Others reveal an utter incapacity to come near a subject, except as a strange external phenomena, like the essay on _Love_.

There is a distinct tendency in them to the Italian school of political and moral wisdom, the wisdom of distrust and of reliance on indirect and roundabout ways.

There is a group of them, "of _Delays_," "of _Cunning_," "of _Wisdom for a Man's Self_," "of _Despatch_," which show how vigilantly and to what purpose he had watched the treasurers and secretaries and intriguers of Elizabeth's and James's Courts; and there are curious self-revelations, as in the essay on _Friendship_.

But there are also currents of better and larger feeling, such as those which show his own ideal of "_Great Place_," and what he felt of its dangers and duties.

And mixed with the fantastic taste and conceits of the time, there is evidence in them of Bacon's keen delight in nature, in the beauty and scents of flowers, in the charm of open-air life, as in the essay on _Gardens_, "The purest of human pleasures, the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man." But he had another manner of writing for what he held to be his more serious work.