Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

"
He
"
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 85
but the badge of their indiscretions and intemperances. " After
speaking of Bacon as a " religious " man, able to give a reason
of the hope which was in him, " and observant of the services
and sacraments of the Church of England, Dr. Rawley continues:
" This is most true. He was free from malice, no revenger of
injuries, which, if he had minded, he had both opportunity and
high place enough to have done it. He was no hearer of men
out of their places. . was no defamer of any man to his
Prince, . . . which I reckon not among his moral but his Christian
virtues.
John Aubrey, in his
MS. notes, jotting down several pleasant
anecdotes of Bacon and his friends, adds: " In short, all that
were great and good loved and honoured him [the italics are
Aubrey's own]; his favourites took bribes, but his Lordship
always gave judgment secundem aquum et bonum. His decrees in
Chancery stand firm : there are fewer of his decrees reversed than
of any other Chancellor.
The tributes to Bacon's personal worth by his physician,
Peter Boener and by Sir Thomas Meautys, have already been
noticed. We conclude this brief sketch with the last clause in
the posthumous record which Ben Jonson wrote, under the
title of Bominus Verulamius, in his notes on " Discoveries upon
Men and Matter " :
" My conceit of his person was never increased toward him
by his place, or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the
greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed
to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most
worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his
adversity I ever prayed that Cod would give him strength; for
greatness he could not want, neither could I condole in a word
or syllable for bim, as knowing no accident could do harm to
virtue, but rather help to make it manifest. "
If, as we have been told, such heartfelt words as these are
merely the effusions of personal attachment, or of " partial "
and " admiring " friendship, what can any of us desire better
ourselves than that we may so live as to win such admiration
and to attach and retain such devoted friends? And yet the
friendship of those who lived in the presence of Bacon, who