FRIAR BACON.

Born 1214-Died 1294.

From 15th John, to 22d Edward I.

AMONG those who have displayed superior abilities and penetration in an age when the gloom of ignorance was too thick to be pierced by common minds, the illustrious friar Bacon will ever obtain a distinguished rank. At any period the vigour of his endowments would have raised him above the mass of common men; but at the period in which he lived, his high attainments in knowledge, contrasted with the prevailing general ignorance, render him an object of profound respect, and challenge the applause and admiration of all posterity.

Roger Bacon was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire, of respectable parents, in the year 1214. He began his literary career at Oxford; and thence removed to the university of Paris, which was then the grand centre of science and learning. Here the lustre of his talents began to be distinguished; and his progress in the sciences rendered him the ornament of that institution, and gained him some very valuable friends. He was particularly caressed by his amiable and learned countryman, Robert Grosthead, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, whose patronage in this case at once gave and reflected honour.

About the twenty-sixth year of his age, having acquired all the learning of the times, (only, however, to detect its fallacy, and to substitute something better in its room,) he returned to Oxford, and assumed the habit of the Franciscan order. The leisure which this situa tion allowed him, he devoted to the ardent prosecution of experimental philosophy, his favourite study, in which he expended considerable sums, and made very

important discoveries. He at once emancipated himself from the trammels of the existing system; pierced the subtleties of the scholastic divinity with an intuitive perspicacity; and showed so little respect for the reigning absurdities, though rendered venerable by time, that he declared the whole works of Aristotle were fit only to be burnt.

By his extraordinary talents, and astonishing progress in sciences, which were then concealed from the rest of the world, or only known to a distinguished few, he could not fail to awaken envy, the constant attendant on worth and genius; and the illiterate fraternity, having neither sense nor diligence sufficient to keep pace with his discoveries, and unable to brook his intellectual superiority, spread among the vulgar a notion that he maintained an intercourse with evil spirits. Under this ridiculous pretence, which only convinces us how much his attainments were above the level of common understandings, he was restrained from reading lectures; his writings were confined to his convent, and finally, when he had reached the sixty-fourth year of his age, he was imprisoned in his cell.

Still, however, being indulged with the use of his books, he did not suffer his mind to be diverted from the great object of his inquiries; but extended his knowledge, corrected his former labours, and augmented them by some new and curious disquisitions. His OPUS MAJUS, or Great Work, which is still extant, had been prepared at the request of pope Clement the Fourth; and after lying ten years in confinement, he. addressed a treatise to pope Nicholas the Fourth on the means of avoiding the infirmities of old age, and importuned that pontiff for his release. The effect of this. application is unknown, it certainly was not immediately regarded. In the sequel, however, being sup

satisfaction to reflect that some of the most astonishing and beneficial, which history records, have in a great measure originated from our illustrious countrymen; among whom Wickliff will maintain just celebrity as long as a love of truth and a detestation of imposture and intolerance shall actuate the human heart.

This precursor of the reformation, which Luther and others had the honour of completing, was a native of Wickliff, near Richmond in Yorkshire; but of his family, or his early years, we have no account. Being designed for the church, he was first sent to Queen's college, Oxford; but the advantages for study in that newly established house not answering his expectations, he removed to Merton college in the same university, then esteemed one of the most learned societies in Europe. At that period, a deep skill in dialectics, and an intimate acquaintance with the scholastic divinity, were the grand passports to fame. To a man of Wickliff's penetrating genius, these difficult trifles" soon gave way, and he quickly became a very subtle disputant, and reigned in the schools without a competitor. It is probable, however, that he mastered the fashionable studies, only to detect their fallacy and insignificance. In divinity he appears to have early chalked out a simpler path than any of his contemporaries had either. the sense or the resolution to devise; he drew his tenets from the scriptures alone, and rejected the comments of the schoolmen, and the dogmas of authority..

Having made himself conspicuous by his defence of the university against the mendicant friars, who pleaded that their practice was of gospel institution, he acquired the reputation of a man of profound learning and abilities, and in consequence was chosen master of Baliol hall, and soon after warden of Canterbury college, by its founder archbishop Islip. A schism had for some

time agitated this society, which was composed of regulars and seculars; and though its head now belonged to the latter order, this did not give such a preponderance as to ensure quiet. Some regulars, who had been ejected by the founder, taking advantage of the promotion of Simon Langham to the primacy, a man who had been bred up with all the monastic prejudices, found in him a zealous patron; and sentence of explusion was passed on Wickliff and his associates in their turn.

Such a flagrant piece of injustice raised a general outcry, and Wickliff was advised to make an appeal to the pope; but through the stratagems of Langham, and the irresolute policy of Urban, after the business had been protracted to a great length, the ejectment was confirmed.

On such casual points do the minds of men turn, that the virtue of pure principle is scarcely to be expected.- There can be little doubt that this decision finally determined Wickliff in his opposition to the holy see. In his previous writings, however, he had inveighed freely against the exaction and corruptions of the papal court; and now the whole strength of his excellent understanding was directed to expose its errors, and to lessen its influence.

Notwithstanding his expulsion, his credit with the university was not lost. He took his degree of doctor in divinity with much distinction; and the professor's chair in that science being vacant, he was chosen to fill it; not only in compliment to his acknowledged merit, but as a remuneration for his loss.

Wickliff had now attained the summit of his ambition. His station afforded him the opportunity he had been anxiously looking for, of throwing new lights on the established religion of Europe. His reason and his reflection convinced him, that the Romish religion

was replete with errors in theory, and that the lives of its teachers were still worse in practice. His inveteracy against the monks was inflamed, and he omitted no opportunity of painting them in their genuine colours of infamy. But amidst all his zeal for truth, and his antipathy to the interested supporters of a false and domineering religion, he proceeded with caution and circumspection. He first led his hearers into habits of argumentation; and artfully raised objections, rather that others might see through delusion, than that he might have the credit and the danger of exposing it himself.

When he had accustomed men to think, he attempted a higher flight, and taught them to think justly. He removed the veil of prejudice by gradual but reiterated efforts: he let in the light by degrees, and in such proportions as he found the eyes of a people so long used to darkness could endure it. Though of a known hostility to the encroachments of the church of Rome, its most zealous partizans had some difficulty in finding out a plausible pretext to silence him: but at last they succeeded so far as to deprive him of his professorship, and probably indulged the hope that, as the theatre of his exertion was closed, his principles would soon be forgotten.

It happened, however, otherwise. The insolence of the pope in claiming from Edward the Third the homage which had been paid by his weak predecessor, John, roused the indignant feelings of John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster; who during the decline of his father, had the principal direction of public affairs: and the pen of Wickliff was successfully exerted in defence of his sovereign and his fellow subjects. This proved the means of introducing him to court. The duke of Lancaster, who had liberal notions in religion for the time in which he lived, and was irritated by recent