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for which he incurred the slight resentment of his master: but the storm soon blew over, and lord Verulamı triumphed over all competitors at court; at the same time that he was the object of just admiration, not only to his country but to Europe, for his successful studies. Amidst all the variety and intricacy of his pursuits as a lawyer and a statesman, philosophical research was evidently his ruling passion. "Alas!" exclaims a late writer, "that he who could command immortal fame, should have stooped to the little ambition of power!"

The instability of human grandeur has been ever proverbial. Scarcely had lord Verulam attained the summit of his wishes, before he was hurled from his station with the loss of his reputation even for honesty. James, having exhausted his finances, was obliged to call a parliament; and the nation being highly dissatisfied with the public conduct both of Buckingham and the chancellor, a strict inquiry was instituted against them. The king would gladly have screened them both, by a stretch of his prerogative in dissolving the parliament; but he was obliged to temporize till he had obtained some supplies from it; and the chancellor, though certainly the greatest man and the least offender, was made the sacrifice to the other. To divert the commons from the prosecution of the favourite Buckingham, some monopolies and illegal patents were cancelled and recalled by proclamation: while lord Verulam was impeached of bribery and corruption in his character of chancellor; and, meanly com promising his honour for a pension and a promised remission of the fine to be imposed, he complied with the wish of the court in yielding his right to speak in his own defence, and was condemned on a written confession. Every reader must blush for a man who could be made such a dupe, and who could consent to give up his honour to the insidious blandishments of a court. Buckngham escaped by this artifice; but lord Verulam was

sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds; to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure; to be for ever incapable of any office, place, or emolument, in the state; and never to sit again in parliament, or come within the verge of the court.

It is but justice, however, to the character of this eminent man, to observe, that he fell the martyr rather to his want of prudence than his want of integrity. Notwithstanding his extensive practice at the bar, and the high office of state which he had filled, his whole landed property did not exceed six hundred pounds a year; and he was so far from having amassed money, that he was deeply involved in debt. Owing to his philosophic indifference about wealth, his great indulgence to his servants, and his total want of economy in the management of his domestic affairs, he had been grossly defrauded. In short, that bribery and corruption for which he was condemned, though he was extremely culpable in conniving at it, tended only to the advantage of his dependants. Few of the gifts came ultimately to his own coffers; and so far was he from being influenced by them, that there was not a single instance in which his decisions were not guided by strict equity; for not one of his decrees were reversed after his disgrace.

He seems himself to have been so sensible at last of his ill-judged lenity, that one day during his trial, on his domestics rising to do him honour as he passed through the apartment, he said "Sit down, my masters; your rise has been my fall." He who is destitute of prudence, will soon be found or fancied deficient in every other virtue. Without economy there can be no independence; and without independence, in vain shall we look for those qualities that form the ground of honourable character. Conformably to the previous stipulation, Lord Verulam's confinement was but short; his fine was remitted;

a pension of eighteen hundred pounds a year was settled on him; and he was summoned to the first parliament of Charles the First, notwithstanding his sentence.

After his disgrace, however, he seems to have been perfectly cured of ambition: he withdrew to that literary ease and retirement for which nature had adapted him, and spent the last years of his life in the noblest studies that could engage the mind of man. While he was prosecuting some discoveries in experimental philosophy, near Highgate, he was suddenly taken ill; and being earried to the earl of Arundel's house in the neighbourhood, after a week's illness he breathed his last, on the 9th day of April, 1626. By his lady (a daughter of alderman Barnham of London, whom he married when near forty years of age, he left no issue; and his title, of course, became extinct. He was buried in St. Michael's church at St. Alban's, and for some time lay without a stone to mark his name; till the gratitude of sir Thomas Meautys, who had formerly been his secretary, erected the monument to a memory which can never die.

In person, lord Verulam was of the middling stature ; his forehead, broad and open, was early stamped with the marks of age; his eyes were lively and penetrating; and his whole appearance was venerably pleasing.

So differently has his character been delineated, according to the different lights in which it has been viewed, that by some his real blemishes are wholly thrown into shade, and by others they are made to occupy the most prominent place on the canvass. His failings have been candidly represented in the above sketch, and his great and exalted qualities need not commendation here. He was undoubtedly impressed with a sense of his own illustrious attainments when he wrote this singular passage in his last will: "for my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages." And well might he make this ap

peal; for in general his faults, compared to his excellences, were only like spots on the surface of the sun.

The account of this extraordinary genius cannot be better concluded than with a brief enumeration of his learned labours. His earliest philosophic production seems to have been the First Part of Essays; or Counsels, civil and moral. In this work he lays down the useful principles of knowledge and prudence; and points out the means of obviating ills, and obtaining blessings.

Next appeared the introduction to his most capital performance, On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, divine and human. The general design of this treatise was to exhibit a concise view of the existing knowledge, under proper divisions, with hints to supply its deficiencies. After his seclusion from public business, this was very much enlarged, and turned into Latin; and properly constitutes the first part of his Grand Instauration of the Sciences.

In 1607 he published a treatise entitled Cogitata et Visa; which, as containing the plan of his Novum Organum, or second part of the Instauration of the Sciences, had been previously submitted to the most able literary friends, for their remarks and improvements.

Three years after was published his exquisite little work, De Sapientia Veterum; and few books met with a better reception, or acquired more general celebrity than this.

Lastly, in 1620, when in the zenith of his glory, he produced his most important philosophical work, under the appellation of the Novum Organum Scientiarum ; which is properly a second part of his Grand Instauration of the Sciences, a performance which it would be idle to praise, and vain to depreciate.

His collected works were elegantly published in five volumes quarto in 1765.

LANCELOT ANDREWS,

BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.

Born 1555.-Died 1626.

From 2d Mary, to 2d Charles I.

THE life of a good man, whatever his station or his success may be, cannot be written without pleasure, nor read without improvement; but when we find the purest principles, the most extensive learning, and the utmost amenity of manners, reflecting lustre on preferment, the narrative becomes doubly interesting; and we delight in tracing by what progressive steps exalted merit has risen to a suitable reward.

This eminent divine, the contemporary and friend of lord Bacon, was the son of a mariner, who towards the decline of life was chosen master of the Trinity-house at Deptford. He was born in the parish of Allhallows, near Tower-hill; and having received the elements of education at the Cooper's free-school in Radcliff-highway, he was removed to Merchant-taylor's school, under the tuition of Mr. Mulcaster. His astonishing progress in the classics endeared him to his master; by whom he was recommended as a proper object to receive one of the scholarships then lately founded at Pembroke college, Cambridge, by Dr. Watts, archdeacon of Middlesex.

Having in consequence been honoured with the first nomination, he pursued his studies with such assiduity, particularly in theology, and rendered himself so acceptable by his conduct, that he was soon chosen fellow of his college, and afterwards catechist. In this character he read lectures on the ten commandments; and as he possessed a graceful address, and fine elocution, his pulpit orations were much admired, and generally attended. His personal merits, and his growing reputation as a divine, soon reached the ears of the founder of Jesus college, Oxford; who without his knowledge complimented him with one of the first fellowships in that new society.

Of his habits and manners, which sometimes shew the

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