Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

178 FRANCIS BA CON
and events, without the causes and pretexts, and other passages
of action ;
for this is the true nature of a commentary, .though
Caesar, in modesty mixed with greatness, chose to apply the
name of commentary to the best history extant." 1 There are
some " Observations on Caesar's Commentaries " 2 which are deserving
of notice in connection with this subject, although they
bear on the title-page the name of Clement Edmundes, yet that
very title-page is adorned with a portrait which strikingly resembles
portraits of Francis Bacon. Here he is as a lad of about
sixteen years old, and the internal evidence of the work renders
it highly probable that this was merely one of his many juvenile
productions. Several other works of a similar nature, with
some geographical manuals, such as " Microcosmus, or a
Little Picture of a Great World," and large works, such as the
" Discovery of Guiana " and " A History of the World " (in
which history, politics, and personal adventure are largely intermixed
with geography), began to make their appearance
about this time, and assisted in completing Bacon's great plan
for the dissemination of universal knowledge. He affirms, " to
the honourof his times andin a virtuous emulation with antiquity,
that this great Building of the World never had through lights
made in it till the age of us and our fathers. For, although they
had knowledge of the antipodes, yet that might be by demonstration
and not by fact, and if by travel, it requireth the voyage
but of half the globe. But to circle the earth, as the
heavenly bodies do, was not done nor attempted till these later
times, and therefore these times may justly bear in their word
not only plus ultra in precedence of the ancient non ultra, and
imitabile fulmen in precedence of the ancient non imitabile fulmen,
etc., but, likewise, imitabile caelum, in respect of the many
memorable voyages, after the manner of heaven, about the globe
of the earth.
He never loses sight of the great object which he has at heart,
of bringing lights into the darkness in which the world is lying;
never for an instant forgets his darling hope that the advance-
— &
1 Do Aug. ii. 6.
2 Published, Lo-mides, 1609.