Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

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66 FRANCIS BACON
" In his face a thought for the bird on the tree, the insect on
the stream, ... he pursued his studies, sniffing at a flower or
listening to a bird.
In the bright country air, among his books,
fish, flowers, collections, and experiments, with his horse, his
dog, Bacon slowly regained some part of bis lost health."
" Sure, yet subtle, were the tests by wbich Bacon judged of
men. Seeing Winwood strike a dog for having leaped upon a
stool, he very justly set him down as of ungentle nature. Every
'
gentleman/ he said loudly, 'loves a dog.'"
(H. Dixon, Story,
pp. 23, 29, 331.)
" And now," in Bacon's account, " we see the lover of birds
and fowls:
"To the washerwoman for sending after the crane that flew into the Thames,
five shillings.
" The Lord Chancellor was as fond of birds as of dress, and
he built in tbe gardens of York House a magnificent aviary at a
cost of three hundred pounds. From this aviary tbe poor crane
had tlown into the Thames," etc. (lb. p. 355.)
" Then, again, the accounts make visible, as he lived in the
flesh, the tender and compassionate man." (lb. 355-357.)
" He was not inhuman or tyrannical." (Macaulay, 320.)
" For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness
as they may be turfed, anil have living plants and bushes set in
them, that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling,
and that no foulness appear on the floor of the aviary. " (Ess. of
Gardens.)
In the New Atlantis the Father of Solomon's House (who had
" an aspect as though he pitied men 11 ) is explaining the " preparations
and instruments" for study and experiment at the
" House. " " We have, " he says, " also parks and inclosares for
all sorts of beasts and birds ;
which we use not only for view or
rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that thereby
we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man
wherein we find many strange effects : as continuing life in them,
though divers parts which you account vital be perished and
taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appear-