Verie Sillie People

• The Oxford Francis Bacon Vol. I: Early Writings 1584-96 edited by Alan Stewart, with Harriet Knight
  Oxford, 1066 pp, £200.00, September 2012, ISBN 978 0 19 818313 6

Philosopher, lawyer, essayist, historian, theorist of experimental inquiry and prophet of organised scientific research, Francis Bacon combined soaring intellectual ambition with a relentless quest for worldly advancement. The scholar who sought to reclassify the whole of human knowledge and lay the foundations for the systematic conquest of nature was also the careerist who desperately sought public office, working his way up to become James I’s lord chancellor, only to be brought down by his political opponents on a charge of corruption.