LORD BACON'S ESSAYS OR COUNSELS MORAL AND CIVIL
Book Details + Condition: Early edition from 1720. Translated from the Latin by William Willtmott. Printed for Henry Parson, at the Turk's-Head in Grace Church Street (London). Complete in 2 volumes. Measures 8" x 5.5". Full leather boards with raised bands and gilt on spines. Pagination: 432; 503. Celebrated today as a writer and scientist, Francis Bacon was for the most part of his life occupied with the law and public affairs at a high level. Although personally devastating, his fall from public office in 1621 nonetheless served to liberate him for his own work and the last five years of his life saw an enormous output in the most varied fields. It is to this period that we owe the last and most popular work published in his lifetime, the Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625). Focusing on the ethical, political and historical constraints and influences on human behavior and following principles laid down by rhetorical theory, Bacon sought to systematize his observations on such diverse topics as beauty, deformity, fortune, adversity, ambition, friendship, truth, marriage, atheism and superstition. Persuasive and diagnostic, his Essays are valued for many reasons, not least their combination of a dispassionate observation of human life with powerfully expressed moral judgements. For both volumes: boards appear to have been re-attached at some point (with brown binding tape to the inside hinges), and binding remains tight and solid; shelf wear to leather boards; natural age toning to pages; text remains clean and unmarked.
