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Home  »  Essays, Civil and Moral  »  Of Seditions and Troubles

Francis Bacon. (1561–1626).  Essays, Civil and Moral.The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.

XV

Of Seditions and Troubles

 
SHEPHERDS of people had need know the calendars 1 of tempests in state; which are commonly greatest when things grow to equality; as natural tempests are greatest about the Equinoctia. And as there are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a tempest, so are there in states:
        —— Ille etiam cæcos instare tumultus
Sæpe monet, fraudesque et operta tumescere bella.
[Of troubles imminent and treasons dark
Thence warning comes, and wars in secret gathering. Virgil]
        Illam Terra parens, irâ irritata deorum,
Extremam (ut perhibent) Cœo Enceladoque sororem
Progenuit.
[Her, Parent Earth, furious with the anger of the gods, brought forth, the youngest sister (as they affirm) of Coeus and Enceladus.]