the Pythian enthusiasm of poetry, melted by the splendor and harmony of his periods, which hurry the persuasions onward as in a breathless career. His language is that of an immortal spirit rather than a man. Lord Bacon is perhaps the only writer who in these particulars can be compared with him."*-Shelley. 'No man ever had an imagination at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated. In truth, much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world, amidst things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian Tales."-Macaulay.

"He seems to have written his essays with the pen of Shakespeare."-Alexander Smith.

It is admitted, then, that Bacon was at least a prosepoet. No man ever caught more quickly or aptly the resemblances of things or had a finer ear for the melody of speech. His metaphors trooped, as it were, to the sound of music. Professor Tavener compares his cadences to the swinging of a pendulum beating seconds. We know he was abnormally sensitive to the moods of nature, for he had fainting spells at every eclipse of the moon. We know he had a passion for the drama, shown by the part he took in devising stage performances before the court and in the

* Our attention was called to this remarkable testimony of the poet Shelley by Mr. R. M. Theobald, who makes the following comment: "The truth is, that while the critics have their eye on the Baconian theory, they call Bacon prosy, unimaginative, and incapable of poetry. When they sincerely describe him, they one and all assign to him Shakespearean attributes; so that if you cull the eulogies passed on Bacon, you have a portrait of the author of Shakespeare."

revels at Gray's Inn. We know, also, he had an inexhaustible fund of humor, that poured from his tongue with the ripple of laughing waters, and needed only the constraints of a written dialogue to tumble and foam.

These considerations, however, leave still a wide chasm between Bacon's prose and the Shakespeare poetry. The two sets of works seem at first sight to differ, not in degree only, but in kind. They are, indeed, as unlike as the caterpillar and the butterfly, one walking the earth and the other mounting on wings into the air. And yet, it is diversity of conditions, rather than that of personal types, that impresses us in them. They imply two states of existence, not incompatible in one person. Goethe's fine instinct suspected depths of meaning, unknown in his calmer moments to himself, in the second part of Faust. Natural orators have sometimes wondered, in the midst of their highest flights, what strange power had taken possession of their mental faculties. St. Peter protested on the day of Pentecost that he was not drunken with wine, though the same exaltation of spirit gave Spinoza the title of “Godintoxicated."

Here, then, are two spheres in which every human soul, divinely gifted, may have a dual being. In the higher, destined perhaps to be the ultimate for all, we find the seers of our race. No Kepler has yet discovered the laws

of their celestial orbits, but Plato and Emerson, Beethoven and Angelo, Dante and Goethe, give us some knowledge of their mighty sweep. We may wait centuries before a plummet, like Bessel's, dropped into these depths, shall strike bottom.

Of men eminent at once in both, Milton, Goethe, and Poe are conspicuous examples. Milton's Areopagitica is a "cloth of gold," worthy of the author of Paradise Lost, or better still, according to some critics, of Paradise Regained. Goethe's mind worked analytically or synthetically with equal power. He could detect a vertebra in the formation of a skull as readily as he could compress, into the experiences of one man subject to the personal guidance of Satan, the history of the human race. Poe's lyric genius was the greatest America ever produced, but it did not prevent him from giving us, in feats of analytical legerdemain, most extraordinary and enduring effects in prose.

The question arises, was Bacon also one of these rare spirits? To determine it, why not bring him to the test of the rule of three? Why indulge in vague generalities, however learned or brilliant, when standards of comparison are within reach? One commentator, for instance, sets the "dry light of intellect" in Bacon over against the " warm sunshine" of Shakespeare; another sees radical differences

between the two minds, the powers of one being analytical and the powers of the other synthetical. Let us apply these theories mathematically, taking two of the three known terms of our proportion from Milton. The ratios may be stated thus:

Milton's prose Paradise Lost :: Bacon's prose : Hamlet.

For comparison, we select, in each instance, the finest passage the genius of the author affords, as follows:

MILTON." Books are not absolutely dead things, but do con

tain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragons' teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature-God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself-kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."-Areopagitica.

"Thus far these, beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed

Their great commander; he, above the rest
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscured; as when the sun, new-risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the Arch-angel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek; but under brows
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride,
Waiting revenge."

Paradise Lost.

BACON." 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 favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore,