The Mystery of Francis Bacon

f age. While the plague raged he was absent from the end of August, 1574, until the beginning of March fo

erwards the renowned Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate of the first magnitude for sanctity, learning, patience, and

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 rempl

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 lordshi

ars of age, Rawley's recollection must have been at fault when

ere. In the preface to the "Great Instauration" Bacon repeats his protest: "And for its value and utility, it must be plainly avowed that that wisdom which we have derived principally fro

a fundamental point on the most important question which could be raised as to the pursuit of knowledge. It is not too much to say that he had at this time covered the whole field of knowledge in a manner more thorough than it had ever

ls to justify the position which will be

as entered at the University of Tubingen, where, in the following year, before he was 17 years of age, he was created Doctor in Philosophy or Master of Arts. He then commenced a course of public lectures, embracing an extraordinary variety of subjects, including the learned languages, rhetoric, logic, ethic

y, and in 1575 (the year Bacon left Cambridge) took his degree, coming out third in the first class. In 1576 he went to France, as did Bacon-to Paris. In the College of Navarre he issued a universal challenge. This he subsequently repeated at Venice with equal success; that is, to all men, upon all things, in any of twelve languages named. The challenge is broad and formal. He pledged himself to review

ave been. All the testimony which his contemporaries afford, especially having regard to his a

ound it, as James Spedding says, the significant words-the natural ejaculation, we may presume, of the artist's