BACON. THINE is a Bacon-hapless in his choice; To urge his course-him for the studious shade Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined. The great deliverer He! who from the gloom Of cloistered monks and jargon-teaching schools, Led forth the true philosophy, there long Held in the magic chain of words and forms, With radiant finger points to Heaven again. THESE elegant lines of Thomson afford a short but comprehensive idea of the illustrious man whose life and character now engage our attention. England, at a distance of three centuries, produced two celebrated genius' of this name. Roger Bacon, a poor friar of the thirteenth century, made the most astonishing discoveries in physics, to the wonder and dismay of a barbarous age, which accused him of sorcery, and compelled him to justify himself from a supposed familiarity with the devil; and Francis Bacon, who developed 66 |