which when feparate have no fenfible effect, yet when 'mixed together in a due proportion, and closely confined and fired, they yield a loud report. A more precife de'fcription of gunpowder cannot be given in words; and yet a jefuit, Barthol. Schwartz, fome ages after, has had the < glory of the difcovery. He likewife mentions a fort of in'extinguishable fire prepared by art; which fhews he was not unacquainted with phofphorus: and that he had a notion of the rarefaction of the air, and the structure of an airpump, is past contradiction.' Dr. Freind afcribes the ho- Hift. of Phynour of introducing chemistry into Europe to Bacon, who, he fic, p. 234 obferves, fpeaks in fome part or other of his works, of almoft every operation now used in chemistry, and describes the method of making tinctures and elixirs. He was the 'miracle (fays Freind) of the age he lived in, and the greatest genius perhaps for mechanical knowledge, which ever appeared in the world fince Archimedes: he appears likewife to have been mafter of the whole fcience of optics.' He Biog, Brig. has very accurately defcribed the ufes of reading-glaffes, and fhewn the way of making them. Dr. Freind remarks, that he also describes the camera obfcura, and all forts of glaffes which magnify or diminish any object, bring it nearer to the eye, or remove it farther off. Bacon tells us himself, that he had great numbers of burning-glaffes; and that there were none ever in use among the Latins, till his friend Peter de Maharn Curia applied himself to the making of them. That the telescope was not unknown to him, is evident from a paffage wherein he fays, that he was able to form glaffes in fuch a manner, with respect to our fight and the objects, that the rays fhall be refracted and reflected wherever we please, so that we may fee a thing under what angle we think proper, either near or at a distance, and be able to read the smallest letters at an incredible distance, and to count the duft and fand, on account of the greatness of the angle under which we fee the objects; and also that we shall scarce see the greatest bodies near us, on account of the fmalinefs of the angle under which we view them. His skill in aftro- Pref. to the nomy was amazing: he discovered that error which occafioned Opus majus. the reformation of the calendar; one of the greatest efforts, according to Dr. Jebb, of human induftry: and his plan for correcting it was followed by pope Gregory XIII. with this variation, that Bacon would have had the correction to begin from the birth of our Saviour, whereas Gregory's amendment reaches no higher than the Nicene council. BACON (fir NICHOLAS) lord keeper of the great seal in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was defcended of an ancient English Ba-family in Suffolk, and born in the year 1510. He was eduronetage, cated at Corpus Chrifti or Bennet college in Cambridge, vol. i. p. 2. where he afterwards founded fix scholarships (appropriating Strype's three of them to the school which he built at Botesdale) and Annals. gave two hundred pounds towards erecting a new chapel. vol. i. P. 10. After leaving college, he travelled to France, and at his return applied to the ftudy of the law in Gray's Inn. In 1537, Dr. Birch'she was appointed folicitor of the court of augmentation. He Mem. or Q-prefented to Henry VIII. a fcheme for a feminary of statesElizabeth, men, by founding a college for the ftudy of the civil law, and the teaching of the Latin and French languages in their purity. Young gentlemen of diftinguished parts, after being fufficiently inftructed in these things, were to be fent abroad with ambassadors; whilst others were to write the history of all embaffies, treaties, and other foreign tranfactions, and of all arraignments and public trials at home. This plan was never Hift. of thecarried into execution; but at the diffolution of the monasRefermat teries, the king gave its author a grant of several manors in vol.i.p.269. Biogr. Brit. Suffolk, to be held in capite by knight's service; and, in art,BACON.1546, made him attorney of the court of wards. Burnet's Upon the acceffion of queen Elizabeth he was knighted, and Dr. Heath, archbishop of York and chancellor of England, refufing to concur with the queen's measures, the great feal was taken from him and delivered to fir Nicholas Bacon, with the title of lord keeper, and all the powers of a chancellor, which no former lord keeper ever had, being only empowered to put the feal to fuch writs or patents as paffed of course, and not to hear caufes, or prefide in the house of lords. His known diflike to popery, and his favouring, for this reason, the title of the house of Suffolk to the crown, rather than that of the queen of Scots, drew upon him a suspicion of being concerned in a tract written by Mr. John Hales, clerk of the hanaper, in favour of the Suffolk title; and, in confequence thereof, an order from the queen not to appear at court, or intermeddle in any other public business than that of chancery: even the feal would, at the inftigation of the earl of Leicester, have been taken from him, and given to fir Anthony Brown, who had been lord chief juftice of the common pleas in queen Mary's time, if this gentleman's religion, which was that of the church of Rome, would have permitted his accepting of it. By the intereft of fir William Cecil, who by fome is thought to have been alfo privy to Hales's Hales's book, fir Nicholas was reftored to the queen's good opinion, and died lamented by her and the nation on the 20th of February 1578-9. He was interred in the cathedral of St. Paul's, where a monument was erected to him, which was destroyed by the fire of London, in 1669. His fon, the great Francis Bacon, fays, that his father the lord keeper was Works, a man plain, direct, and conftant, without all fineffe and vol.i.p.533. doubleness; and one that was of the mind that a man in his private proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of ftate, fhould reft upon the foundness and strength of his ' own courses, and not upon practice to circumvent others, ' according to the fentence of Solomon, Vir prudens ad"vertit ad greffus fuos ; ftultus autem divertit ad dolos :' in'fomuch, that the bishop of Rofs [the Scotch ambassador, ⚫ who made the complaint against him in the affair of Hales's book], a fubtle and obferving man, faid of him, that he could faften no words upon him, and that it was impoffible ' to come within him, because he offered no play and the queen-mother of France, a very politic princess, faid of him, that he should have been of the council of Spain, be• cause he despised the occurrents, and refted upon the firft plot.' He was twice married, and by his firft wife, Jane, daughter of William Ferneley, of Weft-Creting in Suffolk, efq. he had iffue, 1. fir Nicholas Bacon, his eldest fon; 2. Nathanael Bacon, of Stiffkey in Norfolk, efq. 3. Edward Bacon, of Shrubland-hall in Suffolk, efq. and three daughters. By his fecond wife, Anne, one of the daughters of fir Anthony Cook tutor to king Edward VI. he had two fons, Anthony and Francis. BACON (FRANCIS), viscount St. Alban's and lord high chancellor of England, one of the greatest and most universal geniufes that any age or country hath produced, was son of fir Nicholas Bacon lord keeper of the great feal, and born at York-house in the Strand, on the 22d of January, 1561. Being thus defcended, he was early initiated in a court-life, and, as himself expreffes it, both by family and education, tinged with civil affairs. His extraordinary parts, even when Works, a child, were fo confpicuous at court, that the queen would voi. iii. often delight to talk with him, and was wont to term him P. 516. her young lord keeper: one faying of his fhe was particularly Lloyd's pleased with; having asked him his age, when he was yet a State Worboy, he answered readily, that he was two years younger Rawley's than her majesty's happy reign. On the 16th of June, 1573, Life of Lord being then in his twelfth year, he was entered of Trinity col- Bacon. B 4 lege, edit. 1753. thies, p.8-9. lege, Cambridge, under Dr. John Whitgift, afterwards archRawley's bishop of Canterbury. Before he was full fixteen, he not Life of Ba- only understood Ariftotle's philofophy, but was even then Tenifon's come to a diflike of it, upon finding it rather contentious Baconiana, than useful. At this early age his father called him from the con, P. 5. P. 18. to father Works, vol. ii. P. 748. univerfity to attend into France the queen's ambaffador, fir Amyas Pawlet, whose esteem and confidence he gained to such a degree, that he was foon after charged by him with a commiflion to the queen, which he executed with great approbation, and returned again to France to finifh his travels. During his ftay in that kingdom his father died, without making that feparate provifion for him which he had intended. This obliging him to think of fome profeffion for a fubfistance, he applied himself, more through neceffity than choice, to the study of the common law, and for that purpose seated Rawley. himself in Gray's Inn. At the age of twenty-eight he was Dugdale. chofen by that honourable fociety for their lent-reader, and afSee his letter terwards their double-reader. At this time he appears to have Fulgentio, drawn the firft out-lines of his grand inftauration of the sciences, in a treatise entitled Temporis partus mafculus, which is loft. He now bent his endeavours to obtain fome honourIbid. p. 516. able poft in the government, with a view, as himself declares, to procure the greater affiftance to his capacity and industry in perfecting his philofophical defigns. Lord Burleigh interested himself fo far in his behalf as to obtain for him, not without Rawley. oppofition, the reverfion of the office of regifter to the ftarchamber, worth about 1600l. a year; but it did not fall to him till near twenty years afterwards. The court and miniftry of queen Elizabeth were, through her whole reign, divided into two factions; at the head of one were the two Cecils; and at the head of the other, first the earl of Leicefter, and afterwards the earl of Effex. The coldness which the Cecils fhewed to Bacon, and the early friendship he contracted with Effex, educated at the fame college, were probably the first cause of his attachment to this nobleman, whom he confidered, not as the likelieft perfon to procure his own advancement, but as the fitteft perfon to do good to the state. vol.i.p.6of Sir Robert Cecil in particular, who bore a mortal hatred to Effex, and entertained a fecret jealoufy of Bacon'on account of his fuperior talents, threw infurmountable obftacles in his way to preferment, fuggefting to the queen, that he was a fpeculative man, whofe head was filled with philofophical notions, and therefore more likely to perplex than to forward public bufinefs: hence, the utmost interest of Effex, who with all the warmth of an affectionate friend, had long folicited his preferment, Bacon's Works. P. 435. edit. 1753 preferment, could not procure for him the place of attorney Works, or that of folicitor-general to her majefty. His anxiety on vol.ii. account of the narrowness of his circumftances being increafed by this failure of his expectation of preferment had a very bad effect upon his conftitution of body, which was naturally not firm, and weakened ftill more by the intemperance of his night-studies: his disappointment even funk Dr. Birch's fo deep into his fpirit, that he was on the point of hiding his Mem. of Q. grief and refentment in fome foreign country; but was di- Elizabeth. verted from his purpose by his friends: and frequently confidering that he was not performing his duty whilst he left those studies unprofecuted, by which he might do fervice to mankind, and followed thofe that depended upon the will of others, he laid afide, for a time, all further thoughts of rifing in life, and more vigorously prosecuted the defign of his Instauration. In 1597, he published his Effays or Counfels (A), a work, which, by difplaying his uncommon fkill in all the offices of civil life, proved of great fervice to his character. Upon the death of queen Elizabeth and the acceffion of king James, his former views returned, and he made, though not without difficulty, confiderable advances in dignity and Dugdale, preferment. On the 23d of July 1603, he received the ho- vol. ii. nour of knighthood; and on the 25th of Auguft 1604, was Rymer, P. 438. conftituted by patent one of the king's learned counsel, with vol. xv. a fee of forty pounds a year; and on the fame day had a pen- P. 196. fion of fixty pounds a year affigned him for life, in confideration of the special fervices received by the king from him and his brother Mr. Anthony Bacon. In 1605, fir Francis Bacon published a preparative or introduction to his great work, in a treatife Of the Advancement and proficiency of Learning. The general design of this book was to give a fummary account of that stock of knowledge whereof mankind were poffeffed; to lay down this knowledge under fuch natural branches, or scientifical divifions, as might most commodioufly admit of its farther Shaw's improvement; to point out its deficiencies, or defiderata; Abridgment and, laftly, to fhew, by examples, the direct ways of fup- con's Works plying thefe deficiencies. He, after his retirement, very vol. i. much enlarged and corrected the original, and, with the af- P. lxvii. (A) The reason why Mr. Bacon published these Effays at this time, he tells us in the dedication of them to his brother Mr. Anthony Bacon, was, that many of them had stolen abroad in writing, and were very likely to fiftance of Lord Ba |