Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

620 NOTES.
His education prince-like; generally knowen in all things, and
excellent in many, seasoning his grave and more important studies
for ability in judgment, with studies of pastime for retiring, as in
poetrie, musike and the mathematikes; and for ornament in discourse in the languages, French, Italian, and English, wherein he is
expert; reading much, conferring and writting much. lie is a full
mCan, a readie man, an exact man.
And as we learn from the dedication of the ed. 1597, that MS.
copies had got abroad, it is probable that Monings Ihad seen the
Essay on Study, and being struck with the passage appropriated it.
p. 473, 1 9. - Lord Bacon's encorniums on the study of Mathlematics,
as affording the best discipline for an ill-regulated mind, are
numerous and emphatic. In addition to the one contained in
the text, he has said elsewhere, -
Men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the Pure
Mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the
wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too du11ll, they
sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense,
tley abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but
of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a bodye ready to put
itself into all postures; so in the Mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal
and intended. - Ado. of Learning, 11. 8, ~ 3. Works, IIT. 330.
The observation in the Essay is repeated in the De Augmentis,'VI 4:
If one be bird-witted, that is easily distracted and unable to keep
his attention as long as lie sliould, Mathematics provides a remedy;
for in them if the mind be caughot away but a moment, the demonstration has to be comnmenced anew. - Works, IV. p. 493. Adv. of
Learning, II. 19, ~ 2.
p. 473, 1. 13. "for they are Cymini Sectores." See "Adv. of
Learning," I. 7, ~ 7:Antoninus Piusas cas alle Cymini Sector, a carver or divider of
cuirnmin seed, which is one of the least seeds: such a patien-e he had
and settled spirit to enter into the least and most exact differences
of causes.