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II. Tamerlane: a corruption of Timur-Leng (" Timur_the_Lame”), the name of a Tartar monarch who between about 1370 and 1405 conquered Persia, central Asia, and a large part of India, and made preparations for an invasion of China. The story of his deeds, told and retold in numerous popular histories, made a profound impression on the imagination of western Europe in the sixteenth century. In England, a year before this essay was published, Marlowe devoted to Tamerlane's career the first of his great tragedies. See also Bacon's essay Of Envy," above, p. 36.

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12. Erasmus: the great representative of humanism in northern Europe, born at Rotterdam probably in 1466, died at Basel in 1536. In the sixteenth century Erasmus's reputation rested to a very large extent upon his Adagia (1600), a collection of "sentences" and "apothegms " from ancient writers; it is to the fame of this work that Montaigne's remark applies.

13. Sic ubi, desuetæ silvis, in carcere clausæ, etc.: Lucan, Pharsalia, iv, 237: "So when wild beasts, grown unaccustomed to the woods and shut up in cages, grow tame and lay aside their threatening look, and learn to put up with man, if but a drop of blood comes to their parched mouths, their ravenous fury returns and their throats swell, reminded by the taste of blood; their fury rages and scarcely stops short of the trembling keeper."

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14. Armaignac: a district in southeastern Gascony not far distant from Montaigne's estates.

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15. the Pythagorean sect: the followers of Pythagoras (cir. 582-cir. 500 B.C.), a Greek philosopher.

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16. Cato Marcus Porcius Cato, commonly known as The Censor," a Roman statesman and writer (234-149 B.C.). Montaigne's allusion refers to the severity of morals for which he was noted.

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17. Phocion: an Athenian statesman and general (cir. 402-317 B.C.). The anecdote which Montaigne tells of him he probably found in Plutarch's collection of apothegms.

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18. He, who said of old: Sophocles. The "sentence" is quoted from Cicero, De Senectute 14.

" Nor

19. Nec tam aversa, etc.: Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, v, 12: will Providence ever be seen so hostile to her own work that impotence should be included among the best things."

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20. Antisthenes: a Greek philosopher (cir. 444-after 371 B.C.). The saying quoted by Montaigne is to be found in Diogenes Laertius, Life of Antisthenes.

SIR FRANCIS BACON

The text of Bacon is that of The Works of Francis Bacon, edited by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. It has been collated throughout, however, with the original text of the same versions as printed by Arber in his Harmony of the Essays (1895).

OF STUDIES

As a means of illustrating the development of Bacon's methods of composition, this essay is given both in the original version of 1597 and in the final revision of 1625. In the former it occupied first place and bore the title "Of Study"; in the latter it was printed as No. 50.

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Studies have an

I. Abeunt studia in mores: Ovid, Heroides, xv, 83: influence and operation upon the manners of those that are conversant in them" (Bacon's paraphrase in The Advancement of Learning, Bk. I).

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2. the schoolmen: the philosophers of the medieval universities, a prominent feature of whose method was a reliance on fine distinctions between terms. Bacon was one of the leaders of the general revolt against their philosophy which took place at the end of the sixteenth century. 3. cymini sectores: literally dividers of cumin-seed; hair-splitters.

OF EMPIRE

The essay "Of Empire" appeared first in a manuscript version of the Essays written between 1607 and 1612; it was first printed (as No. 9) in the edition of 1612; it was reprinted, with numerous additions, as No. 19 in the edition of 1625. It is given here in the versions of 1612 and 1625. A comparison of the two texts will enable the reader to verify the statements made in the Introduction regarding the evolution of Bacon's conception and practice of the essay.

1. That the king's heart is inscrutable: see Proverbs xxv, 3.

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2. Alexander the Great and . . . Charles the Fifth: Alexander (356323 B.C.) was disappointed at being turned back from India by the refusal of his soldiers to go on. Charles the Fifth (1500-1558), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, abdicated his crown in favor of his son Philip (1556) and spent the remainder of his life in the vicinity of a secluded Spanish monastery.

3. temper and distemper: in the old physiology "temper' meant a proper mixture or balance of elements in the body; "distemper," a departure from a proper mixture and a consequent disturbance.

4. The answer of Apollonius: Apollonius of Tyana (cir. 4 B.C.-cir. 97 A.D.) was a late Greek philosopher with supposed magical powers. His reply to Vespasian (Roman emperor, 70-79 A.D.) is reported by Philostratus in his life of Apollonius, v, 28.

5. saith Tacitus, etc.: "The desires of kings are mostly vehement, and inconsistent with one another." The author of the sentence was not Tacitus but Sallust (Bellum Jugurthinum, 113).

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7. Memento quod es homo, etc.: "Remember that you are man; remember that you are God, or the lieutenant of God."

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...

8. Nero . . . Domitian . . . Commodus . . . Caracalla: all Roman emperors. Nero reigned from 54 to 68 A.D.; Domitian, from 81 to 96; Commodus, from 180 to 192; and Caracalla, from 211 to 217.

9. Diocletian: Roman emperor from 284 to 305 A.D. He spent the later part of his life, after his abdication in 305, on his estates in Dalmatia.

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IO.. that triumvirate of kings: the first reigned from 1509 to 1547; the second, from 1515 to 1547; and the third, from 1519 to 1556.

II. Guicciardine: Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), a Florentine historian, whose Storia d'Italia ("History of Italy") was one of the most important and widely read works of the Italian Renaissance.

12. Ferdinando King of Naples: Ferdinand II (1469–1496).

13. Lorenzius Medices: Lorenzo de' Medici (cir. 1449–1492), surnamed The Magnificent," a Florentine statesman and patron of letters, the virtual ruler of his city from 1478 to his death.

14. Ludovicus Sforza: Lodovico Sforza (d. cir. 1510), Duke of Milan.

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15. Livia: see Tacitus, Annals, iv, 3.

16. infamed: defamed.

17. Roxalana: the murder of Prince Mustapha through the instigation of Roxalana, one of his father's wives, took place in 1553. It was a favorite incident with Elizabethan dramatists, entering into no less than five plays between 1581 and 1638. See Wann, "The Oriental in Elizabethan Drama," in Modern Philology, xii (1915), 434-435.

18. Edward the Second of England his queen: Edward II (reigned 13071327) was deposed as a result of an uprising led by his queen, Isabella of France, and was murdered in prison.—The form of the possessive used in this phrase was the common form with proper names until well into the seventeenth century.

19. advoutresses: adulteresses.

20. Solyman: Solyman I, who ruled over the Ottoman Turks from 1520 to 1566.

21. Selymus the Second: Solyman's son, Sultan from 1566 to 1574. 22. The destruction of Crispus: A.D. 326. Constantine was Roman emperor from 306 to 337; his sons died respectively in 340, 350, and 361. 23. Philip the Second: King of Macedon from 359 to 336 B.C., the father of Alexander the Great.

24. Selymus the First: Sultan of the Ottoman Turks from 1512, when he dethroned his father, Bajazet II (1447–1512), to his death in 1520.

25. the three sons of Henry the Second: the three sons were Henry and Geoffrey, both of whom died before their father in 1183 and 1186 respectively, and Richard, who succeeded his father in 1189 as Richard I.

26. Anselmus and Thomas Becket: the former was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, during the reigns of William II (1087-1100) and of Henry I (1100-1135); the latter, from 1162 to 1170, during the reign of Henry II (1154–1189). Both Anselm and Becket were defenders of Church privilege against the claims of royal power. Bacon's attitude toward them is typical of the Protestant and monarchical views dominant in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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27. collation: gift, applied to the bestowal of a benefice upon a clergyman. 28. I have noted it in my history of King Henry the Seventh: see The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, vi (1890), 242. Bacon's History was finished in 1621 and published the following year.

29. vena porta literally "gate veins." The meaning is perhaps explained by the following sentence from The History of Henry the Seventh (quoted by M. A. Scott, The Essays of Francis Bacon, p. 89): "he could not endure to have trade sick, nor any obstruction to continue in the gate-vein which disperseth the blood." The term belongs to the medical vocabulary of Bacon's time.

30. leeseth: a regular form, much in use in the sixteenth century, later entirely superseded by "lose," which is in part derived from the same root. 31. donatives: gifts.

32. janizaries: Turkish troops forming the life-guard of the Sultan. 33. pretorian bands: the body-guard of the Roman emperors.

OF TRUTH

First printed (as No. 1) in the edition of 1625.

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1. What is truth? John xviii, 38.

2. sects of philosophers: the Sceptics, a group of ancient philosophers who denied the possibility of human knowledge. One of the most celebrated representatives of the school was Pyrrho (360?-270? B.C.), from whose name the sceptical attitude was often known as Pyrrhonism.

3. discoursing: the word may mean here either argumentative or discursive, that is, unsettled, roving. The sentence in which it stands has been interpreted, probably without any justification, as an allusion to Montaigne.

4. One of the later school of the Grecians: Lucian of Samosata (second century A.D.), who discusses the question in his dialogue Philopseudes.

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5. vinum dæmonum: devils' wine.

6. The poet . . . saith yet excellently well: Lucretius (cir. 96–55 B.C.), whose great poem, De Rerum Natura, was written to expound the philosophy of Epicurus. The passage quoted by Bacon is a paraphase of the beginning of Book II.

7. round dealing: direct, plain, straightforward treatment.

8. allay: an old form of "alloy.”

9. embaseth: destroys the purity of the metal by introducing alloy.

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10. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily: Essais, ii, 18. Montaigne is here quoting and commenting upon a passage from Plutarch's Life of Lysander.

II. he shall not find faith upon the earth: see Luke xviii, 8.

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