r, it
would doubtless have been written in Latin.

The life of Francis Bacon, "the father of inductive philosophy," as he
has been called--better, the founder of inductive logic--belongs to
English history, and the bulk of his writings, in Latin and English, to
the history of English philosophy. But his volume of _Essays_ was a
contribution to general literature. In their completed form they
belong to the year 1625, but the first edition was printed in 1597 and
contained only ten short essays, each of them rather a string of
pregnant maxims--the text for an essay--than that developed treatment
of a subject which we now understand by the word essay. They were,
said their author, "as grains of salt that will rather give you an
appetite than offend you with satiety." They were the first essays
so-called in the language. "The word," said Bacon, "is late, but the
thing is ancient." The word he took from the French _essais_ of
Montaigne, the first two books of which had been published in 1592.
Bacon testified that his essays were the most popular of his writings
because they "came home to men's business and bosoms." Their alternate
title explains their character: _Counsels Civil and Moral_, that is,
pieces of advice touching the conduct of life, "of a nature whereof men
shall find much in experience, little in books." The essays contain
the quintessence of Bacon's practical wisdom, his wide knowledge of the
world of {92} men. The truth and depth of his sayings, and the extent
of ground which they cover, as well as the weighty compactness of his
style, have given many of them the currency of proverbs. "Revenge is a
kind of wild justice." "He that hath wife and children hath given
hostages to fortune." "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some
strangeness in the proportion." Bacon's reason was illuminated by a
powerful imagination, and his noble English rises now and then, as in
his essay _On Death_, into eloquence--the eloquence of pure thought,
touched gravely and afar off by emotion. In general, the atmosphere of
his intellect is that _lumen siccum_ which he loved to commend, "not
drenched or bloodied by the affections." Dr. Johnson said that the
wine of Bacon's writings was a dry wine.

A popular class of books in the 17th century were "characters" or
"witty descriptions of the properties of sundry persons," such as the
Good Schoolmaster, the Clown, the Country Magistrate; much as in some
modern _Hea