Manes Verulamiani

Sacred to the memory of
The Right Honourable Lord Francis Baron Verulam,
Viscount St. Albans.

London. From the Press of John Haviland, 1626.

IV. On the Death of the Right Honourable Lord Francis of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, Late Chancellor of England     Do you, yet arrayed in proud purple exult over so many renowned men with the spoils of the bier, O barren tribunal? Proclaim a day for hair-cloth, turn all the luxury of the Forum into sack-cloth, let not the pendent balance be borne by Themis, but the urn, the ponderous urn of Verulam. Let her weigh. Alas! it is not an Ephorus presses down the scale, but the Areopagus; nor is so great a sage less than the foreign Porch? For your axis groans, ye schools, as the mighty mass crashes down. The pole of the literary globe is dislocated, where with equal earnestness he adorned the garb of a citizen and the robe of state. As Eurydice wandering through the shades of Dis longed to caress Orpheus, so did Philosophy entangled in the subtleties of Schoolmen seek Bacon as a deliverer, with such winged hand as Orpheus lightly touched the lyre's strings, the Styx before scarce ruffled now at last bounding, with like hand stroked Philosophy raised high her crest; nor did he with workmanship of fussy meddlers patch, but he renovated her walking lowly in the shoes of Comedy. After that more elaborately he rises on the loftier tragic buskin, and the Stagirite (like) Virbius comes to life again in Novum Organum? The Columbus of Apollo with his lordly crew passes beyond the Pillars of Hercules in order to bestow a new world and new arts; youthful ardour advances his efforts even to the harsh envy of menacing fate. What ancient or what Hannibal fearing blindness of his remaining eye agitates (winnows) the Subura with his victorious standards (companies)? What mighty Milo enrages the oaks, when gibbous old age weighs more heavily than the ox?     While our demi-god transmitted sciences to all ages to come, he is found to be the altogether too premature constructor of his own tomb. His philosophic thinking seems tranquil ecstasy, whereby his mind wings its way through the galaxy of the heavens to contemplate the ideas of the good. There it abides as in its home, a stranger in its own. It returns. Playfully coy again it roams, and again returns? At last in earnest secretly it wholly withdraws; thus the spirit gets disused to the groaning, sickly, dead body, thus bids it die. Come, mourning Muses, gather frankincense from the heights of Libanus. Let every star emit a spark into his pyre; be it sacrilege that the kingly pile should be kindled for Prometheus from a kitchen fire. And if perchance some mischievous breeze should frolic amid the sacred ashes and try to scatter them, then weep; the sequent teardrops will rush to mutual embraces. Once more, go forth happy soul, the foundations of your prison being utterly destroyed, seek James, prove that for the even thither a subject loyalty follows. From the tripod of Law go on uttering oracles disciples of Themis. Thus, blessed inhabitants of heaven, let Astraea enjoy her champion of old, or with Bacon give back Astraea.

-- R.P. V. To the Memory and Merits of the Right Honourable Lord Francis, Lord Verulam and Viscount St. Albans     Wail with weeping turbulent streams sprung from beneath the hoof of Pegasus, and ye streams profane flow muddily with your current scarce dragging along the black dust. And let the foliage of verdant Daphne falling from the hapless branches wither. Wherefore, ye Muses, would you cultivate the useless laurels of your sad garden? Nay, with stern axes cut down the trunk of the worthless tree. He hath left the living, whom alone it was wont to bear the laurel crown, for Verulam reigning in the citadel of the gods shines with a golden crown; and enthroned above the bounds of the sky he loves with face towards Earth to view the stars; who grudged the immortals that wisdom should be confined to the abode of the blessed, undertaking to bring it back and restore it to mortals by a new cult. Than whom no inhabitant of Earth was master of greater intellectual gifts; nor does any survivor so skillfully unite Themis and Pallas. While he flourished the sacred choir of the Muses influenced by these arts poured forth all their eloquence in his praise (and), left none for wailings I, William Boswell have laid (this offering on the tomb).     [-- Anonymous] VI. On the Death of the Right Honourable Lord Francis Bacon, Late Lord Chancellor of England     A Daring example of how far the human mind may reach to, while you rejuvenate successfully the arts worn out with age, and extricate and free necks from the yoke of antiquity, in what way to be mourned does your funeral approach? What tears are demanded, what mean the fates? Did their mother Nature fear she should lie all bare, while your hand drew aside her sacred robe? While, too, the unknown recesses of things were exposed to sight and no nook escaped your ken? or was it that, having been of old espoused to consorts of past ages, she has rejected the embrace of a modern lord? or, finally, baneful and envious towards humane enterprises has she snapped the thread of your life, which ought to have been prolonged? Thus, lest Archimedes should soar beyond the crystal sphere, he fell by the sword of a legionary. And you, O Francis, have therefore met your doom, lest the work, which should not have been essayed, should be completed.

[-- Anonymous] VII To The Same     Some there are though dead live in marble, and trust all their duration to long lasting columns; others shine in bronze, or are beheld in yellow gold, and deceiving themselves think they deceive the fates. Another division of men surviving in a numerous offspring, like Niobe irreverent, despise the mighty gods; but your fame adheres not to sculptured columns, nor is read on the tomb (with) "Stay, traveller, your steps"; if any progeny recalls their sire, not of the body is it, but born, so to speak, of the brain, as Minerva from Jove's: first your virtue provides you with an ever-lasting monument, your books another not soon to collapse, a third your nobility; let the fates now celebrate their triumphs, who having nothing yours, Francis, but your corpse. Your mind and good report, the better parts survive; you have nothing of so little value as to ransom the vile body withal.     -- T. Vincent, Trinity College. VIII. On the Death of the Most Noble Lord, Francis, Baron Verulam, etc.     Formerly so many good parts seemed to me impossible either to co-exist in one, or ever to have died; with these, as the heavens with stars, your life was resplendent, and all have followed you to the grave. Genius and eloquence flowing with mighty stream, the ornament equally of the philosopher and the judge. Now I see such things could be; but friends refrain,-- if he returns not, neither will they I ween.     -- T. Vincent, Trinity College IX. A Threnody on the Death of the Most Illustrious and Renowned Personage, Sir Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam     Muses pour forth your perennial waters in lamentations, and let Apollo shed tears (plentiful as the water) which even the Castalian stream contains; for neither would meagre dirges befit so great a loss, nor our moderate drops the mighty monument. The very nerve of genius, the marrow of persuasion, the golden stream of eloquence the precious gem of concealed literature, the noble Bacon (ah! the relentless warp of the three sisters) has fallen by the fates. O how am I in verse like mine to commemorate you, sublime Bacon! and those glorious memorials of all the ages composed by your genius and by Minerva. With what learned, beautiful, profound matters the Great Instauration is full! With what light does it scatter the darksome moths of the ancient sages! creating from chaos a new wisdom: thus God Himself will with potent hand restore the body laid in the tomb; therefore you do not die (O Bacon!) for the Great Instauration will liberate you from death and darkness and the grave.

-- R. C., T. C. X. On the Death of the Right Honourable Baron Verulam, etc.     Lo! again is heard (surely a great restoration) Bacon with shining countenance in the starry vault (Star Chamber); now truly robed in white, a spotless judge he listens; to whom, O Christ, a robe dyed in Thy blood, is given. To become whole he first put off himself. Earth, said he, receive my body; then he sought the stars. Thus, thus, the glorious spirit follows Astraea, and now beholds all cloudless the true Verulam.     [-- Anonymous] XI. On the Marriage of the Roses     The seventh Henry lives not in bronze and marble; but in your pages great Bacon he lives? Unite the two roses Henry; Bacon gives a thousand; as many words in his book, so many roses I ween.     -- T.P. XII. On the Death of the Most Noble and Learned Lord Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, etc.     Is it thus falls the rarest glory of the Aonian band? and do we decree to entrust seed to the Aonian fields? Break pens, tear up writings, if the dire goddesses may justly act so. Alas! what a tongue is mute! what eloquence ceases! Whither have departed the nectar and ambrosia of your genius? How has it happened to us, the disciples of the Muses, that Apollo, the leader of our choir, should die? If earnestness, loyalty, toil or watchfulness avail naught, and if one of the Three (fates) shall put forth her ravening hands, why do we propose many undertakings to ourselves in our brief span? Why do we ransack MSS. covered with mouldering dust? Forsooth! for death to drag us to his realm, while we force from death the worthy labours of others. Yet, why do I vainly pour forth profitless words? Who will wish to speak, you being silent? Let no one scatter fragrant violets on your urn, nor rear your sepulchre with the vastness of pyramids; for your laboured tomes preserve your fame. This suffces; these memorials will not let you die.

-- Williams XIII. On the Death of the Right Honourable Lord, Francis Viscount St. Albans, Baron Verulam, a Peerless Man     Forbear: our woe loves eloquent silence, since he has died who alone could speak, could speak what the chivalrous ring of princes were lost in admiration at, and (who alone could) resolve the intricacies of the law in the case of anxious defendants. A mighty work. But Verulam restores too our ancient arts and founds new ones. Not the same way as our predecessors; but he with fearless genius challenges the deepest recesses of nature. But she says, "Stay your advance and leave to posterity what will delight the coming ages to discover. Let it suffice for our times, that being ennobled by your discoveries they should glory in your genius. Something there is, which the next age will glory in; something there is, which it is fit should be known to me alone: let it be your commendation to have outlined the frame with fair limbs, for which no one can wholly perfect the members: thus his unfinished work commends the artist Apelles, since no hand can finish the rest of his Venus. Nature having thus spoken and yielding to her blind frenzy cut short together the thread of his life and work. But you, who dare to finish the weaving of this hanging web, will alone know whom these memorials hide."     -- H. T., Fellow of Trinity College XIV. On the Death of the Most Noble Francis Lord Verulam Viscount St. Albans     You at length being dead exultant death in triumph exclaims: "Nothing greater than this could I have laid low;" Achilles alone destroyed magnanimous Hector, Caesar perished overwhelmed by one blow; death against you a thousand diseases, a thousand shafts had sent: is it credible that otherwise you could have died.     -- Thomas Rhodes, King's College XV. To the Memory of the Illustrious Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans     Roger Bacon of yore, a most distinguished Englishman, potent in art, with burning zeal in days gone by searched out and made known the forces of Nature and the works of art: joining optics to chemistry, mathematics and perspective to physics, the glorious enterprises of his genius, he lives immortal through the gift of distinguished fame. Another Englishman, John Bacon, became famous by explaining the obscure oracles of Holy Scripture. Though the Baconian stock had given many noble pledges, widely celebrated throughout the world, to England, at length it produced this Francis: was ever other of nobler genius? of greater enterprise? of richer eloquence? of ampler mental range? His writings answer; wherein with sharp censure he corrects the works of ancient sages; and in modest volume the Great Instauration, the History of the Winds, the Image of Life and Death reveal his stupendous aims. Who of loftier soul exists unravelling nature and art? Why should I mention each separate work, a number of which of high repute remain? A portion lies buried; for some also, Rawley, his fidus Achates, ensures for Francis, that they should see the light.

-- Robert Ashley, of the Middle Temple XVI. On the History of Life and Death, By Lord Francis Bacon, Lately Deceased     Writer of the History of Life and Death, O! Bacon! deserving to die late, nay rather to live for ever, why, departed one, do you prefer the everlasting shades, and so destroy with yourself, us, who will not survive you? You have written, O! Bacon! the history of the life and death of us all; who, I ask, is capable of (writing) the history either of your life or death? alas! Nay, give place, O Greeks! give place, Maro, first in Latin story. Supreme both in eloquence and writing, under every head renowned, famous in council chamber and lecture hall; in war too, if war would submit to art, surpassing in every pursuit, under every title, a very Chiron; a despiser of wealth, and while he reckons gold less than light air, he exchanges earthly realms for the sky, the ground for the stars.     [-- Anonymous] XVII. To the same Most Eloquent Personage     Let expediency consider the better part of counsel, but add, a poet from Ithaca, and you hold all.     -- E. F., King's College XVIII. On the Death of the Most Learned and Noble Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans     The day-star of the Muses has set before his hour! the special care and special grief, alas! of the Clarian God has perished, Bacon, thy darling, O Nature! and the world's; the special sorrow of death itself, which is a marvel. Why was not cruel fate willing to allow herself liberty? Death would be willing to spare, but fate refused. Melpomene rebuking would not endure this; and addressed the dire goddesses in these words: "Atropos, never before truly cruel; take the whole world, only give me back my Phoebus. Ah! woe is me! neither heaven, nor death, nor the muse, O Bacon! nor my prayers prevented your doom?     [-- Anonymous] XIX. On the Death of the Same     If you will claim, O Bacon! as much as you have given to the world and to the Muses, or if you mean to be a creditor, love, the world, the Muses, Jove's treasury, prayers, heaven, poetry, incense, grief will stop payment; what can the arts do, or envied antiquity? At length envy may cease. It is necessary O Bacon! that you should kindly submit and remain a creditor, ah! nature has not wherewithal to repay you.

[-- Anonymous] XX. On the Death of the Same, etc.     If none but the worthy should mourn your death, O Bacon! none, trust me, none will there be. Lament now sincerely, O Clio! and sisters of Clio, ah! the tenth Muse and the glory of the choir has perished. Ah! never before has Apollo himself been truly unhappy! Whence will there be another to love him so? Ah! he is no longer going to have the full number; and unavoidable is it now for Apollo to be content with nine Muses.     [-- Anonymous] XXI. Consolatory Poem to Both Universities     If my prayers with yours O Sisters! had prevailed (ah! our plaintive song comes before its time), the contest of our love would not be ambiguous (sometimes too in love lurks affectionate strife) we should be in possession of our tears and of thee, Apollo, the darling, learned Bacon of your native land. What more could nature or worth produce? Thence have you put forth the fruit of your undying name. When the best critics of our age read your works, they kept vowing that it was fitting that you alone should express yourself. To grant him to us and to you (sisters) the excessively dire goddesses have refused (ah!) why are they so seldom willing to make concession? He deserved Heaven but that he should yet a little while tarry on Earth, what prayers are too importunate considering his worth? O happy fate! since it is not a fault but highly and auspiciously creditable to lament your death, O Bacon! Restrain at length your just tears and wailings, sisters; we cannot all enter the sad funeral pyre. He was ours and yours: thence a contest ensued, and which of our loves be the greater is uncertain. Our grief and yours is mutual; so vast a catastrophe could not be confined to one place.     -- William Loe, Trinity College XXII. On the Death of the Most Illustrious Verulam, Viscount St. Albans     While the Verulam sage was filled with the desire of writing and enriched the ages with crowds of books: death detesting polished books had long had his eye on them, nor did the wretch endure such numerous writings. For he hates the everlasting monuments of genius, and ambitious compositions, which despise funeral pyres. Therefore while the (writer's) hand wielded the pen, and while the eloquent pen wearied the frail hands, nor yet had the page wound up the completed manuscript, when the black Theta became the crowning period of the work: nevertheless in spite of death your writings, O Bacon! will live and descend to our remote posterity.

-- James Duport, Trinity College XXIII. To the Passer-By Looking on the Tomb of the Right Honourable Lord Francis, Lord Verulam     Think you, foolish traveller, that the leader of the choir of the Muses and of Phoebus is interred in the cold marble? Away, you are deceived. The Verulamian star now glitters in ruddy Olympus: The boar, great James shines resplendent in your constellation.     [-- Anonymous] XXIV. On the Death of the Most Illustrious Lord Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, Most Distinguished troth in Letters and Wisdom, as also for Innate Nobility     Nor I, nor Naso himself, were he alive, could duly celebrate your obsequies with verse, great Bacon. Poetry comes as the product of a tranquil mind, our hearts are troubled by your death. You have filled the world with your writings, and the ages with your fame. Enter into your rest, since to do so is so sweet. The advancement of Learning written by you, O Bacon! exalts your head now throughout the entire globe. I utter verses incomplete, or rather none, but could verses restore you, O Bacon! to life, what verses would I then contribute!     -- C. D., King's College XXV. On the Death of the Right Honourable Lord Francis Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans     He who was the arbiter of law, freed from that law, is himself arraigned before the tribunal of death; thus does the polity of Rhadamanthus clash with ours. He who would at last have taught the greatest master of wisdom to use a New Organ, himself compelled by death's ancient method makes useless his own members. In fact Destiny wished from premises quite modern, a conclusion to be arrived at as to this man's death, whether or not there were sense or reason in the unpropitious fates. He who disclosed secrets of nature, which in one age should not be revealed, nevertheless had to pay the debts due to nature, a compliant stepmother. Finally he dies full of an unusually rich vein of arts, and dying demonstrates how extensive is art, how contracted is life, how everlasting fame; he who was in our sphere the brilliant Light-bearer, and trod great paths of glory, passes, and fixed in his own orb shines refulgent.

[-- Anonymous] XXVI. Funeral Chant     Beneath the tomb lies the body (spoil not due to the grave), the outer marble recounts his virtues; thus virtue, about to flee away herself, imprinting these traces, has taught the pious slab to speak: our hearts will furnish an everlasting tomb, so that stones and men together may speak his fame.     -- Henry Ferne, Fellow of Trinity College XXVII. To the Statue of the Most Lettered and Noble Lord, Lord Francis Bacon     He who says you have not numbered eighty Decembers, examines your brow, not your books. For if venerable Virtue, if Wisdom's wreaths make an ancient, you were older than Nestor. But if your appearance denies, your Wisdom of the Ancients proves it: the certain token of your advanced age. For to live is not to outlast the lustrums of crows, but to be able to enjoy past life.     -- G. Nash, Pembroke Hall XXVIII. On the Late Floods     Eridanus had let loose the floods of his swollen waters: he had loosed them; and great fear fell on men: since fearing the time of the great cataclysm of Pyrrha, they believed that the flood would increase with like inundation. That (event) had been wild grief and tears for the coming death, and offerings fit to be furnished for the recent obsequies. It is clear that your death most illustrious man, affects even rivers, much more human beings and the sad hearts of men.     -- James XXIX. On the Death of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans Baron Verulam, etc.     Do we then bewail you too? And you, who were able to immortalize the Muses, could you die yourself, O Bacon? Will you then no longer enjoy the upper air? (The wind and the air deserve not that you should write their history.) It is evident the frenzy of uncontrollable fate longed to be appeased with an uncommon funeral pile: and now fiercely scorning vulgar triumphs she ostentatiously shows that much too much has been put into her power: and one day is now conscious of grief as great as not all the previous year was, notwithstanding an unusually severe visitation of the plague.

-- R. L. XXX. On the Death of the Most Noble Francis Bacon, Sometime Keeper of the Great Seal of England     What? Has litigation sprung up among the gods? Has aged Saturn, again aiming at supremacy, summoned into court his rival and son Jove? But having no pleader there he leaves the stars, directing his course to earth, where soon he finds one suitable for his purpose, namely Bacon, whom, mowing down with his scythe, he compels to administer justice among the angels and between himself and his son Jove. What? Do then the gods need the wisdom of Bacon? Or has Astraea left the gods? It is so: She has gone: and even she, abandoning the stars, sedulously ministered to our Bacon. Saturn himself spent not his time in happier ages, to which the name even of gold is given (these are poets' fancies), than we experienced when Bacon judged us. Therefore the gods, envying our happy state, willed to remove this universal joy. He is gone, he is gone: it suffices for my woe to have uttered this: I have not said he is dead: What need is there now of black raiment? See! see! our pen flows with black pigment; and the fountain of the Muses shall become dry, resolving itself into tiny tears: April, implying sorrows, drips: surely the fraternal discord of the wind rages more than usual: that is to say, each moaning ceases not to draw deep sighs from the heart. O benefactor of all, how all things seem to have loved you living and to mourn you dead!     -- Henry Ockley, Trinity College XXXI. On the Languishing Illness, But unexpected Death of His Most Noble Lord, Viscount St. Albans     Death first attacked, then was repulsed: I thought he had repented of his design and crime. As a skillful general marches off from besieged cities, in order to attack the garrison when off their guard and freed from fear, just so Death, relentless on a day hostile to the Muses smites this man much skilled in warding off a blow. How I would long to consume utterly my eyes with weeping! But, ah! I preserve my eyes for their own books. Thus I am glad to produce a poem stained with tears; in it there is no salt, save what the salt tear has given.

-- William Atkins, His Lordship's Domestic Attendant XXXII. On the Death of Lord Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Late Chancellor of All England     While by dying the Verulamian demi-god is the cause of much sadness and weeping in the Muses, we believe, alas! that no one after his death can become happy: we believe that even the Samian sage was unwise. Assuredly the object of our sorrow cannot be in a state of felicity, since his Muses are grieving, and he loves not himself more than them. But the imperious Clotho compelled his reluctant spirit. To heaven among the stars she drew his unwilling feet. Are we to think then that the arts of Phoebus lay dormant and the herbs of the Clarian god were of no avail? Phoebus was as powerful as ever, nor was efficacy absent from his herbs; be sure that he retained his skill and they their force. But believe that Phoebus withheld his healing hand from his rival, because he feared his becoming King of the Muses. Hence our grief; that the Verulamian demi-god should be inferior to Phoebus in the healing art, though his superior in all else. O Muses! mere shadowy ghosts, little more than the pallid suite of Dis, yet if still you breathe and do not mock my poor eyes (but I would not think you would have survived him); if therefore some Orpheus should have brought you back from death and that vision deludes not my sight, apply yourselves now to lamentations and canticles of woe, let abundance of tears flow from your eyes.     See! how plentiful the flood! I acknowledge these for genuine Muses and their tears. One wonderful to say, be hidden beneath these waters. For he has perished through whom you live, and who has fostered the Pierian goddesses with many an art. When he perceived that the arts were held by no roots, and like seed scattered on the surface of the soil were withering away, he taught the Pegasean arts to grow, as grew the spear of Quirinus swiftly into a laurel tree. Therefore since he has taught the Heliconian goddesses to flourish no lapse of ages shall dim his glory. The ardour of his noble heart could bear no longer that you divine Minerva, should be despised. His godlike pen restored your wonted honour and as another Apollo dispelled the clouds that hid you. But he dispelled also the darkness which murky antiquity and blear-eyed old age of former times had brought about; and his super-human sagacity instituted new methods and tore away the Labyrinthine windings, but gave us his own? Certainly it is clear that the crown of ancient sages had not such penetrating eyes. They were like Phoebus rising in the East, he like the same resplendent at noon. They like Tiphys first from the coast; he knowing the Pleiads and explored the seas, but scarcely did their bark depart insatiate Scylla, sees what is to be shunned, the Hyads and all the constellations and your dogs, whither to steer his ship over the sea; and the manner compass with greater security points the way.     They begot the infant Muses, he adult. They were parents of mortal muses, he produced goddesses. Consequently the Great Instauration took the palm from all other books, and the sophists, uncouth mob, retire. Pallas too, now arrayed in a new robe, paces forth, as a snake shines, when it has put off its old skin. Thus the new-born Phoenix regards the ashes from which it springs, and the bloom of youth returns to aged Aeson. So too, Verulam restored, boasts its new walls, and thence hopes for its ancient renown. But how much more brightly than poor mortal vision gleam his eyes, while he sings the sacred mysteries of the State, while he sounds forth the laws of nature and the secrets of kings, as though he were secretary in both spheres, while he celebrates Henry, who both King and priest joined in a stable union both the roses. But these themes far surpass our Muses' power, such let not unhappy Granta, but the Court profess Skill in.     But since Granta gave her breasts to such lips, she has a claim on your glories, O greatest of her offspring! she has a right to extinguish with her tears the sad funeral fires, that she might pluck something from the midst of the funeral pile. But my song can bring you no praise, a singer yourself you chant your own praises thereby. Let me, however, with what skill I may, celebrate your renown, yet if art fail me, my very grief will redound to your fame.     -- Thomas Randolph, Trinity College

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