Bacon s Contribution English prose owes a great deal to Bacons way of writing.

A critic rightly pointed out that Hooker and Bacon did really great things for the development of English prose . When alliteration, antithesis, similes from unnatural natural history were rampant, these two men showed that English was as capa le as the classics of serving the highest purposes of language. !hey showed that it was possi le in English also to e"press the su tleties of thought in clear, straightforward, and uninvolved sentences and when necessary, to condense the greatest amount of meaning into the fewest possi le words. Bacon shows himself in his essays to e a consummate rhetorician. He made for himself a style which though not #uite fle"i le and modern, was unmatcha le for pith and pregnancy. When the ulk of English prose was written in loose sentences of enormous length, he supplied at once a short, crisp and firmly knit sentence of a type unfamiliar in English. He re$ected the conceits and overcrowded imagery of the Euphuists. %or the students of e"pression, his essays are of endless interest and profit for their remarka le compactness and nervous vitality. &ompton 'ickett says, ( Emerson is the one modern writer with whom Bacon may e fairly compared, for their method is much the same. )n each case you have a series of trenchant and apparently disconnected sayings, where the writer endeavours to reach the readers mind y a series of Aphoristic attacks.* &ompton 'ickett o serves again, ( &omparing Bacon with his predecessors, Hooker, +idney, ,yly, Ascham, it will e seen how widely he departs from the proli" methods of the day. )n rhetorical power, musical cadence, #uaint turns of speech, he is e#ualled y many of his contemporaries, e"celled y a few, ut for a clear, terse, easy writing, he has no peer save Ben -onson, and even today his essays are models of succinct , lucid prose. Hugh Walker assessing the contri ution of Bacon to the development of English prose o serves, ( Bacon took one of the longest steps ever taken in the evolution of English prose style. English prose was already rich and sonorous. Hooker still ranks as one of our greatest stylists. +o does 'eleigh. But while these writers have ma$esty and strength, it cannot e said that they were the masters of a style suited to all the purposes which prose must su serve. !he sentences were inconveniently long , fre#uently involved and o scure. )n his essays, Bacon did furnish a model. !he sentences had to e short. With shortness came lucidity.* !he same critic maintains further, ( !he essays of Bacon have to e read slowly and thoughtfully, not ecause the style is o scure, ut ecause they were e"tremely condensed. !he grammatical structure is sometimes loose, ut it is rarely am iguous. With shortness came also fle"i ility.* !erseness of e"pression and epigrammatic revity are the most striking #ualities of Bacons style. Bacon possessed a marvellous power of compressing into a few words an idea which ordinary writers would e"press in several sentences. .any of his sentences have aphoristic #uality. !hey are like prover s and ma"ims full of worldly wisdom indeed. ( He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.* /f .arriage and +ingle ,ife ( +ome ooks are to e tasted, others to e swallowed, and some few to e chewed and digested.* /f +tudies. ( A mi"ture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.* /f !ruth Aphorisms impart singular force and weight to his essays. Bacon achieves this terseness of style often y avoiding superfluous words and y omitting the ordinary $oints and sinews of speech. At times he ecomes even o scure ecause of e"treme condensation. Another #uality of Bacons style is his recurrent use of figurative language. )n his essay, /f !ruth, he gives us very vivid and apt similes and metaphors to illustrate his ideas. He compares truth to a naked open daylight. He compares falsehood to an alloy in a coin of gold or silver. )n his essay, /f %riendship, he says, ( %or a crowd is not company, and faces are ut a gallery of pictures, and talk ut a tinkling cym al, where there is no love.* Again the essays of Bacon are full of illustrations, allusions, and #uotations from ,atin and 0reek sources as well. !hey show his love of learning and e"hi it his knowledge of the classics. )n the essay, /f !ruth, there are allusions to 1ilate, ,ucian, ,ucretius, and .ontaigne. He makes his style more scholarly and grand y using #uotations from the Bi le, ,atin and 0reek. While concluding Bacons contri ution on the whole, &ompton 'ickett o serves, ( )n his Advancement of ,earning, he is one of the earliest to seek to consolidate and unify his knowledge2 in his Essays, he is the pioneer of clear sententious English, that suggests rather than e"pounds, and lends dignity with familiarity, in that pleased and attractive manner which is the secret of the power of all our great essayists. Again in his Henry 3ii , he shows the possi ilities of a flowing, orderly and pictures#ue narrative that shall compel attention without recourse to strained conceits. %inally, in his 4ew Atlantis, with its plea for a &ollege of +cientific research, he started a movement that led to the foundation our 'oyal +ociety.* &ompton 'ickett further maintains5 His literary methods are then of the orator, not the dialectician2 he is not good in argument2 not relia le even in e"position. )n fact, he is a valua le, intellectual irritant rather than a constructive force.2 an intellectual irritant with fine rich literary resources at his command2 fertile in illustration , luminous in suggestion, and with considera le power to challenge and arrest the attention.* .alcolm &owley well compared him with .oses on 1isgah, surveying the 1romised ,and, ut not entering into possession. Bacon gave strength and simplicity to English prose putting an end to the proli"ity and diffuseness of his predecessors.