Have You Read This?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 571, 25 January 1929, Page 14

Have You Read This?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge, recently chose for "The Daily Mail" a series of short passages, the "purple patches ” of English prose. It is hoped that the series, reprinted here, will pleasantly refresh the memories of some and stir the fresh interest of others. THE HILL OF THE MUSES FRANCIS BACON. —"Essex's Device.” Sir Francis Bacon (15G1-1G26), Lord Ycrnlam and Viscount St. Albans, utas one of the many Lngltsh statesmen who have also been great men ot letters. Re served King James /. as At-torney-General ana l.ot a Lltancellor. and was the chief juristic defender of the Stewart theory of monarchy. Re was a brilliant essayist, but his chief title to fame is that he was the father of modern philosophy. LET THY master. Squire, offer his service to the Muses. It is long since they received any into their court. They give alms continually at their gate, that many come to live upon; but few have they ever admitted into their palace. There shall he find secrets not- dangerous to know, sides and parties not factious to hold, precepts and commandments not penal to disobey. The gardens of love wherein he now playetb himself are fresh today and fading to-morrow, as the sun comforts them or is turned from them. But the gardens of the Muses keep the privilege of the golden age: they ever flourish and are in league with time. The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power: the verses of a poet endure without a syllable lost, while states and empires pass many periods. Let him not think he shall descend, for he is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a wave: but that hill of the Muses is above tempests, always clear and calm: a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors and wanderings of the present and former times. Yea, in some cliff it leadeth the eye beyond the horizon of time, and giveth no obscure divinations of times to come. So that if he will indeed lead "vitam vitalem,” a life that unites safety and di'gnity, pleasure and merit: if h e will win admiration without envy: if he will be in the feast and not in the throng, in the light and not in the heat: Ist him embrace the life of study and contemplation.