Addison observes of this prayer, that for elevation of thought and greatness of expression, “it seems—rather the devotion of an angel than a man.”
In taking leave of the life and the works of the greatest of philosophers, and alas! the least of men, we have endeavored to present a succinct but faithful narrative—“his glory not extenuated wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered” merited obloquy with his own contemporaries and all posterity. Our endeavor has been
But his failings, great as they were, are forgotten through his transcendent merit; his faults injured but few, and in his own time alone; his genius has benefited all mankind.
The new direction he gave to philosophy was the indirect cause of all the modern conquests of science over matter, or, as it were, over nature.
What it has already accomplished, and may yet effect for the whole human race, is incalculable.
Macaulay, the historian of England, has been likewise the eloquent narrator of the progress, that owes its origin to the genius of Francis Bacon.