Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 115
Without money or position he could have no such hope, and he
adds, " If your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as
Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto
voluntary poverty; hut this I will do: I will sell the inheritance
that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some
office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over
all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true
pioneer in that mine of truth which he said lay so deep. This
which I have writ unto' your Lordship is rather thoughts than
words, being set down without art, 1 disguising, or reservation,
wherein I have done honour, both to your Lordship's wisdom, in
judging that that will best be believed by your Lordship which is
truest, and to your Lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing
from you.
Bacon wrote this letter from his lodging at Gray's Inn at the
beginning of the year 1592. He was now just entering his thirtysecond
year, and, on the surface, little had appeared of his real
•
life and action. But still waters run deep. He had already
accomplished enough to have filled the measure of a dozen ordinary
lives, and apart from his own actual writings we have now
abundant evidence to show how his vast plans for universal culture
and reformation were spreading—more abroad than at
home, but everywhere, manifesting themselves in the revival,
the " renaissance " of literature and science.
The rearing of the new " Solomon's House " was begun.
Poor
as he was, almost solitary on the heights of thought, but yet with
many willing minds struggling to approach and relieve him, he
knew with prophetic prescience that his work was growing, imperishable,
neither " subject to Time's love nor to Time's hate."
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls
It feels not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours;
But all alone stands hugely politic. 2
1 Spedding, L. L., i. 109. Comp. Hamlet, ii..2, 95-99, etc. 2 Sonnets cxxiv, cxxt.