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true, "Cor ne edito"-eat not the heart. Certainly if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that 75 want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, 80 and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the alchemists use 85 to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature; for, in bodies, union strengtheneth 90 and cherisheth any natural action, and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression. And even so is it of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sov NOTES.-69. perish, enfeeble. 70. Comines, a French historian. 70. mought, the old form of "might." ANALYSIS.-71. if it had pleased. Give the mode of the verb. 80. redoubleth. Give the modern form. 88. praying in aid, calling in the aid or help. 89. image is here used for resemblance. 93. And even so is it of minds. Rewrite. |