He did not believe that it
was a language that would live. And as he wanted his books to be
read by people all over the world and in all time to come, he
wrote his greatest books in Latin. He grieved that he had wasted
time in writing English, and he had much that he wrote in English
translated into Latin during his lifetime.
It seems strange to us now that in an age when Spenser and
Shakespeare had show the world what the English tongue had power
to do that any man should have been able to disbelieve in its
greatness. But so it was, and Bacon translated his books into
Latin so that they might live when English books "were not."
I will not weary you with a list of all the books Bacon wrote.
Although it is not considered his greatest work, that by which
most people know him is his Book of Essays. By an essay, Bacon
meant a testing or proving. In the short chapters of his essays
he tries and proves many things such as Friendship, Study, Honor;
and when you come to read these essays you will be surprised to
find how many of the sentences are known to you already.
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