A New Years Eve Tribute IF ONE COULD BUT PAINT HIS MIND Who is it?

A New Years Eve Tribute IF ONE COULD BUT PAINT HIS MIND Who is it?

These lines of praise are from those who knew him except Shelly and no word altered by me. ERL (2009)

If one but could paint his mind Hilliard his portrait painter (1576)

Thy bounty and the beauty of thy wit John Davies (1610)

But none who hath so astonished me and, as it were, ravished my senses, to see so many and so great parts which in other men were wont to be incompatible, united, and in that eminent degree in one sole person Toby Mathews (1617)

… a muse more rare than the nine Muses. Samuel Collins (1626) Eleg

And thy whole tongue is moist with celestial nectar!
How well combinest thou merry wit with silent gravity!
How firmly thy love stands by those once admitted to it Thomas Champon (1619)

Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile! How comes it all things so about thee smile? The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst, Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou did’st! Ben Jonson, (1621)

The very nerve of genius, the marrow of persuasion, the golden stream of eloquence, the precious gem of concealed literature – R. C., T. C. (1626) Elegy

You have filled the world with your writings, and the ages with your fame C.D. (1626)

… extensive is art, how contracted is life, how everlasting fame; he who was in our sphere the brilliant Light-Bearer, and trod great paths of glory, passes, and fixed in his own orb shines refulgent Anon (1626) Elegy

The day-star of the Muses has set before his hour! Anon (1626) Elegy

But he dispelled also the darkness which murky antiquity and blear-eyed old age of former times had brought about; and his super-human sagacity instituted new methods and tore away the labyrinthine windings, but gave us his own Thomas Randolf (1626) Elegy

Break pens, tear up writings, if the dire goddesses may justly act so. Alas! what a tongue is mute! what eloquence ceases! Whither have departed the nectar and ambrosia of your genius John Williams (1626) Elegy

Ah, the tenth muse and glory of the choir has perished. Ah, never before has Apollo himself been truly unhappy! Anon (1626) Elegy

Supreme both in eloquence and writing, under every head renowned Anon (1626) Elegy

For if venerable Virtue and the wreaths of wisdom make an ancient, you were older than Nestor Gawen Nash (1626) Elegy

Think you, foolish traveller, that the leader of the choir of the muses and of Phoebus is interred in cold marble? Away, you are deceived. The Verulamium star now glitters in ruddy Olympus Anon (1626) Elegy

… but your fame adheres not to sculptured columns, nor is read on the tomb, ‘Stay, traveller, your steps’ Thomas Vincent (1626) Elegy

If any progeny recalls their sire, not of the body is it, but born, so to speak, of the brain, as Minerva’s from Jove’s Thomas Vincent (1626) Elegy

to true nobility, and tryde learning, beholden To no Mountaine for Eminence, nor supportment for height … Thomas Powell, Dedication, Attourney’s Academy (1630)

No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke … No man had their affections more in his power.

In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born that could honour a language, or help study. So that he may be named and stand as the mark and acme of our language…

But I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. … I ever prayed that God would give him strength: for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest. Ben Jonson, Discoveries (1641), p 102.

… of many wise and worthy persons of our times; as Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Fra. Bacon, Cardinal Perron, the ablest of his countrymen, and the former Pope who, they say, instead of the triple crown wore sometimes the poet’s ivy as an ornament perhaps of lesser weight and trouble. But Madam, these Nightingales sung only in the Spring, it was the diversion of their youth. Preface to Waller’s Poems (164.5.

(he)…was a creature of incomparable abilities of mind, of a sharp and catching apprehension, large and faithful memory, plentiful and sprouting invention, deep and solid judgement, for as such as might concern the understanding part. A man so rare in knowledge, of so many several kinds endued with the facility and felicity of expressing it in all so elegant, significant, so abundant, and yet so choice and ravishing a way of words, of metaphors and allusions as, perhaps, the world hath not seen, since it was a world. Tobie Matthew, Preface to his Collection of Letters (published 1660).

And those who have true skill in the works of the Lord Verulam, like great masters in painting, can tell by the design, the strength, the way of colouring, whether he was the author of this or the other piece, though his name be not to it. Archbishop Tenison Baconiana or Certaine Genuine Remains of Sir Francis Bacon (1679)

He carried himself with such sweetness comity and generosity that he was much revered and beloved by the readers and gentlemen of the house … Children he had none … yet he bade other issues to perpetrate his name, the issues in his brain … Neither did the want of children detract from his good usage of his consort during the intermarriage whom he prosecuted with much conjugical love and respect Rawley A Short History of Sir Francis Bacon.

His language has a sweet and majectic rythm, which satisfies ths sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdome of his philophy satisfies the intelect Percy Byshe Shelly