| But the scope and range of the essay had not yet been discovered. Bacon’s first series must have appealed to men as a manual of diplomacy, a kind of Complete Courtier; and, for this reason, Sir William Cornwallis’s work has an importance which its literary merit would not have justified. He produced in 1600 and 1601 two sets of essays, with some of the diffuseness, but none of the charm, of Montaigne. He, too, discussed problems of high life, especially the means by which men rise to prominence or favour; and, in many places, he gives the same advice as his more illustrious predecessor. But he has introduced a personal touch (also a feature of Montaigne) which was afterwards to become a characteristic of the essay. His reflections are sometimes prefaced by curious confidences and self-revelations which give them the air of a diary. Again, his outlook is wider. The study of Plutarch’s Lives had given him an admiration for manliness, wisdom and heroism, and he examines modern character and enterprise from this point of view; thus showing how to use the past as a commentary on the present. And, above all, he formulates the new ideal 89 of gentlemanly culture; the man of no special science but of liberal interests, 90 who can turn all kinds of books, even nursery rimes and street ballads, to his profit, 91 talk of horses and hawks to those who understand nothing deeper, and use all knowledge “to looke upon man.” 92 |
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