being at that time fick in his bed, receiv'd him with the curtains fhut clofe. You refemble the angels, fays the marquis to him; we hear thofe beings fpoken of perpetually, and we believe them fuperior to men, but are never allow'd the confolation to see them.

You know that this great man was accus'd of a crime very unbecoming a philofopher, I mean bribery and extortion. You know that he was fentenc'd by the houfe of lords, to pay a fine of about four hundred thousand French livres; to lofe his peerage and his dignity of chancellor. But in the prefent age, the English revere his memory to fuch a degree, that they will fcarce allow him to have been guilty. In cafe you should ask what are my thoughts on this head, I fhall answer you in the words which I heard the lord Bolingbroke ufe on another occafion. Several gentlemen. were speaking in his company, of the avarice with which the late duke of Marlborough had been charged, fome examples whereof being given, the lord Bolingbroke was appeal'd to, (who having been in the oppofite party, might perhaps, without the imputation of indecency, have been allow'd to clear up that matter :) "He was fo "great a man, replied his lordship, that "I have forgot his Vices."

I SHALL

I SHALL therefore confine myself to those things which fo juftly gain'd lord Bacon the esteem of all Europe.

THE moft fingular, and the least of all his pieces, is that which, at this time, is the most useless, and the least read, I mean his Novum Scientiarum Organum. This is the scaffold with which the new philofophy was rais'd; and when the edifice was built, part of it at least, the scaffold was no longer of fervice.

THE lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with nature, but then he knew, and pointed out, the feveral paths that lead to it. He had defpis'd in his younger years the thing call'd philofophy in the univerfities; and did all that lay in his power to prevent those focieties of men, inftituted to improve human reafon, from depraving it by their quiddities, their horrors of the Vacuum, their fubftantial forms, and all those impertinent terms which not only ignorance had rendred venerable, but which had been made facred, by their being ridiculously blended with religion.

He is the father of experimental philofophy. It must indeed be confefs'd, that very furprising fecrets had been found out before his time. The fea-compaís, printing, engraving on copper-plates, oil-painting, looking-glaffes; the art of restoring, in fome measure, old men to their fight,

by

by fpectacles, gun-powder, &c. had been difcover'd. A new world had been fought for, found, and conquer'd. Would not one fuppofe that thefe fublime discoveries had been made by the greatest philofophers, and in ages much more enlighten'd than the prefent? But 'twas far otherwife; all thefe great changes happen'd in the most ftupid and barbarous times. Chance only gave birth to most of those inventions; and 'tis very probable that what is call'd chance, contributed very much to the discovery of America; at least it has been always thought, that Christopher Columbus undertook his voyage, merely on the relation of a captain of a fhip, which a storm, had drove as far weftward as the Caribbee iflands. Be this as it will, men had fail'd round the world, and cou'd deftroy cities by an artificial thunder, more dreadful than the real one: But then they were not acquainted with the circulation of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number of our planets, &c. And a man who maintain'd a thefis on Ariftotle's categories; on the univerfals a parte rei, or fuch like nonfenfe, was look'd upon as a prodigy.

THE most aftonishing, the most useful inventions, are not thofe which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind. 'Tis that mechanical inftinct, which is found in

many

1

many men, and net to true philofophy, that most arts owe their origin.

THE discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and preparing metals, of building houses, and the invention of the fhuttle, are infinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing, or the fea-compass: And yet thefe arts were invented by uncultivated, favage men.

WHAT a prodigious ufe the Greeks and Romans made afterwards of mechanicks! Nevertheless, they believ'd that there were crystal heavens; that the ftars were small lamps which fometimes fell into the fea and one of their greatest philofophers, after long researches, found that the ftars were fo many flints which had been detach'd from the earth.

In a word, no one, before the lord Bacon, was acquainted with experimental philofophy, nor with the feveral phyfical experiments which have been made fince his time. Scarce one of them but is hinted at in his work, and he himself had made fe-` veral. He made a kind of pneumatic engine, by which he guess'd the elasticity of the air. He approach'd, on all fides as it were, to the difcovery of its weight, and had very near attain'd it; but fome time after, Toricelli feized upon this truth. In a little time experimental philofophy began to be cultivated on a fudden in moft parts E

of

of Europe. 'Twas a hidden treasure which the lord Bacon had fome notion of, and which all the philofophers, encourag'd by his promifes, endeavour'd to dig up.

BUT that which furpriz'd me moft was, to read in his work, in express terms, the new attraction, the invention of which is afcrib'd to Sir Ifaac Newton.

WE must search, says lord Bacon, whether there may not be a kind of magnetic power, which operates between the earth and heavy bodies, between the moon and the ocean, between the planets, &c. In another place he fays, either heavy bodies must be carried towards the center of the earth, or must be reciprocally attracted by it; and in the latter cafe 'tis evident, that the nearer bcdies, in their falling, draw towards the earth, the ftronger they will attract one another. We muft, fays he, make an experiment, to fce whether the same clock will go fafter on the top of a mountain, or at the bottom of a mine. Whether the strength of the weights decreases on the mountain, and increases in the mine. "Tis probable, that the earth has a true attractive power.

THIS fore-runner in philofophy was alfo an elegant writer, an hiftorian, and a wit.

His moral effays are greatly esteem'd, but they were drawn up in the view of in

structing