DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69463#0023
BACON.
Thine is a Bacon—hapless in his choice;
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,
And through the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm but pliant virtue, forward still
To urge his course—him for thje studious shade
Kind nature formed, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact and elegant; in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined.
The great deliverer He ! who from the gloom
Of cloistered monks and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void ;—he led her forth,
Daughter of Heaven ! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things
With radiant finger points to Heaven again.
These elegant lines of Thomson afford a short but
comprehensive idea of the illustrious man whose life and
character now engage our attention.
England, at a distance of three centuries, produced
two celebrated genius’ of this name. Roger Bacon, a
poor friar of the thirteenth centnry, made the most asto-
nishing discoveries in physics, to the wonder and dismay
of a barbarous age, which accused him of sorcery, and
compelled him to justify himself from a supposed famili-
arity with the devil; and Francis Bacon, who developed
66
Thine is a Bacon—hapless in his choice;
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,
And through the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm but pliant virtue, forward still
To urge his course—him for thje studious shade
Kind nature formed, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact and elegant; in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined.
The great deliverer He ! who from the gloom
Of cloistered monks and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void ;—he led her forth,
Daughter of Heaven ! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things
With radiant finger points to Heaven again.
These elegant lines of Thomson afford a short but
comprehensive idea of the illustrious man whose life and
character now engage our attention.
England, at a distance of three centuries, produced
two celebrated genius’ of this name. Roger Bacon, a
poor friar of the thirteenth centnry, made the most asto-
nishing discoveries in physics, to the wonder and dismay
of a barbarous age, which accused him of sorcery, and
compelled him to justify himself from a supposed famili-
arity with the devil; and Francis Bacon, who developed
66