Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

132 FRANCIS BACON
" a natural parent to the state. " The former speakers have, says
this counsellor, handled their own propositions too formally.
" My Lords have taught you to refej* all things to yourself, your
greatness, memory, and advantage, but whereunto shall yourself
he referred ? If you will he heavenly, you must have influence.
Will you be as a standing pool, that spendeth and choketh his
spring within itself, and hath no streams nor current to bless and
make fruitful ivhole tracts
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of countries whereby it cometh f . .
Assure yourself of an inward peace, that the storms without do
not disturb any of your repairs within; . . . visit all the parts of
your state, and let the balm distill everywhere from your sovereign
hands, to the medicining of any part that complaincth; . . . have
a care that your intelligence, which is the light ofyour state, do not
bum dim; . . . advance men of virtue, not of mercenary minds;
. . . purge out multiplicity of laws; . . . repeal those that are
snaring, and press the execution of those that are tvholesome and
necessary; . . . think not that the bridle and spur will make the
horse go alone without time and custom; . . . when you have
confirmed the noble and vital parts of your realm of state, proceed
to take care of the blood, and flesh, and good habit of the body.
Eemedy all cankers and causes of consumption. " 1 The speaker
ends by saying that, if he wished to commend the beauty of
some excelling lady, he could best do it by showing her picture;
so it is in commending a virtuous government, though he fears
that his "pencil may disgrace it," and therefore leaves the
prince to fill in the picture for himself.
He is succeeded by the sixth and last counsellor, who
" persuades to pastimes and sports. " The speeches of his
predecessors were, he thought, " as if a man should come to
some young prince, and, immediately after his coronation, be in
hand with him to make himself a sumptuous and stately tomb,
and, to speak out of my soul, I muse how any of your servants
can endure to think of you as of a prince past ; . . . their lessons
were so cumbersome, as if they would make you a king in a play,
who, when one would think he standeth in great majesty and
1 Compare Emblems and Metaphors of Bacon.