Bacon's Essays

Front matter

BACON'S ESSAYS

edited by

ALFRED S. WEST, M.A.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

What Bacon meant by the word 'Essay' he has told us himself. 'The want of leisure', he says, 'hath made me choose to write certain brief notes, set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient. For Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if one mark them well, are but Essays,—that is, dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the form of Epistles.'

Montaigne's Essays had appeared in 1580. The first edition of Bacon's Essays was published in 1597. Bacon was acquainted with Montaigne's work, though he refers to Montaigne by name only once. In the Essay on Truth, which was a new contribution to the third edition of 1625, he quotes Montaigne, and quotes him with characteristic inaccuracy. 'Mountaigny saith prettily,' he writes; but the pretty saying is Plutarch's, not Montaigne's, and is mentioned by Montaigne as the remark of 'un ancien'. Between the Essays of Bacon and the Essays of Montaigne there is little in common, 'except their rare power of exciting interest, and the unmistakable mark of genius which is impressed on both .'

Short jottings on great subjects,—jottings thrown together without any serious attempt at elaboration, completeness, or methodical arrangement,—jottings 'of a nature whereof a man shall find much in experience but little in books,'—jottings 'which come home to men's business and bosoms,'—such are Bacon's Essays, described pretty much in his own terms.

Compositions of this sort naturally suffer now and then from the lack of method and precision. Bacon sometimes employs a word in ambiguous senses. Thus, when he writes about Truth, the term Truth stands at first for the correspondence of thought with fact, and afterwards for the virtue of truthfulness, which is quite a different matter. 'Envy' is used to denote, not only what we commonly understand by the name, but also malevolence and popular discontent. Within the limits of a short Essay, Beauty is variously analysed with curious inconsistency .

Bacon's strength appears to the best advantage in his speculations on character and conduct,—in the practical sagacity (not always wisdom of the highest order,) of his maxims for managing one's fellow men. Here we have the teaching of an expert whose career had familiarised him with the wiles and artifices of courtiers and officials,—the teaching of one who had himself been an 'actor upon the stage,' and who was also a shrewd observer of life.

In the history of English literature, Bacon ranks among the creators of our modern prose. His position as a classic is secure. With greater versatility than Ascham, or Sidney, or Hooker, he produced masterpieces in more styles than one. Yet it was almost an accident that he wrote in English at all. He felt no confidence in the enduring stability of his native tongue. If a book of his was to 'live and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not,' it must be translated into Latin. 'These modern languages,' he says, 'will at one time or another play the bank-rowte with books.'

Though his style, varying with the requirements of his subject, is sometimes rich and ornate, sometimes solemn and majestic, sometimes penetrating and concise, the quality of superb self-confidence is seldom absent. What he conceives as a poet, he utters as a prophet, and as a prophet who delivers his message and disdains controversy. He speaks as one having authority: Franciscus Baconus sic cogitavit. These are thoughts which have occurred to me; weigh them well, and take them or leave them .'

His expressions are often obscure. Perhaps the obscurity was sometimes intentional. At any rate the fault was of old standing. His mother forwards to her son Anthony one of his brother's letters. 'Construe the interpretation,' she says: 'I do not understand his enigmatical folded writing .' Usually however the want of clearness is due to the terseness of his utterance. Thoughts which a writer of our own day would distil over a page, Bacon condenses into a sentence. What he writes is meant, not 'to be swallowed' in a hurry, but to be chewed and digested with deliberation. No man ever packed so much matter into smaller compass.

Dean Church says of Bacon's Essays that 'they are like chapters in Aristotle's Ethics and Rhetoric on virtues and characters; only Bacon takes Aristotle's broad marking lines as drawn, and proceeds with the subtler and more refined observations of a much longer and wider experience. But these short papers say what they have to say without preface, and in literary undress, without a superfluous word, without the joints and bands of structure: they say it in brief, rapid sentences, which come down, sentence after sentence, like the strokes of a great hammer .

Bacon's fertility of imagination was immense. 'In wit, if by wit be meant the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have nothing in common, he never had an equal. Ingenious metaphors abound in his writings. Some of his expressions have obtained currency as quotations among people of education. Even the man in the street can speak of children as 'hostages to fortune,' though he might be puzzled to fix the phrase on its right author. Whatever the subject of discourse, Bacon has an illustration at hand.

Not only does he give us an illustration, but the chances are that he will throw in a quotation as well. He quotes with the copiousness and magnificent inaccuracy of many a modern journalist. His quotations fall into two classes,— Quotations and Misquotations, and one cannot decide off-hand which class is the more numerous. Sometimes he was inaccurate because his memory played him false and he was too indifferent about trifles to verify his quotations. Sometimes he deliberately tampered with an author to bring the quotation into harmony with its new context. In his quotations, as in his philosophy generally, exactness of detail was sacrificed to width of range.

Epistle Dedicatoire

TO

THE RIGHT

HONORABLE MY

VERY GOOD Lo. THE DVKE

of Buckingham his Grace, Lo.

High Admirall of England.

Excellent Lo.

SALOMON saies, A good Name is as a precious oyntment; And I assure my selfe, such wil your Grace's Name bee with Posteritie. For your Fortune and Merit both have beene Eminent. And you have planted Things, that are like to last. I doe now publish my Essayes; which of all my other workes have beene most Currant; For that, as it seemes, they come home to Men's Businesse and Bosomes. I have enlarged them, both in Number and Weight; So that they are indeed a New Worke. I thought it therefore agreeable, to my Affection and Obligation to your Grace, to prefix your Name before them, both in English and in Latine. For I doe conceive, that the Latine Volume of them, (being in the Universall Language) may last, as long as Bookes last. My Instauration, I dedicated to the King: My Historie of HENRY the Seventh, (which I have now also translated into Latine) and my Portions of Naturall History, to the Prince: And these I dedicate to your Grace; Being of the best Fruits, that by the good Encrease, which God gives to my Pen and Labours, I could yeeld. God leade your Grace by the Hand.

Your Grace's most Obliged and

faithfull Servant,

Fr. St. ALBAN.

The Table

THE TABLE.

Of Truth

ESSAYES

I

OF TRUTH

WHAT is Truth? said jesting Pilate; And would not stay for an Answer. Certainly there be, that delight in Giddinesse, And count it a Bondage to fix a Beleefe; Affecting Freewill in Thinking, as well as in Acting. And though the Sects of Philosophers of that Kinde be gone, yet there remaine certaine discoursing Wits, which are of the same veines, though there be not so much Bloud in them, as was in those of the Ancients. But it is not onely the Difficultie and Labour, which men take in finding out of Truth; Nor againe, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's Thoughts, that doth bring Lies in favour; But a naturall though corrupt Love of the Lie it selfe. One of the later Schoole of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love Lies; Where neither they make for Pleasure, as with Poets; Nor for Advantage, as with the Merchant; but for the Lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same Truth is a Naked and Open day light, that doth not shew the Masques, and Mummeries, and Triumphs of the World, halfe so stately and daintily as Candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a Pearle, that sheweth best by day; But it will not rise to the price of a Diamond, or Carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A Mixture of a Lie doth ever adde Pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of Men's Mindes Vaine Opinions, Flattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the Mindes of a Number of Men poore shrunken Things, full of Melancholy and Indisposition, and unpleasung to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum, because it filleth the imagination; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But, howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved Iudgements, and Affections, yet Truth, which only doth iudge it selfe, teacheth that the Inquirie of Truth, which is the Love-making, or Wooing of it; The knowledge of Truth, which is the Presence of it; and the Beleefe of Truth, which is the Enjoying of it; is the Soveraigne Good of humane Nature. The first Creature of God, in the workes of the Dayes, was the Light of the Sense; The last, was the Light of Reason; And his Sabbath Worke, ever since, is the Illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed Light into the Face of the Matter or Chaos; then he breathed Light into the Face of Man; and still he breatheth and inspireth Light into the Face of his Chosen. The Poet, that beautified the Sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the Sea: A pleasure to stand in the window of a Castle, and to see a Battaile, and the Adventures thereof, below: But no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth, (A hill not to be commanded, and where the Ayre is alwaies cleare and serene,) And to see the Errours, and Wandrings, and Mists, and Tempests, in the vale below: So alwaies, that this prospect be with Pitty, and not with Swelling or Pride. Certainly, it is Heaven upon Earth, to have a Man's Minde Move in Charitie, Rest in Providence, and Turne upon the Poles of Truth.

To passe from Theologicall, and Philosophicall Truth, to the Truth of civil Businesse; It will be acknowledged, even by those that practize it not, that cleare and Round dealing, is the Honour of Man's Nature; And that Mixture of Falshood, is like Allay in Coyne of Gold and Silver, which may make the Metall worke the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the Goings of the Serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the Feet. There is no Vice that doth so cover Man with Shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Mountaigny saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the Lie should be such a Disgrace, and such an Odious Charge, Saith he, If it be well weighed, To say that a man lieth, is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a Coward towards Men. For a Lie faces God, and shrinkes from Man. Surely the Wickednesse of Falshood and Breach of Faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last Peale to call the Iudgements of God upon the Generations of Men; It being foretold that, when Christ cometh, He shall not finde Faith upon the Earth.

Of Death

II

OF DEATH

Men feare Death, as Children feare to goe in the darke: And as that Natural Feare in Children is increased with Tales, so is the other. Certainly, the Contemplation of Death, as the wages of sinne, and Passage to another world, is Holy and Religious; But the Feare of it, as a Tribute due unto Nature, is weake. Yet in Religious Meditations, there is sometimes Mixture of Vanitie and of Superstition. You shal reade, in some of the Friars' Books of Mortification, that a man should thinke with himselfe, what the Paine is, if he have but his Finger's end Pressed or Tortured, And thereby imagine, what the Paines of Death are, when the whole Body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times Death passeth with lesse paine then the Torture of a Limme: For the most vitall parts are not the quickest of Sense. And by him, that spake onely as a Philosopher and Naturall Man, it was well said, Pompa Mortis magis terret quàm Mors ipsa. Groanes and Convulsions, and a discoloured Face, and Friends weeping, and Blackes, and Obsequies, and the like, shew Death Terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the minde of man so weake, but it Mates and Masters the Feare of Death: And therefore Death is no such terrible Enemie, when a man hath so many Attendants about him that can winne the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over Death; Love slights it; Honour aspireth to it; Griefe flieth to it; Feare pre-occupateth it; Nay, we reade, after Otho the Emperour had slaine himselfe, Pitty (which is the tenderest of Affections) provoked many to die, out of meere compassion to their Soveraigne, and as the truest sort of Followers. Nay, Seneca addes Nicenesse and Saciety; Cogita quam diù eadem feceris; Mori velle, non tantùm Fortis, aut Miser, sed etiàm Fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though lie were neither valiant nor miserable, onely upon a wearinesse to doe the same thing so oft over and over. It is no lesse worthy to observe, how little Alteration, in good Spirits, the Approaches of Death make; For they appeare to be the same Men, till the last Instant. Augustus Caesar died in a Complement; Livia, Coniugij nostri memor, vive et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation; As Tacitus saith of him; Iam Tiberium Vires et Corpus, non Dissimulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a Iest, Sitting upon the Stoole, Ut puto Deus fio . Galba with a Sentence; Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani ; Holding forth his Necke. Septimius Severus in dispatch; Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum . And the like. Certainly, the Stoikes bestowed too much cost upon Death, and by their great reparations made it appeare more fearefull. Better saith he, Qui Finem Vitæ extremum inter Munera ponat Nature . It is as Naturall to die as to be borne; And to a little Infant, perhaps, the one is as painfull as the other. He that dies in an earnest Pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot Bloud; who, for the time, scarce feeles the Hurt; And therefore a Minde, fixt and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the Dolors of Death: But above all, beleeve it, the sweetest Canticle is Nunc dimittis , when a Man hath obtained worthy Ends and Expectations. Death hath this also, That it openeth the Gate to good Fame, and extinguished Envie.

Extinctus amabitur idem .

Of Unitie in Religion

II

OF UNITY IN RELIGION

Religion being the chiefe Band of humane Society, it is a happy thing when it selfe is well contained within the true Band of Unity. The Quarrels and divisions about Religion were Evils unknowne to the Heathen. The Reason was, because the Religion of the Heathen consisted rather in Rites and Ceremonies then in any constant Beleefe. For you may imagine what kinde of Faith theirs was, when the chiefe Doctors and Fathers of their Church were the Poets. But the true God hath this Attribute, That he is a Iealous God; And therefore, his worship and Religion will endure no Mixture, nor Partner. We shall therefore speake a few words concerning the Unity of the Church; What are the Fruits thereof; what the Bounds; And what the Meanes?

The Fruits of Unity (next unto the well Pleasing of God, which is All in All) are two ; The One, towards those that are without the Church; The Other, towards those that are within. For the Former; It is certaine that Heresies and Schismes are of all others the greatest Scandals ; yea more then Corruption of Manners. For as, in the Naturall Body, a Wound or Solution of Continuity is worse then a Corrupt Humor, So in the Spirituall. So that nothing doth so much keepe Men out of the Church, and drive Men out of the Church, as Breach of Unity: And therefore, whensoever it commeth to that passe that one saith, Ecce in Deserto Another saith, Ecce in penetralibus; That is, when some Men seeke Christ in the Conventicles of Heretikes, and others in an Outward Face of a Church, that voice had need continually to sound in Men s Eares, Nolite exire,—Goe not out. The Doctor of the Gentiles (the Propriety of whose Vocation drew him to have a speciall care of those without) saith, If an Heathen come in, and heare you speake with several! Tongues, Will he not say that you are mad? And certainly, it is little better, when Atheists and prophane Persons do heare of so many Discordant and Contrary Opinions in Religion. It doth avert them from the Church, and maketh them To sit downe in the chaire of the Scorners. It is but a light Thing to be Vouched in so Serious a Matter, but yet it expresseth well the Deformity. There is a Master of Scoffing, that in his Catalogue of Books of a faigned Library sets Downe this Title of a Booke, The morris daunce of Heretikes. For indeed every Sect of them hath a Divers Posture or Cringe by them selves, which cannot but Move Derision in Worldlings and Depraved Politickes, who are apt to contemne Holy Things.

As for the Fruit towards those that are within, It is Peace, which containeth infinite Blessings: It establish eth Faith; It kindleth Charity; The outward Peace of the Church Distilleth into Peace of Conscience And it turneth the Labours of Writing and Reading of Controversies into Treaties of Mortification and Devotion.

Concerning the Bounds of Unity; The true Placing of them importeth exceedingly. There appeare to be two extremes. For to certaine Zelants all Speech of Pacification is odious. Is it peace, Iehu ? What hast thou to doe with peace? turne thee behinde me. Peace is not the Matter, but Following and Party. Contrariwise, certaine Laodiceans and Luke-warme Persons thinke they may accommodate Points of Religion by Middle Waies, and taking part of both, And witty Reconcilements, As if they would make an Arbitrement betweene God and Man. Both these Extremes are to be avoyded; which will be done, if the League of Christians, penned by our Saviour himselfe, were in the two crosse Clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded; He that is not with us is against us: And againe, He that is not against us is with us: That is, if the Points Fundamentall and of Substance in Religion were truly discerned and distinguished from Points not meerely of Faith, but of Opinion, Order, or good Intention. This is a Thing may seeme to many a Matter triviall, and done already; But if it were done lesse partially, it would be embraced more generally.

Of this I may give onely this Advice, according to my small Modell. Men ought to take heede of rending God's Church by two kinds of Controversies. The one is, when the Matter of the Point controverted is too small and light, not worth the Heat and Strife about it, kindled onely by Contradiction. For, as it is noted by one of the Fathers, Christ's Coat, indeed, had no seame, But the Church's Vesture way of divers colours; whereupon he saith, In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit ; They be two Things, Unity and Uniformity. The other is, when the Matter of the Point Controverted is great, but it is driven to an over-great Subtilty and Obscurity; So that it becommeth a Thing rather Ingenious then Substantial!. A man that is of Iudgement and understanding shall sometimes heare Ignorant Men differ, and know well within himselfe that those which so differ meane one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree. And if it come so to passe, in that distance of Iudgement which is betweene Man and Man, Shall wee not thinke that God above, that knowes the Heart, doth not discerne that fraile Men, in some of their Contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth of both? The Nature of such Controversies is excellently expressed by St. Paul, in the Warning and Precept that he giveth concerning the same, Devita profanas vocum Novitates, et Oppositiones falsi Nominis Scientitæ . Men create Oppositions which are not, And put them into new termes, so fixed as, whereas the Meaning ought to governe the Terme, the Terme in effect governeth the Meaning. There be also two false Peaces, or Unities; The one, when the Peace is grounded but upon an implicite ignorance; For all Colours will agree in the Darke: The other, when it is peeced up, upon a direct Admission of Contraries in Fundamentall Points. For Truth and Falshood, in such things, are like the Iron and Clay in the toes of Nabucadnezar's Image; They may Cleave, but they will not Incorporate.

Concerning the Meanes of procuring Unity; Men must beware that, in the Procuring or Muniting of Religious Unity, they doe not Dissolve and Deface the Lawes of Charity and of humane Society. There be two Swords amongst Christians, the Spirituall and Temporall; And both have their due Office and place in the maintenance of Religion. But we may not take up the Third sword, which is Mahomet's Sword, or like unto it; That is, to propagate Religion by Warrs, or by Sanguinary Persecutions to force Consciences; except it be in cases of Overt Scandall, Blasphemy, or Intermixture of Practize against the State; Much lesse to Nourish Seditions; To Authorize Conspiracies and Rebellions; To put the Sword into the People's Hands, And the like, Tending to the Subversion of all Government, which is the Ordinance of God. For this is but to dash the first Table against the Second, And so to consider Men as Christians, as we forget that they are Men. Lucretius the Poet, when he beheld the Act of Agamemnon, that could endure the Sacrificing of his owne Daughter, exclaimed—

Tanium Relligio potuit suadere malorum.

What would he have said, if he had knowne of the Mas sacre in France, or the Powder Treason of England? He would have beene Seven times more Epicure and Atheist then he was. For as the temporall Sword is to bee drawne with great circumspection in Cases of Religion, So it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the Common People. Let that bee left unto the Anabaptists and other Furies. It was great Blasphemy, when the Devill said, I will ascend and be like the Highest; But it is greater Blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in saying, I will descend and be like the Prince of Darknesse; And what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruell and execrable Actions of Murthering Princes, Butchery of People, and subversion of States and Governments? Surely, this is to bring Downe the Holy Ghost, instead of the Liknesse of a Dove, in the Shape of a Vulture or Raven; And to set, out of the Barke of a Christian Church, a Flaggy of a Barque of Pirats and Assassins. Therfore it is most necessary, that the Church by Doctrine and Decree; Princes by their Sword; And all Learnings, both Christian and Morall, as by their Mercury Rod; Doe Damne and send to Hell for ever those Facts and Opinions tending to the Support of the same; As hath beene already in good part done. Surely in Counsels Concerning Religion, that Counsel of the Apostle would be prefixed, Ira hominis non implet Iusticiam Dei. And it was a notable Observation of a wise Father, And no lesse ingenuously confessed, That those, which held and perswaded pressure of Consciences, were commonly interessed therin themselves for their owne ends.

Of Revenge

IV

OF REVENGE

Revenge is a kinde of Wilde Justice, which the more Man's Nature runs to, the more ought Law to weed it out. For as for the first Wrong, it doth but offend the Law; but the Revenge of that wrong putteth the Law out of Office. Certainly, in taking Revenge, A Man is but even with his Enemy; But in passing it over, he is Superiour: For it is a Prince's part to Pardon. And Salomon, I am sure, saith, It is the glory of a Man to passe by an offence. That which is past, is gone and Irrevocable; And wise Men have Enough to doe with things present and to come: Therefore, they doe but trifle with themselves that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, But therby to purchase himselfe Profit, or Pleasure, or Honour, or the like. Therfore why should I be angry with a Man, for loving himselfe better then mee? And if any Man should doe wrong, meerely out of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the Thorn, or Bryar, which prick and scratch because they can doe no other. The most Tolerable Sort of Revenge is for those wrongs which there is no Law to remedy: But then, let a man take heed the Revenge be such as there is no law to punish; Else, a Man's Enemy is still before hand, And it is two for one. Some, when they take Revenge, are Desirous the party should know whence it commeth: This is the more Generous. For the Delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the Hurt, as in Making the Party repent: But Base and Crafty Cowards are like the Arrow that flyeth in the Darke. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a Desperate Saying against Perfidious or Neglecting Friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable: You shall reade (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our Enemies; But you never read that wee are commanded to forgive our Friends. But yet the Spirit of Iob was in a better tune; Shall wee (saith he) take good at God's Hands, and not be content to take evill also? And so of Friends in a proportion. This is certaine, That a Man that studieth Revenge keepes his owne Wounds greene, which otherwise would heale and doe well. Publique Revenges are, for the most part, Fortunate; As that for the Death of Caesar; For the Death of Pertinax; for the Death of Henry the Third of France; And many more. But in private Revenges it is not so. Nay rather, Vindicative Persons live the Life of Witches, who, as they are Mischievous, So end they Infortunate.

Of Adversitie

V

OF ADVERSITIE

It was an high speech of Seneca, (after the manner of the Stoickes,) That the good things, which belong to Prosperity, are to be wished; but the good things, that belong to Adversity, are to be admired. Bona Rerum Secundarum, Optabilia; Adversarum, Mirabilia. Certainly, if Miracles be the Command over Nature, they appeare most in Adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his then the other, (much too high for a Heathen,) It is true greatnesse, to have in one the Frailty of a Man and the Security of a God. Verè magnum habere Fragilitatem Hominis, Securitatem Dei. This would have done better in Poesy, where Transcendences are more allowed. And the Poets indeed have beene busy with it; For it is, in effect, the thing which is figured in that Strange Fiction of the Ancient Poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; Nay, and to have some approach to a proportionate extent

to the State of a Christian: That Hercules, when hee went to unbinde Prometheus, (by whom Humane Nature is represented) sailed the length of the great Ocean in an Earthen Pot or Pitcher; Lively describing Christian Resolution, that saileth in the fraile Barke of the Flesh thorow the Waves of the World. But to speake in a Meane. The Vertue of Prosperitie is Temperance; The Vertue of Adversity is Fortitude; which in Morals is the more Heroicall Vertue. Prosperity is the Blessing of the Old Testament; Adversity is the Blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater Benediction, and the Clearer Revelation of God's Favour. Yet even in the old Testament, if you Listen to David's Harpe, you shall heare as many Herselike Ayres as Carols; And the Pencill of the holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the Afflictions of lob then the Felicities of Salomon. Prosperity is not without many Feares and Distastes; And Adversity is not without Comforts and Hopes. Wee see in Needle-workes and Imbroideries, It is more pleasing to have a Lively Worke upon a Sad and Solemne Ground then to have a Darke and Melancholy Worke upon a Lightsome Ground: Iudge, therfore, of the Pleasure of the Heart, by the Pleasure of the Eye. Certainly, Vertue is like pretious Odours, most fragrant, when they are incensed, or crushed: For Prosperity doth best discover Vice; but Adversity doth best discover Vertue.