The Essays

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Albans, Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor of England, was an immensely learned, clever and ambitious man, with considerable political influence during the later years of Queen Elizabeth I and through almost two decades of the reign of her successor James I. However, he was also a philosopher with a wide interest in science, medicine and the classification of knowledge. Throughout his life he wrote a series of essays - following the manner set particularly by Montaigne, though extending back to Aristotle and others - the first 10 of which appeared in 1597.  In 1625, the year before his death, he produced a final collection comprising 58 essays entitled Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, which has remained one of his most important and popular books. In the collection he considers a wide range of subjects, beginning with 'Of Truth', 'Of Death', 'Of Religion' and concluding with 'Of Anger', 'Of Vicissitude of Things'. A final wo