For we have all been so taken up with the Baconian _Logic_ hitherto and its wonderful effects in the relief of the human estate, that the Baconian RHETORIC has all this time escaped our notice; and nobody appears to have suspected that there was anything in _that_ worth looking at; any more than they suspect that there is anything in some of those other divisions which the philosopher himself lays so much stress on his proposal for the Advancement of Learning,--in his proposal for the advancement of it into _all_ the fields of human activity. But we read this proposition still, as James the First was expected to read it, and all these departments which are brought into that general view in such a dry and formal and studiously scholastic manner, appear to be put there merely to fill up a space; and because the general plan of this so erudite performance happened to include them.
For inasmuch as the real scope and main bearing of this proposition, though it is in fact _there_, is of course _not_ there, in any such form as to attract the particular attention of the monarch to whose eye the work is commended; and inasmuch as the new art of a scientific Rhetoric is already put to its most masterly use in reserving that main design, for such as may find themselves able to receive it, of course, the need of any such invention is not apparent on the surface of the work, and the real significance of this new doctrine of Art and its radical relation to the new science, is also reserved for that class of readers who are able to adopt the rules of interpretation which the work itself lays down. Because the real applications of the New Logic could not yet be openly discussed, no one sees as yet, that there was, and had to be, a Rhetoric to match it.
For this author, who was not any less shrewd than the one whose methods we have just been observing a little, had also early discovered in the great personages of his time, a disposition to moderate his voice whenever he went to speak to them on matters of importance, in his natural key, for his voice too, was naturally loud, and high as he gives us to understand, though he '_could_ speak small like a woman'; he too had learned to take the tone _from the ear of him to whom he spake_, and he too had learned, that it was not enough merely to speak so as to make himself heard by those whom he wished to affect. He also had learned to speak according to the affair he had in hand, according to the purpose which he wished to accomplish. He also is of the opinion that different kinds of _audiences_ and different _times_, require different modes of speech, and though he found it necessary to compose his works in the style and language of his own time, he was confident that it was a language which would not remain in use for many ages; and he has therefore provided himself with another, more to his mind which he has taken pains to fold carefully within the other, and one which lie thinks will bear the wear and tear of those revolutions that he perceives to be imminent.