OF FRIENDSHIP

 This essay was written by Bacon at the special request of his life-long friend, Toby Mathew.
 “Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god”-Aristotle. But Bacon viewed that an unsocial man is like a beast is true, like a god is extremely untrue.
 “Magna civitas, magna solitude” means “A great city is a great solitude”.
 Epimenides the Candian-said to have slept for fifty-seven years in a cave.
 Numa the Roman, the second king of Rome. He retired off and on into a cave.
 Empedocles the Sicilian, the philosopher of Sicily who leapt into the crater of the volcano Mount Etna to prove his divinity.
 Apollonius of Tyana, the philosopher who was supposed to posses the power of working miracles.
 Loneliness does not necessarily denote the absence of all human beings, but the absence of friends.
 A man without some true friends is living perpetually in absolute solitude. Solitude is but a state of mind, and the lack of true friends perpetuates this state.
 An important advantage of friendship is that it provides an outlet for a man’s pent-up feelings which he cannot communicate to the people at large.
 A man lightens his heart by conveying to his friends what is oppressing in it.
 Privadoes means intimate friends.
 A process of raising the status of a few selected individuals to make them serve as friends may spell inconvenience for a king as it makes many people jealous, and it may make some chosen favourites grown insolent.
 Sylla, the Roman emperor took Pompey as his special favourite and raised him  but Pompey asserted his superiority over his master through whose favour he had become so powerful.
 Bacon discusses the question as to why kings give so much importance to friendship. A king’s love and sacrifice for a friend do not proceed necessarily from his essential good nature. Even a selfish king cherishes his friends at the cost of his personal interest. Tiberius, Sylla, Julius Caesar, Augustus and Septimus Severus valued their respective friends. Now we cannot say that they loved their friends because of their essentially noble and beneficent character. These kings were not noble, enlightened and generous like, say, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.  They were rather selfish and worldly-wise. It was not, therefore, from an ample goodness of nature that their love for their friends originated. Bacon avers that it originated from a selfish motive. Being kings they enjoyed excessive happiness.
 Bacon is emphasizing the import of coming out with one’s secrets to one’s friends. Closeness or secrecy can impair even one’s mental faculties.
 The friendless man eats his own heart.
 The sharing of one’s secrets with one’s friends makes one’s joy double.
 A friendly discussion with friends makes them clear and unambiguous. He develops the capability of putting them forward more easily, arranging them in a more orderly manner.
 Themistocles- the Athenian statesman.
 His own wit is keen as razor for which the dull mind of the friend serves as a whetstone.

 Heraclitus, the famous Greek philosopher known as “the weeping philosopher”
 The Advice of a true friend will be objective, unprejudiced and reliable.
 There is much difference between the advice that a friend gives to a man and the advice that a man gives himself. The former, being impersonal and unprejudiced, is more reliable than the latter. A man is his own greatest flatterer for he has very high notions about his merits.
 A man who is asked advice may not give reliable and unselfish ways. He will have some personal ends in view. But sincere friend viewed only the interest of his friend who has asked for his advice.
 Bacon points out a possible danger inherent in the practice of calling for piecemeal advice. A man may get advice which may partly prove useful and partly harmful, even when the giver offers it with the best intentions. Bacon clarifies the point with simile. sometimes when we are suffering from disease we send for a specialist to cure us. If the specialist is unacquainted with our body he is likely to do us harm even if he is successful in curing the disease.
 Advice from a number of people will mislead.
 Friendship is like pomegranate.
 The fruit of friendship is made of a very large number of very small particles (seed). Friendship gives a large number of small benefits which are impressive not individuality but collectively.
 If a friend dies before the accomplishment of his cherished desires, there is his friend to step into his shoes and continue his work.
 “A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: Whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and  not as it sorteth with the person”.