Character of Lord Bacon’s Works – Compared as to Style with Sir Thomas Brown and Jeremy Taylor

'The first of these,' says Lord Bacon, 'is the extreme affection of two extremities; the one antiquity, the other novelty, wherein it seemeth the children of time do take after the nature and malice of the father. The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice consumeth. Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams. Lord Bacon in this part declares, 'that it is his purpose to enter into a laudative of learning or to make a Hymn to the Muses,' yet he has gone near to do this in the following observations on the dignity of knowledge.