extol them;[1] a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man's person hath many proper[2] relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part: if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.[3]
- ↑ "It is an abominable thing for a man to commend himself." Quoted in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Vol. I. Ch. xxii., from Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, Divine Art of Meditation.
- ↑ Proper. Peculiar.
"And so, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction."
Shakspere. II. King Henry IV. i. 3.
- ↑ In the last year of Bacon's life, at the special request of his friend, Sir Tobie Matthew, he rewrote entirely the essay on Friendship, to commemorate their lifelong intimacy. Sir Tobie Matthew, 1577–1655, courtier, diplomatist, and writer, was the son of Tobie, or Tobias, Matthew, Archbishop of York. Bacon and Matthew, who was the junior by sixteen years, became friends when Matthew entered Parliament, in 1601, and their affection knew no break through every variation of both their fortunes. Bacon held a high opinion of Matthew's literary judgment, and submitted his writings to him for criticism from time to time, among other pieces his book, De Sapientia Veterum, with an accompanying letter, dated Feb. 17, 1610.
In 1618, Matthew, who had lived in Italy, and had there become a Roman Catholic, published in London an Italian translation of the Essays, entitled, Saggi Morali del Signore Francesco Bacono, Cavaliero inglese, gran cancelliero d'Inghelterra, con un' altro suo Trattato della Sapienza degli Antichi.
A dedicatory letter to Cosimo dei Medici II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, eulogizes Sir Francis Bacon, praising him not only for the qualities of his intellect, but also for those of the heart and will, and moral understanding: "being a man most sweet in his conversation and ways, grave in his judgment, invariable in his fortunes, splendid in his expenses; a friend unalterable to his friends;
