character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden or a
court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable
of taking in the whole world of knowledge.


His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave
to Prince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a
lady; spread it, and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose
beneath its shade.


The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of
the mutual relations of all departments of knowledge.


In a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle, Lord
Burleigh, he said, "I have taken all knowledge to be my province."


Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic,
he adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of
rhetoric.


The practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like his wit,
so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason, and
to tyrannize over the whole man.


There are too many places in the Plays where this happens. Poor