The essays, of course, contain much more than this; the spirit of curious and restless enquiry which animated Bacon finds expression in those on "Health," or "Gardens" and "Plantations" and others of the kind; and a deeper vein of earnestness runs through some of them--those for instance on "Friendship," or "Truth" and on "Death." The _Essays_ sum up in a condensed form the intellectual interests which find larger treatment in his other works.

His _Henry VII._, the first piece of scientific history in the English language (indeed in the modern world) is concerned with a king whose practice was the outcome of a political theory identical with Bacon's own.

The _Advancement of Learning_ is a brilliant popular exposition of the cause of scientific enquiry and of the inductive or investigatory method of research.

The _New Atlantis_ is the picture of an ideal community whose common purpose is scientific investigation.

Bacon's name is not upon the roll of those who have enlarged by brilliant conjectures or discoveries the store of human knowledge; his own investigations so far as they are recorded are all of a trivial nature.