A GREAT ENGLISHMAN

Shannon News, 7 April 1926, Page 4

A GREAT ENGLISHMAN

TERCENTENARY OF BACON. On April 9, 1626, there passed away one whom Dean Church finely characterises as “the brightest, richest, largest mind but one in (the age which had seen Shakespeare and his fellows.” Francis Bacon died a victim of a scientific experiment, having caught cold while stuffing a fowl with snow in order to observe its effects on the preservation of flesh (writes Mr. W. Forbes Gray, in the 'Scotsman’).

Bacon’s exalted position in English literature is due to those incomparable “Essays’ in which one of the wisest of Englishmen (despite the fact that his career was a moral tragedy) garners (the lessons of his study of mankind. A master of aphoristic, prose, probably no English author with th e exception of Shakespeare has- uttered so many precious truths.

Yet Bacon was much more than a man of letters. H e has won universal recognition as the first person to give an impetus to scientific method, the first who taught that' human knowledge cannot be permanently advanced without a systematic and wide examination of the available facts. In the ‘New Atlantis’ he argues that the application of material resources,, by which he nieasn scientific research, is one of ithe surest medns for the achievement of national glory and well-being. , ' Bacon laid the foundations of modern science, though others reared the superstructure. Cowley aptly compared him with Moses on Pisgah surveying the promised land; trie Joshua who took possession was Newiton. “For my name and memory.” Bacon wrote in his will, “I leave it to men’s charitable speeches and to foreign nations, and the next ages.” . His trpst has not been misplaced; the “next ages” will never cease to respect the intellectual greatness of Francis Bacon.