Note 44 — DIALOGUE II. ON RETIREMENT.

Lord Bacon gives another account of this matter.—“As for the privateness of life of contemplative men, it is a theme so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison, and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, as no man handleth it, but handleth it well: such a consonancy it hath to men’s conceits in the expressing, and to men’s consents in the allowing.” [Adv. of Learning, Book 1.]