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INTRODUCTION

Francis Bacon is considered the 'Father of English essays' due to his innovative
writing style. Bacon’s essays have a certain unique characteristic which make us
question the classification of essay. He rejects the flowing, ornate and copious
Ciceronian style and follows the mode of Lypsian brevity and the cryptic aphoristic
Senecan sentence structure. Despite this quite paradoxically Bacon is a rhetorical
writer and his Essays are marked by the general ornateness, the fondness of
imagery, the love of analogy and metaphor, which are so much in the taste of the
time. It is also very highly Latinized. But it’s most important characteristics are
its marvelous terseness and epigrammatic force. Here is an unparalleled power of
packing his thoughts into the smallest possible space. Bacon’s style is compact yet
polished and indeed some of its conciseness is due to the skillful adaptation of
Latin idiom and phrase. He has distinctive features that fame his works through the
ages.

COMPARISON AS A WRITING STRATEGY

He used analogy by using imagery drawn from nature metaphor and simile using
comparing unlike things by using familiar objects. He has adopted the prose style
of French Essayist De Montagne for his own purpose. His essays distinct from the
current essay as genera of literature. Bacon's essays are often lack coherence. He
used simile and metaphor as a rhetoric device to compare things. He used comparison
in many of his essays.
Like in his essay "Of Studies " he elaborate his point that natural abilities need
to be trimmed and bounded by study, Bacon makes use of a simile, which very aptly
emphasizes his point:

“…………. For natural abilities are like natural plants that need proyning by
study.”

Through an exquisite simile drawn for Botany he compares human mind to a growing
plant. As the growing plants needs to be pruned and watered and manured for optimum
development, the new growing conscience of us are to be tutored, mounded, oriented
and devised by studies. Our natural abilities which might lead to savagery need to
be trimmed by study for the healthy growth of the personality.
In order to emphasize his idea that abridged
or summarized versions of books, however, necessary in some cases, ultimately lacks
the charm or taste of reading Bacon makes another simile: “…… distilled books are
like common distilled waters, flashy things”.
In Of Studies Bacon uses another befitting metaphor where
learned men are compared to Marshal because like a Marshal’s management of his army
in the battlefield, learned men plan and proceed the general problems of life: “………
and to the plots and marshaling of affairs come best from those that are learned”

His another essay "Of truth" is filled with metaphors and similies. He uses
metaphor to compares truth to a pearl which shines bright in the day light but is
fixed with its properties and lie to diamond which shines differently in different
lights.
Later he uses similie to compare lie with the alloy used in the gold
coin which does make the work better but lowers the quality. The essay also
contains the example of epigrams such as: .......... " A mixture of lie doth ever
add pleasure "............

In his another essay "Of Discourse "alsoBacon freely resorts to the use of
simile. For instance, in order to suggest how to avoid ‘poser’ who constantly
questions and does not allow seeking others, in the. conversation, Bacon writes:
 “Nay, if there be any, that would reign and take up all the time, let
him finde meanes to take them off, and to bring others on; As musicians use to doe,
with those, that dance too long Galiards”.
Again in the very concluding part of Discourse we find another simile
where discretion of speech is termed not only eloquent, but also quick and accurate
as it is be twist the greyhound and the hare: “….. As we see in Beasts, that those
that are weakest in the course are yet nimblest in the turne; as it is betwixt the
Greyhound and the Hare.”
In Of Discourse Bacon gives another exquisite example of metaphor:
“spare the spur, boy and use the reins more strongly”.
According to Bacon, running a conversation is alike riding a horse which needs both
the speed and control. Wit is like spur, a sharp pointed object that the riders
sometimes wear on the heels of their boots and use to encourage their horse to go
faster. In an argument we should exercise the reins in order to control the
galloping horse of speech rather than run it wildly.
In his essay "Of revenge " he uses comparison to make his point clear. KHe says
that revenge is a wild Justice just like a wild plant. It is present in man's
nature. Just like a wild plant should be omitted due to its bad effects on other
plants, like this revenge should also be omitted. He used alot of comparison in his
essays.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we can say that Bacon has the prose rhetoric that has few rivals and
no superiors in English. We also appreciate what George Saintsbury says in his A
short History of English Literature -“Whether Bacon was really ‘deep’ either in
knowledge or in thought, has been disputed; but he was certainly one of the
greatest rhetoricians, in the full and varied sense of rhetoric, that ever lived”.