Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/17

Latin and less Greek." I hope, however, that students of Latin will find my treatment of Bacon's Latin helpful in familiarizing them with the language. With this idea in view, instead of simply locating the Latin quotations, I have frequently given the classical quotation to show the original thought of the Roman author and Bacon's Latin paraphrase of it side by side. In almost every instance I think it will be seen that Bacon while retaining the substance of the thought has expressed it in briefer and simpler Latin. This is partly the difference between a Roman writing his own language when it was living and an Englishman writing it in the age of Elizabeth when it was dead. But it is more than that. It is the piercing intellect of Bacon seeing clear and thinking straight, and shooting its arrow of expression right into the bull's-eye. An example in point is the quotation from Sallust, on the contradictoriness of kings, in the essay, Of Empire. There, making use of the bare thought, Bacon attributes it to Tacitus, but quoting it again in full Latin idiom, in the Advancement of Learning, he ascribes it correctly to Sallust. Bacon is an author who is not afraid to repeat himself, rather he is of opinion that a good idea is worth repeating. I have noted the recurrence of many of the Latin quotations of the Essays in the Advancement of Learning. Dr. William Rawley records that he had a habit of quoting the substance of another man's words, but in better form. Tacitus, in the first book of his Historiae sums up the character of Vespasian as emperor in fourteen words.