is
great reform is summed up in the following fine passage:

"Facility to believe, impatience to doubt, temerity to assever,
glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to gain, sloth to search,
seeking things in words, resting in a part of nature--these and the
like have been the things which have forbidden the happy match
between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in place
thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments....
Therefore, no doubt, the _sovereignty of man_ lieth hid in
knowledge; wherein many things are reserved which kings with their
treasures cannot buy nor with their force command; their spials and
intelligencers can give no news of them; their seamen and
discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature in
opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we could
be led by her in invention, we should command her in action."

To the same occasion as the discourse on the _Praise of Knowledge_
belongs, also, one in _Praise of the Queen_. As one is an early specimen
of his manner of writing on philosophy, so this is a specimen of what
was equally characteristic of him--his political and historical writing.
It is, in form, necessarily a panegyric, as high-flown and adulatory as
such performances in those days were bound to be. But it is not only
flattery. It fixes with true discrimination on the points in Elizabeth's
character and reign which were really subjects of admiration and homage.
Thus of her unquailing spirit at the time of the Spanish invasion--

"Lastly, see a Queen, that when her realm was to have been invaded
by an army, the preparation whereof was like the travail of an
elephant, the provisions infinite, the setting forth whereof was
the terror and wonder of Europe; it was not seen that her cheer,
her fashion, her ordinary manner was anything altered; not a cloud
of that storm did appear in that countenance wherein peace doth
ever shine; but with excellent assurance and advised security she
inspired her council, animated her nobility, redoubled the courage
of her people; still having this noble apprehension, not only that
she would communicate her fortune with them, but that it was she
that would protect them, and not they her; which she testified by
no less demonstration than her presence in camp. Therefore that
magnanim