of friendship essay by francis bacon pdf

INDEX OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON

Compiled by david widger.

Click on the ## before many of the titles to view a linked table of contents for that volume.

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TABLES OF CONTENTS OF VOLUMES

The essays or counsels, civil and moral,, of francis ld. verulam viscount st. albans, francis bacon.

BACON'S  ESSAYS AND WISDOM  OF  THE ANCIENTS

APPENDIX TO ESSAYS.

THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS; A SERIES OF MYTHOLOGICAL FABLES.

NOVUM ORGANUM

By lord bacon, edited by joseph devey.

BACON IS SHAKE-SPEARE

By sir edwin durning-lawrence, promus of fourmes and elegancyes by francis bacon, collated by f.b. bickley, and f.a. herbert, bacon is shakespeare..

PROMUS OF FOURMES AND ELEGANCYES BY FRANCIS BACON.

VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

By francis bacon.

Of Friendship By Francis Bacon Critical Analysis | Of Friendship Essay

Table of Contents

Introduction

            Of Friendship is the masterpiece essay nicely written by Francis Bacon who is popularly known as an eminent essayist, thinker, scholar, and philosopher in English literature. He belongs to the Elizabethan age. This essay was first published in 1612 was very brief. The present version published in  1625, is practically a new composition much longer than the original version. The essay was actually written at the request of Bacon’s intimate friend “Toby Matthew”.

About Francis Bacon

            Francis Bacon was one of the most remarkable men of Literature and is popularly known as the Father of English Literature Essays. Being an essayist, he wrote a galaxy of essays on different issues. His some world famous essays are – Of Studies, Of Love, Of Hatred, of Death, Of Truth, Of Philosophy, Of Ambition, Of Beauty, and Of Custom and Education.

Analysis Of “Of Friendship”

            Francis Bacon begins Of Friendship with an anthropological statement from Aristotle,

 “Whatsoever is delighted in Solitude,    is either a wild beast or a god.”

            Bacon posits that human nature demands company and social contact. Human beings and anyone who avoids such interactions is not doing justice to his natural state. Bacon does not criticize people who feel shy in a crowd and head for therefore seek isolation in the wild. Such people find great value in peace and it aids their mental processes to contemplate profound issues. Bacon points to philosophers like Epimenides the Canadian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, who postulated theories unique to their age and contemporaries.

            Bacon attempts to differentiate between kinship and the general crowd. For him, there is a big difference between strangers of society and known friends.

“A Person can feel lonely in a crowd too.”

            Bacon uses a Latin adage which means that a big city is filled with great solitude. In a large city, people are separated and encamped in distinct areas that are difficult to bring closer together.

            These long distances cause separation between friends and relatives. Therefore, for cultivating friendship a small city or town is more conducive. In smaller towns, people live closer by and mingle a lot more regularly. Thus, these small cities have strong and united communities.

            According to Bacon, friendship demands the involvement of passions and feelings. They form the foundation of any friendship. Emotions are the threads that bind the hearts together.

A Cure For Ailing Heats

            Bacon points to the ailments of the heart that it suffers if it stops or in suffocate. A healthy heart required vigor and the same is provided by an intimate and friendly conversation with one’s pals. Patients take medicines for the liver spleen, lungs, brain, etc, but for the issues of hearts, the love and affection of a friend is the best cure.

Friendship Can be Bought

            The elite of society like kings and leaders are really adept at making friends. They understand the value of friendly ties with worthy people. The rich and the powerful often try to buy friendships with noble and influential people through gifts, badges of reverence, and their wealth, but such friends lack emotional attachment with their patron or benefactors.

History Teaches the Toughest

            Now Bacon comments on some of his theoretical examples. He says the Roman ruler Sylla gave Pompey the moniker of Great. However, Pompey divided Sylla as the setting sun while calling himself the rising sun of Roman Power.

            Similarly, Decimus Brutus gained Julius Ceasar’s friendship and became his most trusted advisor. His blind trust in Brutus caused Caesar’s final downfall.

            Bacon also gives the example of Agrippa and Augustus, Tiberius and Sejanus, Septimus Servers, and Plautianus.

            In this essay, Bacon addresses

Three fruits of Friendship

The first fruits of friendship.

                        The Communication of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects, first, it redoubles his joy and second, it cuts his grief in halves. Because there is no doubt when a person imparts his joy to his friends, he joys more than others. However, when he imparts his grief, they become less. It is a fact that bodies become healthier upon natural actions such as joy and happiness.

The Second Fruit of Friendship

                        As the first fruit is for affection, the second fruit is for the understanding of things from different perspectives. Moreover, a friend is undoubtedly, a witty counselor. Sharing one’s problems with a friend is far more fruitful than a day’s meditation. A friend’s counsel always works when a person himself is not clear with his thoughts.

The Last and Third Fruit of Friendship

            The first two fruits help for peace in the affections and support of the judgment. The last fruit is like a pomegranate, full of many kernels. It helps in several ways and has manifold fruits in itself. There are many things that a man cannot do himself, and then a friend is an appropriate alternative.

            Thus, Of Friends bring a lot of ease in such difficult situations and helps break barriers of communication. Francis Bacon ends the essay by condemning an unsociable man without friends as an aloof being not fit to belong to society.

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Of Friendship

Francis Bacon begins “Of Friendship” with an anthropological statement of Aristotle i.e “Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.” It is humans’ nature that whenever they come across solitude, they act as wild beasts due to ‘natural and secret hatred’ and ‘aversation towards society’. There are however, examples of few men like ‘Epimenides the Candian,Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana’, all these men tried to sequester themselves for a higher conversation. Bacon calls their attempt ‘false and feign’ without supporting his argument, he leaves it to the reader’s evaluation to decide whether they were ‘false and feign’ or righteous in their pursuit. Bacon further demonstrates that solitude may also prevails in company; faces may be nothing more than ‘a gallery of pictures’; conversation may be ‘tinkling cymbal’ where there is no love. As a Latin saying clearly supports Bacon’s point, “Magna civitas, magna solitude”. Great cities are great solitudes.The reason behind this very statement is that in greater cities, friends are scattered and there is no fellowship. Bacon says it is the miserable solitude that compels a person to make friends and a person wills to want true friends without which the world is not other than a place of wilderness. In second paragraph of his essay, Bacon describes the utilitarian approach of friendship. He elaborates utility of a friend in life.

The Principal Fruit of Friendship:

In the same way, Bacon gives some more examples of Tiberius Caesar and Sejanus, Septimius Severus and Plautianus etc. All these men tasted a bitter fruit of friendship.

The First Fruit of Friendship:

The communication of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; first, it redoubles his joys and second, it cuts his griefs in halves. Because, there is no doubt when a person imparts his joys to his friends, he joys more than others. However, when he imparts his griefs, they become less. It is a fact that, bodies become healthier upon natural actions such as joy and happiness. Whereas, they are weakened and become dull on sad and violent impressions, same is the case with the mind.

The Second Fruit of Friendship:

The last fruit of friendship:, more from francis bacon.

The Essays of Francis Bacon/XXVII Of Friendship

XXVII. Of Friendship.

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. [ 1 ] For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation [ 2 ] towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature; except [ 3 ] it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: [ 4 ] such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides [ 5 ] the Candian, Numa [ 6 ] the Roman, Empedocles [ 7 ] the Sicilian, and Apollonius ​ of Tyana; [ 8 ] and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. [ 9 ] The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; [ 10 ] because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere [ 11 ] and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. [ 12 ]

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, ​ which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza [ 13 ] to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of sulphur [ 14 ] for the lungs, castoreum [ 15 ] for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes; [ 16 ] as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; [ 17 ] for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate ​ princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

L. Sylla, [ 18 ] when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's over-match. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. [ 19 ] With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus [ 20 ] had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Cæsar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; [ 21 ] this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream. [ 22 ] And it seemeth his favour was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited ​ verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics, [ 23 ] calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Cæsar. [ 24 ] Augustus raised Agrippa [ 25 ] (though of mean birth) to that height, as [ 26 ] when he consulted with Mæcenas [ 27 ] about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Mæcenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life: there was no third way, he had made him so great. [ 28 ] With Tiberius Cæsar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, hæc pro amicitiâ nostrâ non occultavi; [ 29 ] and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like or more was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live [ 30 ] me. Now if ​ these princes had been as a Trajan [ 31 ] or a Marcus Aurelius, [ 32 ] a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they mought [ 33 ] have a friend to make it entire; and yet, which [ 34 ] is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.

It is not to be forgotten what Comineus [ 35 ] observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy; [ 36 ] namely, that he would communicate [ 37 ] his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on and ​ saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish [ 38 ] his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master Lewis the Eleventh, [ 39 ] whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable [ 40 ] of Pythagoras [ 41 ] is dark, but true; Cor ne edito: Eat not the heart. [ 42 ] Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more: and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but be grieveth the less. So that it is in truth of operation upon a man's mind, of like virtue as the alchymists use to attribute to their stone for man's body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But ​ yet without praying [ 43 ] in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of [ 44 ] minds.

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempest; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth [ 45 ] wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles [ 46 ] to the king of Persia, That speech was ​ like cloth of Arras, [ 47 ] opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. [ 48 ] Neither is the second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained [ 49 ] only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better [ 50 ] relate himself to a statua [ 51 ] or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. [ 52 ]

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open and falleth within vulgar [ 53 ] observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. [ 54 ] ​ And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine, sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favour. [ 55 ] As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that ​ a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; [ 56 ] or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond [ 57 ] and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is well, (that is to say, better perhaps than if he asked none at all;) but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe, (though with good meaning,) and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend ​ that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate [ 58 ] will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

After these two noble fruits of friendship, (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment,) followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that [ 59 ] a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less ​ extol them; [ 60 ] a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man's person hath many proper [ 61 ] relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part: if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. [ 62 ] ​

• ↑ "But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state." The Politics of Aristotle. Translated into English by B. Jowett. Vol. I. i. 2.
• ↑ Aversation towards. Aversion to.
• ↑ Except. Unless. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." John iii. 3.
• ↑ Conversation. Mode or course of life. "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom." James iii. 13.
• ↑ Epimenides, a Cretan poet and prophet, who lived in the 7th century B.C. He was said to have fallen into a sleep that lasted fifty-seven years, and to have lived two hundred and ninety-nine years.
• ↑ Numa Pompilius, second King of Rome, 715–672 B.C. The origin of many Roman institutions is referred to Numa, such as the flamens, vestal virgins, pontifices, etc. He was supposed to have been instructed in the art of legislation by the nymph Egeria.
• ↑ Empedocles was born at Agrigentum, Sicily, and lived 490–430 B.C. He was a Greek philosopher, poet, and statesman. He was said to have declared himself to be immortal, and to be able to cure all evils.
• ↑ Apollonius was born at Tyana, Cappadocia, and lived from about 4 B.C. to about 97 A.D. He was a Pythagorean philosopher and reputed magician and wonder-worker. Divine honors were paid to Apollonius in the 3d century and his bust was placed by Alexander Severus in his lararium with those of Abraham, Orpheus, and Christ.
• ↑ "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." I. Corinthians xiii. 1.
• ↑ A great city is a great solitude. Erasmi Adagia.
• ↑ Mere. Absolute, utter, whole. "It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph." Shakspere. Othello. ii. 2.
• ↑ Humanity. Human nature; man in the abstract. "Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor Turk, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made them, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably." Shakspere. Hamlet. iii. 2.
• ↑ Sarza. Sarsaparilla.
• ↑ Flower of sulphur. A yellow powder formed by condensing the vapor of sulphur.
• ↑ Castoreum. A secretion of the beaver formerly of high repute in medicine.
• ↑ Privado. Spanish word, a private or intimate friend.
• ↑ Sharers of cares, partners in sorrows.
• ↑ Lucius Cornelius Sulla, surnamed Felix, lived from about 138 to 78 B.C. , a celebrated Roman general and dictator.
• ↑ Plutarch. Life of Pompey.
• ↑ Decimus Junius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, Roman general, one of the assassins of Caesar, executed 43 B.C. He was betrayed and put to death by Antony.
• ↑ Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, and third wife of Caesar.
• ↑ Plutarch. Life of Caesar.
• ↑ Cicero's Philippics are fourteen orations against Antony, delivered in 44–43. The original Philippics are Demosthenes's nine orations against Philip of Macedon.
• ↑ M. Tullii Ciceronis in M. Antonium Oratio Philippica Tertia Decima. XI. 25.
• ↑ Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, 63–12 B.C. , Roman commander and the leading statesman of the reign of Augustus. His third wife was Julia, daughter of Augustus and widow of Marcellus.
• ↑ As. That.
• ↑ Caius Cilnius Maecenas, died 8 B.C. , Roman statesman and patron of letters. With Agrippa, he was the chief adviser of Augustus down to 16 B.C. , when he became estranged from his master and retired to private life. He was the friend and patron of Horace and Vergil.
• ↑ Dion Cassius. Liber LVI. 6.
• ↑ Because of our friendship, I have not concealed these things. P. Cornelii Taciti Annalium Liber IV. 40.
• ↑ Overlive. To survive; to outlive. "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel." Joshua xxiv. 31. The quotation is from Dion Cassius Cocceianus (Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiae Romanae Liber LXXV. 15) .
• ↑ Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, surnamed Dacicus and Parthicus, born about 53, died 117 A.D. , Roman emperor from 98 to 117 A.D.
• ↑ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, originally Marcus Annus Verus, commonly known as Marcus Aurelius, 121–180 A.D. , Roman emperor from 161 to 180 A.D. He wrote, in Greek, a very celebrated book, entitled, The Meditations of Marcus Antoninus.

"So sound he slept, that nought mought him awake." Spenser. The Faery Queene. Book I. Canto i. Stanza 42.

" Which a miracle ther befel anoon."

Chaucer. The Knightes Tale. Line 1817.

• ↑ Philippe de Comines, or Commines, or Comynes, born about 1445, died in 1519, a French statesman and historian.
• ↑ Charles the Bold (French, le Téméraire ), 1433–1477, Duke of Burgundy.
• ↑ Communicate. To inform a person of; to tell. Now construed with 'to' instead of 'with.'

"You are an innocent, A soul as white as Heaven; let not my sins Perish your noble youth." Beaumont and Fletcher. The Maid's Tragedy. iv. 1.

• ↑ Louis XI. 1423–1483, King of France from 1461 to 1483. The historical setting of Sir Walter Scott's great novel, Quentin Durward , based largely on the Mémoires of Philippe de Comines, is the time of Louis XI. and Charles the Bold.
• ↑ Parable means proverb here.
• ↑ Pythagoras, born about 582 B.C. , died about 500 B.C. , Greek philosopher and mathematician.
• ↑ A Discourse Touching the Training of Children. 17. Plutarch's Miscellanies and Essays. Vol. I. Edited by W. W. Goodwin. With Introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"and you shall find A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness, Where he for grace is kneel'd to."

Shakspere. Antony and Cleopatra. v. 2.

• ↑ Of means here with regard to, concerning.
• ↑ Wax. To grow; to become. "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Matthew xxiv. 12.
• ↑ Themistocles, born in the latter part of the 6th century B.C. , died about 460 B.C. , perhaps as late as 447 B.C. , Athenian statesman and commander.
• ↑ Cloth of Arras. Tapestry, from Arras, the capital of the department of Pas-de-Calais, in the north of France. The expression 'cloth of Arras' was probably used originally to distinguish tapestry from Arras from other kinds.
• ↑ Plutarch. Life of Themistocles. "Themistocles said of speech: That it was like Arras, that spread abroad shews fair images, but contracted is but like packs. " Bacon. Apophthegmes New and Old. 199.
• ↑ Restrained. Restricted, limited.
• ↑ Were better. Old English idiom, with be and the dative, him were better , that is, 'it would be better for him.' The correct modern form of the idiom is had better , with the verb 'have' meaning 'hold' or 'regard,' like the Latin habere .

"And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey's statua , Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell."

Shakspere. Julius Caesar. iii. 2.

• ↑ Smother. The state of being stifled; suppression.

"Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar ."

Shakspere. Hamlet. i. 3.

• ↑ Read, for this same thought, in the Wisdom of the Ancients, The Flight of Icarus; also, Scylla and Charybdis; or the Middle Way. Also, Apophthegmes New and Old. 268 (188).
• ↑ "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." James i. 23, 24.
• ↑ The English Grammar of Ben Jonson limits the English alphabet to "four and twenty letters," omitting J and U. This means that in his time and Bacon's J had not yet been differentiated from I, nor U from V, although U was coming in. U and J are modern letters.

"'T is fond to wail inevitable strokes, As 't is to laugh at 'em."

Shakspere. Coriolanus. iv. 1.

• ↑ Estate. State or condition.
• ↑ For that. Because.
• ↑ "It is an abominable thing for a man to commend himself." Quoted in Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Vol. I. Ch. xxii. , from Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, Divine Art of Meditation.

"And so, with great imagination, Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, And, winking, leap'd into destruction."

Shakspere. II. King Henry IV. i. 3.

• ↑ In the last year of Bacon's life, at the special request of his friend, Sir Tobie Matthew, he rewrote entirely the essay on Friendship , to commemorate their lifelong intimacy. Sir Tobie Matthew, 1577–1655, courtier, diplomatist, and writer, was the son of Tobie, or Tobias, Matthew, Archbishop of York. Bacon and Matthew, who was the junior by sixteen years, became friends when Matthew entered Parliament, in 1601, and their affection knew no break through every variation of both their fortunes. Bacon held a high opinion of Matthew's literary judgment, and submitted his writings to him for criticism from time to time, among other pieces his book, De Sapientia Veterum , with an accompanying letter, dated Feb. 17, 1610. In 1618, Matthew, who had lived in Italy, and had there become a Roman Catholic, published in London an Italian translation of the Essays , entitled, Saggi Morali del Signore Francesco Bacono, Cavaliero inglese, gran cancelliero d'Inghelterra, con un' altro suo Trattato della Sapienza degli Antichi. A dedicatory letter to Cosimo dei Medici II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, eulogizes Sir Francis Bacon, praising him not only for the qualities of his intellect, but also for those of the heart and will, and moral understanding: "being a man most sweet in his conversation and ways, grave in his judgment, invariable in his fortunes, splendid in his expenses; a friend unalterable to his friends; an enemy to no man; a most hearty and indefatigable servant to the King, and a most earnest lover of the Public,—having all the thoughts of that large heart of his set upon adorning the age in which he lives, and benefiting as far as possible the whole human race." When Bacon was impeached, Matthew was of the few who remained faithful to him. He wrote a letter to his old friend, in his disgrace and downfall, which Bacon compared to 'old gold.' The episode is the most pleasing personal one in Bacon's life, and should be remembered to his credit in any judgment of the baseness of his conduct towards Essex.

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Francis Bacon on Friendship

By maria popova.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

He then explores the second fruit of friendship:

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation.

To this he adds a chief benefit of a friend — the capacity to neutralize our astounding gift for rationalization through wise counsel:

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel, is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

Complete Essays is a timeless treasure in its entirety, covering such human essentials as love, anger, justice, revenge, ambition, and more.

Complement with C.S. Lewis on true friendship , Emerson on its two essential criteria , and Aristotle on the art of human bonds .

— Published January 15, 2013 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/01/15/francis-bacon-on-friendship/ —

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Of Friendship – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation

Of friendship.

by Francis Bacon

Complete explanation of the essay alongside the original text

IT HAD been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.

Explanation

Francis Bacon starts his essay with a grand statement modeled after the views of Aristotle. Finding pleasure in solicitude is contrary to human character and mind. He expresses his belief in rather strong words. Anyone, who shuns fellow human beings and retreats to isolation, is degraded to the level of a wild beast. The other possibility is that he is god.

For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church.

Bacon, however, is not totally dismissive of people who assiduously shy away from the crowd, and head for the wilderness. Bacon realizes that remaining silent and cut off from others helps the mind to engage in deep contemplative thinking. Through such deep insightful dissection of mind, a person rediscovers himself. The truth and wisdom that dawn on the meditator’s mind through such prolonged isolation, can be profoundly rewarding for the hermit. The consequence can be both questionable or desirable. In case of Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, the theories they propounded were somewhat non-confirmist for the commoners, but were of great philosophical value. Spiritual men who retreat from public eye in and around places of worship have been instrumental in delivering sermons of immense spiritual benefit to mankind. So, voluntary abstention from society is not always a bad idea, after all.

But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

One must learn to differentiate between a crowd and kinship; between society and friendship. One can be lonely inside a multitude too. Faces of people may turn out to be fleeting pictures, if the persons are not engaged with. A conversation devoid of passion or feelings may be akin to the sounds of a tinkling cymbal – a barren monologue which hardly causes a ripple.

The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

The Latin adage says, ‘Magna civitas, magna solitudo’. It means there is great solitude in a large city. This is so because people live in areas separated from one another by long distances. It makes it impractical to traverse such long distances to meet friends and relations. The large size of the city is, therefore, an impediment on the way of people cultivating friendship with one another. In a small city or town, people tend to live at a shorter distance from each other. So they befriend each other and live like a well-knit community.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce.

A friendship must have feelings and passions as its main strands. It should be a bond between the hearts where one shares the emotions of his friend in full measure.

We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

We all know how debilitating and fatal heart ailments can be. Pleasant and intimate conversation with a friend brings back vigour to the heart. It elevates the mood, banishes depression and helps the heart patient to recover. There is no panacea for heart diseases which can match the curative value of the presence of good friends by the sick person’s bedside. Through lively chat and friendly banters, they unburden the heart of the sick person and make him feel good again. However, there are medicines or devices to correct a malfunction of internal organs like sarza for the liver, steel for the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain etc.

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness.

Bacon then gives the examples of the monarchs and kings, and the elite who go to unusual lengths to befriend good and worthy people. The rich and the powerful with the reins of government in their hands seek out the crème of the society to give the pleasures of friendship. To bring in the good people, the kings and monarchs give them generous rewards through wealth and bestowal of honour. Such efforts to cultivate friendship can be fraught at times as the hand-picked friends may turn hostile causing harm to their benefactors.

For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience.

A gulf difference always exists between the ruling elite and the subjects. The distance is so large that it cannot be bridged through normal means. At times, the princes develop liking for some individuals. To bring them nearer, the rulers raise their status and give them administrative powers. The intention is to win their friendship. However, such generosity and eagerness to elevate individuals to keep them in good humour may sometimes bring unanticipated harm. This becomes the possibility when the person chosen is intrinsically wicked in his intent.

The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation.

The individuals entering the coterie of the sovereign are termed as ‘favourites’ or ‘privadoes’ in modern languages. These individuals merely add grace and give company like a friend.

But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the knot.

But the true sense of the name is apparent in what the Romans called these individuals – ‘participes curarum’ meaning ‘sharer of cares’. They are the ones who share the anxiety and worries of the monarch and not just give company. These hand-picked favoured few are called ‘participes curarum’. It means ‘sharer of cares’, or those who share the anxiety and worries of the monarch. They are the close confidantes who offer their counsel to the rulers. It is this sharing of responsibilities/worries that builds the bond of friendship.

And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

Such practice of co-opting some favoured individuals from among the subjects was followed not only by weak or emotional rulers, but also by very capable and hard-nosed ones having formidable strength and political acumen. The kings address these members of the coterie very graciously as ‘friends’, and they ask other members of the royalty and bureaucracy to address them so.

Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting.

Pompey was designated as ‘Pompey, the Great’ by Sylla, the ruler of Rome. Sylla raised his friend Pompey to such great heights by naming him “Pompey the Great”, that Pompey praised and boasted about being superior to Sylla. So much so that on one occasion when Sylla resented Pompey’s decision, Pompey publicly reminded Sylla that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting hinting that he had more clout and power than Sylla.

With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder, after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate, till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Caesar.

Brutus had, slowly made his way to Ceaser’s heart. He was Ceaser’s closest confidant and advisor. As a reward of the enduring companionship provided by Brutus, Ceaser in his will had made Brutus his heir after his nephew. Brutus had cast a spell over Ceaser, an influence the latter never suspected as wicked. This was to become Ceaser’s nemesis later. Ceaser had all but dismissed the senate because some ill omen portended a calamity. His wife’s deadly dream about an impending danger strengthened Ceaser’s desire to do away with the senate. Brutus stepped in at the last moment to prevail upon Ceaser to hold back his decision of discharging the senate until Culpurina (Ceaser’s wife) dreamt something better. So great was Brutus’s sway on Ceaser that in one of Antonius’ letter, mentioned by Cicero in his speech, Antonius has disparagingly called Brutus ‘venefica’– a witch, who had ‘enchanted’ Ceaser for evil designs.

Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas, about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great.

Augustus elevated Agrippa high up in the royal hierarchy despite the latter’s mean birth (not from a noble family). Agrippa’s clout in the royal court had soared ominously. He was enjoying enviable privilege and power. When Agustus consulted the royal counselor Maecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, the counselor proffered an awkward advice. He suggested to Augustus to give his daughter in marriage to Agrippa. There was no way anyone else could win her hand with Agrappa around. If this was not agreeable to the emperor, he would have to eliminate Agrippa. There was no third option.

With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed, and reckoned, as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi; and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship, between them two.

The friendship between Tiberius and Sejanus is another example of the perils of water-tight friendship. Sejanus charmed Tiberius and became his most intimate companion. As a result, Sejanus began to enjoy unprecedented privileges and stature. People perceived them as an inseparable pair. In a letter to Sejanus Tiberus had declared boldly that he had not hidden from anyone the details of their enduring friendship. The senate sensed the mood and dedicated an altar to their friendship as if their companionship was as sublime as a goddess.

The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus, in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me.

A similar or even closer friendship had developed between Septimus Severus and Plautianus. Septimus had forced his son into marriage with the daughter of Plautianus. The bonding between the two was so strong that he found no difficulty to countenance Platianus’ hurtful barbs aimed at his son. The latitude given to Platinus defied reason. Septimus’s eulogizing of his friend had reached ridiculous levels. In one of his letters to the senate, he had raved over his love for Plautianus saying he wished his friend to outlive him in this world.

Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they mought have a friend, to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.

All the characters described above were not novices. They were not soft-hearted and noble-minded like Trajan, or Marcus Aurelius. In fact, these eminent members of Rome’s royalty were hard-nosed pragmatists. They took no major decision relating to governance without enough care, caution and confabulation.

Yet, why did all of them fawn over their friends in such bizarre manner? This is explained by the fact that these powerful persons craved for friendship in their quest for worldly happiness.

Bacon reiterates his contention by saying that all these eminent men had access to all pleasures of life, had families, wealth and power. They failed to draw a line in their relation with their chums. Later, the same adored friends brought them defeat, disaster and even death.

Some background note to explain the essay [not its part]

Francis Bacon proceeds to give other examples where friendships have turned sour due to ambition, greed, mutual suspicion and love for power. Julius Caesar and Decimus Brutus were great friends. Caesar’s meteoric rise to power, influence and popularity made Brutus uneasy. He feared that Caesar, if not checked, could neutralize the power of the Senate and become a dictator endangering Rome. To curb the over-ambitious Cesar, Brutus plotted against him. In this act, he had the support of a few Senators and Gaius Cassius Longius. Finally, Brutus had Caesar stabbed to death from the back in 44 BC. That great danger was on the way for Cesar was seen in a dream by his wife Calpurnia. She had warned her husband about the danger from the Senate. Brutus had profound influence over Caesar. He had successfully prevailed upon Caesar not to undermine the Senate until his wife saw a happier dream. Antonious, a confidante of Calpurnia, loathed Brutus. He had described him as a vile person who had swayed Cesar to his side. Despite all these warnings, Cesar had trusted Brutus. He walked to the death trap laid inside the Senate chamber by Brutus and other conspirators. Bacon cites the example of the friendship between Augustus and Agrippa. The latter, apparently, was not of noble birth. Augustus befriended him and went to great lengths to elevate his status. When Augustus consulted the royal counselor Maecenas, the latter gave him two choices. Either he gave his daughter Julia in marriage to Agrippa or get him killed. So powerful Agrippa had become. He posed a real danger to Augustus. Thus, we see how people belonging to the real strata of society do not remain loyal to their benefactors despite all the favours bestowed on them. Bacon gives another example of intimate friendship degrading to hostility and revenge. He mentions the bond between Tiberius Caesar and Sejanus. Tiberius Caesar was very indulgent with Sejanus. Sejanus gradually accumulated power by taking advantage of his proximity to Tiberius. Sejanus also killed or neutralized potential political opponents, including the emperor’s son Drusus Julius Caesar When Tiberius withdrew to Capri in 26 BC, Sejanus assumed full control of the entire government as de facto ruler of the empire. Sejanus suddenly fell from power in 31BC, the year he became Consul. Rumours flew thick and fast that he was conspiring against Tiberius. Sejanus was arrested and executed, along with his followers. Thus a very enduring friendship ended in disaster due to mistrust. It has to be contrasted with the fact that Tiberius had, at one stage, asked the Senate to dedicate an altar to his friendship with Sejanus. Lastly, Bacon cites the case of the friendship between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. To cement their friendship, Severus conferred many honours on Plautianus which included a consular insigina, a seat in the Senate. He also made him a Consul. During his consulship, Plautianus’ image was minted on coins. He assisted Severus in doing the royal duties. In the process, he became very rich. His clout rose exponentially. Severus declared him to be his second in command. In 202BC, Plautianus gave his daughter Publia Fulvia Plautilla in marriage to Caracalla, the son of Severus. The influence of Plautianus soared soon after. As a result, the Roman Empress Julia Domna and Caracalla both began to feel insecure. The marriage between Caracalla and Publia Fulvia Plautilla was beset with problems between the two. In fact, Caracalla hated both his wife and his father-in-law. He threatened to kill both of them after becoming the emperor. When Plautianus discovered this, he began to think of ways to hatch a conspiracy to dethrone Severus’ family. To Plautianus’ ill luck, his treacherous plot was discovered. The imperial family of Servus summoned him to the palace and had him executed. Further acts of retribution followed his son after his death. Thus curtains came down on a friendship which had flowered so much only to wither away and turn to ashes.

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor.

Comineus, a writer and diplomat who served under Duke Charles Hardy and later Louis XI of France has said in his writings that his former master, Duke Charles Hardy, would never share any secrets with anyone. He was particularly careful about not divulging any secret he considered critical to him and to his rule. But, age caught up with him. Gradually, his mental faculty deteriorated. A similar judgement can be made about the latter master, Louis XI, who was also a man of reclusive and suspicious nature. He too spent his last years in complete isolation. Bacon sights these examples to emphasize the importance of having a friend with whom one can share the joys and burdens of one’s heart.

The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart.

Pythagoras advanced this idea ‘Cor ne edito’. It means ‘Eat not the heart’.

Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends, to open themselves unto, are carnnibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth, of operation upon a man’s mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone, for man’s body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this, in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds.

Pythogoras had some harsh way of describing the hazards of keen friendship. He felt that a person may locate a worthy friend before whom he could unburden his worries. But, by doing this, he would be inadvertently decapitating (cannibalizing) his own heart. Such surrender of one’s self before even the closest friend might lead to undesirable consequences causing harm.

Bacon goes on to conclude that nurturing intimacy excessively might prove to be a double-edged sword. In the plus side, it could enhance joy and reduce the grief encountered in day-to-day life. On the minus side, such happiness may be illusory. It is a fact that there is no man who has shared all his grief with his friend and realistically reduced his grief. Similarly, there is no man who has shared all the joys with a friend and experienced more joy. Like the alchemists miracle remedies which palliate pain despite warning of adverse effects, friendship might soothe suffering despite the risk of possible harm. In the same vein, a close look at Nature will show that a union of two elements results in better and more pleasant results. Human friendship has undoubtedly got some curative and embalming effects notwithstanding the risk of it turning foul.

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts.

Strengthening of personal affection and bonding apart, the other benefit is therapeutic (healing). It sharpens mental functions too. Friendship tempers down the ill effects of the storms of life, and brings sunshine and cheer to one’s life. It enables one to think clearly.

Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation.

This does not mean that you will always get good advise from friends, but what it means is that the thoughts get jumbled up in the mind and there is not always the clarity in understanding them. However, when you communicate these thoughts to a friend by putting them in words, you get the clarity and understanding and become wiser simply by putting these thoughts in an orderly manner to make the right judgement. This is more beneficial then doing an entire day’s meditation.

It was well said by Themistocles, to the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Arras was a place famous for its hand-woven textiles. These tapastries were rich ad beautiful. Themistocles once said that speech must be heard to be appreciated. This was akin to the tapestries from Arras that could be admired only when opened up and hung for people to feast their eyes on. Similarly, thoughts, when not opened up for propagation, remain locked in the mind of the thinker. This is like the rolled-up tapestry that lies in packs. People walk past them unaware of their great hidden beauty. This second fruit of friendship – good judgment and better understanding — is not restricted to opening up of your minds only to a few intelligent friends, although it is best when you do so. Even if the friend might not be intelligent enough, it nevertheless is beneficial to expound the thoughts before him. By doing this, one can understand them, and possibly throw more light on them. This could sharpen his intelligence. It is like the way we sharpen a tool by rubbing it against a rough stone. Obviously, Bacon compares the thinker with the tool and the not-so-intelligent listener as the rough stone. In short, it means a man better say his thoughts to a statue than to bury them in the mind and suffer suffocation.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs.

Bacon proceeds to praise the advice that comes from well-meaning, un-biased, wise friends. Such advice seldom leads to undesirable consequences. If a person is guided by his own instincts, intuition and emotions, the judgment might be coloured, biased and one-sided. This might lead to difficulties. So, one must not be guided by one’s own understanding of the situation, and seek advice from wise friends. Heraclitus termed such independent advice from another person as ‘Dry light’. The drier it is, the more useful it can be.

So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Just as there is a big difference between the advice of a true friend and a man’s own judgement, so is there a difference between a well meaning advice of a true friend and that of a flatterer. But the man himself is the biggest flatterer of self, and the best remedy for this flattery is the freedom of a friend to give unbiased advice.

Just the way one’s own judgment has to be sidelined in favour of an independent-minded advisor’s words, a sycophant’s counsel need to be treated with much less seriousness than one’s own decision in any matter. Bacon reminds the reader that a person’s own reading of himself could be minimally critical as it is human tendency not find fault with oneself. Because of such inherent weakness to feel good about himself ignoring the many flaws of character and brain, a person must guard against the tendency to go by his own assessment and cast aside the wise counsel of other capable men.

Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive.

Advice from a well-meaning wise friend can be for two principal reasons. It might be about a person’s manners and conduct and the second might be about his business. A friend’s criticism helps to keep the mind free of many undesirable thoughts and influences. Keeping a check on one’s own self may sometimes prove to be difficult.

Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor.

It is generally seen that people do not take much interest in reading good books on morality and good conduct. Learning by observing others’ mistakes may not be possible for some. But the best thing remedy that works and that one should take is the castigation of our good friends. It is strange to see how people, especially those who are powerful and wealthy, make blunders and damage their fame and fortune due to lack of well-meaning, balanced and neutral advice from good friends. The more powerful the person is, the higher will be his propensity to commit such mistakes. St. James had cautioned his followers about such self deception when one becomes blind to one’s own failings and weaknesses.

As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all.

People often lose sight of the hard realities and their own infirmities after a few rounds of success. They argue that two eyes see no better than one eye, implying that they are able to reach the correct decision themselves and do not need other’s advice. In the same vein, they can say a gambler takes a better call than others watching the game. He can also claim that a musket can be fired from the arm as efficiently as from a rest. These thoughts are born out of boastfulness and ignorance. In the long run, such mindset can be highly damaging.

But when all is done, the help of good counsel, is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. But when all is done, it is the good advice form a good counsel that sets the business straight again. One may think of taking advice in bits and pieces from different counsels. Although this is better than taking no advice at all, it is still not recommended as it has its own risks. Especially teo dangers; one, the advice may not be faithful, for faithful advice is a rare thing which only true friends give. So the advice may be manipulated in order to suit the person giving the advice.

All good and competent advisors weigh the risks involved in a business correctly. They proffer their advice to the businessman with no fear or hesitation. A businessman can choose to seek advice from one friend over one issue, and from another friend over another issue. This is better than asking no advice at all, and choosing to go by one’s own intuition. But by choosing more than one advisor, a businessman may run into some risk. The advisor, realizing that there are other advisors like him, might be a little perfunctory in giving his advice. The other risk may be the possibility of getting biased and ill-intentioned advice. Unless the advisor is extremely good, loyal, principled, and wise, the advice, disguised as genuine, may turn out to be crooked.

The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient.

Bacon now talks of another danger from advice from others. The counselor may have genuine intention to help the person in trouble, but may not have been able to study the matter properly. In such a case, he could give a drastic and upsetting advice with all the good intentions. Sadly, the result for the recipient may be harmful and even ruinous. This situation is similar to the one that results when an incompetent doctor, unaware of the patient’s medical history, prescribes the wrong medicines to the patient. The patient’s problems are aggravated leading to his death.

But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

So, Bacon concludes, a person must confide in a single counselor, who knows the ins and outs of his business. This is because he would be well-placed to give correct advice using his good understanding of the business. Seeking advice from multiple sources might be misleading rather than rewarding.

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part, in all actions and occasions.

So far, we have learnt about two main benefits resulting from friendship. One relates to emotions, the other to understanding and judgement. In his concluding statement, Bacon talks about the third benefit which he likens to the pomegranate fruit that has so many kernels inside it. Friendship means helping and taking part in all actions and occasions of a friend.

Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are, which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear, that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times, in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like.

The best way to explain the many uses of friendship is to see how many things there are in one’s life that one cannot do or confront alone. In ancient times, it was customary to call a friend as a replica of one’s self. In reality, a friend is more than himself. Men in their lifetime have many things to accomplish, many desires to fulfil which are close to their heart, like devoting to a child, or any other goals.

If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him, and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend.

When a man is blessed with a genuine, loyal and un-selfish friend, the latter will take care of his responsibilities after his death. He may care for his family, run his business, pay off his debts or do all those things left un-finished after the death of the man. Thus, a man’s life span gets prolonged. Then, comes the benefit accruing from delegation of authority. A person can’t be present in multiple places at any given point of time. In such a case, he may delegate the work in other places which his friend can visit and get things done. There are many things in life a person can’t do alone- be it in farming, trading, educating children, fighting off enemies etc. A good friend, like a trusted deputy, comes to the aid of his friend and smoothens his life.

How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful, in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations, which he cannot put off.

When trying to present his own merits before others, a person tends to become needlessly boastful, inviting derision from others. Alternatively, he may be too shy to present his own qualities with the praise they deserve. Similarly, while asking for a favour from others, he may feel very awkward. All these functions are best discharged by a loyal and capable friend. Thus, many functions in the society that are mandatory can be got done through a friend.

A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

A friend may be a good mediator or a go-between. When a message is to be communicated to an adolescent son or a peeved wife, or a stern enemy, a friend can do the job with aplomb and with great ease. Thus, the benefits of friendship are endless. A friendless, cut-off person is unfit to live in the society.

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Of Friendship Essay | Summary by Francis Bacon

Table of Contents

Introduction

The essay Of Friendship by Francis Bacon celebrated the intimacy between friends which is subjected to both prosperity and adversity without succumbing to the clouds of doubt and jealousy. The essay was written on the request of his friend Toby Matthew.

Human need for company

Human beings require other human beings and anyone who avoids such interaction is not doing justice to his natural state. Bacon does not criticize people who feel shy in a crowd and head for therefore seek isolation in the wild.

However, the consequences of such isolation can be like a double-edged sword, desirable or detrimental. Bacon points to philosophers like Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, who postulated theories unique to their age and contemporaries.

Their works are of immense philosophical wealth. Even several spiritual men find great benefit and progress through prolonged abstention from public life. Therefore, voluntary retreat from society can have positive consequences too.

Bacon attempts to differentiate between kinship and general crowd. For him, there is a big difference between strangers of society and known friends.  A person can feel lonely in a crowd too . People may become transient glimpses which are lost if a person does not interact with them.

If a person does not feel passionate or interested in a conversation then it becomes an exercise in futile monologues and is similar in meaning to the undecipherable notes of musical instruments like cymbals.

Bacon uses a Latin adage which means that a big city is filled with great solitude. In a large city, people are separated and encamped in distinct areas that are difficult to bring closer together.

These long distances cause separation between friends and relatives. Therefore, for cultivating friendship a small city or town is more conducive . In smaller townspeople live closer by and mingle a lot more regularly. Thus, these small cities have strong and united communities.

A cure for ailing hearts

Bacon points to the ailments of the heart that it suffers if it stops or is suffocated. A healthy heart required vigour and the same is provided by an intimate and friendly conversation with one’s pals.

The bonhomie is the cure for depression and various diseases of the heart. Friendship is the panacea for heartaches.  A true friend acts a secondary valve for the heart to pump life into a sick person.

Patients take medicines like sarza for the liver, steel for the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain etc, but for the issues of the heart, the love and affection of a friend is the best cure.

Friendship can be bought

The elite of society like kings and leaders are really adept at making friends. They understand the value of friendly ties with worthy people. The rich and the powerful often try to buy friendships of noble and influential people through gifts, badges of reverence and their wealth.

Friendship requires a quantum of parity if not equality. Therefore, the massive chasm between the king and his subjects cannot be bridged that easily.

Even if the princes admire certain ordinary individuals they find it difficult to befriend them. The only solution is to elevate such individuals so that they come nearer to the monarch in terms of power and influence.

Bacon tells us that the Romans had a special name for such individuals, ‘ participes curarum ’ meaning people who share one’s fears, doubts and worries.

This sharing of one’s burdens is a true quality of friendship and a strong tie of camaraderie. These favoured individuals gain the confidence of the elite and offer advice to them.

The empowered elite has used their political wits and acumen to enlist such friends at par with the ranks of nobility and governance.

History teaches the toughest lessons

Now, Bacon comments on some historical examples. He says that Roman ruler Sylla gave Pompey the moniker of ‘the Great’.  However, consumed by arrogance Sylla’s friend Pompey reprimanded and rebuked him in public when they had some disagreement.

His blind trust in Brutus caused Caesar’s final downfall . Ceaser, fearing a calamity owing to his wife Calpurnia’s bloodied nightmare, had decided to dissolve the Senate.

Brutus, however, convinced him to delay his decision. He had such powerful hold over Ceaser that Antonius would call him an enchantress ( venefica ) with evil machinations.

When Augustus decided to marry his daughter Julia, his counsellor Maecenas suggested marrying her to Agrippa.  According to Maecenas Agrippa was the best man for her and in the emperor decided otherwise, Agrippa had to be killed.

Bacon gives the example of friendship between Tiberius and Sejanus. Tiberius was charmed by Sejanus they became inseparable companions. This brought great stature and honour to Sejanus.

Bacon then praised the friendship between Septimus Severus and Plautianus. Septimus’s son and Plautianus’ daughter were married against Plautianus’s wishes.

Even when irate Plautianus condemned Septimus’ son, their friendship did not weaken. On the contrary, Septimus praised his friend beyond reason and logic. He even wished Plautianus a longer and more fulfilling life than his own.

A valuable blueprint

Every decision they made was strategic and careful and not impulsive or emotional. However, it was their longing for friendship that made them gush in praise of their friends.

Even with all the power in the world, luxuries of life, doting families, they were dependent on the whims of their friends. In the end, these favoured individuals became their nemesis and cause for their demise.

He says that in their last years both of them became reclusive and isolated themselves from others. They grew suspicious of everyone and were afraid of divulging any information that could bring their empires to a collapse.

Bacon points at the parable given by Pythagoras i.e. ‘ Cor ne edito ’, meaning ‘eat not the heart’ . Pythagoras had his suspicions of who can be called as true friends.

Two sides of a coin

Becoming intimate and excessively dependent on a friend can be a double-edged sword . It can help unburden the baggage of the heart and weight of worries. But on the flipside, it can all be just an illusion of comfort.

Realistically no such friend exists who can reduce one’s own grief and pain. Palliation and reduction of pain through such miracle friends are all but fool’s gold. He goes on again reaffirm the ability of true friendship to comfort one’s ailing heart but at a risk of hurt .

Personal bonds can have an embalming impact that enhances one’s quality of life, strengthens mental prowess and. They provide cover in the midst of a storm. Friendship is like the glorious sunlight after that turbulent storm has passed over the horizon.

Bacon proffers a caveat that friends will not guarantee great advice all the time.

He quotes Themistocles who thought speech can be appreciated only if heard . It was similar to the rich textiles of Arras that needed to be seen to be appreciated and admired for their beauty and craftsmanship.

In the same vein, human thoughts when shared can unlock cluttered minds . Packs of folded tapestry lie underappreciated and overlooked until it is unravelled.

Self vs others

Bacon sage advice from well-meaning friends often leads to desirable consequences. Sometimes intuition, instincts, and emotions can tint and obfuscate one’s own judgment.

Our inherent biases can create complexities that can be eased by wise friends. Bacon points at Heraclitus who considered such invaluable advice as ‘ dry and pure light ’ enlightening and comforting.

Notwithstanding that one should be aware of one’s own limitations of value judgment. It is very rare that men are adequately self-critical and inherent weakness should not cause us to reject the sound advice of able and well-intentioned men.

Such advice can have two purposes. Firstly, personal i.e. out of the goodness of one’s heart and  secondly, conduct  for the preservation of self-interest i.e. for business. Such criticism acts as a check on one’s pride and a cure for vanity.

History is replete with examples of powerful men who committed the biggest of blunders and damaged their name and position only for a want of some good advice from good friends.

Bacon quotes St. James who warned people against the blindness induced by self-deception regarding one’s own faults and limitations.

Similarly, a gambler thinks he sees better than the onlookers or a gun can be fired as efficiently from a rest as from the arm. These musings reflect an arrogant and conceited mind which can lead to dire consequences for the individual.

Any good business advisor always weighs the pros and cons and extends the best counsel without hesitation. A man can ask different advice from different friends and it is better than always gunning by one’s own instincts.

Bacon says that every counsellor is limited by his own ability to analyze and study the matter , even if he intends well. Therefore, there always exists a risk that the outcome of such advice is undesirable.

Bacon gives the analogy of a well-meaning but incompetent doctor who gives the wrong medicine to the patient without enquiring about his medical history.  Instead of getting a cure, this could lead to more damage and even death.

To conclude

Multiple counsellors might lead to multiple and often conflicting paths be.  The two main advantages of friendship are emotional support and good advice .

Bacon enlists the third benefit too. He explains it in terms of the pomegranate fruit. He says that a good friend has many parts for different occasions just like the many kernels inside the pomegranate.

Bacon feels that a loyal and self-sacrificing friend is a friend not just for life but even in death . A true friend will honour is departed friend’s wishes and take care of his responsibilities like taking care of his family, finish all the unfinished things like repayment of debts etc.

Another advantage is of the delegation of authority . At any given point of time, a friend can fill in for any person. Be it running a business or defending the house or safekeeping secrets, a loyal friend is a true blessing.

Bacon feels that when someone is trying to convince others of his value and qualities, he tends to be consumed with haughtiness and thus is easily ridiculed by them. On the other hand, sometimes people become too self-aware and shy and find it difficult to praise themselves.

They feel awkward in asking for a favour or even something they deserve or merit. These problems can be obviated through the agency of a loyal friend who has more social utility and functions that people normally assume.

Thus, friends bring a lot easy in such difficult situations and help break barriers of communication . Bacon ends the essay condemning an unsociable man without friends as an aloof being not fit to belong to society.

Can you answer What did Francis Bacon discover as a prose writer?

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Of Friendship by Francis Bacon | Full Text

Of Friendship by Francis Bacon : Full Text

IT HAD been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder, after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate, till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas, about the marriage of his daughter Julia , Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed, and reckoned, as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi; and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship, between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus, in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me. Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they mought have a friend, to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.

• Line by Line Explanation from Bacon’s Essay Of Friendship

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends, to open themselves unto, are carnnibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth, of operation upon a man’s mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone, for man’s body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this, in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds.

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles, to the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel, is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

• Bacon’s Of Friendship: 10 Important Short Question and Answers

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part, in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are, which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear, that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times, in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him, and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful, in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations, which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

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Of Friendship by Francis Bacon

IT had been hard for him that spake 1 it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in soltitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self for a higher conversation: 2 such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo [A great town is a great solitude]; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. 1 A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza 3 to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. 2 It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum [partners of cares]; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men. 3 L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s over-match. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Cæsar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Cæsar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he consulted with Mæcenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Mæcenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Cæsar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Hæc pro amicitiâ nostrâ non occultavi [These things, as our friendship required, I have not concealed from you]; and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like or more was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me. Now if these princes had been as a Trajan or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, 4 except they mought have a friend to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. 4 It is not to be forgotten what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy; namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least off all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on and saith that towards his latter time that closeness 5 did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable 6 of Pythagoras is dark, but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth of operation upon a man’s mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone 7 for man’s body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengthened and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds. 5 The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; 8 whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. 9 6 Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account is a medicine, sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is well (that is to say, better perhaps than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct. 7 After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing 10 of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

More from Francis Bacon :

• Of Vicissitude of Things
• Of Judicature
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• Of Vain-glory

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Essays (Francis Bacon) (1625)

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Essays of Francis Bacon The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans

Of friendship.

IT HAD been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder, after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate, till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas, about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed, and reckoned, as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi; and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship, between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus, in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me. Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they mought have a friend, to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends, to open themselves unto, are carnnibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth, of operation upon a man’s mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone, for man’s body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this, in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds.

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles, to the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel, is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part, in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are, which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear, that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times, in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him, and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful, in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations, which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

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