of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he shall suck the experience of many: let him also see and visit eminent persons in all kinds, which are of great name abroad, that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame; for quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided; they are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words; 11 and let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons, for they will engage him into their own quarrels.

When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth; and let his Travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse let him be rather advised 12 in his answers than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in 13 some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.

NOTES ON ESSAY XVIII.

I. part of education.' He means that the object of travelling is not amusement, or recreation, as we often think in our own day; but it is a part of education, continuing the work of the school and preparing for the work of life. At school, we study books; in travel, places and men.

2. 'goeth to school '-does in travelling the work which he ought to have done previously at school. No man, he says, ought to travel until he is properly equipped for it; and if he has to devote all his time to the learning of the language, he loses the real benefit of travelling. Of course in the present day the circumstances of travelling have so changed, and the facilities for it so increased, that much of what Bacon says, though applicable to an age in which men rarely travelled abroad more than once in a lifetime, needs modification to make it suitable to ourselves.

3. 'allow'-praise; approve; sanction. (Latin allaudo.) 'The Lord alloweth the righteous '-Ps. xi, 5.

'Ye allow the deeds of your fathers '-Luke xi, 48.

'We commend his pains, condemn his pride, allow his life, approve his learning '-FULLER.

4. hooded'-blindfolded. A term derived from falconry. So in Shakespeare's Henry V, iii, 7, the constable says of the Dauphin's boasted bravery: Never anybody saw it but his lackey; 'tis a hooded valour. 'Consistories'-ecclesiastical courts.

5.

6. 'exchanges, burses.'

7.

8.

Bacon evidently makes a distinction between these two words. Probably the former denotes markets and the latter stock exchanges or money markets. 'card' chart, map. So in Essay XXIX he speaks of cards and maps.'

adamant of acquaintance'-attraction or loadstone to draw friends. Diamond and adamant are really the same word (see note 17, Essay I). But perhaps there may be some confusion between the Latin words adamas, adamantis=adamant; and adamans, adamantis=loving, attracting. Loadstone, the name of magnetic ore leading-stone.

In Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 195, Helena says to Demetrius: You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant.'

9. removes '-removals. So in the proverb: 'Three removes are as bad as a fire.

io. employed men.'

We now use the word attaché for a confidential servant attached to an embassy.

11. He can easily avoid quarrels by avoiding the most common causes of quarrels-light attachments to women, wine parties and health-drinking, claims for priority, disposition to cavil at words and pick a quarrel out of them.

12. advised'-cautious, thoughtful; so the adverb advisedly, for cautiously.

13. 'prick in '—plant.

ANALYSIS OF ESSAY XVIII.

The benefits of foreign travel are insured by

1. Previously acquiring knowledge of the language, and travelling with tutor or servant who has done the same.

2. Keeping a diary.

3. Seeing everything that is really worth seeing.

4. Carrying a map or book-moving from place to place— shunning one's own countrymen-seeking useful acquaint

ance.

5. Avoiding quarrels.

6. After returning home by

(a.) Corresponding with foreign friends.

(b.) Being careful not to obtrude boastfully before others, in dress or conversation, his acquaintance with foreign lands.

XIX. OF EMPIRE. (1612, enlarged 1625.)

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It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of kings, who being at the highest, want matter of desire,1 which makes their minds more languishing; and have many representations of perils and shadows, which makes their minds the less clear: and this is one reason also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, that the king's heart is inscrut able: 3 for multitude of jealousies, and lack of some predominant desire that should marshal and put in order all the rest, maketh any man's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys; sometimes upon a building; sometimes upon erecting of an Order; sometimes upon the advancing of a person; sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art, or feat of the hand: as Nero for playing on the harp; Domitian for certainty of the hand with the arrow; Commodus for playing at fence; Caracalla for driving chariots, and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those that know not the principle, that the mind of man is more cheered and refreshed by profiting in small things than by standing at a stays in great. We see also that kings that have been fortunate conquerors in their first years (it being not possible for them to go forward infinitely, but that they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes), turn in their latter years to be superstitious and melancholy; as did Alexander the Great,9 Diocletian, and in our memory, Charles the Fifth, and others; for he that is used to go forward, and findeth a stop, falleth out of his own favour, and is not the thing

he was.

To speak now of the true temper 10 of Empire, it is a thing rare and hard to keep; for both temper and distemper consist of contraries; but it is one thing to mingle contraries, another to interchange them. The

H

answer of Apollonius 11 to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction. Vespasian asked him, 'What was Nero's overthrow?' he answered, 'Nero could touch and tune the harp well; but in government sometimes he used to wind the pins too high, sometimes to let them down too low.' And certain it is, that nothing destroyeth authority so much as the unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, and relaxed too much.

This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times 12 in princes' affairs is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs, when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof: but this is but to try masteries with Fortune; 13 and let men beware how they neglect and suffer matter 14 of trouble to be prepared. For no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes (saith Tacitus 15) to will contradictories; 'Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se contrariæ;' for it is the solecism 16 of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.

Kings have to deal with their Neighbours, their Wives, their Children, their Prelates or Clergy, their Nobles, their second Nobles or Gentlemen, their Merchants, their Commons, and their Men of War; and from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not used.

First, for their Neighbours, there can no general rule be given (the occasions are so variable), save one which ever holdeth; which is, that princes do keep due sentinel, that none of their neighbours do overgrow so (by increase of territory, by embracing 17 of trade, by approaches, 18 or the like), as they become more able to annoy them than they were; and this is generally the work of standing counsels to foresee and to hinder it. During that triumvirate of kings, King Henry the Eighth of England, Francis the First, King of France, and Charles the Fifth, Emperor, there was such a watch kept that

none of the three could win a palm of ground, but the other two would straightways balance it, either by confederation, or, if need were, by a war; and would not in anywise take up peace at interest: 19 and the like was done by that league 20 (which Guicciardini saith was the security of Italy), made between Ferdinando, King of Naples, Lorenzius Medicis, and Ludovicus Sforza, potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. Neither is the opinion of some of the schoolmen to be received, that a war cannot justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or provocation; for there is no question, but a just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of a war.

For their Wives, there are cruel examples of them. Livia is infamed 21 for the poisoning of her husband; Roxolana,22 Solyman's wife, was the destruction of that renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha, and otherwise troubled his house and succession; Edward the Second of England his Queen 23 had the principal hand in the deposing and murder of her husband.

This kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly when the wives have plots for the raising of their own children, or else that they be advoutresses.24

For their Children, the tragedies likewise of dangers from them have been many; and generally the entering of fathers into suspicion of their children hath been ever unfortunate.25 The destruction of Mustapha (that we named before) was so fatal to Solyman's line, as the succession of the Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that Selymus the Second was thought to be supposititious. The destruction of Crispus,26 a young prince of rare towardness, by Constantinus the Great, his father, was in like manner fatal to his house; for both Constantinus and Constance, his sons, died violent deaths; and Constantius, his other son, did little better, who died indeed of sickness, but after that Julianus had taken arms against him. The destruction of Demetrius,27 son to Philip the Second of Macedon, turned upon the father, who died of repent