Wright (Camb., 1866; 5th ed., 1900); F. G. Selby (1892–1895); H. Morley (1905); and, with the New Atlantis, in the “World’s Classics” series (introduction by Prof. T. Case, Lond., 1906). Wisdom of the Ancients and New Atlantis, in “Cassell’s National Library” (1886 and 1903). G. C. M. Smith, New Atlantis (1900). J. Fürstenhagen, Kleinere Schriften (Leipzig, 1884).
Biography.—J. Spedding, The Life and Letters of Lord Bacon (1861), Life and Times of Francis Bacon (1878); also Dr Rawley’s Life in the Ellis-Spedding editions, and J. M. Robertson’s reprint (above); W. Hepworth Dixon, Personal History of Lord Bacon (Lond., 1861), and Story of Lord Bacon’s Life (ib. 1862); John Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors (Lond., 1845), ii. 51; P. Woodward, Early Life of Lord Bacon (1902); T. Fowler, Francis Bacon in “English Philos.” series (Lond., 1881); R. W. Church’s Bacon, in “Men of Letters” series (1884).
Philosophy.—Beside the introductions in the Ellis-Spedding and T. Fowler editions, and general histories of philosophy, see:—Kuno Fischer, Fr. Bacon (1856, 2nd ed., 1875, Eng. trans. by John Oxenford, Lond., 1857); Ch. de Rémusat, Bacon, sa vie . . . et son influence (1857, ed. 1858 and 1877); G. L. Craik, Lord Bacon, his Writings and his Philosophy (3 vols., 1846–1847, ed. 1860); A. Dorner, De Baconis Philosophia (Berlin, 1867; London, 1886); J. v. Liebig, Über F. B. v. Verulam (Mannheim, 1863); Ad. Lasson, Über B. v. Verulam’s wissenschaftliche Principien (Berl., 1860); E. H. Böhmer, Über F. B. v. Verulam (Erlangen, 1864); Ch. Adam, Philos. de Francis Bacon (Paris, 1890); Barthélemy St Hilaire, Étude sur Francis Bacon (Paris, 1890); R. W. Church, op. cit.; H. Heussler, F. Bacon und seine geschichtliche Stellung (Breslau, 1889); H. Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy (Eng. trans., 1900); J. M. Robertson, Short History of Freethought (Lond., 1906); Sidney Lee, Great Englishmen of the 16th century (Lond., 1904). For the relations between Bacon and Ben Jonson see The Tale of the Shakespeare Epitaphs by Francis Bacon (New York, 1888); for Bacon’s poetical gifts see an article in the Fortnightly Review (March 1905).}
For the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy see Shakespeare. (R. Ad.; J. M. M.)
BACON, JOHN (1740–1799), British sculptor, was born in Southwark on the 24th of November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a cloth-worker, whose forefathers possessed a considerable estate in Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice in Mr Crispe’s manufactory of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but by his great skill in moulding he soon attained the distinction of being modeller to the work. While engaged in the porcelain works his observation of the models executed by different sculptors of eminence, which were sent to be burned at an adjoining pottery, determined the direction of his genius; he devoted himself to the imitation of them with so much success that in 1758 a small figure of Peace sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts received a prize, and the highest premiums given by that society were adjudged to him nine times between the years 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship he also improved the method of working statues in artificial stone, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and during the course of his early efforts in this art was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically “getting out the points”) by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument possessed many advantages above those formerly employed; it was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small compass, and could be used upon either the model or the marble. In the year 1769 he was adjudged the first gold medal for sculpture given by the Royal Academy, his work being a bas-relief representing the escape of Aeneas from Troy. In 1770 he exhibited a figure of Mars, which gained him the gold medal of the Society of Arts and his election as A.R.A. As a consequence of this success he was engaged to execute a bust of George III., intended for Christ Church, Oxford. He secured the king’s favour and retained it throughout life. Considerable jealousy was entertained against him by other sculptors, and he was commonly charged with ignorance of classic style. This charge he repelled by the execution of a noble head of Jupiter Tonans, and many of his emblematical figures are in perfect classical taste. He died on the 4th of August 1799 and was buried in Whitfield’s Tabernacle. His various productions which may be studied in St Paul’s cathedral, London, Christ Church and Pembroke College, Oxford, the Abbey church, Bath, and Bristol cathedral, give ample testimony to his powers. Perhaps his best works are to be found among the monuments in Westminster Abbey.
See Richard Cecil, Memoirs of John Bacon, R.A. (London. 1801); and also vol. i. of R. Cecil’s works, ed. J. Pratt (1811).
BACON, LEONARD (1802–1881), American Congregational preacher and writer, was born in Detroit, Michigan, on the 19th of February 1802, the son of David Bacon (1771–1817), missionary among the Indians in Michigan and founder of the town of Tallmadge, Ohio. The son prepared for college at the Hartford (Conn.) grammar school, graduated at Yale in 1820 and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1823, and from 1825 until his death on the 24th of December 1881 was pastor of the First Church (Congregational) in New Haven, Connecticut, occupying a pulpit which was one of the most conspicuous in New England, and which had been rendered famous by his predecessors, Moses Stuart and Nathaniel W. Taylor. In 1866, however, though he was never dismissed by a council from his connexion with that church, he gave up the active pastorate. He was, from 1826 to 1838, an editor of the Christian Spectator (New Haven); was one of the founders (1843) of the New Englander (later the Yale Review); founded in 1848 with Dr R. S. Storrs, Joshua Leavitt, Dr Joseph P. Thompson and Henry C. Bowen, primarily to combat slavery extension, the Independent, of which he was an editor until 1863; and was acting professor of didactic theology in the theological department of Yale University from 1866 to 1871, and lecturer on church polity and American church history from 1871 until his death. Gradually, after taking up his pastorate, he gained greater and greater influence in his denomination, until he came to be regarded as perhaps the most prominent Congregationalist of his time, and was sometimes popularly referred to as “The Congregational Pope of New England.” In all the heated theological controversies of the day, particularly the long and bitter one concerning the views put forward by Dr Horace Bushnell, he was conspicuous, using his influence to bring about harmony, and in the councils of the Congregational churches, over two of which, the Brooklyn councils of 1874 and 1876, he presided as moderator, he manifested great ability both as a debater and as a parliamentarian. In his own theological views he was broad-minded and an advocate of liberal orthodoxy. In all matters concerning the welfare of his community or the nation, moreover, he took a deep and constant interest, and was particularly identified with the temperance and anti-slavery movements, his services to the latter constituting probably the most important work of his life. In this, as in most other controversies, he took a moderate course, condemning the apologists and defenders of slavery on the one hand and the Garrisonian extremists on the other. His Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays from 1833 to 1846 (1846) exercised considerable influence upon Abraham Lincoln, and in this book appears the sentence, which, as rephrased by Lincoln, was widely quoted: “If that form of government, that system of social order is not wrong—if those laws of the Southern States, by virtue of which slavery exists there, and is what it is, are not wrong—nothing is wrong.” He was early attracted to the study of the ecclesiastical history of New England and was frequently called upon to deliver commemorative addresses, some of which were published in book and pamphlet form. Of these, his Thirteen Historical Discourses (1839), dealing with the history of New Haven, and his Four Commemorative Discourses (1866) may be especially mentioned. The most important of his historical works, however, is his Genesis of the New England Churches (1874). He published A Manual for Young Church Members (1833); edited, with a biography, the Select Practical Writings of Richard Baxter (1831); and was the author of a number of hymns, the best-known of which is the one beginning,
“O God, beneath Thy guiding hand
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea.”
There is no good biography, but there is much biographical material in the commemorative volume issued by his congregation, Leonard Bacon, Pastor of the First Church in New Haven (New Haven, 1882), and there is a good sketch in Williston Walker’s Ten New England Leaders (New York, 1901).
