in a stiff, ungraceful, formal style; but still, they frequently bear the impress of the writer’s greatness and genius. Fragments of them have been frequently quoted in the course of this notice; they have, perhaps, best served to exhibit more fully the man in all the relations of his public and private life.
# MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.
Amongst his miscellaneous papers there was found after his death a remarkable prayer, which Addison deemed sufficiently beautiful to be published in the Tatler38 for Christmas, 1710. We extract a passage or two, that may serve to illustrate Bacon’s position or his character.
“I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them, neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness.” “Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea? Earth, heaven, and all these are nothing to thy mercies.”