A critical appreciation evaluates a piece of writing, attempting to explain the purpose of the work and whether or not the writer successfully achieved his or her goals.

In "Of Revenge," Bacon takes a strong stand against private revenge. He defines private revenge as one person taking the law into his own hands to punish an enemy. 

As in all his essays, Bacon here studies a topic in an objective, rational way, turning it over and examining it. He determines that revenge has very little use or merit, contending it often does more harm to the person seeking vengeance than it's worth. He also understands revenge as disruptive and a way of undermining the laws of the state, which were put in place to enact justice. At the same time, he notes that when there is no law to insure justice, private revenge becomes more understandable.

Bacon is convincing in his persuasion of the reader that revenge hurts more than it helps. The essay, short and to the point, starts off from the very first sentence criticizing revenge:

REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

In likening human relationships and the human psyche at various times in the essay to plants in a garden, such as weeds, Bacon is able to show that revenge is both a natural desire and yet one that ought to be curbed.