BACON, Roger, a Franciscan friar of great genius and learning, was born near Ilchester in Somersetshire in the year 1214. He began his studies at Oxford, but in what school or college is uncertain. Thence he removed to the university of Paris, which in those times was esteemed the centre of literature. Here, we are told, he made such rapid progress in the sciences, that he was esteemed the glory of that university, and was much caressed by several of his countrymen, particularly by Robert Greathead, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, his friend and patron. About the year 1240 he returned to Oxford, and, assuming the Franciscan order, prosecuted his favourite study of experimental philosophy with unremitting ardour and assiduity. In this pursuit, in experiments, instruments, and scarce books, he tells us he spent, in the space of twenty years, no less than L.2000, which, it seems, was given him by some of· the heads of the university to enable him to continue his interesting inquiries. But such extraordinary talents, and astonishing progress in sciences which, in that ignorant age, were totally unknown to the rest of mankind, whilst they raised the admiration of the more intelligent few, failed not to excite the envy and malice of his illiterate fraternity, who found no difficulty in possessing the vulgar with the notion that Bacon dealt with the devil. Under this pretence he was restrained from reading his lectures; his writings were confined to his convent; and, finally, in 1278, he was himself imprisoned in his cell. At this time he was sixty-four years of age. Nevertheless, being permitted the use of his books, he persevered in the rational pursuit of knowledge, corrected his former labours, and wrote several curious pieces. When he had been ten years in confinement, Jerome de Ascoli being elected pope, Bacon solicited his holiness for release, but did not immediately succeed in his object. However, towards the latter end of that pope’s reign he obtained his liberty, and spent the remainder of his life in the college of his order, where he died in 1294, in the eightieth year of his age, and was buried in the Franciscan church. Bale and others have enumerated a multitude of pieces as written by Bacon, and existing in manuscript in various collections. Several of his tracts were published in the work entitled Epistolae Fratris Rogeri Baconis de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturoe, et de Nullitate Magiae. Paris, 1542, 4to; Basil, 1593, 8vo. His Opus Majus, which forms a sort of digest of his preceding writings, remained unpublished till 1733, when it was given to the world in a handsome folio volume by Dr Jebb. Some of his chemical tracts maybe found in the Thesaurus Chemicus, published in an octavo volume at Frankfort in 1603 and 1620. By an attentive perusal of his works, the reader will find that Roger Bacon was a great linguist and a skilful grammarian; that he was well versed in the theory and practice of perspective; that he understood the use of convex and concave glasses, the camera obscura, burning-glasses, &c.; that he was conversant in geography and astronomy; that he knew the great error in the calendar, assigned the cause, and proposed the remedy; that he understood chronology well; that he was in all probability the inventor of gun-powder; that he possessed considerable knowledge in the medical art; and that he was an able mathematician, logician, and theologist.

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, lord keeper of the great seal in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst in Kent in 1510, and educated at the university of Cambridge, after which he travelled in France, and made some stay at Paris. On his return he settled in Gray’s Inn, and applied himself with such assiduity to the study of the law, that he quickly distinguished himself; and, on the dissolution of the monastery of St Edmund’s Bury in [7:4:276]Suffolk, he had a grant from King Henry VIΠ., in the thirty-sixth year of his reign, of several manors. In the thirty-eighth of the same king he was promoted to the office of attorney in the court of wards, which was a place both of honour and profit. In this office he was continued by King Edward VI.; and in 1552 he was elected treasurer of Gray’s Inn. His great moderation and consummate prudence preserved him through the dangerous reign of Queen Mary. In the very dawn of that of Elizabeth he was knighted; and on the 22d of December 1558, the great seal of England having been taken from Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York, was delivered to him, with the title of Lord Keeper; and he was also made one of the queen’s privy council. He had a considerable share in the settling of religion; and, as a statesman, he was remarkable for a clear head and wise counsels. But his great parts and high preferment were far from raising him in his own estimation, as appears from the modest answer he gave Queen Elizabeth when she told him his house at Redgrave was too little for him: “Not so, madam,” returned he; “but your majesty has made me too great for my house.” After having held the great seal more than twenty years, this able statesman and faithful counsellor was suddenly removed from the scene of his labours. He had been under the hands of his barber, and, thinking the weather warm, had ordered á window before him to be thrown open; but he fell asleep as the current of fresh air was blowing in upon him, and awakened some time after distempered all over. He was immediately removed into his bed-chamber, where he died a few days after, on the 26th of February 1578-9, equally lamented by the queen and her subjects. He was buried in St Paul’s, where a monument was erected to him, which was destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666. Mr Granger observes that he was the first lord keeper who ranked as lord chancellor; and that he had much of that penetrating genius, solidity, judgment, persuasive eloquence, and comprehensive knowledge of law and equity, which afterwards shone forth with so great splendour in his illustrious son.

Bacon, Francis, baron of Verulam, viscount of St Alban’s, and lord high chancellor of England under King James I. See Verulam, Francis Bacon, baron of. This reference is made in the expectation that we shall be able, by means of it, to give a more correct and comprehensive sketch of Lord Bacon’s life than could be drawn from our present materials. His philosophy is fully explained in the historical dissertations forming the first volume of this work. See vol. i. p. 32 and 453.

Bacon, John, academician, born 24th November 1740, who may be considered as the founder of the British school of sculpture, and whose works are still its greatest boast, was the son of Thomas Bacon, cloth-worker in Southwark, whose forefathers possessed a considerable estate in Somersetshire.

At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice in Mr Crispe’s manufactory of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but soon attained the distinction of being modeller to the work. The produce of his labour was devoted by him, from his earliest years, towards the support of his parents. While thus engaged, he had an opportunity of seeing the models executed by different sculptors of eminence, which were sent to be burned at an adjoining pottery. An observation of these productions appears to have immediately determined the direction of his genius; and his progress in the imitation of them was no less rapid than his propensity to the pursuit was strong. His ardour and unremitting diligence are best proved by the fact, that the highest premiums given by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in those particular classes in which he was a competitor, were adjudged to him nine times between the years 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship he likewise formed the design of working statues in artificial stone, which he afterwards carried to perfection.

Mr Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and, during the course of his early efforts in this art, was led, by the resources of his genius, to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically called getting out the points), by the invention of a more perfect instrument for this purpose, and which has since been adopted by many sculptors both in this and other countries.^[1. The invention has sometimes been erroneously ascribed to Monsieur Hudon, a French sculptor. ] The advantages which this instrument possesses above those formerly employed are, its greater certainty and exactness, that it takes a correct measurement in every direction, is contained in so small a compass as not to encumber the workman, and is transferable either to the model or the marble, as may be required, without the necessity of a separate instrument for each.

In the year 1769 the first gold medal given by the Royal Academy was adjudged to Bacon, and in 1770 he was associated by that body. His first work in sculpture was a bust of his majesty George HL, intended for Christ Church College. It is said, that of sixteen different competitions in which he engaged with other artists, he was unsuccessful in one case only. His knowledge of the antique style was for a time called in question; and on occasion of the doubts which were raised on this point, he is reported to have modelled his head of Jupiter Tonans, as the most satisfactory method of repelling the charge. The objection probably originated from the circumstance, that in some of his principal works the figures were represented in the costume of modern times, of which his statue of Justice Blackstone at All Souls College, Oxford, and that of Howard in St Paul’s Cathedral, are remarkable examples. But his genius was not subjected to the trammels of this or of any one style exclusively. Many of his emblematical figures are designed after the purest models, and in a taste altogether classical. Among several of this character, the monument to Mrs Draper, in the cathedral of Bristol, is exquisitely simple. In his later productions, likewise, particularly those of a monumental kind, he introduced frequent examples of the ancient style; as in the well-known monument to the earl of Chatham in Westminster Abbey, that to Lord Robert Manners, and others which might be mentioned. “Another marble, scarcely finished at the time of his death,” says Dallaway, in his Anecdotes of the Arts in England, “will secure him a lasting fame for originality and classical taste. It is the cenotaph lately erected in Westminster Abbey to the poet Mason. A muse, holding his profile on a medallion, reclines on an antique altar, on which are sculptured, in relief, a lyre, the tragic masque and laurel wreath; all of the most correct form, as seen on ancient sarcophagi of the pure ages.”

On the 4th of August 1799 Mr Bacon was suddenly attacked with an inflammation of the bowels, which occasioned his death in little more than two days. He died in his 59th year, leaving a widow, his second wife, and a family of six sons and three daughters.

Of his merit as a statuary, the universal and established reputation of his works has afforded the decisive proof “The works of Bacon, Bankes, Nollekins, Wilton, and [7:4:277]Flaxman,” says Dallaway, and to these might now perhaps be added other names of nearly equal promise, “will rescue the present age from being totally indebted to foreigners for perfection in statuary.” The various productions of this artist which adorn St Paul’s Cathedral, Christ Church and Pembroke Colleges, Oxford, the Abbey Church at Bath, and Bristol Cathedral, give ample testimony to his oowers; above all, those great and prominent works among the monuments in Westminster Abbey.

But it was not as an artist only that Mr Bacon was esteemed; -he was no less distinguished by the firmness of his mind, and the uprightness of his private character. His principles were deeply founded, and the virtues which he strove to attain were measured by a standard more unbending than the mere dictates of feeling or of a cultivated taste. He was an avowed believer in the truths of the Christian religion; and in him this belief exhibited its corresponding effects, by producing a consistent influence upon his whole character and conduct. In this manner, the strength of his principles, and the reality of his conviction, were daily manifested throughout his life, than which, no test of sincerity is more unequivocal, no instruction more useful, and no recommendation more persuasive.

Mr Bacon was remarkable for the simplicity of his manners, and was in all things devoid of ostentation. Of the general powers of his mind, and particularly of his acute and just perception in matters of taste connected with his art, a very favourable opinion will be formed by those who peruse the article Sculpture which he contributed to Dr Rees’s edition of Chambers’s Dictionary.

See Memoir of the late John Paeon, R. A., by the Reverend Richard Cecil. London, 1811.