The father of English essay, Sir Francis Bacon was a busy man of the world.

He
was a keen and intelligent observer of man and his life. He took the outward form
of the essay from the French writer and philosopher Montaigne in as much as his
own essays are brief and incomplete in the sense that they explore only a few
aspects of a subject and do not pretend to be thorough, systematic and exhaustive.
He means by the word essay (as he says) certain brief notes set down rather
significantly than curiously. A man of such discursive interests, who took all
knowledge for the province, he used the essay form as a receptacle for detached
thoughts. He calls them disperse meditations

Bacon was fully justified in describing his essays as dispersed meditations. He

also described his essays as brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously,
using the word curiously to mean elaborately. Indeed, Bacon regarded the essays
as a receptacle for detached thoughts. Many of his essays resemble notebook
jottings. Some of his essays, especially Of Studies and Of Truth, are strings of
sentences that read like maxims. These sentences are not linked by any
development of ideas. There is of course no deviation from the central subject.
Almost every essay is a miscellaneous collection of ideas relating to a specific
subject.

Of course, Bacon does not stray away from the subject that he places before
himself. There are no digressions or divagations in his essays, nothing irrelevant or
unrelated to the theme. He does not allow his mind or fancy to loiter and roam. But
we cannot describe his essays as well-knit compositions because there are no tight
connections between the various ideas, and the ideas do not seem to flow from one
another. We cannot claim that an essay by Bacon is a structural unity. Ideas have
been put together in his essays almost at random. And what is more remarkable is
that in the interests of brevity and condensation of thought, even conjunctions and
other logical connections are sometimes left out.

His earlier essays are very brief in length. The ideas have not been developed. The
sentences are all crisp, short and sententious. Each sentence stands by itself, the
concentrated expression of weighty thought. There is so much of condensation that
each sentence could easily be developed into a paragraph. This is not to say that
each sentence does the work of a paragraph but that it contains matter that could be
elaborated into a paragraph. As Hugh Walker remarks these essays (such as Of
Studies) read like running analysis of paragraphs. Bacon does not treat the subject
fully; he expresses an idea in a few words and then passes on to the next idea, to be
expressed in equally terse terms.

Of Studies is a most suitable example of those essays that are dispersed

meditations and contain various ideas regarding study. The author gives us
ideas about the uses and abuses of reading books, ways of reading and so on. But
we don't find any connection between the ideas. He jumps from one topic to another
topic very abruptly, although the main topic, study, remains unchanged. None of the
multitudes of ideas are fully developed, but then one may argue that an essay by its
very nature implies a mere attempt and not a complete treatment of a subject. This
is true but there should surely be some kind of smooth flow of ideas from one to
another. There sentences have a tendency to stand by themselves, having no or little
link with preceding or succeeding sentences.
 Bacon starts the essay with studies serve for delight, for ornament and
for ability and gives a little explanation in the next sentence. After that, just
after discussing the functions of expert men and learned men, he, without
using any sentence connector, shifts to another idea in the following
sentence
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for
ornament, is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is humor of a
scholar.
Just after saying, in the next sentence, of our natural abilities, of studies and
of experiences, he says an aphoristic sentence- Crafty men contemn
studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them:... Indeed,
there is no explicit relation between these two sentences. In the next three
sentences he talks of why to read, what books to read and how to read; and
says that summarized books are insipid, tasteless, and give no pleasure- else
distilled books are like common distilled water, flashy things. But there is
no logical connection among these sentences. Rather, he writes of another
idea- function of reading, conversation and in the next sentence- Reading
maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. So,
these sentences lack structural unity and development of ideas.However we
meet a sentence linker in the next sentence that explains the precious
maxim like sentence- he begins the sentence with,And
therefore But again he provides us an example of
dispersed meditation in the very next sentence expressing functions of
different sorts of ideas Histories make men wise; poets witty; the
mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logical and
rhetoric able to contend.
 In the essay Of Truth, we get some ideas, regarding truth, just
jumbled together, but they do not develop from one another as should be in
a logically developed essay.

Here Bacon expresses that the standard of truth in religions,

philosophical and moral spheres changes from time to time; discusses
different sorts of mens love for lie; compares truth and lie from human
observation, grants the high value of truth and elaborates the idea by
referring to Gods gifts of reason to man. He ends the essay with a warning
that the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith will be duly punished
on Judgment Day. We can mention just one of the examples of dispersed
meditation in statement- Bacon begins the essay with a question
What is Truth? Said jestling Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
Furthermore, he abruptly begins the next sentence not showing any logical
relation between the two-
Certainly there be that delight in giddiness and count it a bondage to fix a
belief;

The essay of Marriage and Single Life provides us a number of ideas

regarding advantages, disadvantages, and features of both married life and
single life. Of course, all the ideas are centred to the topic. But they do not
come one after another in a systematic order but in haphazard order.

It would, however be a mistake to call all the essays of Bacon dispersed

meditations. There are some which have received at his hand, a rather detailed
treatment, and which cannot be termed as sketchy. In these essays, Bacon finds
room for conjunctions and connective clauses. Ideas are not left undeveloped and
transitions from one thought to another are not so abrupt. For example, the essay Of
Friendship has greater length than can strictly be justified by the ideas expressed.
Too much space has been given to illustrating the statement that even great and
strong historical personalities felt the need for friendship. Apart from that, the
author is quite logical in telling us what he calls the principal fruits of friendship.
Each fruit of friendship has properly been handled and the development of ideas in
each paragraph is logical. We cannot bring against this essay the charge that there
are abrupt transitions of thought. Similar is the case with essays like: Of Empire, Of
Seditions and Troubles, Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms. The dispersed
meditations have been given a rich vesture, even while there is an attempt to
bring them into a chosen knit whole.

In the light of above said, we can say that it would not be possible to put all the
essays of Bacon in the category of dispersed meditations, or to say that all of them
are brief notes. His earlier essays indeed resemble notebook jottings-condensed,
pithy statements strung together with no apparent connection except in their relation
to the subject. But in his later essays he has taken trouble to enrich his style. These
essays deal with a variety of subjects but they are no longer aphoristic. There is an
attempt to bring out some connection and continuity in the ideas and thought
expressed. They are still meditations. But not quite so dispersed