{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13888/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13888","id":"gutenberg_13888","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13888","summary":null,"tags":["Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626","Biographies","Category: Biographies","Category: History - British","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Michael Punch and the PG Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBACON\n\nBY\n\nR.W. CHURCH\n\nDEAN OF ST. PAUL'S\n\nHONORARY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE\n\n\n\n\nENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.\n\nEDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.\n\n\nJOHNSON                Leslie Stephen.\nGIBBON                 J.C. Morison.\nSCOTT                  R.H. Hutton.\nSHELLEY                J.A. Symonds.\nHUME                   T.H. Huxley.\nGOLDSMITH              William Black.\nDEFOE                  William Minto.\nBURNS                  J.C. Shairp.\nSPENSER                R.W. Church.\nTHACKERAY              Anthony Trollope.\nBURKE                  John Morley.\nMILTON                 Mark Pattison.\nHAWTHORNE              Henry James, Jr.\nSOUTHEY                E. Dowden.\nCHAUCER                A.W. Ward.\nBUNYAN                 J.A. Froude.\nCOWPER                 Goldwin Smith.\nPOPE                   Leslie Stephen.\nBYRON                  John Nichol.\nLOCKE                  Thomas Fowler.\nWORDSWORTH             F. Myers.\nDRYDEN                 G. Saintsbury.\nLANDOR                 Sidney Colvin.\nDE QUINCEY             David Masson.\nLAMB                   Alfred Ainger.\nBENTLEY                R.C. Jebb.\nDICKENS                A.W. Ward.\nGRAY                   E.W. Gosse.\nSWIFT                  Leslie Stephen.\nSTERNE                 H.D. Traill.\nMACAULAY               J. Cotter Morison.\nFIELDING               Austin Dobson.\nSHERIDAN               Mrs. Oliphant\nADDISON                W.J. Courthope.\nBACON                  R.W. Church.\nCOLERIDGE              H.D. Traill.\nSIR PHILIP SIDNEY      J.A. Symonds.\nKEATS                  Sidney Colvin.\n\n12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume.\n_Other volumes in preparation._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.\n\n_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any\npart of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIn preparing this sketch it is needless to say how deeply I am indebted\nto Mr. Spedding and Mr. Ellis, the last editors of Bacon's writings, the\nvery able and painstaking commentators, the one on Bacon's life, the\nother on his philosophy. It is impossible to overstate the affectionate\ncare and high intelligence and honesty with which Mr. Spedding has\nbrought together and arranged the materials for an estimate of Bacon's\ncharacter. In the result, in spite of the force and ingenuity of much of\nhis pleading, I find myself most reluctantly obliged to differ from him;\nit seems to me to be a case where the French saying, cited by Bacon in\none of his commonplace books, holds good--\"_Par trop se d\u00e9battre, la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9 se perd_.\"[1] But this does not diminish the debt of gratitude\nwhich all who are interested about Bacon must owe to Mr. Spedding. I\nwish also to acknowledge the assistance which I have received from Mr.\nGardiner's _History of England_ and Mr. Fowler's edition of the _Novum\nOrganum_; and not least from M. de R\u00e9musat's work on Bacon, which seems\nto me the most complete and the most just estimate both of Bacon's\ncharacter and work which has yet appeared; though even in this clear\nand dispassionate survey we are reminded by some misconceptions, strange\nin M. de R\u00e9musat, how what one nation takes for granted is\nincomprehensible to its neighbour; and what a gap there is still, even\nin matters of philosophy and literature, between the whole Continent and\nourselves--\n\n     \"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _Promus_: edited by Mrs. H. Pott, p. 475.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nCHAPTER I.                              PAGE\nEARLY LIFE                                 1\n\nCHAPTER II.\nBACON AND ELIZABETH                       26\n\nCHAPTER III.\nBACON AND JAMES I.                        55\n\nCHAPTER IV.\nBACON SOLICITOR-GENERAL                   77\n\nCHAPTER V.\nBACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND CHANCELLOR     95\n\nCHAPTER VI.\nBACON'S FALL                             118\n\nCHAPTER VII.\nBACON'S LAST YEARS--1621-1626            149\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\nBACON'S PHILOSOPHY                       168\n\nCHAPTER IX.\nBACON AS A WRITER                        198\n\n\n\n\nBACON.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nEARLY LIFE.\n\n\nThe life of Francis Bacon is one which it is a pain to write or to read.\nIt is the life of a man endowed with as rare a combination of noble\ngifts as ever was bestowed on a human intellect; the life of one with\nwhom the whole purpose of living and of every day's work was to do great\nthings to enlighten and elevate his race, to enrich it with new powers,\nto lay up in store for all ages to come a source of blessings which\nshould never fail or dry up; it was the life of a man who had high\nthoughts of the ends and methods of law and government, and with whom\nthe general and public good was regarded as the standard by which the\nuse of public power was to be measured; the life of a man who had\nstruggled hard and successfully for the material prosperity and opulence\nwhich makes work easy and gives a man room and force for carrying out\nhis purposes. All his life long his first and never-sleeping passion was\nthe romantic and splendid ambition after knowledge, for the conquest of\nnature and for the service of man; gathering up in himself the spirit\nand longings and efforts of all discoverers and inventors of the arts,\nas they are symbolised in the mythical Prometheus. He rose to the\nhighest place and honour; and yet that place and honour were but the\nfringe and adornment of all that made him great. It is difficult to\nimagine a grander and more magnificent career; and his name ranks among\nthe few chosen examples of human achievement. And yet it was not only an\nunhappy life; it was a poor life. We expect that such an overwhelming\nweight of glory should be borne up by a character corresponding to it in\nstrength and nobleness. But that is not what we find. No one ever had a\ngreater idea of what he was made for, or was fired with a greater desire\nto devote himself to it. He was all this. And yet being all this, seeing\ndeep into man's worth, his capacities, his greatness, his weakness, his\nsins, he was not true to what he knew. He cringed to such a man as\nBuckingham. He sold himself to the corrupt and ignominious Government of\nJames I. He was willing to be employed to hunt to death a friend like\nEssex, guilty, deeply guilty, to the State, but to Bacon the most loving\nand generous of benefactors. With his eyes open he gave himself up\nwithout resistance to a system unworthy of him; he would not see what\nwas evil in it, and chose to call its evil good; and he was its first\nand most signal victim.\n\nBacon has been judged with merciless severity. But he has also been\ndefended by an advocate whose name alone is almost a guarantee for the\njustness of the cause which he takes up, and the innocency of the client\nfor whom he argues. Mr. Spedding devoted nearly a lifetime, and all the\nresources of a fine intellect and an earnest conviction, to make us\nrevere as well as admire Bacon. But it is vain. It is vain to fight\nagainst the facts of his life: his words, his letters. \"Men are made\nup,\" says a keen observer, \"of professions, gifts, and talents; and\nalso of _themselves_.\"[2] With all his greatness, his splendid genius,\nhis magnificent ideas, his enthusiasm for truth, his passion to be the\nbenefactor of his kind; with all the charm that made him loved by good\nand worthy friends, amiable, courteous, patient, delightful as a\ncompanion, ready to take any trouble--there was in Bacon's \"self\" a deep\nand fatal flaw. He was a pleaser of men. There was in him that subtle\nfault, noted and named both by philosophy and religion in the [Greek:\nareskos] of Aristotle, the [Greek: anthr\u00f4pareskos] of St. Paul, which is\nmore common than it is pleasant to think, even in good people, but which\nif it becomes dominant in a character is ruinous to truth and power. He\nwas one of the men--there are many of them--who are unable to release\ntheir imagination from the impression of present and immediate power,\nface to face with themselves. It seems as if he carried into conduct the\nleading rule of his philosophy of nature, _parendo vincitur_. In both\nworlds, moral and physical, he felt himself encompassed by vast forces,\nirresistible by direct opposition. Men whom he wanted to bring round to\nhis purposes were as strange, as refractory, as obstinate, as\nimpenetrable as the phenomena of the natural world. It was no use\nattacking in front, and by a direct trial of strength, people like\nElizabeth or Cecil or James; he might as well think of forcing some\nnatural power in defiance of natural law. The first word of his teaching\nabout nature is that she must be won by observation of her tendencies\nand demands; the same radical disposition of temper reveals itself in\nhis dealings with men: they, too, must be won by yielding to them, by\nadapting himself to their moods and ends; by spying into the drift of\ntheir humour, by subtly and pliantly falling in with it, by circuitous\nand indirect processes, the fruit of vigilance and patient thought. He\nthought to direct, while submitting apparently to be directed. But he\nmistook his strength. Nature and man are different powers, and under\ndifferent laws. He chose to please man, and not to follow what his soul\nmust have told him was the better way. He wanted, in his dealings with\nmen, that sincerity on which he insisted so strongly in his dealings\nwith nature and knowledge. And the ruin of a great life was the\nconsequence.\n\nFrancis Bacon was born in London on the 22d of January, 1560/61, three\nyears before Galileo. He was born at York House, in the Strand; the\nhouse which, though it belonged to the Archbishops of York, had been\nlately tenanted by Lord Keepers and Lord Chancellors, in which Bacon\nhimself afterwards lived as Lord Chancellor, and which passed after his\nfall into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, who has left his mark in\nthe Water Gate which is now seen, far from the river, in the garden of\nthe Thames Embankment. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, Elizabeth's\nfirst Lord Keeper, the fragment of whose effigy in the Crypt of St.\nPaul's is one of the few relics of the old Cathedral before the fire.\nHis uncle by marriage was that William Cecil who was to be Lord\nBurghley. His mother, the sister of Lady Cecil, was one of the daughters\nof Sir Antony Cook, a person deep in the confidence of the reforming\nparty, who had been tutor of Edward VI. She was a remarkable woman,\nhighly accomplished after the fashion of the ladies of her party, and as\nwould become her father's daughter and the austere and laborious family\nto which she belonged. She was \"exquisitely skilled in the Greek and\nLatin tongues;\" she was passionately religious, according to the\nuncompromising religion which the exiles had brought back with them from\nGeneva, Strasburg, and Zurich, and which saw in Calvin's theology a\nsolution of all the difficulties, and in his discipline a remedy for all\nthe evils, of mankind. This means that his boyhood from the first was\npassed among the high places of the world--at one of the greatest crises\nof English history--in the very centre and focus of its agitations. He\nwas brought up among the chiefs and leaders of the rising religion, in\nthe houses of the greatest and most powerful persons of the State, and\nnaturally, as their child, at times in the Court of the Queen, who joked\nwith him, and called him \"her young Lord Keeper.\" It means also that the\nreligious atmosphere in which he was brought up was that of the nascent\nand aggressive Puritanism, which was not satisfied with the compromises\nof the Elizabethan Reformation, and which saw in the moral poverty and\nincapacity of many of its chiefs a proof against the great traditional\nsystem of the Church which Elizabeth was loath to part with, and which,\nin spite of all its present and inevitable shortcomings, her political\nsagacity taught her to reverence and trust.\n\nAt the age of twelve he was sent to Cambridge, and put under Whitgift at\nTrinity. It is a question which recurs continually to readers about\nthose times and their precocious boys, what boys were then? For whatever\nwas the learning of the universities, these boys took their place with\nmen and consorted with them, sharing such knowledge as men had, and\nperforming exercises and hearing lectures according to the standard of\nmen. Grotius at eleven was the pupil and companion of Scaliger and the\nlearned band of Leyden; at fourteen he was part of the company which\nwent with the ambassadors of the States-General to Henry IV.; at sixteen\nhe was called to the bar, he published an out-of-the-way Latin writer,\nMartianus Capella, with a learned commentary, and he was the\ncorrespondent of De Thou. When Bacon was hardly sixteen he was admitted\nto the Society of \"Ancients\" of Gray's Inn, and he went in the household\nof Sir Amyas Paulet, the Queen's Ambassador, to France. He thus spent\ntwo years in France, not in Paris alone, but at Blois, Tours, and\nPoitiers. If this was precocious, there is no indication that it was\nthought precocious. It only meant that clever and promising boys were\nearlier associated with men in important business than is customary now.\nThe old and the young heads began to work together sooner. Perhaps they\nfelt that there was less time to spare. In spite of instances of\nlongevity, life was shorter for the average of busy men, for the\nconditions of life were worse.\n\nTwo recollections only have been preserved of his early years. One is\nthat, as he told his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, late in life, he had\ndiscovered, as far back as his Cambridge days, the \"unfruitfulness\" of\nAristotle's method. It is easy to make too much of this. It is not\nuncommon for undergraduates to criticise their text-books; it was the\nfashion with clever men, as, for instance, Montaigne, to talk against\nAristotle without knowing anything about him; it is not uncommon for men\nwho have worked out a great idea to find traces of it, on precarious\ngrounds, in their boyish thinking. Still, it is worth noting that Bacon\nhimself believed that his fundamental quarrel with Aristotle had begun\nwith the first efforts of thought, and that this is the one recollection\nremaining of his early tendency in speculation. The other is more\ntrustworthy, and exhibits that inventiveness which was characteristic\nof his mind. He tells us in the _De Augmentis_ that when he was in\nFrance he occupied himself with devising an improved system of\ncypher-writing--a thing of daily and indispensable use for rival\nstatesmen and rival intriguers. But the investigation, with its call on\nthe calculating and combining faculties, would also interest him, as an\nexample of the discovery of new powers by the human mind.\n\nIn the beginning of 1579 Bacon, at eighteen, was called home by his\nfather's death. This was a great blow to his prospects. His father had\nnot accomplished what he had intended for him, and Francis Bacon was\nleft with only a younger son's \"narrow portion.\" What was worse, he lost\none whose credit would have served him in high places. He entered on\nlife, not as he might have expected, independent and with court favour\non his side, but with his very livelihood to gain--a competitor at the\nbottom of the ladder for patronage and countenance. This great change in\nhis fortunes told very unfavourably on his happiness, his usefulness,\nand, it must be added, on his character. He accepted it, indeed,\nmanfully, and at once threw himself into the study of the law as the\nprofession by which he was to live. But the law, though it was the only\npath open to him, was not the one which suited his genius, or his object\nin life. To the last he worked hard and faithfully, but with doubtful\nreputation as to his success, and certainly against the grain. And this\nwas not the worst. To make up for the loss of that start in life of\nwhich his father's untimely death had deprived him, he became, for\nalmost the rest of his life, the most importunate and most untiring of\nsuitors.\n\nIn 1579 or 1580 Bacon took up his abode at Gray's Inn, which for a long\ntime was his home. He went through the various steps of his profession.\nHe began, what he never discontinued, his earnest and humble appeals to\nhis relative the great Lord Burghley, to employ him in the Queen's\nservice, or to put him in some place of independence: through Lord\nBurghley's favour he seems to have been pushed on at his Inn, where, in\n1586, he was a Bencher; and in 1584 he came into Parliament for Melcombe\nRegis. He took some small part in Parliament; but the only record of his\nspeeches is contained in a surly note of Recorder Fleetwood, who writes\nas an old member might do of a young one talking nonsense. He sat again\nfor Liverpool in the year of the Armada (1588), and his name begins to\nappear in the proceedings. These early years, we know, were busy ones.\nIn them Bacon laid the foundation of his observations and judgments on\nmen and affairs; and in them the great purpose and work of his life was\nconceived and shaped. But they are more obscure years than might have\nbeen expected in the case of a man of Bacon's genius and family, and of\nsuch eager and unconcealed desire to rise and be at work. No doubt he\nwas often pinched in his means; his health was weak, and he was delicate\nand fastidious in his care of it. Plunged in work, he lived very much as\na recluse in his chambers, and was thought to be reserved, and what\nthose who disliked him called arrogant. But Bacon was\nambitious--ambitious, in the first place, of the Queen's notice and\nfavour. He was versatile, brilliant, courtly, besides being his father's\nson; and considering how rapidly bold and brilliant men were able to\npush their way and take the Queen's favour by storm, it seems strange\nthat Bacon should have remained fixedly in the shade. Something must\nhave kept him back. Burghley was not the man to neglect a useful\ninstrument with such good will to serve him. But all that Mr.\nSpedding's industry and profound interest in the subject has brought\ntogether throws but an uncertain light on Bacon's long disappointment.\nWas it the rooted misgiving of a man of affairs like Burghley at that\npassionate contempt of all existing knowledge, and that undoubting\nconfidence in his own power to make men know, as they never had known,\nwhich Bacon was even now professing? Or was it something soft and\nover-obsequious in character which made the uncle, who knew well what\nmen he wanted, disinclined to encourage and employ the nephew? Was\nFrancis not hard enough, not narrow enough, too full of ideas, too much\nalive to the shakiness of current doctrines and arguments on religion\nand policy? Was he too open to new impressions, made by objections or\nrival views? Or did he show signs of wanting backbone to stand amid\ndifficulties and threatening prospects? Did Burghley see something in\nhim of the pliability which he could remember as the serviceable quality\nof his own young days--which suited those days of rapid change, but not\ndays when change was supposed to be over, and when the qualities which\nwere wanted were those which resist and defy it? The only thing that is\nclear is that Burghley, in spite of Bacon's continual applications,\nabstained to the last from advancing his fortunes.\n\nWhether employed by government or not, Bacon began at this time to\nprepare those carefully-written papers on the public affairs of the day,\nof which he has left a good many. In our day they would have been\npamphlets or magazine articles. In his they were circulated in\nmanuscript, and only occasionally printed. The first of any importance\nis a letter of advice to the Queen, about the year 1585, on the policy\nto be followed with a view to keeping in check the Roman Catholic\ninterest at home and abroad. It is calm, sagacious, and, according to\nthe fashion of the age, slightly Machiavellian. But the first subject on\nwhich Bacon exhibited his characteristic qualities, his appreciation of\nfacts, his balance of thought, and his power, when not personally\ncommitted, of standing aloof from the ordinary prejudices and\nassumptions of men round him, was the religious condition and prospects\nof the English Church. Bacon had been brought up in a Puritan household\nof the straitest sect. His mother was an earnest, severe, and intolerant\nCalvinist, deep in the interests and cause of her party, bitterly\nresenting all attempts to keep in order its pretensions. She was a\nmasterful woman, claiming to meddle with her brother-in-law's policy,\nand though a most affectionate mother she was a woman of violent and\nungovernable temper. Her letters to her son Antony, whom she loved\npassionately, but whom she suspected of keeping dangerous and papistical\ncompany, show us the imperious spirit in which she claimed to interfere\nwith her sons; and they show also that in Francis she did not find all\nthe deference which she looked for. Recommending Antony to frequent \"the\nreligious exercises of the sincerer sort,\" she warns him not to follow\nhis brother's advice or example. Antony was advised to use prayer twice\na day with his servants. \"Your brother,\" she adds, \"is too negligent\ntherein.\" She is anxious about Antony's health, and warns him not to\nfall into his brother's ill-ordered habits: \"I verily think your\nbrother's weak stomach to digest hath been much caused and confirmed by\nuntimely going to bed, and then musing _nescio quid_ when he should\nsleep, and then in consequent by late rising and long lying in bed,\nwhereby his men are made slothful and himself continueth sickly. But my\nsons haste not to hearken to their mother's good counsel in time to\nprevent.\" It seems clear that Francis Bacon had shown his mother that\nnot only in the care of his health, but in his judgment on religious\nmatters, he meant to go his own way. Mr. Spedding thinks that she must\nhave had much influence on him; it seems more likely that he resented\nher interference, and that the hard and narrow arrogance which she read\ninto the Gospel produced in him a strong reaction. Bacon was obsequious\nto the tyranny of power, but he was never inclined to bow to the tyranny\nof opinion; and the tyranny of Puritan infallibility was the last thing\nto which he was likely to submit. His mother would have wished him to\nsit under Cartwright and Travers. The friend of his choice was the\nAnglican preacher, Dr. Andrewes, to whom he submitted all his works, and\nwhom he called his \"inquisitor general;\" and he was proud to sign\nhimself the pupil of Whitgift, and to write for him--the archbishop of\nwhom Lady Bacon wrote to her son Antony, veiling the dangerous sentiment\nin Greek, \"that he was the ruin of the Church, for he loved his own\nglory more than Christ's.\"\n\nCertainly, in the remarkable paper on _Controversies in the Church_\n(1589), Bacon had ceased to feel or to speak as a Puritan. The paper is\nan attempt to compose the controversy by pointing out the mistakes in\njudgment, in temper, and in method on both sides. It is entirely unlike\nwhat a Puritan would have written: it is too moderate, too tolerant, too\nneutral, though like most essays of conciliation it is open to the\nrejoinder from both sides--certainly from the Puritan--that it begs the\nquestion by assuming the unimportance of the matters about which each\ncontended with so much zeal. It is the confirmation, but also the\ncomplement, and in some ways the correction of Hooker's contemporary\nview of the quarrel which was threatening the life of the English\nChurch, and not even Hooker could be so comprehensive and so fair. For\nHooker had to defend much that was indefensible: he had to defend a\ngreat traditional system, just convulsed by a most tremendous shock--a\nshock and alteration, as Bacon says, \"the greatest and most dangerous\nthat can be in a State,\" in which old clews and habits and rules were\nconfused and all but lost; in which a frightful amount of personal\nincapacity and worthlessness had, from sheer want of men, risen to the\nhigh places of the Church; and in which force and violence, sometimes of\nthe most hateful kind, had come to be accepted as ordinary instruments\nin the government of souls. Hooker felt too strongly the unfairness, the\nfolly, the intolerant aggressiveness, the malignity of his opponents--he\nwas too much alive to the wrongs inflicted by them on his own side, and\nto the incredible absurdity of their arguments--to do justice to what\nwas only too real in the charges and complaints of those opponents. But\nBacon came from the very heart of the Puritan camp. He had seen the\ninside of Puritanism--its best as well as its worst side. He witnesses\nto the humility, the conscientiousness, the labour, the learning, the\nhatred of sin and wrong, of many of its preachers. He had heard, and\nheard with sympathy, all that could be urged against the bishops'\nadministration, and against a system of legal oppression in the name of\nthe Church. Where religious elements were so confusedly mixed, and where\neach side had apparently so much to urge on behalf of its claims, he saw\nthe deep mistake of loftily ignoring facts, and of want of patience and\nforbearance with those who were scandalised at abuses, while the abuses,\nin some cases monstrous, were tolerated and turned to profit. Towards\nthe bishops and their policy, though his language is very respectful,\nfor the government was implicated, he is very severe. They punish and\nrestrain, but they do not themselves mend their ways or supply what was\nwanting; and theirs are \"_injuri\u00e6 potentiorum_\"--\"injuries come from\nthem that have the upperhand.\" But Hooker himself did not put his finger\nmore truly and more surely on the real mischief of the Puritan movement:\non the immense outbreak in it of unreasonable party spirit and visible\npersonal ambition--\"these are the true successors of Diotrephes and not\nmy lord bishops\"--on the gradual development of the Puritan theory till\nit came at last to claim a supremacy as unquestionable and intolerant as\nthat of the Papacy; on the servile affectation of the fashions of Geneva\nand Strasburg; on the poverty and foolishness of much of the Puritan\nteaching--its inability to satisfy the great questions which it raised\nin the soul, its unworthy dealing with Scripture--\"naked examples,\nconceited inferences, and forced allusions, which mine into all\ncertainty of religion\"--\"the word, the bread of life, they toss up and\ndown, they break it not;\" on their undervaluing of moral worth, if it\ndid not speak in their phraseology--\"as they censure virtuous men by the\nnames of _civil_ and _moral_, so do they censure men truly and godly\nwise, who see into the vanity of their assertions, by the name of\n_politiques_, saying that their wisdom is but carnal and savouring of\nman's brain.\" Bacon saw that the Puritans were aiming at a tyranny\nwhich, if they established it, would be more comprehensive, more\nsearching, and more cruel than that of the older systems; but he thought\nit a remote and improbable danger, and that they might safely be\ntolerated for the work they did in education and preaching, \"because the\nwork of exhortation doth chiefly rest upon these men, and they have a\nzeal and hate of sin.\" But he ends by warning them lest \"that be true\nwhich one of their adversaries said, _that they have but two small\nwants--knowledge and love_.\" One complaint that he makes of them is a\ncurious instance of the changes of feeling, or at least of language, on\nmoral subjects. He accuses them of \"having pronounced generally, and\nwithout difference, all untruths unlawful,\" forgetful of the Egyptian\nmidwives, and Rahab, and Solomon, and even of Him \"who, the more to\ntouch the hearts of the disciples with a holy dalliance, made as though\nhe would have passed Emmaus.\" He is thinking of their failure to apply a\nprinciple which was characteristic of his mode of thought, that even a\nstatement about a virtue like veracity \"hath limit as all things else\nhave;\" but it is odd to find Bacon bringing against the Puritans the\nconverse of the charge which his age, and Pascal afterwards, brought\nagainst the Jesuits. The essay, besides being a picture of the times as\nregards religion, is an example of what was to be Bacon's characteristic\nstrength and weakness: his strength in lifting up a subject which had\nbeen degraded by mean and wrangling disputations, into a higher and\nlarger light, and bringing to bear on it great principles and the\nresults of the best human wisdom and experience, expressed in weighty\nand pregnant maxims; his weakness in forgetting, as, in spite of his\nphilosophy, he so often did, that the grandest major premises need\nwell-proved and ascertained minors, and that the enunciation of a\nprinciple is not the same thing as the application of it. Doubtless\nthere is truth in his closing words; but each party would have made the\ncomment that what he had to prove, and had not proved, was that by\nfollowing his counsel they would \"love the whole world better than a\npart.\"\n\n     \"Let them not fear ... the fond calumny of _neutrality_; but let\n     them know that is true which is said by a wise man, _that neuters\n     in contentions are either better or worse than either side_. These\n     things have I in all sincerity and simplicity set down touching the\n     controversies which now trouble the Church of England; and that\n     without all art and insinuation, and therefore not like to be\n     grateful to either part. Notwithstanding, I trust what has been\n     said shall find a correspondence in their minds which are not\n     embarked in partiality, and which _love the whole letter than a\n     part_\"\n\nUp to this time, though Bacon had showed himself capable of taking a\nbroad and calm view of questions which it was the fashion among good\nmen, and men who were in possession of the popular ear, to treat with\nnarrowness and heat, there was nothing to disclose his deeper\nthoughts--nothing foreshadowed the purpose which was to fill his life.\nHe had, indeed, at the age of twenty-five, written a \"youthful\"\nphilosophical essay, to which he gave the pompous title \"_Temporis\nPartus Maximus_,\" \"the Greatest Birth of Time.\" But he was thirty-one\nwhen we first find an indication of the great idea and the great\nprojects which were to make his name famous. This indication is\ncontained in an earnest appeal to Lord Burghley for some help which\nshould not be illusory. Its words are distinct and far-reaching, and\nthey are the first words from him which tell us what was in his heart.\nThe letter has the interest to us of the first announcement of a promise\nwhich, to ordinary minds, must have appeared visionary and extravagant,\nbut which was so splendidly fulfilled; the first distant sight of that\nsea of knowledge which henceforth was opened to mankind, but on which no\nman, as he thought, had yet entered. It contains the famous avowal--\"_I\nhave taken all knowledge to be my province_\"--made in the confidence\nborn of long and silent meditations and questionings, but made in a\nsimple good faith which is as far as possible from vain boastfulness.\n\n     \"MY LORD,--With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful\n     devotion unto your service and your honourable correspondence unto\n     me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto\n     your Lordship. I wax now somewhat ancient: one and thirty years is\n     a great deal of sand in the hour glass. My health, I thank God, I\n     find confirmed; and I do not fear that action shall impair it,\n     because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be\n     more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in\n     some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty, not\n     as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter,\n     that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me away\n     wholly), but as a man born under an excellent sovereign that\n     deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do not\n     find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my\n     thoughts are to deserve well (if I be able) of my friends, and\n     namely of your Lordship; who, being the Atlas of this commonwealth,\n     the honour of my house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I\n     am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy\n     kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do\n     you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move\n     me; for though I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or\n     slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get.\n     Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have\n     moderate civil ends; for I have taken all knowledge to be my\n     province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof\n     the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities,\n     the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and\n     impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in\n     industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable\n     inventions and discoveries: the best state of that province. This,\n     whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take\n     it favourably) _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot\n     be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable\n     countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's\n     own; which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship,\n     perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any\n     other. And if your Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I\n     do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your\n     Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest\n     man. And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as\n     Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto\n     voluntary poverty, but this I will do--I will sell the inheritance\n     I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of\n     gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of\n     service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in\n     that mine of truth which (he said) lay so deep. This which I have\n     writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set\n     down without all art, disguising, or reservation. Wherein I have\n     done honour both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging that that\n     will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to your\n     Lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing from you. And even so\n     I wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and\n     occasions to be added to my faithful desire to do you service. From\n     my lodgings at Gray's Inn.\"\n\nThis letter to his unsympathetic and suspicious, but probably not\nunfriendly relative, is the key to Bacon's plan of life; which, with\nnumberless changes of form, he followed to the end. That is, a\nprofession, steadily, seriously, and laboriously kept to, in order to\nprovide the means of living; and beyond that, as the ultimate and real\nend of his life, the pursuit, in a way unattempted before, of all\npossible human knowledge, and of the methods to improve it and make it\nsure and fruitful. And so his life was carried out. On the one hand it\nwas a continual and pertinacious seeking after government employment,\nwhich could give credit to his name and put money in his\npocket--attempts by general behaviour, by professional services when the\noccasion offered, by putting his original and fertile pen at the service\nof the government, to win confidence, and to overcome the manifest\nindisposition of those in power to think that a man who cherished the\nchimera of universal knowledge could be a useful public servant. On the\nother hand, all the while, in the crises of his disappointment or\ntriumph, the one great subject lay next his heart, filling him with\nfire and passion--how really to know, and to teach men to know indeed,\nand to use their knowledge so as to command nature; the great hope to be\nthe reformer and restorer of knowledge in a more wonderful sense than\nthe world had yet seen in the reformation of learning and religion, and\nin the spread of civilised order in the great states of the Renaissance\ntime. To this he gave his best and deepest thoughts; for this he was for\never accumulating, and for ever rearranging and reshaping those masses\nof observation and inquiry and invention and mental criticism which were\nto come in as parts of the great design which he had seen in the visions\nof his imagination, and of which at last he was only able to leave noble\nfragments, incomplete after numberless recastings. This was not indeed\nthe only, but it was the predominant and governing, interest of his\nlife. Whether as solicitor for Court favour or public office; whether\ndrudging at the work of the law or managing State prosecutions; whether\nwriting an opportune pamphlet against Spain or Father Parsons, or\ninventing a \"device\" for his Inn or for Lord Essex to give amusement to\nQueen Elizabeth; whether fulfilling his duties as member of Parliament\nor rising step by step to the highest places in the Council Board and\nthe State; whether in the pride of success or under the amazement of\nunexpected and irreparable overthrow, while it seemed as if he was only\nmeasuring his strength against the rival ambitions of the day, in the\nsame spirit and with the same object as his competitors, the true motive\nof all his eagerness and all his labours was not theirs. He wanted to be\npowerful, and still more to be rich; but he wanted to be so, because\nwithout power and without money he could not follow what was to him the\nonly thing worth following on earth--a real knowledge of the amazing and\nhitherto almost unknown world in which he had to live. Bacon, to us, at\nleast, at this distance, who can only judge him from partial and\nimperfect knowledge, often seems to fall far short of what a man should\nbe. He was not one of the high-minded and proud searchers after\nknowledge and truth, like Descartes, who were content to accept a frugal\nindependence so that their time and their thoughts might be their own.\nBacon was a man of the world, and wished to live in and with the world.\nHe threatened sometimes retirement, but never with any very serious\nintention. In the Court was his element, and there were his hopes. Often\nthere seems little to distinguish him from the ordinary place-hunters,\nobsequious and selfish, of every age; little to distinguish him from the\nservile and insincere flatterers, of whom he himself complains, who\ncrowded the antechambers of the great Queen, content to submit with\nsmiling face and thankful words to the insolence of her waywardness and\ntemper, in the hope, more often disappointed than not, of hitting her\ntaste on some lucky occasion, and being rewarded for the accident by a\nplace of gain or honour. Bacon's history, as read in his letters, is not\nan agreeable one; after every allowance made for the fashions of\nlanguage and the necessities of a suitor, there is too much of insincere\nprofession of disinterestedness, too much of exaggerated profession of\nadmiration and devoted service, too much of disparagement and\ninsinuation against others, for a man who respected himself. He\nsubmitted too much to the miserable conditions of rising which he found.\nBut, nevertheless, it must be said that it was for no mean object, for\nno mere private selfishness or vanity, that he endured all this. He\nstrove hard to be a great man and a rich man. But it was that he might\nhave his hands free and strong and well furnished to carry forward the\ndouble task of overthrowing ignorance and building up the new and solid\nknowledge on which his heart was set--that immense conquest of nature on\nbehalf of man which he believed to be possible, and of which he believed\nhimself to have the key.\n\nThe letter to Lord Burghley did not help him much. He received the\nreversion of a place, the Clerkship of the Council, which did not become\nvacant for twenty years. But these years of service declined and place\nwithheld were busy and useful ones. What he was most intent upon, and\nwhat occupied his deepest and most serious thought, was unknown to the\nworld round him, and probably not very intelligible to his few intimate\nfriends, such as his brother Antony and Dr. Andrewes. Meanwhile he\nplaced his pen at the disposal of the authorities, and though they\nregarded him more as a man of study than of practice and experience,\nthey were glad to make use of it. His versatile genius found another\nemployment. Besides his affluence in topics, he had the liveliest fancy\nand most active imagination. But that he wanted the sense of poetic\nfitness and melody, he might almost be supposed, with his reach and play\nof thought, to have been capable, as is maintained in some eccentric\nmodern theories, of writing Shakespeare's plays. No man ever had a more\nimaginative power of illustration drawn from the most remote and most\nunlikely analogies; analogies often of the quaintest and most unexpected\nkind, but often also not only felicitous in application but profound and\ntrue. His powers were early called upon for some of those sportive\ncompositions in which that age delighted on occasions of rejoicing or\nfestival. Three of his contributions to these \"devices\" have been\npreserved--two of them composed in honour of the Queen, as \"triumphs,\"\noffered by Lord Essex, one probably in 1592 and another in 1595; a\nthird for a Gray's Inn revel in 1594. The \"devices\" themselves were of\nthe common type of the time, extravagant, odd, full of awkward allegory\nand absurd flattery, and running to a prolixity which must make modern\nlovers of amusement wonder at the patience of those days; but the\n\"discourses\" furnished by Bacon are full of fine observation and\nbrilliant thought and wit and happy illustration, which, fantastic as\nthe general conception is, raises them far above the level of such\nfugitive trifles.\n\nAmong the fragmentary papers belonging to this time which have come\ndown, not the least curious are those which throw light on his manner of\nworking. While he was following out the great ideas which were to be the\nbasis of his philosophy, he was as busy and as painstaking in fashioning\nthe instruments by which they were to be expressed; and in these papers\nwe have the records and specimens of this preparation. He was a great\ncollector of sentences, proverbs, quotations, sayings, illustrations,\nanecdotes, and he seems to have read sometimes simply to gather phrases\nand apt words. He jots down at random any good and pointed remark which\ncomes into his thought or his memory; at another time he groups a set of\nstock quotations with a special drift, bearing on some subject, such as\nthe faults of universities or the habits of lawyers. Nothing is too\nminute for his notice. He brings together in great profusion mere forms,\nvaried turns of expression, heads and tails of clauses and paragraphs,\ntransitions, connections; he notes down fashions of compliment, of\nexcuse or repartee, even morning and evening salutations; he records\nneat and convenient opening and concluding sentences, ways of speaking\nmore adapted than others to give a special colour or direction to what\nthe speaker or writer has to say--all that hook-and-eye work which seems\nso trivial and passes so unnoticed as a matter of course, and which yet\nis often hard to reach, and which makes all the difference between\ntameness and liveliness, between clearness and obscurity--all the\ndifference, not merely to the ease and naturalness, but often to the\nlogical force of speech. These collections it was his way to sift and\ntranscribe again and again, adding as well as omitting. From one of\nthese, belonging to 1594 and the following years, the _Promus of\nFormularies and Elegancies_, Mr. Spedding has given curious extracts;\nand the whole collection has been recently edited by Mrs. Henry Pott.\nThus it was that he prepared himself for what, as we read it, or as his\naudience heard it, seems the suggestion or recollection of the moment.\nBacon was always much more careful of the value or aptness of a thought\nthan of its appearing new and original. Of all great writers he least\nminds repeating himself, perhaps in the very same words; so that a\nsimile, an illustration, a quotation pleases him, he returns to it--he\nis never tired of it; it obviously gives him satisfaction to introduce\nit again and again. These collections of odds and ends illustrate\nanother point in his literary habits. His was a mind keenly sensitive to\nall analogies and affinities, impatient of a strict and rigid logical\ngroove, but spreading as it were tentacles on all sides in quest of\nchance prey, and quickened into a whole system of imagination by the\nelectric quiver imparted by a single word, at once the key and symbol of\nthe thinking it had led to. And so he puts down word or phrase, so\nenigmatical to us who see it by itself, which to him would wake up a\nwhole train of ideas, as he remembered the occasion of it--how at a\ncertain time and place this word set the whole moving, seemed to\nbreathe new life and shed new light, and has remained the token,\nmeaningless in itself, which reminds him of so much.\n\nWhen we come to read his letters, his speeches, his works, we come\ncontinually on the results and proofs of this early labour. Some of the\nmost memorable and familiar passages of his writings are to be traced\nfrom the storehouses which he filled in these years of preparation. An\nexample of this correspondence between the note-book and the composition\nis to be seen in a paper belonging to this period, written apparently to\nform part of a masque, or as he himself calls it, a \"Conference of\nPleasure,\" and entitled the _Praise of Knowledge_. It is interesting\nbecause it is the first draught which we have from him of some of the\nleading ideas and most characteristic language about the defects and the\nimprovement of knowledge, which were afterwards embodied in the\n_Advancement_ and the _Novum Organum_. The whole spirit and aim of his\ngreat reform is summed up in the following fine passage:\n\n     \"Facility to believe, impatience to doubt, temerity to assever,\n     glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to gain, sloth to search,\n     seeking things in words, resting in a part of nature--these and the\n     like have been the things which have forbidden the happy match\n     between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in place\n     thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments....\n     Therefore, no doubt, the _sovereignty of man_ lieth hid in\n     knowledge; wherein many things are reserved which kings with their\n     treasures cannot buy nor with their force command; their spials and\n     intelligencers can give no news of them; their seamen and\n     discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature in\n     opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we could\n     be led by her in invention, we should command her in action.\"\n\nTo the same occasion as the discourse on the _Praise of Knowledge_\nbelongs, also, one in _Praise of the Queen_. As one is an early specimen\nof his manner of writing on philosophy, so this is a specimen of what\nwas equally characteristic of him--his political and historical writing.\nIt is, in form, necessarily a panegyric, as high-flown and adulatory as\nsuch performances in those days were bound to be. But it is not only\nflattery. It fixes with true discrimination on the points in Elizabeth's\ncharacter and reign which were really subjects of admiration and homage.\nThus of her unquailing spirit at the time of the Spanish invasion--\n\n     \"Lastly, see a Queen, that when her realm was to have been invaded\n     by an army, the preparation whereof was like the travail of an\n     elephant, the provisions infinite, the setting forth whereof was\n     the terror and wonder of Europe; it was not seen that her cheer,\n     her fashion, her ordinary manner was anything altered; not a cloud\n     of that storm did appear in that countenance wherein peace doth\n     ever shine; but with excellent assurance and advised security she\n     inspired her council, animated her nobility, redoubled the courage\n     of her people; still having this noble apprehension, not only that\n     she would communicate her fortune with them, but that it was she\n     that would protect them, and not they her; which she testified by\n     no less demonstration than her presence in camp. Therefore that\n     magnanimity that neither feareth greatness of alteration, nor the\n     vows of conspirators, nor the power of the enemy, is more than\n     heroical.\"\n\nThese papers, though he put his best workmanship into them, as he\ninvariably did with whatever he touched, were of an ornamental kind. But\nhe did more serious work. In the year 1592 a pamphlet had been published\non the Continent in Latin and English, _Responsio ad Edictum Regin\u00e6\nAngli\u00e6_, with reference to the severe legislation which followed on the\nArmada, making such charges against the Queen and the Government as it\nwas natural for the Roman Catholic party to make, and making them with\nthe utmost virulence and unscrupulousness. It was supposed to be written\nby the ablest of the Roman pamphleteers, Father Parsons. The Government\nfelt it to be a dangerous indictment, and Bacon was chosen to write the\nanswer to it. He had additional interest in the matter, for the pamphlet\nmade a special and bitter attack on Burghley, as the person mainly\nresponsible for the Queen's policy. Bacon's reply is long and elaborate,\ntaking up every charge, and reviewing from his own point of view the\nwhole course of the struggle between the Queen and the supporters of the\nRoman Catholic interest abroad and at home. It cannot be considered an\nimpartial review; besides that it was written to order, no man in\nEngland could then write impartially in that quarrel; but it is not more\none-sided and uncandid than the pamphlet which it answers, and Bacon is\nable to recriminate with effect, and to show gross credulity and\nlooseness of assertion on the part of the Roman Catholic advocate. But\nreligion had too much to do with the politics of both sides for either\nto be able to come into the dispute with clean hands: the Roman\nCatholics meant much more than toleration, and the sanguinary\npunishments of the English law against priests and Jesuits were edged by\nsomething even keener than the fear of treason. But the paper contains\nsome large surveys of public affairs, which probably no one at that time\ncould write but Bacon. Bacon never liked to waste anything good which he\nhad written; and much of what he had written in the panegyric in _Praise\nof the Queen_ is made use of again, and transferred with little change\nto the pages of the _Observations on a Libel_.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] Dr. Mozley.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nBACON AND ELIZABETH.\n\n\nThe last decade of the century, and almost of Elizabeth's reign\n(1590-1600), was an eventful one to Bacon's fortunes. In it the vision\nof his great design disclosed itself more and more to his imagination\nand hopes, and with more and more irresistible fascination. In it he\nmade his first literary venture, the first edition of his _Essays_\n(1597), ten in number, the first-fruits of his early and ever watchful\nobservation of men and affairs. These years, too, saw his first steps in\npublic life, the first efforts to bring him into importance, the first\ngreat trials and tests of his character. They saw the beginning and they\nsaw the end of his relations with the only friend who, at that time,\nrecognised his genius and his purposes, certainly the only friend who\never pushed his claims; they saw the growth of a friendship which was to\nhave so tragical a close, and they saw the beginnings and causes of a\nbitter personal rivalry which was to last through life, and which was to\nbe a potent element hereafter in Bacon's ruin. The friend was the Earl\nof Essex. The competitor was the ablest, and also the most truculent and\nunscrupulous of English lawyers, Edward Coke.\n\nWhile Bacon, in the shade, had been laying the foundations of his\nphilosophy of nature, and vainly suing for legal or political\nemployment, another man had been steadily rising in the Queen's favour\nand carrying all before him at Court--Robert Devereux, Lord Essex; and\nwith Essex Bacon had formed an acquaintance which had ripened into an\nintimate and affectionate friendship. We commonly think of Essex as a\nvain and insolent favourite, who did ill the greatest work given him to\ndo--the reduction of Ireland; who did it ill from some unexplained\nreason of spite and mischief; and who, when called to account for it,\nbroke out into senseless and idle rebellion. This was the end. But he\nwas not always thus. He began life with great gifts and noble ends; he\nwas a serious, modest, and large-minded student both of books and\nthings, and he turned his studies to full account. He had imagination\nand love of enterprise, which gave him an insight into Bacon's ideas\nsuch as none of Bacon's contemporaries had. He was a man of simple and\nearnest religion; he sympathized most with the Puritans, because they\nwere serious and because they were hardly used. Those who most condemn\nhim acknowledge his nobleness and generosity of nature. Bacon in after\ndays, when all was over between them, spoke of him as a man always\n_patientissimus veri_; \"the more plainly and frankly you shall deal with\nmy lord,\" he writes elsewhere, \"not only in disclosing particulars, but\nin giving him _caveats_ and admonishing him of any error which in this\naction he may commit (such is his lordship's nature), the better he will\ntake it.\" \"He must have seemed,\" says Mr. Spedding, a little too\ngrandly, \"in the eyes of Bacon like the hope of the world.\" The two men,\ncertainly, became warmly attached. Their friendship came to be one of\nthe closest kind, full of mutual services, and of genuine affection on\nboth sides. It was not the relation of a great patron and useful\ndependant; it was, what might be expected in the two men, that of\naffectionate equality. Each man was equally capable of seeing what the\nother was, and saw it. What Essex's feelings were towards Bacon the\nresults showed. Bacon, in after years, repeatedly claimed to have\ndevoted his whole time and labour to Essex's service. Holding him, he\nsays, to be \"the fittest instrument to do good to the State, I applied\nmyself to him in a manner which I think rarely happeneth among men;\nneglecting the Queen's service, mine own fortune, and, in a sort, my\nvocation, I did nothing but advise and ruminate with myself ... anything\nthat might concern his lordship's honour, fortune, or service.\" The\nclaim is far too wide. The \"Queen's service\" had hardly as yet come much\nin Bacon's way, and he never neglected it when it did come, nor his own\nfortune or vocation; his letters remain to attest his care in these\nrespects. But no doubt Bacon was then as ready to be of use to Essex,\nthe one man who seemed to understand and value him, as Essex was\ndesirous to be of use to Bacon.\n\nAnd it seemed as if Essex would have the ability as well as the wish.\nEssex was, without exception, the most brilliant man who ever appeared\nat Elizabeth's Court, and it seemed as if he were going to be the most\npowerful. Leicester was dead. Burghley was growing old, and indisposed\nfor the adventures and levity which, with all her grand power of ruling,\nElizabeth loved. She needed a favourite, and Essex was unfortunately\nmarked out for what she wanted. He had Leicester's fascination, without\nhis mean and cruel selfishness. He was as generous, as gallant, as quick\nto descry all great things in art and life, as Philip Sidney, with more\nvigour and fitness for active life than Sidney. He had not Raleigh's\nsad, dark depths of thought, but he had a daring courage equal to\nRaleigh's, without Raleigh's cynical contempt for mercy and honour. He\nhad every personal advantage requisite for a time when intellect, and\nready wit, and high-tempered valour, and personal beauty, and skill in\naffairs, with equal skill in amusements, were expected to go together in\nthe accomplished courtier. And Essex was a man not merely to be courted\nand admired, to shine and dazzle, but to be loved. Elizabeth, with her\nstrange and perverse emotional constitution, loved him, if she ever\nloved any one. Every one who served him loved him; and he was, as much\nas any one could be in those days, a popular favourite. Under better\nfortune he might have risen to a great height of character; in\nElizabeth's Court he was fated to be ruined.\n\nFor in that Court all the qualities in him which needed control received\ndaily stimulus, and his ardour and high-aiming temper turned into\nimpatience and restless irritability. He had a mistress who was at one\ntime in the humour to be treated as a tender woman, at another as an\noutrageous flirt, at another as the haughtiest and most imperious of\nqueens; her mood varied, no one could tell how, and it was most\ndangerous to mistake it. It was part of her pleasure to find in her\nfavourite a spirit as high, a humour as contradictory and determined, as\nher own; it was the charming contrast to the obsequiousness or the\nprudence of the rest; but no one could be sure at what unlooked-for\nmoment, and how fiercely, she might resent in earnest a display of what\nshe had herself encouraged. Essex was ruined for all real greatness by\nhaving to suit himself to this bewildering and most unwholesome and\ndegrading waywardness. She taught him to think himself irresistible in\nopinion and in claims; she amused herself in teaching him how completely\nhe was mistaken. Alternately spoiled and crossed, he learned to be\nexacting, unreasonable, absurd in his pettish resentments or brooding\nsullenness. He learned to think that she must be dealt with by the same\nmethods which she herself employed. The effect was not produced in a\nmoment; it was the result of a courtiership of sixteen years. But it\nended in corrupting a noble nature. Essex came to believe that she who\ncowed others must be frightened herself; that the stinging injustice\nwhich led a proud man to expect, only to see how he would behave when\nrefused, deserved to be brought to reason by a counter-buffet as rough\nas her own insolent caprice. He drifted into discontent, into\ndisaffection, into neglect of duty, into questionable schemings for the\nfuture of a reign that must shortly end, into criminal methods of\nguarding himself, of humbling his rivals and regaining influence. A\n\"fatal impatience,\" as Bacon calls it, gave his rivals an advantage\nwhich, perhaps in self-defence, they could not fail to take; and that\ncareer, so brilliant, so full of promise of good, ended in misery, in\ndishonour, in remorse, on the scaffold of the Tower.\n\nWith this attractive and powerful person Bacon's fortunes, in the last\nyears of the century, became more and more knit up. Bacon was now past\nthirty, Essex a few years younger. In spite of Bacon's apparent\nadvantage and interest at Court, in spite of abilities, which, though\nhis genius was not yet known, his contemporaries clearly recognised, he\nwas still a struggling and unsuccessful man: ambitious to rise, for no\nunworthy reasons, but needy, in weak health, with careless and expensive\nhabits, and embarrassed with debt. He had hoped to rise by the favour of\nthe Queen and for the sake of his father. For some ill-explained reason\nhe was to the last disappointed. Though she used him \"for matters of\nstate and revenue,\" she either did not like him, or did not see in him\nthe servant she wanted to advance. He went on to the last pressing his\nuncle, Lord Burghley. He applied in the humblest terms, he made himself\nuseful with his pen, he got his mother to write for him; but Lord\nBurghley, probably because he thought his nephew more of a man of\nletters than a sound lawyer and practical public servant, did not care\nto bring him forward. From his cousin, Robert Cecil, Bacon received\npolite words and friendly assurances. Cecil may have undervalued him, or\nhave been jealous of him, or suspected him as a friend of Essex; he\ncertainly gave Bacon good reason to think that his words meant nothing.\nExcept Essex, and perhaps his brother Antony--the most affectionate and\ndevoted of brothers--no one had yet recognised all that Bacon was.\nMeanwhile time was passing. The vastness, the difficulties, the\nattractions of that conquest of all knowledge which he dreamed of, were\nbecoming greater every day to his thoughts. The law, without which he\ncould not live, took up time and brought in little. Attendance on the\nCourt was expensive, yet indispensable, if he wished for place. His\nmother was never very friendly, and thought him absurd and extravagant.\nDebts increased and creditors grumbled. The outlook was discouraging,\nwhen his friendship with Essex opened to him a more hopeful prospect.\n\nIn the year 1593 the Attorney-General's place was vacant, and Essex, who\nin that year became a Privy Councillor, determined that Bacon should be\nAttorney-General. Bacon's reputation as a lawyer was overshadowed by his\nphilosophical and literary pursuits. He was thought young for the\noffice, and he had not yet served in any subordinate place. And there\nwas another man, who was supposed to carry all English law in his head,\nfull of rude force and endless precedents, hard of heart and voluble of\ntongue, who also wanted it. An Attorney-General was one who would bring\nall the resources and hidden subtleties of English law to the service of\nthe Crown, and use them with thorough-going and unflinching resolution\nagainst those whom the Crown accused of treason, sedition, or invasion\nof the prerogative. It is no wonder that the Cecils, and the Queen\nherself, thought Coke likely to be a more useful public servant than\nBacon: it is certain what Coke himself thought about it, and what his\nestimate was of the man whom Essex was pushing against him. But Essex\ndid not take up his friend's cause in the lukewarm fashion in which\nBurghley had patronised his nephew. There was nothing that Essex pursued\nwith greater pertinacity. He importuned the Queen. He risked without\nscruple offending her. She apparently long shrank from directly refusing\nhis request. The Cecils were for Coke--the \"_Huddler_\" as Bacon calls\nhim, in a letter to Essex; but the appointment was delayed. All through\n1593, and until April, 1594, the struggle went on.\n\nWhen Robert Cecil suggested that Essex should be content with the\nSolicitor's place for Bacon, \"praying him to be well advised, for if his\nLordship had spoken of that it might have been of easier digestion to\nthe Queen,\" he turned round on Cecil--\n\n     \"Digest me no digesting,\" said the Earl; \"for the Attorneyship is\n     that I must have for Francis Bacon; and in that I will spend my\n     uttermost credit, friendship, and authority against whomsoever, and\n     that whosoever went about to procure it to others, that it should\n     cost both the mediators and the suitors the setting on before they\n     came by it. And this be you assured of, Sir Robert,\" quoth the\n     Earl, \"for now do I fully declare myself; and for your own part,\n     Sir Robert, I do think much and strange both of my Lord your father\n     and you, that can have the mind to seek the preferment of a\n     stranger before so near a kinsman; namely, considering if you weigh\n     in a balance his parts and sufficiency in any respect with those\n     of his competitor, excepting only four poor years of admittance,\n     which Francis Bacon hath more than recompensed with the priority of\n     his reading; in all other respects you shall find no comparison\n     between them.\"\n\nBut the Queen's disgust at some very slight show of independence on\nBacon's part in Parliament, unforgiven in spite of repeated apologies,\ntogether with the influence of the Cecils and the pressure of so\nformidable and so useful a man as Coke, turned the scale against Essex.\nIn April, 1594, Coke was made Attorney. Coke did not forget the\npretender to law, as he would think him, who had dared so long to\ndispute his claims; and Bacon was deeply wounded. \"No man,\" he thought,\n\"had ever received a more exquisite disgrace,\" and he spoke of retiring\nto Cambridge \"to spend the rest of his life in his studies and\ncontemplations.\" But Essex was not discouraged. He next pressed eagerly\nfor the Solicitorship. Again, after much waiting, he was foiled. An\ninferior man was put over Bacon's head. Bacon found that Essex, who\ncould do most things, for some reason could not do this. He himself,\ntoo, had pressed his suit with the greatest importunity on the Queen, on\nBurghley, on Cecil, on every one who could help him; he reminded the\nQueen how many years ago it was since he first kissed her hand in her\nservice, and ever since had used his wits to please; but it was all in\nvain. For once he lost patience. He was angry with Essex; the Queen's\nanger with Essex had, he thought, recoiled on his friend. He was angry\nwith the Queen; she held his long waiting cheap; she played with him and\namused herself with delay; he would go abroad, and he \"knew her\nMajesty's nature, that she neither careth though the whole surname of\nthe Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither.\" He was very angry\nwith Robert Cecil; affecting not to believe them, he tells him stories\nhe has heard of his corrupt and underhand dealing. He writes almost a\nfarewell letter of ceremonious but ambiguous thanks to Lord Burghley,\nhoping that he would impute any offence that Bacon might have given to\nthe \"complexion of a suitor, and a tired sea-sick suitor,\" and speaking\ndespairingly of his future success in the law. The humiliations of what\na suitor has to go through torment him: \"It is my luck,\" he writes to\nCecil, \"still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature nor\nwould willingly meet with in my course, but yet cannot avoid without\nshow of base timorousness or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness.\"\nAnd to his friend Fulke Greville he thus unburdens himself:\n\n     \"SIR,--I understand of your pains to have visited me, for which I\n     thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had\n     said _Requiesce anima mea_; but I now am otherwise put to my\n     psalter; _Nolite confidere_. I dare go no further. Her Majesty had\n     by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me\n     to her service, which I could not understand but of the place I had\n     been named to. And now whether _invidus homo hoc fecit_; or whether\n     my matter must be an appendix to my Lord of Essex suit; or whether\n     her Majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take\n     advantage of some errors which, like enough, at one time or other I\n     may commit; or what is it? but her Majesty is not ready to despatch\n     it. And what though the Master of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex,\n     and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the\n     meantime I have a hard condition, to stand so that whatsoever\n     service I do to her Majesty it shall be thought to be but\n     _servitium viscatum_, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and\n     so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all\n     good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature, which will, I\n     fear, much hurt her Majesty's service in the end. I have been like\n     a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if her Majesty will not\n     take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For\n     to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which when he\n     is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the\n     child after it again, and so _in infinitum_, I am weary of it; as\n     also of wearying my good friends, of whom, nevertheless, I hope in\n     one course or other gratefully to deserve. And so, not forgetting\n     your business, I leave to trouble you with this idle letter; being\n     but _justa et moderata querimonia_; for indeed I do confess,\n     _primus amor_ will not easily be cast off. And thus again I commend\n     me to you.\"\n\nAfter one more effort the chase was given up, at least for the moment;\nfor it was soon resumed. But just now Bacon felt that all the world was\nagainst him. He would retire \"out of the sunshine into the shade.\" One\nfriend only encouraged him. He did more. He helped him when Bacon most\nwanted help, in his straitened and embarrassed \"estate.\" Essex, when he\ncould do nothing more, gave Bacon an estate worth at least \u00a31800.\nBacon's resolution is recorded in the following letter:\n\n     \"IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--I pray God her Majesty's\n     weighing be not like the weight of a balance, _gravia deorsum levia\n     sursum_. But I am as far from being altered in devotion towards\n     her, as I am from distrust that she will be altered in opinion\n     towards me, when she knoweth me better. For myself, I have lost\n     some opinion, some time, and some means; this is my account; but\n     then for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh; for time, it\n     is true it goeth and cometh not; but yet I have learned that it may\n     be redeemed. For means, I value that most; and the rather, _because\n     I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law_ (_if her\n     Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her\n     willing service_); and my reason is only, _because it drinketh too\n     much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes_. But even for\n     that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion,\n     That a philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your Lordship seeth\n     how I comfort myself; to the increase whereof I would fain please\n     myself to believe that to be true which my Lord Treasurer writeth;\n     which is, that it is more than a philosopher morally can disgest.\n     But without any such high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out\n     of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child, and had\n     little philosophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your\n     Lordship, I do think myself more beholding to you than to any man.\n     And I say, I reckon myself as a _common_ (not popular but\n     _common_); and as much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so\n     much your Lordship shall be sure to have.--Your Lordship's to obey\n     your honourable commands, more settled than ever.\"\n\nIt may be that, as Bacon afterwards maintained, the closing sentences of\nthis letter implied a significant reserve of his devotion. But during\nthe brilliant and stormy years of Essex's career which followed, Bacon's\nrelations to him continued unaltered. Essex pressed Bacon's claims\nwhenever a chance offered. He did his best to get Bacon a rich wife--the\nyoung widow of Sir Christopher Hatton--but in vain. Instead of Bacon she\naccepted Coke, and became famous afterwards in the great family quarrel,\nin which Coke and Bacon again found themselves face to face, and which\nnearly ruined Bacon before the time. Bacon worked for Essex when he was\nwanted, and gave the advice which a shrewd and cautious friend would\ngive to a man who, by his success and increasing pride and\nself-confidence, was running into serious dangers, arming against\nhimself deadly foes, and exposing himself to the chances of fortune.\nBacon was nervous about Essex's capacity for war, a capacity which\nperhaps was not proved, even by the most brilliant exploit of the time,\nthe capture of Cadiz, in which Essex foreshadowed the heroic but\nwell-calculated audacities of Nelson and Cochrane, and showed himself as\nlittle able as they to bear the intoxication of success, and to work in\nconcert with envious and unfriendly associates. At the end of the year\n1596, the year in which Essex had won such reputation at Cadiz, Bacon\nwrote him a letter of advice and remonstrance. It is a lively picture\nof the defects and dangers of Essex's behaviour as the Queen's\nfavourite; and it is a most characteristic and worldly-wise summary of\nthe ways which Bacon would have him take, to cure the one and escape the\nother. Bacon had, as he says, \"good reason to think that the Earl's\nfortune comprehended his own.\" And the letter may perhaps be taken as an\nindirect warning to Essex that Bacon must, at any rate, take care of his\nown fortune, if the Earl persisted in dangerous courses. Bacon shows how\nhe is to remove the impressions, strong in the Queen's mind, of Essex's\ndefects; how he is, by due submissions and stratagems, to catch her\nhumour--\n\n     \"But whether I counsel you the best, or for the best, duty bindeth\n     me to offer to you my wishes. I said to your Lordship last time,\n     _Martha, Martha, attendis ad plurima, unum sufficit_; win the\n     Queen: if this be not the beginning, of any other course I see no\n     end.\"\n\nBacon gives a series of minute directions how Essex is to disarm the\nQueen's suspicions, and to neutralize the advantage which his rivals\ntake of them; how he is to remove \"the opinion of his nature being\n_opiniastre_ and not rulable;\" how, avoiding the faults of Leicester and\nHatton, he is, as far as he can, to \"allege them for authors and\npatterns.\" Especially, he must give up that show of soldier-like\ndistinction, which the Queen so disliked, and take some quiet post at\nCourt. He must not alarm the Queen by seeking popularity; he must take\ncare of his estate; he must get rid of some of his officers; and he must\nnot be disquieted by other favourites.\n\nBacon wished, as he said afterwards, to see him \"with a white staff in\nhis hand, as my Lord of Leicester had,\" an honour and ornament to the\nCourt in the eyes of the people and foreign ambassadors. But Essex was\nnot fit for the part which Bacon urged upon him, that of an obsequious\nand vigilant observer of the Queen's moods and humours. As time went on,\nthings became more and more difficult between him and his strange\nmistress; and there were never wanting men who, like Cecil and Raleigh,\nfor good and bad reasons, feared and hated Essex, and who had the craft\nand the skill to make the most of his inexcusable errors. At last he\nallowed himself, from ambition, from the spirit of contradiction, from\nthe blind passion for doing what he thought would show defiance to his\nenemies, to be tempted into the Irish campaign of 1599. Bacon at a later\ntime claimed credit for having foreseen and foretold its issue. \"I did\nas plainly see his overthrow, chained as it were by destiny to that\njourney, as it is possible for any man to ground a judgment on future\ncontingents.\" He warned Essex, so he thought in after years, of the\ndifficulty of the work; he warned him that he would leave the Queen in\nthe hands of his enemies: \"It would be ill for her, ill for him, ill for\nthe State.\" \"I am sure,\" he adds, \"I never in anything in my life dealt\nwith him in like earnestness by speech, by writing, and by all the means\nI could devise.\" But Bacon's memory was mistaken. We have his letters.\nWhen Essex went to Ireland, Bacon wrote only in the language of sanguine\nhope--so little did he see \"overthrow chained by destiny to that\njourney,\" that \"some good spirit led his pen to presage to his Lordship\nsuccess;\" he saw in the enterprise a great occasion of honour to his\nfriend; he gave prudent counsels, but he looked forward confidently to\nEssex being as \"fatal a captain to that war, as Africanus was to the war\nof Carthage.\" Indeed, however anxious he may have been, he could not\nhave foreseen Essex's unaccountable and to this day unintelligible\nfailure. But failure was the end, from whatever cause; failure,\ndisgraceful and complete. Then followed wild and guilty but abortive\nprojects for retrieving his failure, by using his power in Ireland to\nmake himself formidable to his enemies at Court, and even to the Queen\nherself. He intrigued with Tyrone; he intrigued with James of Scotland;\nhe plunged into a whirl of angry and baseless projects, which came to\nnothing the moment they were discussed. How empty and idle they were was\nshown by his return against orders to tell his own story at Nonsuch, and\nby thus placing himself alone and undeniably in the wrong, in the power\nof the hostile Council. Of course it was not to be thought of that Cecil\nshould not use his advantage in the game. It was too early, irritated\nthough the Queen was, to strike the final blow. But it is impossible not\nto see, looking back over the miserable history, that Essex was treated\nin a way which was certain, sooner or later, to make him, being what he\nwas, plunge into a fatal and irretrievable mistake. He was treated as a\ncat treats a mouse; he was worried, confined, disgraced, publicly\nreprimanded, brought just within verge of the charge of treason, but not\nquite, just enough to discredit and alarm him, but to leave him still a\ncertain amount of play. He was made to see that the Queen's favour was\nnot quite hopeless; but that nothing but the most absolute and\nunreserved humiliation could recover it. It was plain to any one who\nknew Essex that this treatment would drive Essex to madness. \"These same\ngradations of yours\"--so Bacon represents himself expostulating with the\nQueen on her caprices--\"are fitter to corrupt than to correct any mind\nof greatness.\" They made Essex desperate; he became frightened for his\nlife, and he had reason to be so, though not in the way which he feared.\nAt length came the stupid and ridiculous outbreak of the 8th of\nFebruary, 1600/1601, a plot to seize the palace and raise the city\nagainst the ministers, by the help of a few gentlemen armed only with\ntheir rapiers. As Bacon himself told the Queen, \"if some base and\ncruel-minded persons had entered into such an action, it might have\ncaused much blow and combustion; but it appeared well that they were\nsuch as knew not how to play the malefactors!\" But it was sufficient to\nbring Essex within the doom of treason.\n\nEssex knew well what the stake was. He lost it, and deserved to lose it,\nlittle as his enemies deserved to win it; for they, too, were doing what\nwould have cost them their heads if Elizabeth had known\nit--corresponding, as Essex was accused of doing, with Scotland about\nthe succession, and possibly with Spain. But they were playing\ncautiously and craftily; he with bungling passion. He had been so long\naccustomed to power and place, that he could not endure that rivals\nshould keep him out of it. They were content to have their own way,\nwhile affecting to be the humblest of servants; he would be nothing less\nthan a Mayor of the Palace. He was guilty of a great public crime, as\nevery man is who appeals to arms for anything short of the most sacred\ncause. He was bringing into England, which had settled down into\npeaceable ways, an imitation of the violent methods of France and the\nGuises. But the crime as well as the penalty belonged to the age, and\ncrimes legally said to be against the State mean morally very different\nthings, according to the state of society and opinion. It is an\nunfairness verging on the ridiculous, when the ground is elaborately\nlaid for keeping up the impression that Essex was preparing a real\ntreason against the Queen like that of Norfolk. It was a treason of the\nsame sort and order as that for which Northumberland sent Somerset to\nthe block: the treason of being an unsuccessful rival.\n\nMeanwhile Bacon had been getting gradually into the unofficial employ of\nthe Government. He had become one of the \"Learned Counsel\"--lawyers with\nsubordinate and intermittent work, used when wanted, but without patent\nor salary, and not ranking with the regular law officers. The Government\nhad found him useful in affairs of the revenue, in framing\ninterrogatories for prisoners in the Tower, in drawing up reports of\nplots against the Queen. He did not in this way earn enough to support\nhimself; but he had thus come to have some degree of access to the\nQueen, which he represents as being familiar and confidential, though he\nstill perceived, as he says himself, that she did not like him. At the\nfirst news of Essex's return to England, Bacon greeted him--\n\n     \"MY LORD,--Conceiving that your Lordship came now up in the person\n     of a good servant to see your sovereign mistress, which kind of\n     compliments are many times _instar magnorum meritorum_, and\n     therefore it would be hard for me to find you, I have committed to\n     this poor paper the humble salutations of him _that is more yours\n     than any man's, and more yours than any man_. To these salutations\n     I add a due and joyful gratulation, confessing that your Lordship,\n     in your last conference with me before your journey, spake not in\n     vain, God making it good, That you trusted we should say _Quis\n     putasset_! Which as it is found true in a happy sense, so I wish\n     you do not find another _Quis putasset_ in the manner of taking\n     this so great a service. But I hope it is, as he said, _Nubecula\n     est, cito transibit_, and that your Lordship's wisdom and\n     obsequious circumspection and patience will turn all to the best.\n     So referring all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you\n     to God's best preservation.\"\n\nBut when Essex's conduct in Ireland had to be dealt with, Bacon's\nservices were called for; and from this time his relations towards Essex\nwere altered. Every one, no one better than the Queen herself, knew all\nthat he owed to Essex. It is strangely illustrative of the time, that\nespecially as Bacon held so subordinate a position, he should have been\nrequired, and should have been trusted, to act against his only and most\ngenerous benefactor. It is strange, too, that however great his loyalty\nto the Queen, however much and sincerely he might condemn his friend's\nconduct, he should think it possible to accept the task. He says that he\nmade some remonstrance; and he says, no doubt truly, that during the\nfirst stage of the business he used the ambiguous position in which he\nwas placed to soften Essex's inevitable punishment, and to bring about a\nreconciliation between him and the Queen. But he was required, as the\nQueen's lawyer, to set forth in public Essex's offences; and he admits\nthat he did so \"not over tenderly.\" Yet all this, even if we have\nmisgivings about it, is intelligible. If he had declined, he could not,\nperhaps, have done the service which he assures us that he tried to do\nfor Essex; and it is certain that he would have had to reckon with the\nterrible lady who in her old age still ruled England from the throne of\nHenry VIII., and who had certainly no great love for Bacon himself. She\nhad already shown him in a much smaller matter what was the forfeit to\nbe paid for any resistance to her will. All the hopes of his life must\nperish; all the grudging and suspicious favours which he had won with\nsuch unremitting toil and patient waiting would be sacrificed, and he\nwould henceforth live under the wrath of those who never forgave. And\nwhatever he did for himself, he believed that he was serving Essex. His\nscheming imagination and his indefatigable pen were at work. He tried\nstrange indirect methods; he invented a correspondence between his\nbrother and Essex, which was to fall into the Queen's hands in order to\nsoften her wrath and show her Essex's most secret feelings. When the\nQueen proposed to dine with him at his lodge in Twickenham Park, \"though\nI profess not to be a poet,\" he \"prepared a sonnet tending and alluding\nto draw on her Majesty's reconcilement to my Lord.\" It was an awkward\nthing for one who had been so intimate with Essex to be so deep in the\ncounsels of those who hated him. He complains that many people thought\nhim ungrateful and disloyal to his friend, and that stories circulated\nto his disadvantage, as if he were poisoning the Queen's ear against\nEssex. But he might argue fairly enough that, wilful and wrong-headed as\nEssex had been, it was the best that he could now do for him; and as\nlong as it was only a question of Essex's disgrace and enforced absence\nfrom Court, Bacon could not be bound to give up the prospects of his\nlife--indeed, his public duty as a subordinate servant of government--on\naccount of his friend's inexcusable and dangerous follies. Essex did not\nsee it so, and in the subjoined correspondence had the advantage; but\nBacon's position, though a higher one might be imagined, where men had\nbeen such friends as these two men had been, is quite a defensible one:\n\n     \"MY LORD,--No man can better expound my doings than your Lordship,\n     which maketh me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to\n     believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of\n     _bonus civis_, which with us is a good and true servant to the\n     Queen, and next of _bonus vir_, that is an honest man. I desire\n     your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some\n     things much better than I love your Lordship--as the Queen's\n     service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the\n     good of my country, and the like--yet I love few persons better\n     than yourself, both for gratitude's sake and for your own virtues,\n     which cannot hurt but by accident or abuse. Of which my good\n     affection I was ever ready and am ready to yield testimony by any\n     good offices, but with such reservations as yourself cannot but\n     allow; for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with\n     waxen wings, doubting Icarus's fortune, so for the growing up of\n     your own feathers, specially ostrich's, or any other save of a bird\n     of prey, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree\n     whereupon I have turned and shall turn, which to signify to you,\n     though I think you are of yourself persuaded as much, is the cause\n     of my writing; and so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness.\n     From Gray's Inn, this 20th day of July, 1600.\n\n     \"Your Lordship's most humbly,\n     \"FR. BACON.\"\n\nTo this letter Essex returned an answer of dignified reserve, such as\nBacon might himself have dictated--\n\n     \"MR. BACON,--I can neither expound nor censure your late actions,\n     being ignorant of all of them, save one, and having directed my\n     sight inward only, to examine myself. You do pray me to believe\n     that you only aspire to the conscience and commendation of _bonus\n     civis_ and _bonus vir_; and I do faithfully assure you, that while\n     that is your ambition (though your course be active and mine\n     contemplative), yet we shall both _convenire in codem tertio_ and\n     _convenire inter nosipsos_. Your profession of affection and offer\n     of good offices are welcome to me. For answer to them I will say\n     but this, that you have believed I have been kind to you, and you\n     may believe that I cannot be other, either upon humour or my own\n     election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else I\n     should say somewhat of your poetical example. But this I must say,\n     that I never flew with other wings than desire to merit and\n     confidence in my Sovereign's favour; and when one of these wings\n     failed me I would light nowhere but at my Sovereign's feet, though\n     she suffered me to be bruised with my fall. And till her Majesty,\n     that knows I was never bird of prey, finds it to agree with her\n     will and her service that my wings should be imped again, I have\n     committed myself to the mire. No power but my God's and my\n     Sovereign's can alter this resolution of\n\n     \"Your retired friend,\n     \"ESSEX.\"\n\nBut after Essex's mad attempt in the city a new state of things arose.\nThe inevitable result was a trial for high treason, a trial of which no\none could doubt the purpose and end. The examination of accomplices\nrevealed speeches, proposals, projects, not very intelligible to us in\nthe still imperfectly understood game of intrigue that was going on\namong all parties at the end of Elizabeth's reign, but quite enough to\nplace Essex at the mercy of the Government and the offended Queen. \"The\nnew information,\" says Mr. Spedding, \"had been immediately communicated\nto Coke and Bacon.\" Coke, as Attorney-General, of course conducted the\nprosecution; and the next prominent person on the side of the Crown was\nnot the Solicitor, or any other regular law officer, but Bacon, though\nholding the very subordinate place of one of the \"Learned Counsel.\"\n\nIt does not appear that he thought it strange, that he showed any pain\nor reluctance, that he sought to be excused. He took it as a matter of\ncourse. The part assigned to Bacon in the prosecution was as important\nas that of Coke; and he played it more skilfully and effectively. Trials\nin those days were confused affairs, often passing into a mere wrangle\nbetween the judges, lawyers, and lookers-on, and the prisoner at the\nbar. It was so in this case. Coke is said to have blundered in his way\nof presenting the evidence, and to have been led away from the point\ninto an altercation with Essex. Probably it really did not much matter;\nbut the trial was getting out of its course and inclining in favour of\nthe prisoner, till Bacon--Mr. Spedding thinks, out of his regular\nturn--stepped forward and retrieved matters. This is Mr. Spedding's\naccount of what Bacon said and did:\n\n     \"By this time the argument had drifted so far away from the point\n     that it must have been difficult for a listener to remember what it\n     was that the prisoners were charged with, or how much of the charge\n     had been proved. And Coke, who was all this time the sole speaker\n     on behalf of the Crown, was still following each fresh topic that\n     rose before him, without the sign of an intention or the intimation\n     of a wish to return to the main question and reform the broken\n     ranks of his evidence. Luckily he seems to have been now at a loss\n     what point to take next, and the pause gave Bacon an opportunity of\n     rising. It can hardly have been in pursuance of previous\n     arrangements; for though it was customary in those days to\n     distribute the evidence into parts and to assign several parts to\n     several counsel, there had been no appearance as yet of any part\n     being concluded. It is probable that the course of the trial had\n     upset previous arrangements and confused the parts. At any rate so\n     it was, however it came to pass, that when Cecil and Essex had at\n     last finished their expostulation and parted with charitable\n     prayers, each that the other might be forgiven, then (says our\n     reporter) Mr. Bacon entered into a speech much after this fashion:\n\n     \"'In speaking of this late and horrible rebellion which hath been\n     in the eyes and ears of all men, I shall save myself much labour in\n     opening and enforcing the points thereof, insomuch as I speak not\n     before a country jury of ignorant men, but before a most honourable\n     assembly of the greatest Peers of the land, whose wisdoms conceive\n     far more than my tongue can utter; yet with your gracious and\n     honourable favours I will presume, if not for information of your\n     Honours, yet for the discharge of my duty, to say thus much. No man\n     can be ignorant, that knows matters of former ages--and all history\n     makes it plain--that there was never any traitor heard of that\n     durst directly attempt the seat of his liege prince but he always\n     coloured his practices with some plausible pretence. For God hath\n     imprinted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private\n     man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous\n     intent. And therefore they run another side course, _oblique et \u00e0\n     latere_: some to reform corruptions of the State and religion; some\n     to reduce the ancient liberties and customs pretended to be lost\n     and worn out; some to remove those persons that being in high\n     places make themselves subject to envy; but all of them aim at the\n     overthrow of the State and destruction of the present rulers. And\n     this likewise is the use of those that work mischief of another\n     quality; as Cain, that first murderer, took up an excuse for his\n     fact, shaming to outface it with impudency, thus the Earl made his\n     colour the severing some great men and councillors from her\n     Majesty's favour, and the fear he stood in of his pretended enemies\n     lest they should murder him in his house. Therefore he saith he\n     was compelled to fly into the City for succour and assistance; not\n     much unlike Pisistratus, of whom it was so anciently written how he\n     gashed and wounded himself, and in that sort ran crying into Athens\n     that his life was sought and like to have been taken away; thinking\n     to have moved the people to have pitied him and taken his part by\n     such counterfeited harm and danger; whereas his aim and drift was\n     to take the government of the city into his hands and alter the\n     form thereof. With like pretences of dangers and assaults the Earl\n     of Essex entered the City of London and passed through the bowels\n     thereof, blanching rumours that he should have been murdered and\n     that the State was sold; whereas he had no such enemies, no such\n     dangers: persuading themselves that if they could prevail all would\n     have done well. But now _magna scelera terminantur in h\u00e6resin_; for\n     you, my Lord, should know that though princes give their subjects\n     cause of discontent, though they take away the honours they have\n     heaped upon them, though they bring them to a lower estate than\n     they raised them from, yet ought they not to be so forgetful of\n     their allegiance that they should enter into any undutiful act;\n     much less upon rebellion, as you, my Lord, have done. All\n     whatsoever you have or can say in answer hereof are but shadows.\n     And therefore methinks it were best for you to confess, not to\n     justify.'\"\n\nEssex was provoked by Bacon's incredulous sneer about enemies and\ndangers--\"I call forth Mr. Bacon against Mr. Bacon,\" and referred to the\nletters which Bacon had written in his name, and in which these\ndangerous enmities were taken for granted. Bacon, in answer, repeated\nwhat he said so often--\"That he had spent more time in vain in studying\nhow to make the Earl a good servant to the Queen and State than he had\ndone in anything else.\" Once more Coke got the proceedings into a\ntangle, and once more Bacon came forward to repair the miscarriage of\nhis leader.\n\n     \"'I have never yet seen in any case such favour shown to any\n     prisoner; so many digressions, such delivering of evidence by\n     fractions, and so silly a defence of such great and notorious\n     treasons. May it please your Grace, you have seen how weakly he\n     hath shadowed his purpose and how slenderly he hath answered the\n     objections against him. But, my Lord, I doubt the variety of\n     matters and the many digressions may minister occasion of\n     forgetfulness, and may have severed the judgments of the Lords; and\n     therefore I hold it necessary briefly to recite the Judges'\n     opinions.'\n\n     \"That being done, he proceeded to this effect:\n\n     \"'Now put the case that the Earl of Essex's intents were, as he\n     would have it believed, to go only as a suppliant to her Majesty.\n     Shall their petitions be presented by armed petitioners? This must\n     needs bring loss of property to the prince. Neither is it any point\n     of law, as my Lord of Southampton would have it believed, that\n     condemns them of treason. To take secret counsel, to execute it, to\n     run together in numbers armed with weapons--what can be the excuse?\n     Warned by the Lord Keeper, by a herald, and yet persist! Will any\n     simple man take this to be less than treason?'\n\n     \"The Earl of Essex answered that if he had purposed anything\n     against others than those his private enemies, he would not have\n     stirred with so slender a company. Whereunto Mr. Bacon answered:\n\n     \"'It was not the company you carried with you but the assistance\n     you hoped for in the City which you trusted unto. The Duke of Guise\n     thrust himself into the streets of Paris on the day of the\n     Barricades in his doublet and hose, attended only with eight\n     gentlemen, and found that help in the city which (thanks be to God)\n     you failed of here. And what followed? The King was forced to put\n     himself into a pilgrim's weeds, and in that disguise to steal away\n     to scape their fury. Even such was my Lord's confidence too, and\n     his pretence the same--an all-hail and a kiss to the City. But the\n     end was treason, as hath been sufficiently proved. But when he had\n     once delivered and engaged himself so far into that which the\n     shallowness of his conceit could not accomplish as he expected, the\n     Queen for her defence taking arms against him, he was glad to yield\n     himself; and thinking to colour his practices, turned his pretexts,\n     and alleged the occasion thereof to proceed from a private\n     quarrel.'\n\n     \"To this\" (adds the reporter) \"the Earl answered little. Nor was\n     anything said afterwards by either of the prisoners, either in the\n     thrust-and-parry dialogue with Coke that followed, or when they\n     spoke at large to the question why judgment should not be\n     pronounced, which at all altered the complexion of the case. They\n     were both found guilty and sentence passed in the usual form.\"\n\nBacon's legal position was so subordinate a place that there must have\nbeen a special reason for his employment. It is difficult to avoid the\nconclusion that, on the part of the Government, Bacon was thus used for\nthe very reason that he had been the friend of Essex. He was not\ncommonly called upon in such prosecutions. He was not employed by Cecil\nin the Winchester trials of Raleigh, Grey, and Cobham, three years\nafterwards, nor in those connected with the Gunpowder Plot. He was\ncalled upon now because no one could so much damage Essex; and this last\nproof of his ready service was required by those whose favour, since\nEssex had gone hopelessly wrong, he had been diligently seeking. And\nBacon acquiesced in the demand, apparently without surprise. No record\nremains to show that he felt any difficulty in playing his part. He had\npersuaded himself that his public duty, his duty as a good citizen to\nthe Queen and the commonwealth, demanded of him that he should obey the\ncall to do his best to bring a traitor to punishment.\n\nPublic duty has claims on a man as well as friendship, and in many\nconceivable cases claims paramount to those of friendship. And yet\nfriendship, too, has claims, at least on a man's memory. Essex had been\na dear friend, if words could mean anything. He had done more than any\nman had done for Bacon, generously and nobly, and Bacon had acknowledged\nit in the amplest terms. Only a year before he had written, \"I am as\nmuch yours as any man's, and as much yours as any man.\" It is not, and\nit was not, a question of Essex's guilt. It may be a question whether\nthe whole matter was not exaggerated as to its purpose, as it certainly\nwas as to its real danger and mischief. We at least know that his\nrivals dabbled in intrigue and foolish speeches as well as he; that\nlittle more than two years afterwards Raleigh and Grey and Cobham were\ncondemned for treason in much the same fashion as he was; that Cecil to\nthe end of his days--with whatever purpose--was a pensioner of Spain.\nThe question was not whether Essex was guilty. The question for Bacon\nwas, whether it was becoming in him, having been what he had been to\nEssex, to take a leading part in proceedings which were to end in his\nruin and death. He was not a judge. He was not a regular law officer\nlike Coke. His only employment had been casual and occasional. He might,\nmost naturally, on the score of his old friendship, have asked to be\nexcused. Condemning, as he did, his friend's guilt and folly, he might\nhave refused to take part in a cause of blood, in which his best friend\nmust perish. He might honestly have given up Essex as incorrigible, and\nhave retired to stand apart in sorrow and silence while the inevitable\ntragedy was played out. The only answer to this is, that to have\ndeclined would have incurred the Queen's displeasure: he would have\nforfeited any chance of advancement; nay, closely connected as he had\nbeen with Essex, he might have been involved in his friend's ruin. But\ninferior men have marred their fortunes by standing by their friends in\nnot undeserved trouble, and no one knew better than Bacon what was\nworthy and noble in human action. The choice lay before him. He seems\nhardly to have gone through any struggle. He persuaded himself that he\ncould not help himself, under the constraint of his duty to the Queen,\nand he did his best to get Essex condemned.\n\nAnd this was not all. The death of Essex was a shock to the popularity\nof Elizabeth greater than anything that had happened in her long reign.\nBacon's name also had come into men's mouths as that of a time-server\nwho played fast and loose with Essex and his enemies, and who, when he\nhad got what he could from Essex, turned to see what he could get from\nthose who put him to death. A justification of the whole affair was felt\nto be necessary; and Bacon was fixed upon for the distinction and the\ndishonour of doing it. No one could tell the story so well, and it was\nfelt that he would not shrink from it. Nor did he. In cold blood he sat\ndown to blacken Essex, using his intimate personal knowledge of the past\nto strengthen his statements against a friend who was in his grave, and\nfor whom none could answer but Bacon himself. It is a well-compacted and\nforcible account of Essex's misdoings, on which of course the colour of\ndeliberate and dangerous treason was placed. Much of it, no doubt, was\ntrue; but even of the facts, and much more of the colour, there was no\ncheck to be had, and it is certain that it was an object to the\nGovernment to make out the worst. It is characteristic that Bacon\nrecords that he did not lose sight of the claims of courtesy, and\nstudiously spoke of \"my Lord of Essex\" in the draft submitted for\ncorrection to the Queen; but she was more unceremonious, and insisted\nthat the \"rebel\" should be spoken of simply as \"Essex.\"\n\nAfter a business of this kind, fines and forfeitures flowed in\nabundantly, and were \"usually bestowed on deserving servants or favoured\nsuitors by way of reward;\" and Bacon came in for his share. Out of one\nof the fines he received \u00a31200. \"The Queen hath done something for me,\"\nhe writes to a friendly creditor, \"though not in the proportion I had\nhoped,\" and he afterwards asked for something more. It was rather under\nthe value of Essex's gift to him in 1594. But she still refused him all\npromotion. He was without an official place in the Queen's service, and\nhe never was allowed to have it. It is clear that the \"Declaration of\nthe Treason of the Earl of Essex,\" if it justified the Government, did\nnot remove the odium which had fallen on Bacon. Mr. Spedding says that\nhe can find no signs of it. The proof of it is found in the \"Apology\"\nwhich Bacon found it expedient to write after Elizabeth's death and\nearly in James's reign. He found that the recollection of the way in\nwhich he had dealt with his friend hung heavy upon him; men hesitated to\ntrust him in spite of his now recognised ability. Accordingly, he drew\nup an apology, which he addressed to Lord Mountjoy, the friend, in\nreality half the accomplice, of Essex, in his wild, ill-defined plan for\nputting pressure on Elizabeth. It is a clear, able, of course _ex parte_\nstatement of the doings of the three chief actors, two of whom could no\nlonger answer for themselves, or correct and contradict the third. It\nrepresents the Queen as implacable and cruel, Essex as incorrigibly and\noutrageously wilful, proud, and undutiful, Bacon himself as using every\neffort and device to appease the Queen's anger and suspiciousness, and\nto bring Essex to a wiser and humbler mind. The picture is indeed a\nvivid one, and full of dramatic force, of an unrelenting and merciless\nmistress bent on breaking and bowing down to the dust the haughty spirit\nof a once-loved but rebellious favourite, whom, though he has deeply\noffended, she yet wishes to bring once more under her yoke; and of the\ncalm, keen-witted looker-on, watching the dangerous game, not without\npersonal interest, but with undisturbed presence of mind, and doing his\nbest to avert an irreparable and fatal breach. How far he honestly did\nhis best for his misguided friend we can only know from his own report;\nbut there is no reason to think that he did Essex ill service, though\nhe notices in passing an allegation that the Queen in one of her angry\nfits had charged him with this. But his interest clearly was to make up\nthe quarrel between the Queen and Essex. Bacon would have been a greater\nman with both of them if he had been able to do so. He had been too\ndeeply in Essex's intimacy to make his new position of mediator, with a\nstrong bias on the Queen's side, quite safe and easy for a man of\nhonourable mind; but a cool-judging and prudent man may well have acted\nas he represents himself acting without forgetting what he owed to his\nfriend. Till the last great moment of trial there is a good deal to be\nsaid for Bacon: a man keenly alive to Essex's faults, with a strong\nsense of what he owed to the Queen and the State, and with his own\nreasonable chances of rising greatly prejudiced by Essex's folly. But at\nlength came the crisis which showed the man, and threw light on all that\nhad passed before, when he was picked out, out of his regular place, to\nbe charged with the task of bringing home the capital charge against\nEssex. He does not say he hesitated. He does not say that he asked to be\nexcused the terrible office. He did not flinch as the minister of\nvengeance for those who required that Essex should die. He did his work,\nwe are told by his admiring biographer, better than Coke, and repaired\nthe blunders of the prosecution. He passes over very shortly this part\nof the business: \"It was laid upon me with the rest of my fellows;\" yet\nit is the knot and key of the whole, as far as his own character is\nconcerned. Bacon had his public duty: his public duty may have compelled\nhim to stand apart from Essex. But it was his interest, it was no part\nof his public duty, which required him to accept the task of accuser of\nhis friend, and in his friend's direst need calmly to drive home a\nwell-directed stroke that should extinguish chances and hopes, and make\nhis ruin certain. No one who reads his anxious letters about preferment\nand the Queen's favour, about his disappointed hopes, about his\nstraitened means and distress for money, about his difficulties with his\ncreditors--he was twice arrested for debt--can doubt that the question\nwas between his own prospects and his friend; and that to his own\ninterest he sacrificed his friend and his own honour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nBACON AND JAMES I.\n\n\nBacon's life was a double one. There was the life of high thinking, of\ndisinterested aims, of genuine enthusiasm, of genuine desire to delight\nand benefit mankind, by opening new paths to wonder and knowledge and\npower. And there was the put on and worldly life, the life of supposed\nnecessities for the provision of daily bread, the life of ambition and\nself-seeking, which he followed, not without interest and satisfaction,\nbut at bottom because he thought he must--must be a great man, must be\nrich, must live in the favour of the great, because without it his great\ndesigns could not be accomplished. His original plan of life was\ndisclosed in his letter to Lord Burghley: to get some office with an\nassured income and not much work, and then to devote the best of his\ntime to his own subjects. But this, if it was really his plan, was\ngradually changed: first, because he could not get such a place; and\nnext because his connection with Essex, the efforts to gain him the\nAttorney's place, and the use which the Queen made of him after Essex\ncould do no more for him, drew him more and more into public work, and\nspecially the career of the law. We know that he would not by preference\nhave chosen the law, and did not feel that his vocation lay that way;\nbut it was the only way open to him for mending his fortunes. And so\nthe two lives went on side by side, the worldly one--he would have said,\nthe practical one--often interfering with the life of thought and\ndiscovery, and partly obscuring it, but yet always leaving it paramount\nin his own mind. His dearest and most cherished ideas, the thoughts with\nwhich he was most at home and happiest, his deepest and truest\nambitions, were those of an enthusiastic and romantic believer in a\ngreat discovery just within his grasp. They were such as the dreams and\nvisions of his great Franciscan namesake, and of the imaginative seekers\nafter knowledge in the middle ages, real or mythical, Albert the Great,\nCornelius Agrippa, Dr. Faustus; they were the eager, undoubting hopes of\nthe physical students in Italy and England in his own time, Giordano\nBruno, Telesio, Campanella, Gilbert, Galileo, or the founders of the\nItalian prototype of \"Solomon's House\" in the _New Atlantis_, the\nprecursor of our Royal Societies, the Academy of the _Lincei_ at Rome.\nAmong these meditations was his inner life. But however he may have\noriginally planned his course, and though at times under the influence\nof disappointment he threatened to retire to Cambridge or to travel\nabroad, he had bound himself fast to public life, and soon ceased to\nthink of quitting it. And he had a real taste for it--for its shows, its\nprizes, for the laws and turns of the game, for its debates and\nvicissitudes. He was no mere idealist or recluse to undervalue or\ndespise the real grandeur of the world. He took the keenest interest in\nthe nature and ways of mankind; he liked to observe, to generalise in\nshrewd and sometimes cynical epigrams. He liked to apply his powerful\nand fertile intellect to the practical problems of society and\ngovernment, to their curious anomalies, to their paradoxical phenomena;\nhe liked to address himself, either as an expounder or a reformer, to\nthe principles and entanglements of English law; he aspired, both as a\nlecturer and a legislator, to improve and simplify it. It was not beyond\nhis hopes to shape a policy, to improve administration, to become\npowerful by bringing his sagacity and largeness of thought to the\nservice of the State, in reconciling conflicting forces, in mediating\nbetween jealous parties and dangerous claims. And he liked to enter into\nthe humours of a Court; to devote his brilliant imagination and\naffluence of invention either to devising a pageant which should throw\nall others into the shade, or a compromise which should get great\npersons out of some difficulty of temper or pique.\n\nIn all these things he was as industrious, as laborious, as calmly\npersevering and tenacious, as he was in his pursuit of his philosophical\nspeculations. He was a compound of the most adventurous and most\ndiversified ambition, with a placid and patient temper, such as we\ncommonly associate with moderate desires and the love of retirement and\nan easy life. To imagine and dare anything, and never to let go the\nobject of his pursuit, is one side of him; on the other he is\nobsequiously desirous to please and fearful of giving offence, the\nhumblest and most grateful and also the most importunate of suitors,\nready to bide his time with an even cheerfulness of spirit, which yet it\nwas not safe to provoke by ill offices and the wish to thwart him. He\nnever misses a chance of proffering his services; he never lets pass an\nopportunity of recommending himself to those who could help him. He is\nso bent on natural knowledge that we have a sense of incongruity when we\nsee him engaging in politics as if he had no other interest. He throws\nhimself with such zest into the language of the moralist, the\ntheologian, the historian, that we forget we have before us the author\nof a new departure in physical inquiry, and the unwearied compiler of\ntables of natural history. When he is a lawyer, he seems only a lawyer.\nIf he had not been the author of the _Instauratio_, his life would not\nhave looked very different from that of any other of the shrewd and\nsupple lawyers who hung on to the Tudor and Stuart Courts, and who\nunscrupulously pushed their way to preferment. He claimed to be, in\nspite of the misgivings of Elizabeth and her ministers, as devoted to\npublic work and as capable of it as any of them. He was ready for\nanything, for any amount of business, ready, as in everything, to take\ninfinite trouble about it. The law, if he did not like it, was yet no\nby-work with him; he was as truly ambitious as the men with whom he\nmaintained so keen and for long so unsuccessful a rivalry. He felt\nbitterly the disappointment of seeing men like Coke and Fleming and\nDoddridge and Hobart pass before him; he could not, if he had been only\na lawyer, have coveted more eagerly the places, refused to him, which\nthey got; only, he had besides a whole train of purposes, an inner and\nsupreme ambition, of which they knew nothing. And with all this there is\nno apparent consciousness of these manifold and varied interests. He\nnever affected to conceal from himself his superiority to other men in\nhis aims and in the grasp of his intelligence. But there is no trace\nthat he prided himself on the variety and versatility of these powers,\nor that he even distinctly realized to himself that it was anything\nremarkable that he should have so many dissimilar objects and be able so\nreadily to pursue them in such different directions.\n\nIt is doubtful whether, as long as Elizabeth lived, Bacon could ever\nhave risen above his position among the \"Learned Counsel,\" an office\nwithout patent or salary or regular employment. She used, him, and he\nwas willing to be used; but he plainly did not appear in her eyes to be\nthe kind of man who would suit her in the more prominent posts of her\nGovernment. Unusual and original ability is apt, till it is generally\nrecognised, to carry with it suspicion and mistrust as to its being\nreally all that it seems to be. Perhaps she thought of the possibility\nof his flying out unexpectedly at some inconvenient pinch, and\nattempting to serve her interests, not in her way, but in his own;\nperhaps she distrusted in business and state affairs so brilliant a\ndiscourser, whose heart was known, first and above all, to be set on\ngreat dreams of knowledge; perhaps those interviews with her in which he\ndescribes the counsels which he laid before her, and in which his\nshrewdness and foresight are conspicuous, may not have been so welcome\nto her as he imagined; perhaps, it is not impossible, that he may have\nbeen too compliant for her capricious taste, and too visibly anxious to\nplease. Perhaps, too, she could not forget, in spite of what had\nhappened, that he had been the friend, and not the very generous friend,\nof Essex. But, except as to a share of the forfeitures, with which he\nwas not satisfied, his fortunes did not rise under Elizabeth.\n\nWhatever may have been the Queen's feelings towards him, there is no\ndoubt that one powerful influence, which lasted into the reign of James,\nwas steadily adverse to his advancement. Burghley had been strangely\nniggardly in what he did to help his brilliant nephew; he was going off\nthe scene, and probably did not care to trouble himself about a younger\nand uncongenial aspirant to service. But his place was taken by his son,\nRobert Cecil; and Cecil might naturally have been expected to welcome\nthe co-operation of one of his own family who was foremost among the\nrising men of Cecil's own generation, and who certainly was most\ndesirous to do him service. But it is plain that he early made up his\nmind to keep Bacon in the background. It is easy to imagine reasons,\nthough the apparent short-sightedness of the policy may surprise us; but\nCecil was too reticent and self-controlled a man to let his reasons\nappear, and his words, in answer to his cousin's applications for his\nassistance, were always kind, encouraging, and vague. But we must judge\nby the event, and that makes it clear that Cecil did not care to see\nBacon in high position. Nothing can account for Bacon's strange failure\nfor so long a time to reach his due place in the public service but the\nsecret hostility, whatever may have been the cause, of Cecil.\n\nThere was also another difficulty. Coke was the great lawyer of the day,\na man whom the Government could not dispense with, and whom it was\ndangerous to offend. And Coke thoroughly disliked Bacon. He thought\nlightly of his law, and he despised his refinement and his passion for\nknowledge. He cannot but have resented the impertinence, as he must have\nthought it, of Bacon having been for a whole year his rival for office.\nIt is possible that if people then agreed with Mr. Spedding's opinion as\nto the management of Essex's trial, he may have been irritated by\njealousy; but a couple of months after the trial (April 29, 1601) Bacon\nsent to Cecil, with a letter of complaint, the following account of a\nscene in Court between Coke and himself:\n\n\n     \"_A true remembrance of the abuse I received of Mr.\n     Attorney-General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term;\n     for the truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present._\n\n     \"I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of Geo. Moore, a relapsed\n     recusant, a fugitive and a practising traytor; and showed better\n     matter for the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever\n     with a _salvo jure_. And this I did in as gentle and reasonable\n     terms as might be.\n\n     \"Mr. Attorney kindled at it, and said, '_Mr. Bacon, if you have any\n     tooth against me pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt than\n     all the teeth in your head will do you good._' I answered coldly in\n     these very words: '_Mr. Attorney, I respect you; I fear you not;\n     and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think\n     of it._'\n\n     \"He replied, '_I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness\n     towards you, who are less than little; less than the least;_' and\n     other such strange light terms he gave me, with that insulting\n     which cannot be expressed.\n\n     \"Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this: '_Mr. Attorney, do\n     not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be\n     again, when it please the Queen._'\n\n     \"With this he spake, neither I nor himself could tell what, as if\n     he had been born Attorney-General; and in the end bade me not\n     meddle with the Queen's business, but with mine own; and that I was\n     unsworn, etc. I told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest\n     man; and that I ever set my service first, and myself second; and\n     wished to God that he would do the like.\n\n     \"Then he said, it were good to clap a _cap. ultegatum_ upon my\n     back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault,\n     for he hunted upon an old scent. He gave me a number of disgraceful\n     words besides, which I answered with silence, and showing that I\n     was not moved with them.\"\n\nThe threat of the _capias ultegatum_ was probably in reference to the\narrest of Bacon for debt in September, 1593. After this we are not\nsurprised at Bacon writing to Coke, \"who take to yourself a liberty to\ndisgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion,\" that, \"since\nI missed the Solicitor's place (the rather I think by your means) I\ncannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor\ntogether, but either serve with another on your remove, or step into\nsome other course.\" And Coke, no doubt, took care that it should be so.\nCecil, too, may possibly have thought that Bacon gave no proof of his\nfitness for affairs in thus bringing before him a squabble in which both\nparties lost their tempers.\n\nBacon was not behind the rest of the world in \"the posting of men of\ngood quality towards the King,\" in the rash which followed the Queen's\ndeath, of those who were eager to proffer their services to James, for\nwhose peaceful accession Cecil had so skilfully prepared the way. He\nwrote to every one who, he thought, could help him: to Cecil, and to\nCecil's man--\"I pray you, as you find time let him know that he is the\npersonage in the State which I love most;\" to Northumberland, \"If I may\nbe of any use to your Lordship, by my head, tongue, pen, means, or\nfriends, I humbly pray you to hold me your own;\" to the King's Scotch\nfriends and servants, even to Southampton, the friend of Essex, who had\nbeen shut up in the Tower since his condemnation with Essex, and who was\nnow released. \"This great change,\" Bacon assured him, \"hath wrought in\nme no other change towards your Lordship than this, that I may safely be\nnow that which I truly was before.\" Bacon found in after years that\nSouthampton was not so easily conciliated. But at present Bacon was\nhopeful: \"In mine own particular,\" he writes, \"I have many comforts and\nassurances; but in mine own opinion the chief is, that the _canvassing\nworld is gone, and the deserving world is come_.\" He asks to be\nrecommended to the King--\"I commend myself to your love and to the\nwell-using of my name, as well in repressing and answering for me, if\nthere be any biting or nibbling at it in that place, as in impressing a\ngood conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the King, as otherwise in\nthat Court.\" His pen had been used under the government of the Queen,\nand he had offered a draft of a proclamation to the King's advisers. But\nthough he obtained an interview with the King, James's arrival in\nEngland brought no immediate prospect of improvement in Bacon's\nfortunes. Indeed, his name was at first inadvertently passed over in the\nlist of Queen's servants who were to retain their places. The first\nthing we hear of is his arrest a second time for debt; and his letters\nof thanks to Cecil, who had rendered him assistance, are written in deep\ndepression.\n\n     \"For my purpose or course I desire to meddle as little as I can in\n     the King's causes, his Majesty now abounding in counsel, and to\n     follow my private thrift and practice, and to marry with some\n     convenient advancement. For as for any ambition, I do assure your\n     Honour, mine is quenched. In the Queen's, my excellent Mistress's,\n     time the _quorum_ was small: her service was a kind of freehold,\n     and it was a more solemn time. All those points agreed with my\n     nature and judgment. My ambition now I shall only put upon my pen,\n     whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times\n     succeeding.\n\n     \"Lastly, for this divulged and almost prostituted title of\n     knighthood, I could without charge, by your Honour's mean, be\n     content to have it, both because of this late disgrace and because\n     I have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn's commons; and\n     because I have found out an alderman's daughter, an handsome\n     maiden, to my liking.\"\n\nCecil, however, seems to have required that the money should be repaid\nby the day; and Bacon only makes a humble request, which, it might be\nsupposed, could have been easily granted.\n\n     \"IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--In answer of your last\n     letter, your money shall be ready before your day: principal,\n     interest, and costs of suit. So the sheriff promised, when I\n     released errors; and a Jew takes no more. The rest cannot be\n     forgotten, for I cannot forget your Lordship's _dum memor ipse\n     mei_; and if there have been _aliquid nimis_, it shall be amended.\n     And, to be plain with your Lordship, that will quicken me now which\n     slackened me before. Then I thought you might have had more use of\n     me than now I suppose you are like to have. Not but I think the\n     impediment will be rather in my mind than in the matter or times.\n     But to do you service I will come out of my religion at any time.\n\n     \"For my knighthood, I wish the manner might be such as might grace\n     me, since the matter will not; I mean, that I might not be merely\n     gregarious in a troop. The coronation is at hand. It may please\n     your Lordship to let me hear from you speedily. So I continue your\n     Lordship's ever much bounden,\n\n     \"FR. BACON.\n     \"From Gorhambury, this 16th of July, 1603.\"\n\nBut it was not done. He \"obtained his title, but not in a manner to\ndistinguish him. He was knighted at Whitehall two days before the\ncoronation, but had to share the honour with 300 others.\"\n\nIt was not quite true that his \"ambition was quenched.\" For the rest of\nCecil's life Cecil was the first man at James's Court; and to the last\nthere was one thing that Bacon would not appear to believe--he did not\nchoose to believe that it was Cecil who kept him back from employment\nand honour. To the last he persisted in assuming that Cecil was the\nperson who would help, if he could, a kinsman devoted to his interests\nand profoundly conscious of his worth. To the last he commended his\ncause to Cecil in terms of unstinted affection and confiding hope. It is\ndifficult to judge of the sincerity of such language. The mere customary\nlanguage of compliment employed by every one at this time was of a kind\nwhich to us sounds intolerable. It seems as if nothing that ingenuity\ncould devise was too extravagant for an honest man to use, and for a man\nwho respected himself to accept. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that\nconventionalities, as well as insincerity, differ in their forms in\ndifferent times; and that insincerity may lurk behind frank and clear\nwords, when they are the fashion, as much as in what is like mere\nfulsome adulation. But words mean something, in spite of forms and\nfashions. When a man of great genius writes his private letters, we wish\ngenerally to believe on the whole what he says; and there are no limits\nto the esteem, the honour, the confidence, which Bacon continued to the\nend to express towards Cecil. Bacon appeared to trust him--appeared, in\nspite of continued disappointments, to rely on his good-will and good\noffices. But for one reason or another Bacon still remained in the\nshade. He was left to employ his time as he would, and to work his way\nby himself.\n\nHe was not idle. He prepared papers which he meant should come before\nthe King, on the pressing subjects of the day. The Hampton Court\nconference between the Bishops and the Puritan leaders was at hand, and\nhe drew up a moderating paper on the _Pacification of the Church_. The\nfeeling against him for his conduct towards Essex had not died away, and\nhe addressed to Lord Mountjoy that _Apology concerning the Earl of\nEssex_, so full of interest, so skilfully and forcibly written, so vivid\na picture of the Queen's ways with her servants, which has every merit\nexcept that of clearing Bacon from the charge of disloyalty to his best\nfriend. The various questions arising out of the relations of the two\nkingdoms, now united under James, were presenting themselves. They were\nnot of easy solution, and great mischief would follow if they were\nsolved wrongly. Bacon turned his attention to them. He addressed a\ndiscourse to the King on the union of the two kingdoms, the first of a\nseries of discussions on the subject which Bacon made peculiarly his\nown, and which, no doubt, first drew the King's attention and favour to\nhim.\n\nBut for the first year of James's reign he was unnoticed by the King,\nand he was able to give his attention more freely to the great thought\nand hope of his life. This time of neglect gave him the opportunity of\nleisurely calling together and examining the ideas which had long had\nhold of his mind about the state of human knowledge, about the\npossibilities of extending it, about the hopes and powers which that new\nknowledge opened, and about the methods of realising this great\nprospect. This, the passion of his life, never asleep even in the\nhottest days of business or the most hopeless days of defeat, must have\nhad full play during these days of suspended public employment. He was a\nman who was not easily satisfied with his attempts to arrange the order\nand proportions of his plans for mastering that new world of unknown\ntruth, which he held to be within the grasp of man if he would only dare\nto seize it; and he was much given to vary the shape of his work, and to\ntry experiments in composition and even style. He wrote and rewrote.\nBesides what was finally published, there remains a larger quantity of\nwork which never reached the stage of publication. He repeated over and\nover again the same thoughts, the same images and characteristic\nsayings. Among these papers is one which sums up his convictions about\nthe work before him, and the vocation to which he had been called in\nrespect of it. It is in the form of a \"Proem\" to a treatise on the\n_Interpretation of Nature_. It was never used in his published works;\nbut, as Mr. Spedding says, it has a peculiar value as an authentic\nstatement of what he looked upon as his special business in life. It is\nthis mission which he states to himself in the following paper. It is\ndrawn up in \"stately Latin.\" Mr. Spedding's translation is no unworthy\nrepresentation of the words of the great Prophet of Knowledge:\n\n     \"Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and\n     regarding the care of the Commonwealth as a kind of common property\n     which, like the air and water, belongs to everybody, I set myself\n     to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what\n     service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.\n\n     \"Now among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I\n     found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and\n     commodities for the bettering of man's life.... But if a man could\n     succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however\n     useful, but in kindling a light in nature--a light that should in\n     its very rising touch and illuminate all the border regions that\n     confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading\n     further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight\n     all that is most hidden and secret in the world--that man (I\n     thought) would be the benefactor indeed of the human race--the\n     propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of\n     liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities.\n\n     \"For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for\n     the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to\n     catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point), and at\n     the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler\n     differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek,\n     patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert,\n     readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order;\n     and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires\n     what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought\n     my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth.\n\n    \"Nevertheless, because my birth and education had seasoned me in\n    business of State; and because opinions (so young as I was) would\n    sometimes stagger me; and because I thought that a man's own country\n    has some special claims upon him more than the rest of the world;\n    and because I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the\n    State, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to\n    help me in my work--for these reasons I both applied myself to\n    acquire the arts of civil life, and commended my service, so far as\n    in modesty and honesty I might, to the favour of such friends as had\n    any influence. In which also I had another motive: for I felt that\n    those things I have spoken of--be they great or small--reach no\n    further than the condition and culture of this mortal life; and I\n    was not without hope (the condition of religion being at that time\n    not very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the State, I\n    might get something done too for the good of men's souls. When I\n    found, however, that my zeal was mistaken for ambition, and my life\n    had already readied the turning-point, and my breaking health\n    reminded me how ill I could afford to be so slow, and I reflected,\n    moreover, that in leaving undone the good that I could do by myself\n    alone, and applying myself to that which could not be done without\n    the help and consent of others, I was by no means discharging the\n    duty that lay upon me--I put all those thoughts aside, and (in\n    pursuance of my old determination) betook myself wholly to this\n    work. Nor am I discouraged from it because I see signs in the times\n    of the decline and overthrow of that knowledge and erudition which\n    is now in use. Not that I apprehend any more barbarian invasions\n    (unless possibly the Spanish empire should recover its strength, and\n    having crushed other nations by arms should itself sink under its\n    own weight); but the civil wars which may be expected, I think\n    (judging from certain fashions which have come in of late), to\n    spread through many countries--together with the malignity of sects,\n    and those compendious artifices and devices which have crept into\n    the place of solid erudition--seem to portend for literature and the\n    sciences a tempest not less fatal, and one against which the\n    Printing-office will be no effectual security. And no doubt but that\n    fair-weather learning which is nursed by leisure, blossoms under\n    reward and praise, which cannot withstand the shock of opinion, and\n    is liable to be abused by tricks and quackery, will sink under such\n    impediments as these. Far otherwise is it with that knowledge whose\n    dignity is maintained by works of utility and power. For the\n    injuries, therefore, which should proceed from the times, I am not\n    afraid of them; and for the injuries which proceed from men, I am\n    not concerned. For if any one charge me with seeking to be wise\n    over-much, I answer simply that modesty and civil respect are fit\n    for civil matters; in contemplations nothing is to be respected but\n    Truth. If any one call on me for _works_, and that presently, I tell\n    him frankly, without any imposture at all, that for me--a man not\n    old, of weak health, my hands full of civil business, entering\n    without guide or light upon an argument of all others the most\n    obscure--I hold it enough to have constructed the machine, though I\n    may not succeed in setting it on work.... If, again, any one ask me,\n    not indeed for actual works, yet for definite premises and\n    forecasts of the works that are to be, I would have him know that\n    the knowledge which we now possess will not teach a man even what to\n    _wish_. Lastly--though this is a matter of less moment--if any of\n    our politicians, who used to make their calculations and conjectures\n    according to persons and precedents, must needs interpose his\n    judgment in a thing of this nature, I would but remind him how\n    (according to the ancient fable) the lame man keeping the course won\n    the race of the swift man who left it; and that there is no thought\n    to be taken about precedents, for the thing is without precedent.\n\n    \"For myself, my heart is not set upon any of those things which\n    depend upon external accidents. I am not hunting for fame: I have no\n    desire to found a sect, after the fashion of heresiarchs; and to\n    look for any private gain from such an undertaking as this I count\n    both ridiculous and base. Enough for me the consciousness of\n    well-deserving, and those real and effectual results with which\n    Fortune itself cannot interfere.\"\n\nIn 1604 James's first Parliament met, and with it Bacon returned to an\nindustrious public life, which was not to be interrupted till it finally\ncame to an end with his strange and irretrievable fall. The opportunity\nhad come; and Bacon, patient, vigilant, and conscious of great powers\nand indefatigable energy, fully aware of all the conditions of the time,\npushed at once to the front in the House of Commons. He lost no time in\nshowing that he meant to make himself felt. The House of Commons had no\nsooner met than it was involved in a contest with the Chancery, with the\nLords, and finally with the King himself, about its privileges--in this\ncase its exclusive right to judge of the returns of its members. Bacon's\ntime was come for showing the King both that he was willing to do him\nservice, and that he was worth being employed. He took a leading part in\nthe discussions, and was trusted by the House as their spokesman and\nreporter in the various conferences. The King, in his overweening\nconfidence in his absolute prerogative, had, indeed, got himself into\nserious difficulty; for the privilege was one which it was impossible\nfor the Commons to give up. But Bacon led the House to agree to an\narrangement which saved their rights; and under a cloud of words of\nextravagant flattery he put the King in good-humour, and elicited from\nhim the spontaneous proposal of a compromise which ended a very\ndangerous dispute. \"The King's voice,\" said Bacon, in his report to the\nHouse, \"was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth\nof man; I do not say the voice of God and not of man; I am not one of\nHerod's flatterers; a curse fell upon him that said it, a curse on him\nthat suffered it. We might say, as was said to Solomon, We are glad, O\nKing, that we give account to you, because you discern what is spoken.\"\n\nThe course of this Parliament, in which Bacon was active and prominent,\nshowed the King, probably for the first time, what Bacon was. The\nsession was not so stormy as some of the later ones; but occasions arose\nwhich revealed to the King and to the House of Commons the deeply\ndiscordant assumptions and purposes by which each party was influenced,\nand which brought out Bacon's powers of adjusting difficulties and\nharmonising claims. He never wavered in his loyalty to his own House,\nwhere it is clear that his authority was great. But there was no limit\nto the submission and reverence which he expressed to the King, and,\nindeed, to his desire to bring about what the King desired, as far as it\ncould be safely done. Dealing with the Commons, his policy was \"to be\ncontent with the substance and not to stand on the form.\" Dealing with\nthe King, he was forward to recognise all that James wanted recognised\nof his kingcraft and his absolute sovereignty. Bacon assailed with a\nforce and keenness which showed what he could do as an opponent, the\namazing and intolerable grievances arising out of the survival of such\nfeudal customs as Wardship and Purveyance; customs which made over a\nman's eldest son and property, during a minority, to the keeping of the\nKing, that is, to a King's favourite, and allowed the King's servants to\ncut down a man's timber before the windows of his house. But he urged\nthat these grievances should be taken away with the utmost tenderness\nfor the King's honour and the King's purse. In the great and troublesome\nquestions relating to the Union he took care to be fully prepared. He\nwas equally strong on points of certain and substantial importance,\nequally quick to suggest accommodations where nothing substantial was\ntouched. His attitude was one of friendly and respectful independence.\nIt was not misunderstood by the King. Bacon, who had hitherto been an\nunsworn and unpaid member of the Learned Counsel, now received his\noffice by patent, with a small salary, and he was charged with the grave\nbusiness of preparing the work for the Commissioners for the Union of\nthe Kingdoms, in which, when the Commission met, he took a foremost and\nsuccessful part.\n\nBut the Parliament before which their report was to be laid did not meet\ntill ten months after the work of the Commission was done (Dec.,\n1604--Nov., 1605). For nearly another year Bacon had no public work. The\nleisure was used for his own objects. He was interested in history in a\ndegree only second to his interest in nature; indeed, but for the\nengrossing claims of his philosophy of nature, he might have been the\nfirst and one of the greatest of our historians. He addressed a letter\nto the Chancellor Ellesmere on the deficiencies of British history, and\non the opportunities which offered for supplying them. He himself could\nat present do nothing; \"but because there be so many good painters, both\nfor hand and colours, it needeth but encouragement and instructions to\ngive life and light unto it.\" But he mistook, in this as in other\ninstances, the way in which such things are done. Men do not accomplish\nsuch things to order, but because their souls compel them, as he himself\nwas building up his great philosophical structure, in the midst of his\nambition and disappointment. And this interval of quiet enabled him to\nbring out his first public appeal on the subject which most filled his\nmind. He completed in English the _Two Books of the Advancement of\nKnowledge_, which were published at a book-shop at the gateway of Gray's\nInn in Holborn (Oct., 1605). He intended that it should be published in\nLatin also; but he was dissatisfied with the ornate translation sent him\nfrom Cambridge, and probably he was in a hurry to get the book out. It\nwas dedicated to the King, not merely by way of compliment, but with the\nserious hope that his interest might be awakened in the subjects which\nwere nearest Bacon's heart. Like other of Bacon's hopes, it was\ndisappointed. The King's studies and the King's humours were not of the\nkind to make him care for Bacon's visions of the future, or his eager\ndesire to begin at once a novel method of investigating the facts and\nlaws of nature; and the appeal to him fell dead. Bacon sent the book\nabout to his friends with explanatory letters. To Sir T. Bodley he\nwrites:\n\n     \"I think no man may more truly say with the Psalm, _Multum incola\n     fuit anima mea_ [Ps. 120] than myself. For I do confess since I was\n     of any understanding, my mind hath in effect been absent from that\n     I have done; and in absence are many errors which I willingly\n     acknowledge; and among them, this great one which led the rest:\n     that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book\n     than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which\n     I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation\n     of my mind. Therefore, calling myself home, I have now enjoyed\n     myself; whereof likewise I desire to make the world partaker.\"\n\nTo Lord Salisbury, in a note of elaborate compliment, he describes his\npurpose by an image which he repeats more than once. \"I shall content\nmyself to awake better spirits, _like a bell-ringer, which is first up\nto call others to church_.\" But the two friends whose judgment he\nchiefly valued, and who, as on other occasions, were taken into his most\nintimate literary confidence, were Bishop Andrewes, his \"inquisitor,\"\nand Toby Matthews, a son of the Archbishop of York, who had become a\nRoman Catholic, and lived in Italy, seeing a good deal of learned men\nthere, apparently the most trusted of all Bacon's friends.\n\nWhen Parliament met again in November, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot and its\nconsequences filled all minds. Bacon was not employed about it by\nGovernment, and his work in the House was confined to carrying on\nmatters left unfinished from the previous session. On the rumour of\nlegal promotions and vacancies Bacon once more applied to Salisbury for\nthe Solicitorship (March, 1606). But no changes were made, and Bacon was\n\"still next the door.\" In May, 1606, he did what had for some time been\nin his thoughts: he married; not the lady whom Essex had tried to win\nfor him, that Lady Hatton who became the wife of his rival Coke, but one\nwhom Salisbury helped him to gain, an alderman's daughter, Alice\nBarnham, \"an handsome maiden,\" with some money and a disagreeable\nmother, by her second marriage, Lady Packington. Bacon's curious love of\npomp amused the gossips of the day. \"Sir Francis Bacon,\" writes Carleton\nto Chamberlain, \"was married yesterday to his young wench, in Maribone\nChapel. He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and\nhis wife such store of raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it\ndraws deep into her portion.\" Of his married life we hear next to\nnothing: in his _Essay on Marriage_ he is not enthusiastic in its\npraise; almost the only thing we know is that in his will, twenty years\nafterwards, he showed his dissatisfaction with his wife, who after his\ndeath married again. But it gave him an additional reason, and an\nadditional plea, for pressing for preferment, and in the summer of 1606\nthe opening came. Coke was made Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas,\nleaving the Attorney's place vacant. A favourite of Salisbury's, Hobart,\nbecame Attorney, and Bacon hoped for some arrangement by which the\nSolicitor Doddridge might be otherwise provided for, and he himself\nbecome Solicitor. Hopeful as he was, and patient of disappointments, and\nof what other men would have thought injustice and faithlessness, he\nfelt keenly both the disgrace and the inconvenience of so often\nexpecting place, and being so often passed over. While the question was\npending, he wrote to the King, the Chancellor, and Salisbury. His letter\nto the King is a record in his own words of his public services. To the\nChancellor, whom he believed to be his supporter, he represented the\ndiscredit which he suffered--he was a common gaze and a speech;\" \"the\nlittle reputation which by his industry he gathered, being scattered and\ntaken away by continual disgraces, _every new man coming above me_;\" and\nhis wife and his wife's friends were making him feel it. The letters\nshow what Bacon thought to be his claims, and how hard he found it to\nget them recognised. To the Chancellor he urged, among other things,\nthat time was slipping by--\n\n     \"I humbly pray your Lordship to consider that time groweth precious\n     with me, and that a married man is seven years elder in his\n     thoughts the first day.... And were it not to satisfy my wife's\n     friends, and to get myself out of being a common gaze and a speech,\n     I protest before God I would never speak word for it. But to\n     conclude, as my honourable Lady your wife was some mean to make me\n     to change the name of another, so if it please you to help me to\n     change my own name, I can be but more and more bounden to you; and\n     I am much deceived if your Lordship find not the King well\n     inclined, and my Lord of Salisbury forward and affectionate.\"\n\nTo Salisbury he writes:\n\n     \"I may say to your Lordship, in the confidence of your poor\n     kinsman, and of a man by you advanced, _Tu idem fer opem, qui spem\n     dedisti_; for I am sure it was not possible for any living man to\n     have received from another more significant and comfortable words\n     of hope; your Lordship being pleased to tell me, during the course\n     of my last service, that you would raise me; and that when you had\n     resolved to raise a man, you were more careful of him than himself;\n     and that what you had done for me in my marriage was a benefit to\n     me, but of no use to your Lordship.... And I know, and all the\n     world knoweth, that your Lordship is no dealer of holy water, but\n     noble and real; and on my part I am of a sure ground that I have\n     committed nothing that may deserve alteration. And therefore my\n     hope is your Lordship will finish a good work, and consider that\n     time groweth precious with me, and that I am now _vergentibus\n     annis_. And although I know your fortune is not to need an hundred\n     such as I am, yet I shall be ever ready to give you my best and\n     first fruits, and to supply (as much as in me lieth) worthiness by\n     thankfulness.\"\n\nStill the powers were deaf to his appeals; at any rate he had to be\ncontent with another promise. Considering the ability which he had shown\nin Parliament, the wisdom and zeal with which he had supported the\nGovernment, and the important position which he held in the House of\nCommons, the neglect of him is unintelligible, except on two\nsuppositions: that the Government, that is Cecil, were afraid of\nanything but the mere routine of law, as represented by such men as\nHobart and Doddridge; or that Coke's hostility to him was unabated, and\nCoke still too important to be offended.\n\nBacon returned to work when the Parliament met, November, 1606. The\nquestions arising out of the Union, the question of naturalisation, its\ngrounds and limits, the position of Scotchmen born _before_ or _since_\nthe King's accession, the _Antenati_ and _Postnati_, the question of a\nunion of laws, with its consequences, were discussed with great keenness\nand much jealous feeling. On the question of naturalisation Bacon took\nthe liberal and larger view. The immediate union of laws he opposed as\npremature. He was a willing servant of the House, and the House readily\nmade use of him. He reported the result of conferences, even when his\nown opinion was adverse to that of the House. And he reported the\nspeeches of such persons as Lord Salisbury, probably throwing into them\nboth form and matter of his own. At length, \"silently, on the 25th of\nJune,\" 1607, he was appointed Solicitor-General. He was then\nforty-seven.\n\n\"It was also probably about this time,\" writes Mr. Spedding, \"that Bacon\nfinally settled the plan of his '_Great Instauration_,' and began to\ncall it by that name.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nBACON SOLICITOR-GENERAL.\n\n\nThe great thinker and idealist, the great seer of a world of knowledge\nto which the men of his own generation were blind, and which they could\nnot, even with his help, imagine a possible one, had now won the first\nstep in that long and toilsome ascent to success in life, in which for\nfourteen years he had been baffled. He had made himself, for good and\nfor evil, a servant of the Government of James I. He was prepared to\ndischarge with zeal and care all his duties. He was prepared to perform\nall the services which that Government might claim from its servants. He\nhad sought, he had passionately pressed to be admitted within that\ncircle in which the will of the King was the supreme law; after that, it\nwould have been ruin to have withdrawn or resisted. But it does not\nappear that the thought or wish to resist or withdraw ever presented\nitself; he had thoroughly convinced himself that in doing what the King\nrequired he was doing the part of a good citizen, and a faithful servant\nof the State and Commonwealth. The two lives, the two currents of\npurpose and effort, were still there. Behind all the wrangle of the\ncourts and the devising of questionable legal subtleties to support some\nunconstitutional encroachment, or to outflank the defence of some\nobnoxious prisoner, the high philosophical meditations still went on;\nthe remembrance of their sweetness and grandeur wrung more than once\nfrom the jaded lawyer or the baffled counsellor the complaint, in words\nwhich had a great charm for him, _Multum incola fuit anima mea_--\"My\nsoul hath long dwelt\" where it would not be. But opinion and ambition\nand the immense convenience of being great and rich and powerful, and\nthe supposed necessities of his condition, were too strong even for his\nlongings to be the interpreter and the servant of nature. There is no\ntrace of the faintest reluctance on his part to be the willing minister\nof a court of which not only the principal figure, but the arbiter and\ngoverning spirit, was to be George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.\n\nThe first leisure that Bacon had after he was appointed Solicitor he\nused in a characteristic way. He sat down to make a minute stock-taking\nof his position and its circumstances. In the summer of 1608 he devoted\na week of July to this survey of his life, its objects and its\nappliances; and he jotted down, day by day, through the week, from his\npresent reflections, or he transcribed from former note-books, a series\nof notes in loose order, mostly very rough and not always intelligible,\nabout everything that could now concern him. This curious and intimate\nrecord, which he called _Commentarius Solutus_, was discovered by Mr.\nSpedding, who not unnaturally had some misgivings about publishing so\nsecret and so ambiguous a record of a man's most private confidences\nwith himself. But there it was, and, as it was known, he no doubt\ndecided wisely in publishing it as it stands; he has done his best to\nmake it intelligible, and he has also done his best to remove any\nunfavourable impressions that might arise from it. It is singularly\ninteresting as an evidence of Bacon's way of working, of his\nwatchfulness, his industry, his care in preparing himself long\nbeforehand for possible occasions, his readiness to take any amount of\ntrouble about his present duties, his self-reliant desire for more\nimportant and difficult ones. It exhibits his habit of self-observation\nand self-correction, his care to mend his natural defects of voice,\nmanner, and delivery; it is even more curious in showing him watching\nhis own physical constitution and health, in the most minute details of\nsymptoms and remedies, equally with a scientific and a practical object.\nIt contains his estimate of his income, his expenditure, his debts,\nschedules of lands and jewels, his rules for the economy of his estate,\nhis plans for his new gardens and terraces and ponds and buildings at\nGorhambury. He was now a rich man, valuing his property at \u00a324,155 and\nhis income at \u00a34975, burdened with a considerable debt, but not more\nthan he might easily look to wipe out. But, besides all these points,\nthere appear the two large interests of his life--the reform of\nphilosophy, and his ideal of a great national policy. The \"greatness of\nBritain\" was one of his favourite subjects of meditation. He puts down\nin his notes the outline of what should be aimed at to secure and\nincrease it; it is to make the various forces of the great and growing\nempire work together in harmonious order, without waste, without\njealousy, without encroachment and collision; to unite not only the\ninterests but the sympathies and aims of the Crown with those of the\npeople and Parliament; and so to make Britain, now in peril from nothing\nbut from the strength of its own discordant elements, that \"Monarchy of\nthe West\" in reality, which Spain was in show, and, as Bacon always\nmaintained, only in show. The survey of the condition of his\nphilosophical enterprise takes more space. He notes the stages and\npoints to which his plans have reached; he indicates, with a favourite\nquotation or apophthegm--\"_Plus ultra_\"--\"_ausus vana\ncontemnere_\"--\"_aditus non nisi sub persona infantis_\" soon to be\nfamiliar to the world in his published writings--the lines of argument,\nsometimes alternative ones, which were before him; he draws out schemes\nof inquiry, specimen tables, distinctions and classifications about the\nsubject of Motion, in English interlarded with Latin, or in Latin\ninterlarded with English, of his characteristic and practical sort; he\nnotes the various sources from which he might look for help and\nco-operation--\"of learned men beyond the seas\"--\"to begin first in\nFrance to print it\"--\"laying for a place to command wits and pens;\" he\nhas his eye on rich and childless bishops, on the enforced idleness of\nState prisoners in the Tower, like Northumberland and Raleigh, on the\ngreat schools and universities, where he might perhaps get hold of some\ncollege for \"Inventors\"--as we should say, for the endowment of\nresearch. These matters fill up a large space of his notes. But his\nthoughts were also busy about his own advancement. And to these sheets\nof miscellaneous memoranda Bacon confided not only his occupations and\nhis philosophical and political ideas, but, with a curious innocent\nunreserve, the arts and methods which he proposed to use in order to win\nthe favour of the great and to pull down the reputation of his rivals.\nHe puts down in detail how he is to recommend himself to the King and\nthe King's favourites--\n\n     \"To set on foot and maintain access with his Majesty, Dean of the\n     Chapel, May, Murray. Keeping a course of access at the beginning of\n     every term and vacation, with a memorial. To attend some time his\n     repasts, or to fall into a course of familiar discourse. To find\n     means to win a conceit, not open, but private, of being\n     affectionate and assured to the Scotch, and fit to succeed\n     Salisbury in his manage in that kind; Lord Dunbar, Duke of Lennox,\n     and Daubiny: secret.\"\n\nThen, again, of Salisbury--\n\n     \"Insinuate myself to become privy to my Lord of Salisbury's\n     estate.\" \"To correspond with Salisbury in a habit of natural but no\n     ways perilous boldness, and in vivacity, invention, care to cast\n     and enterprise (but with due caution), for this manner I judge both\n     in his nature freeth the stands, and in his ends pleaseth him best,\n     and promiseth more use of me. I judge my standing out, and not\n     favoured by Northampton, must needs do me good with Salisbury,\n     especially comparative to the Attorney.\"\n\nThe Attorney Hobart filled the place to which Bacon had so long aspired,\nand which he thought, perhaps reasonably, that he could fill much\nbetter. At any rate, one of the points to which he recurs frequently in\nhis notes is to exhort himself to make his own service a continual\ncontrast to the Attorney's--\"to have in mind and use the Attorney's\nweakness,\" enumerating a list of instances: \"Too full of cases and\ndistinctions. Nibbling solemnly, he distinguisheth but apprehends not;\"\n\"No gift with his pen in proclamations and the like;\" and at last he\ndraws out in a series of epigrams his view of \"Hubbard's\ndisadvantages\"--\n\n     \"Better at shift than at drift.... _Subtilitas sine acrimonia_....\n     No power with the judge.... He will alter a thing but not mend....\n     He puts into patents and deeds words not of law but of common sense\n     and discourse.... Sociable save in profit.... He doth depopulate\n     mine office; otherwise called inclose.... I never knew any one of\n     so good a speech with a worse pen.\" ...\n\nThen in a marginal note--\"Solemn goose. Stately, leastwise nodd (?)\ncrafty. They have made him believe that he is wondrous wise.\" And,\nfinally, he draws up a paper of counsels and rules for his own\nconduct--\"_Custum\u00e6 apt\u00e6 ad Individuum_\"--which might supply an outline\nfor an essay on the arts of behaviour proper for a rising official, a\nsequel to the biting irony of the essays on _Cunning_ and _Wisdom for a\nMan's Self_.\n\n     \"To furnish my L. of S. with ornaments for public speeches. To make\n     him think how he should be reverenced by a Lord Chancellor, if I\n     were; Princelike.\n\n     \"To prepare him for matters to be handled in Council or before the\n     King aforehand, and to show him and yield him the fruits of my\n     care.\n\n     \"To take notes in tables, when I attend the Council, and sometimes\n     to move out of a memorial shewed and seen. To have particular\n     occasions, fit and graceful and continual, to maintain private\n     speech with every the great persons, and sometimes drawing more\n     than one together. _Ex imitatione Att._ This specially in public\n     places, and without care or affectation. At Council table to make\n     good my L. of Salisb. motions and speeches, and for the rest\n     sometimes one sometimes another; chiefly his, that is most earnest\n     and in affection.\n\n     \"To suppress at once my speaking, with panting and labour of breath\n     and voice. Not to fall upon the main too sudden, but to induce and\n     intermingle speech of good fashion. To use at once upon entrance\n     given of speech, though abrupt, to compose and draw in myself. To\n     free myself at once from payt. (?) of formality and compliment,\n     though with some show of carelessness, pride, and rudeness.\"\n\n     (And then follows a long list of matters of business to be attended\n     to.)\n\nThese arts of a court were not new; it was not new for men to observe\nthem in their neighbours and rivals. What was new was the writing them\ndown, with deliberate candour, among a man's private memoranda, as\nthings to be done and with the intention of practising them. This of\nitself, it has been suggested, shows that they were unfamiliar and\nuncongenial to Bacon; for a man reminds himself of what he is apt to\nforget. But a man reminds himself also of what seems to him, at the\nmoment, most important, and what he lays most stress upon. And it is\nclear that these are the rules, rhetorical and ethical, which Bacon laid\ndown for himself in pursuing the second great object of his life--his\nofficial advancement; and that, whatever we think of them, they were the\nmeans which he deliberately approved.\n\nAs long as Salisbury lived, the distrust which had kept Bacon so long in\nthe shade kept him at a distance from the King's ear, and from influence\non his counsels. Salisbury was the one Englishman in whom the King had\nbecome accustomed to confide, in his own conscious strangeness to\nEnglish ways and real dislike and suspicion of them; Salisbury had an\nauthority which no one else had, both from his relations with James at\nthe end of Elizabeth's reign, and as the representative of her policy\nand the depositary of its traditions; and if he had lived, things might\nnot, perhaps, have been better in James's government, but many things,\nprobably, would have been different. But while Salisbury was supreme,\nBacon, though very alert and zealous, was mainly busied with his\nofficial work; and the Solicitor's place had become, as he says, a \"mean\nthing\" compared with the Attorney's, and also an extremely laborious\nplace--\"one of the painfullest places in the kingdom.\" Much of it was\nroutine, but responsible and fatiguing routine. But if he was not in\nSalisbury's confidence, he was prominent in the House of Commons. The\ngreat and pressing subject of the time was the increasing difficulties\nof the revenue, created partly by the inevitable changes of a growing\nstate, but much more by the King's incorrigible wastefulness. It was\nimpossible to realise completely the great dream and longing of the\nStuart kings and their ministers to make the Crown independent of\nparliamentary supplies; but to dispense with these supplies as much as\npossible, and to make as much as possible of the revenue permanent, was\nthe continued and fatal policy of the Court. The \"Great Contract\"--a\nscheme by which, in return for the surrender by the Crown of certain\nburdensome and dangerous claims of the Prerogative, the Commons were to\nassure a large compensating yearly income to the Crown--was Salisbury's\nfavourite device during the last two years of his life. It was not a\nprosperous one. The bargain was an ill-imagined and not very decorous\ntransaction between the King and his people. Both parties were naturally\njealous of one another, suspicious of underhand dealing and tacit\nchanges of terms, prompt to resent and take offence, and not easy to\npacify when they thought advantage had been taken; and Salisbury, either\nby his own fault, or by yielding to the King's canny shiftiness, gave\nthe business a more haggling and huckstering look than it need have had.\nBacon, a subordinate of the Government, but a very important person in\nthe Commons, did his part, loyally, as it seems, and skilfully in\nsmoothing differences and keeping awkward questions from making their\nappearance. Thus he tried to stave off the risk of bringing definitely\nto a point the King's cherished claim to levy \"impositions,\" or custom\nduties, on merchandise, by virtue of his prerogative--a claim which he\nwarned the Commons not to dispute, and which Bacon, maintaining it as\nlegal in theory, did his best to prevent them from discussing, and to\npersuade them to be content with restraining. Whatever he thought of the\n\"Great Contract,\" he did what was expected of him in trying to gain for\nit fair play. But he made time for other things also. He advised, and\nadvised soundly, on the plantation and finance of Ireland. It was a\nsubject in which he took deep interest. A few years later, with only\ntoo sure a foresight, he gave the warning, \"lest Ireland civil become\nmore dangerous to us than Ireland savage.\" He advised--not soundly in\npoint of law, but curiously in accordance with modern notions--about\nendowments; though, in this instance, in the famous will case of Thomas\nSutton, the founder of the Charter House, his argument probably covered\nthe scheme of a monstrous job in favour of the needy Court. And his own\nwork went on in spite of the pressure of the Solicitor's place. To the\nfirst years of his official life belong three very interesting\nfragments, intended to find a provisional place in the plan of the\n\"Great Instauration.\" To his friend Toby Matthews, at Florence, he sent\nin manuscript the great attack on the old teachers of knowledge, which\nis perhaps the most brilliant, and also the most insolently unjust and\nunthinking piece of rhetoric ever composed by him--the _Redargutio\nPhilosophiarum_.\n\n     \"I send you at this time the only part which hath any harshness;\n     and yet I framed to myself an opinion, that whosoever allowed well\n     of that preface which you so much commend, will not dislike, or at\n     least ought not to dislike, this other speech of preparation; for\n     it is written out of the same spirit, and out of the same\n     necessity. Nay it doth more fully lay open that the question\n     between me and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but\n     of the rightness of the way. And to speak truth, it is to the other\n     but as _palma_ to _pugnus_, part of the same thing more large....\n     Myself am like the miller of Huntingdon, that was wont to pray for\n     peace amongst the willows; for while the winds blew, the wind-mills\n     wrought, and the water-mill was less customed. So I see that\n     controversies of religion must hinder the advancement of sciences.\n     Let me conclude with my perpetual wish towards yourself, that the\n     approbation of yourself by your own discreet and temperate\n     carriage, may restore you to your country, and your friends to your\n     society. And so I commend you to God's goodness.\n\n     \"Gray's Inn, this 10th of October, 1609.\"\n\nTo Bishop Andrewes he sent, also in manuscript, another piece,\nbelonging to the same plan--the deeply impressive treatise called _Visa\net Cogitata_--what Francis Bacon had seen of nature and knowledge, and\nwhat he had come by meditation to think of what he had seen. The letter\nis not less interesting than the last, in respect to the writer's\npurposes, his manner of writing, and his relations to his correspondent.\n\n     \"MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Now your Lordship hath been so long in the\n     church and the palace disputing between kings and popes, methinks\n     you should take pleasure to look into the field, and refresh your\n     mind with some matter of philosophy, though that science be now\n     through age waxed a child again, and left to boys and young men;\n     and because you were wont to make me believe you took liking to my\n     writings, I send you some of this vacation's fruits, and thus much\n     more of my mind and purpose. I hasten not to publish; perishing I\n     would prevent. And I am forced to respect as well my times as the\n     matter. For with me it is thus, and I think with all men in my\n     case, if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind; but if I\n     rid my mind of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation.\n     This hath put me into these miscellanies, which I purpose to\n     suppress, if God give me leave to write a just and perfect volume\n     of philosophy, which I go on with, though slowly. I send not your\n     Lordship too much, lest it may glut you. Now let me tell you what\n     my desire is. If your Lordship be so good now as when you were the\n     good Dean of Westminster, my request to you is, that not by pricks,\n     but by notes, you would mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto you\n     either not current in the style, or harsh to credit and opinion, or\n     inconvenient for the person of the writer; for no man can be judge\n     and party, and when our minds judge by reflection of ourselves,\n     they are more subject to error. And though for the matter itself my\n     judgement be in some things fixed, and not accessible by any man's\n     judgement that goeth not my way, yet even in those things the\n     admonition of a friend may make me express myself diversly. I would\n     have come to your Lordship, but that I am hastening to my house in\n     the country. And so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness.\"\n\nThere was yet another production of this time, of which we have a\nnotice from himself in a letter to Toby Matthews, the curious and\ningenious little treatise on the _Wisdom of the Ancients_, \"one of the\nmost popular of his works,\" says Mr. Spedding, \"in his own and in the\nnext generation,\" but of value to us mainly for its quaint poetical\ncolour, and the unexpected turns, like answers to a riddle, given to the\nancient fables. When this work was published, it was the third time that\nhe had appeared as an author in print. He thus writes about it and\nhimself:\n\n     \"MR. MATTHEWS,--I do heartily thank you for your letter of the 24th\n     of August from Salamanca; and in recompense thereof I send you a\n     little work of mine that hath begun to pass the world. They tell me\n     my Latin is turned into silver, and become current. Had you been\n     here, you should have been my inquisitor before it came forth; but\n     I think the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it.... My great\n     work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter ever when I add.\n     So that nothing is finished till all be finished.\n\n     \"From Gray's Inn, the 17th of February, 1610.\"\n\nIn the autumn of 1611 the Attorney-General was ill, and Bacon reminded\nboth the King and Salisbury of his claim. He was afraid, he writes to\nthe King, with an odd forgetfulness of the persistency and earnestness\nof his applications, \"that _by reason of my slowness to sue_, and\napprehend occasions upon the sudden, keeping one plain course of painful\nservice, I may _in fine dierum_ be in danger to be neglected and\nforgotten.\" The Attorney recovered, but Bacon, on New Year's Tide of\n1611/12, wrote to Salisbury to thank him for his good-will. It is the\nlast letter of Bacon's to Salisbury which has come down to us.\n\n     \"IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--I would entreat the new year to\n     answer for the old, in my humble thanks to your Lordship, both for\n     many your favours, and chiefly that upon the occasion of Mr.\n     Attorney's infirmity I found your Lordship even as I would wish.\n     This doth increase a desire in me to express my thankful mind to\n     your Lordship; hoping that though I find age and decays grow upon\n     me, yet I may have a flash or two of spirit left to do you service.\n     And I do protest before God, without compliment or any light vein\n     of mind, that if I knew in what course of life to do you best\n     service, I would take it, and make my thoughts, which now fly to\n     many pieces, be reduced to that center. But all this is no more\n     than I am, which is not much, but yet the entire of him that is--\"\n\nIn the following May (May 24, 1612) Salisbury died. From this date James\npassed from government by a minister, who, whatever may have been his\nfaults, was laborious, public-spirited, and a statesman, into his own\nkeeping and into the hands of favourites, who cared only for themselves.\nWith Cecil ceased the traditions of the days of Elizabeth and Burghley,\nin many ways evil and cruel traditions, but not ignoble and sordid ones;\nand James was left without the stay, and also without the check, which\nCecil's power had been to him. The field was open for new men and new\nways; the fashions and ideas of the time had altered during the last ten\nyears, and those of the Queen's days had gone out of date. Would the new\nturn out for the better or the worse? Bacon, at any rate, saw the\nsignificance of the change and the critical eventfulness of the moment.\nIt was his habit of old to send memorials of advice to the heads of the\nGovernment, apparently without such suggestions seeming more intrusive\nor officious than a leading article seems now, and perhaps with much the\nsame effect. It was now a time to do so, if ever; and he was in an\nofficial relation to the King which entitled him to proffer advice. He\nat once prepared to lay his thoughts before the King, and to suggest\nthat he could do far better service than Cecil, and was ready to take\nhis place. The policy of the \"Great Contract\" had certainly broken\ndown, and the King, under Cecil's guidance, had certainly not known how\nto manage an English parliament. In writing to the King he found it hard\nto satisfy himself. Several draft letters remain, and it is not certain\nwhich of them, if any, was sent. But immediately on Salisbury's death he\nbegan, May 29th, a letter in which he said that he had never yet been\nable to show his affection to the King, \"having been as a hawk tied to\nanother's fist;\" and if, \"as was said to one that spake great words,\n_Amice, verba tua desiderant civitatem_, your Majesty say to me, _Bacon,\nyour words require a place to speak them_,\" yet that \"place or not\nplace\" was with the King. But the draft breaks off abruptly, and with\nthe date of the 31st we have the following:\n\n     \"Your Majesty hath lost a great subject and a great servant. But if\n     I should praise him in propriety, I should say that he was a fit\n     man to keep things from growing worse, but no very fit man to\n     reduce things to be much better. For he loved to have the eyes of\n     all Israel a little too much upon himself, and to have all business\n     still under the hammer, and like clay in the hands of the potter,\n     to mould it as he thought good; so that he was more _in operatione_\n     than _in opere_. And though he had fine passages of action, yet the\n     real conclusions came slowly on. So that although your Majesty hath\n     grave counsellors and worthy persons left, yet you do as it were\n     turn a leaf, wherein if your Majesty shall give a frame and\n     constitution to matters, before you place the persons, in my simple\n     opinion it were not amiss. But the great matter and most instant\n     for the present, is the consideration of a Parliament, for two\n     effects: the one for the supply of your estate, the other for the\n     better knitting of the hearts of your subjects unto your Majesty,\n     according to your infinite merit; for both which, Parliaments have\n     been and are the antient and honourable remedy.\n\n     \"Now because I take myself to have a little skill in that region,\n     as one that ever affected that your Majesty mought in all your\n     causes not only prevail, but prevail with satisfaction of the inner\n     man; and though no man can say but I was a perfect and peremptory\n     royalist, yet every man makes me believe that I was never one hour\n     out of credit with the Lower House; my desire is to know whether\n     your Majesty will give me leave to meditate and propound unto you\n     some preparative remembrances touching the future Parliament.\"\n\nWhether he sent this or not, he prepared another draft. What had\nhappened in the mean while we know not, but Bacon was in a bitter mood,\nand the letter reveals, for the first time, what was really in Bacon's\nheart about the \"great subject and great servant,\" of whom he had just\nwritten so respectfully, and with whom he had been so closely connected\nfor most of his life. The fierceness which had been gathering for years\nof neglect and hindrance under that placid and patient exterior broke\nout. He offered himself as Cecil's successor in business of State. He\ngave his reason for being hopeful of success. Cecil's bitterest enemy\ncould not have given it more bitterly.\n\n     \"My principal end being to do your Majesty service, I crave leave\n     to make at this time to your Majesty this most humble oblation of\n     myself. I may truly say with the psalm, _Multum incola fuit anima\n     mea_, for my life hath been conversant in things wherein I take\n     little pleasure. Your Majesty may have heard somewhat that my\n     father was an honest man, and somewhat you may have seen of myself,\n     though not to make any true judgement by, because I have hitherto\n     had only _potestatem verborum_, nor that neither. I was three of my\n     young years bred with an ambassador in France, and since I have\n     been an old truant in the school-house of your council-chamber,\n     though on the second form, yet longer than any that now sitteth\n     hath been upon the head form. If your Majesty find any aptness in\n     me, or if you find any scarcity in others, whereby you may think it\n     fit for your service to remove me to business of State, although I\n     have a fair way before me for profit (and by your Majesty's grace\n     and favour for honour and advancement), and in a course less\n     exposed to the blasts of fortune, _yet now that he is gone, quo\n     vivente virtutibus certissimum exitium_, I will be ready as a\n     chessman to be wherever your Majesty's royal hand shall set me.\n     Your Majesty will bear me witness, I have not suddenly opened\n     myself thus far. I have looked upon others, I see the exceptions,\n     I see the distractions, and I fear Tacitus will be a prophet,\n     _magis alii homines quam alii mores_. I know mine own heart, and I\n     know not whether God that hath touched my heart with the affection\n     may not touch your royal heart to discern it. Howsoever, I shall at\n     least go on honestly in mine ordinary course, and supply the rest\n     in prayers for you, remaining, etc.\"\n\nThis is no hasty outburst. In a later paper on the true way of\nretrieving the disorders of the King's finances, full of large and wise\ncounsel, after advising the King not to be impatient, and assuring him\nthat a state of debt is not so intolerable--\"for it is no new thing for\nthe greatest Kings to be in debt,\" and all the great men of the Court\nhad been in debt without any \"manner of diminution of their\ngreatness\"--he returns to the charge in detail against Salisbury and the\nGreat Contract.\n\n     \"My second prayer is, that your Majesty--in respect to the hasty\n     freeing of your state--would not descend to any means, or degree of\n     means, which carrieth not a symmetry with your Majesty and\n     greatness. _He is gone from whom those courses did wholly flow._ To\n     have your wants and necessities in particular as it were hanged up\n     in two tablets before the eyes of your lords and commons, to be\n     talked of for four months together; To have all your courses to\n     help yourself in revenue or profit put into printed books, which\n     were wont to be held _arcana imperii_; To have such worms of\n     aldermen to lend for ten in the hundred upon good assurance, and\n     with such entreaty (?) as if it should save the bark of your\n     fortune; To contract still where mought be had the readiest\n     payment, and not the best bargain; To stir a number of projects for\n     your profit, and then to blast them, and leave your Majesty nothing\n     but the scandal of them; To pretend even carriage between your\n     Majesty's rights and ease of the people, and to satisfy neither.\n     These courses and others the like I hope are gone with the deviser\n     of them; which have turned your Majesty to inestimable prejudice.\"\n\nAnd what he thought of saying, but on further consideration struck out,\nwas the following. It is no wonder that he struck it out, but it shows\nwhat he felt towards Cecil.\n\n    \"I protest to God, though I be not superstitious, when I saw your\n    M.'s book against Vorstius and Arminius, and noted your zeal to\n    deliver the majesty of God from the vain and indign comprehensions\n    of heresy and degenerate philosophy, as you had by your pen formerly\n    endeavoured to deliver kings from the usurpation of Rome, _perculsit\n    illico animum_ that God would set shortly upon you some visible\n    favour, _and let me not live if I thought not of the taking away of\n    that man_.\"\n\nAnd from this time onwards he scarcely ever mentions Cecil's name in his\ncorrespondence with James but with words of condemnation, which imply\nthat Cecil's mischievous policy was the result of private ends. Yet this\nwas the man to whom he had written the \"New Year's Tide\" letter six\nmonths before; a letter which is but an echo to the last of all that he\nhad been accustomed to write to Cecil when asking assistance or offering\ncongratulation. Cecil had, indeed, little claim on Bacon's gratitude; he\nhad spoken him fair in public, and no doubt in secret distrusted and\nthwarted him. But to the last Bacon did not choose to acknowledge this.\nHad James disclosed something of his dead servant, who left some strange\nsecrets behind him, which showed his unsuspected hostility to Bacon?\nExcept on this supposition (but there is nothing to support it), no\nexaggeration of the liberty allowed to the language of compliment is\nenough to clear Bacon of an insincerity which is almost inconceivable in\nany but the meanest tools of power.\n\n\"I assure myself,\" wrote Bacon to the King, \"your Majesty taketh not me\nfor one of a busy nature; for my estate being free from all\ndifficulties, and I having such a large field for contemplation, as I\nhave partly and shall much more make manifest unto your Majesty and the\nworld, to occupy my thoughts, nothing could make me active but love and\naffection.\" So Bacon described his position with questionable\naccuracy--for his estate was not \"free from difficulties\"--in the new\ntime coming. He was still kept out of the inner circle of the Council;\nbut from the moment of Salisbury's death he became a much more important\nperson. He still sued for advancement, and still met with\ndisappointment; the \"mean men\" still rose above him. The lucrative place\nof Master of the Wards was vacated by Salisbury's death. Bacon was\ntalked of for it, and probably expected it, for he drew up new rules for\nit, and a speech for the new master; but the office and the speech went\nto Sir George Carey. Soon after Sir George Carey died. Bacon then\napplied for it through the new favourite, Rochester. \"He was so\nconfident of the place that he put most of his men into new cloaks;\" and\nthe world of the day amused itself at his disappointment, when the place\nwas given to another \"mean man,\" Sir Walter Cope, of whom the gossips\nwrote that if the \"last two Treasurers could look out of their graves to\nsee those successors in that place, they would be out of countenance\nwith themselves, and say to the world _quantum mutatus_.\" But Bacon's\nhand and counsel appear more and more in important matters--the\nimprovement of the revenue; the defence of extreme rights of the\nprerogative in the case against Whitelocke; the great question of\ncalling a parliament, and of the true and \"princely\" way of dealing with\nit. His confidential advice to the King about calling a parliament was\nmarked by his keen perception of the facts of the situation; it was\nmarked too by his confident reliance on skilful indirect methods and\ntrust in the look of things; it bears traces also of his bitter feeling\nagainst Salisbury, whom he charges with treacherously fomenting the\nopposition of the last Parliament. There was no want of worldly wisdom\nin it; certainly it was more adapted to James's ideas of state-craft\nthan the simpler plan of Sir Henry Nevill, that the King should throw\nhimself frankly on the loyalty and good-will of Parliament. And thus he\ncame to be on easy terms with James, who was quite capable of\nunderstanding Bacon's resource and nimbleness of wit. In the autumn of\n1613 the Chief-Justiceship of the King's Bench became vacant. Bacon at\nonce gave the King reasons for sending Coke from the Common Pleas--where\nhe was a check on the prerogative--to the King's Bench, where he could\ndo less harm; while Hobart went to the Common Pleas. The promotion was\nobvious, but the Common Pleas suited Coke better, and the place was more\nlucrative. Bacon's advice was followed. Coke, very reluctantly, knowing\nwell who had given it, and why, \"not only weeping himself but followed\nby the tears\" of all the Court of Common Pleas, moved up to the higher\npost. The Attorney Hobart succeeded, and Bacon at last became Attorney\n(October 27, 1613). In Chamberlain's gossip we have an indication, such\nas occurs only accidentally, of the view of outsiders: \"There is a\nstrong apprehension that little good is to be expected by this change,\nand that Bacon may prove a dangerous instrument.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nBACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND CHANCELLOR.\n\n\nThus, at last, at the age of fifty-two, Bacon had gained the place which\nEssex had tried to get for him at thirty-two. The time of waiting had\nbeen a weary one, and it is impossible not to see that it had been\nhurtful to Bacon. A strong and able man, very eager to have a field for\nhis strength and ability, who is kept out of it, as he thinks unfairly,\nand is driven to an attitude of suppliant dependency in pressing his\nclaim on great persons who amuse him with words, can hardly help\nsuffering in the humiliating process. It does a man no good to learn to\nbeg, and to have a long training in the art. And further, this long\ndelay kept up the distraction of his mind between the noble work on\nwhich his soul was bent, and the necessities of that \"civil\" or\nprofessional and political life by which he had to maintain his estate.\nAll the time that he was \"canvassing\" (it is his own word) for office,\nand giving up his time and thoughts to the work which it involved, the\ngreat _Instauration_ had to wait his hours of leisure; and his\nexclamation, so often repeated, _Multum incola fuit anima mea_, bears\nwitness to the longings that haunted him in his hours of legal drudgery,\nor in the service of his not very thankful employers. Not but that he\nfound compensation in the interest of public questions, in the company\nof the great, in the excitement of state-craft and state employment, in\nthe pomp and enjoyment of court life. He found too much compensation; it\nwas one of his misfortunes. But his heart was always sound in its\nallegiance to knowledge; and if he had been fortunate enough to have\nrisen earlier to the greatness which he aimed at as a vantage-ground for\nhis true work, or if he had had self-control to have dispensed with\nwealth and position--if he had escaped the long necessity of being a\npersistent and still baffled suitor--we might have had as a completed\nwhole what we have now only in great fragments, and we should have been\nspared the blots which mar a career which ought to have been a noble\none.\n\nThe first important matter that happened after Bacon's new appointment\nwas the Essex divorce case, and the marriage of Lady Essex with the\nfavourite whom Cecil's death had left at the height of power, and who\nfrom Lord Rochester was now made Earl of Somerset. With the divorce, the\nbeginning of the scandals and tragedies of James's reign, Bacon had\nnothing to do. At the marriage which followed Bacon presented as his\noffering a masque, performed by the members of Gray's Inn, of which he\nbore the charges, and which cost him the enormous sum of \u00a32000. Whether\nit were to repay his obligations to the Howards, or in lieu of a \"fee\"\nto Rochester, who levied toll on all favours from the King, it can\nhardly be said, as has been suggested, to be a protest against the great\nabuse of the times, the sale of offices for money. The \"very splendid\ntrifle, the Masque of Flowers,\" was one form of the many extravagant\ntributes paid but too willingly to high-handed worthlessness, of which\nthe deeper and darker guilt was to fill all faces with shame two years\nafterwards.\n\nAs Attorney, Bacon had to take a much more prominent part in affairs,\nlegal, criminal, constitutional, administrative, than he had yet been\nallowed to have. We know that it was his great object to show how much\nmore active and useful an Attorney he could be than either Coke or\nHobart; and as far as unflagging energy and high ability could make a\ngood public servant, he fully carried out his purpose. In Parliament,\nthe \"addled Parliament\" of 1614, in which he sat for the University of\nCambridge, he did his best to reconcile what were fast becoming\nirreconcilable, the claims and prerogatives of an absolute king,\nirritable, suspicious, exacting, prodigal, with the ancient rights and\nliberties, growing stronger in their demands by being denied, resisted,\nor outwitted, of the popular element in the State. In the trials, which\nare so large and disagreeable a part of the history of these\nyears--trials arising out of violent words provoked by the violent acts\nof power, one of which, Peacham's, became famous, because in the course\nof it torture was resorted to, or trials which witnessed to the\ncorruption of the high society of the day, like the astounding series of\narraignments and condemnations following on the discoveries relating to\nOverbury's murder, which had happened just before the Somerset\nmarriage--Bacon had to make the best that he could for the cruel and\noften unequal policy of the Court; and Bacon must take his share in the\nresponsibility for it. An effort on James's part to stop duelling\nbrought from Bacon a worthier piece of service, in the shape of an\nearnest and elaborate argument against it, full of good sense and good\nfeeling, but hopelessly in advance of the time. On the many questions\nwhich touched the prerogative, James found in his Attorney a ready and\nskilful advocate of his claims, who knew no limit to them but in the\nconsideration of what was safe and prudent to assert. He was a better\nand more statesmanlike counsellor, in his unceasing endeavours to\nreconcile James to the expediency of establishing solid and good\nrelations with his Parliament, and in his advice as to the wise and\nhopeful ways of dealing with it. Bacon had no sympathy with popular\nwants and claims; of popularity, of all that was called popular, he had\nthe deepest suspicion and dislike; the opinions and the judgment of\naverage men he despised, as a thinker, a politician, and a courtier; the\n\"malignity of the people\" he thought great. \"I do not love,\" he says,\n\"the word _people_.\" But he had a high idea of what was worthy of a\nking, and was due to the public interests, and he saw the folly of the\npetty acts and haughty words, the use of which James could not resist.\nIn his new office he once more urged on, and urged in vain, his\nfavourite project for revising, simplifying, and codifying the law. This\nwas a project which would find little favour with Coke, and the crowd of\nlawyers who venerated him--men whom Bacon viewed with mingled contempt\nand apprehension both in the courts and in Parliament where they were\nnumerous, and whom he more than once advised the King to bridle and keep\n\"in awe.\" Bacon presented his scheme to the King in a Proposition, or,\nas we should call it, a Report. It is very able and interesting; marked\nwith his characteristic comprehensiveness and sense of practical needs,\nand with a confidence in his own knowledge of law which contrasts\ncuriously with the current opinion about it. He speaks with the utmost\nhonour of Coke's work, but he is not afraid of a comparison with him. \"I\ndo assure your Majesty,\" he says, \"I am in good hope that when Sir\nEdward Coke's Reports and my Rules and Decisions shall come to\nposterity, there will be (whatever is now thought) question who was the\ngreater lawyer.\" But the project, though it was entertained and\ndiscussed in Parliament, came to nothing. No one really cared about it\nexcept Bacon.\n\nBut in these years (1615 and 1616) two things happened of the utmost\nconsequence to him. One was the rise, more extravagant than anything\nthat England had seen for centuries, and in the end more fatal, of the\nnew favourite, who from plain George Villiers became the all-powerful\nDuke of Buckingham. Bacon, like the rest of the world, saw the necessity\nof bowing before him; and Bacon persuaded himself that Villiers was\npre-eminently endowed with all the gifts and virtues which a man in his\nplace would need. We have a series of his letters to Villiers; they are\nof course in the complimentary vein which was expected; but if their\nlanguage is only compliment, there is no language left for expressing\nwhat a man wishes to be taken for truth. The other matter was the\nhumiliation, by Bacon's means and in his presence, of his old rival\nCoke. In the dispute about jurisdiction, always slumbering and lately\nawakened and aggravated by Coke, between the Common Law Courts and the\nChancery, Coke had threatened the Chancery with Pr\u00e6munire. The King's\njealousy took alarm, and the Chief-Justice was called before the\nCouncil. There a decree, based on Bacon's advice and probably drawn up\nby him, peremptorily overruled the legal doctrine maintained by the\ngreatest and most self-confident judge whom the English courts had seen.\nThe Chief-Justice had to acquiesce in this reading of the law; and then,\nas if such an affront were not enough, Coke was suspended from his\noffice, and, further, enjoined to review and amend his published\nreports, where they were inconsistent with the view of law which on\nBacon's authority the Star Chamber had adopted (June, 1616). This he\naffected to do, but the corrections were manifestly only colourable;\nhis explanations of his legal heresies against the prerogative, as these\nheresies were formulated by the Chancellor and Bacon, and presented to\nhim for recantation, were judged insufficient; and in a decree, prefaced\nby reasons drawn up by Bacon, in which, besides Coke's errors of law,\nhis \"deceit, contempt, and slander of the Government,\" his \"perpetual\nturbulent carriage,\" and his affectation of popularity, were noted--he\nwas removed from his office (Nov., 1616). So, for the present, the old\nrivalry had ended in a triumph for Bacon. Bacon, whom Coke had so long\nheaded in the race, whom he had sneered at as a superficial pretender to\nlaw, and whose accomplishments and enthusiasm for knowledge he utterly\ndespised, had not only defeated him, but driven him from his seat with\ndishonour. When we remember what Coke was, what he had thought of Bacon,\nand how he prized his own unique reputation as a representative of\nEnglish law, the effects of such a disgrace on a man of his temper\ncannot easily be exaggerated.\n\nBut for the present Bacon had broken through the spell which had so long\nkept him back. He won a great deal of the King's confidence, and the\nKing was more and more ready to make use of him, though by no means\nequally willing to think that Bacon knew better than himself. Bacon's\nview of the law, and his resources of argument and expression to make it\ngood, could be depended upon in the keen struggle to secure and enlarge\nthe prerogative which was now beginning. In the prerogative both James\nand Bacon saw the safety of the State and the only reasonable hope of\ngood government; but in Bacon's larger and more elevated views of\npolicy--of a policy worthy of a great king, and a king of England--James\nwas not likely to take much interest. The memorials which it was\nBacon's habit to present on public affairs were wasted on one who had so\nlittle to learn from others--so he thought and so all assured him--about\nthe secrets of empire. Still they were proofs of Bacon's ready mind; and\nJames, even when he disagreed with Bacon's opinion and arguments, was\ntoo clever not to see their difference from the work of other men. Bacon\nrose in favour; and from the first he was on the best of terms with\nVilliers. He professed to Villiers the most sincere devotion. According\nto his custom he presented him with a letter of wise advice on the\nduties and behaviour of a favourite. He at once began, and kept up with\nhim to the end, a confidential correspondence on matters of public\nimportance. He made it clear that he depended upon Villiers for his own\npersonal prospects, and it had now become the most natural thing that\nBacon should look forward to succeeding the Lord Chancellor, Ellesmere,\nwho was fast failing. Bacon had already (Feb. 12, 1615/16). in terms\nwhich seem strange to us, but were less strange then, set forth in a\nletter to the King the reasons why he should be Chancellor; criticising\njustly enough, only that he was a party interested, the qualifications\nof other possible candidates, Coke, Hobart, and the Archbishop Abbott.\nCoke would be \"an overruling nature in an overruling place,\" and\n\"popular men were no sure mounters for your Majesty's saddle.\" Hobart\nwas incompetent. As to Abbott, the Chancellor's place required \"a whole\nman,\" and to have both jurisdiction, spiritual and temporal, \"was fit\nonly for a king.\" The promise that Bacon should have the place came to\nhim three days afterwards through Villiers. He acknowledged it in a\nburst of gratitude (Feb. 15, 1615/16). \"I will now wholly rely on your\nexcellent and happy self.... I am yours surer to you than my own life.\nFor, as they speak of the Turquoise stone in a ring, I will break into\ntwenty pieces before you bear the least fall.\" They were unconsciously\nprophetic words. But Ellesmere lasted longer than was expected. It was\nnot till a year after this promise that he resigned. On the 7th of\nMarch, 1616/17, Bacon received the seals. He expresses his obligations\nto Villiers, now Lord Buckingham, in the following letter:\n\n     \"MY DEAREST LORD,--It is both in cares and kindness that small ones\n     float up to the tongue, and great ones sink down into the heart\n     with silence. Therefore I could speak little to your Lordship\n     to-day, neither had I fit time; but I must profess thus much, that\n     in this day's work you are the truest and perfectest mirror and\n     example of firm and generous friendship that ever was in court. And\n     I shall count every day lost, wherein I shall not either study your\n     well-doing in thought, or do your name honour in speech, or perform\n     you service in deed. Good my Lord, account and accept me your most\n     bounden and devoted friend and servant of all men living,\n\n     \"March 7, 1616 (_i.e._ 1616/1617).\n     FR. BACON, C.S.\"\n\nHe himself believed the appointment to be a popular one. \"I know I am\ncome in,\" he writes to the King soon after, \"with as strong an envy of\nsome particulars as with the love of the general.\" On the 7th of May,\n1617, he took his seat in Chancery with unusual pomp and magnificence,\nand set forth, in an opening speech, with all his dignity and force, the\nduties of his great office and his sense of their obligation. But there\nwas a curious hesitation in treating him as other men were treated in\nlike cases. He was only \"Lord Keeper.\" It was not till the following\nJanuary (1617/18) that he received the office of Lord Chancellor. It was\nnot till half a year afterwards that he was made a Peer. Then he became\nBaron Verulam (July, 1618), and in January, 1620/21, Viscount St.\nAlban's.\n\nFrom this time Bacon must be thought of, first and foremost, as a Judge\nin the great seat which he had so earnestly sought. It was the place not\nmerely of law, which often tied the judge's hands painfully, but of true\njustice, when law failed to give it. Bacon's ideas of the duties of a\njudge were clear and strong, as he showed in various admirable speeches\nand charges: his duties as regards his own conduct and reputation; his\nduties in keeping his subordinates free from the taint of corruption. He\nwas not ignorant of the subtle and unacknowledged ways in which unlawful\ngains may be covered by custom, and an abuse goes on because men will\nnot choose to look at it. He entered on his office with the full purpose\nof doing its work better than it had ever been done. He saw where it\nwanted reforming, and set himself at once to reform. The accumulation\nand delay of suits had become grievous; at once he threw his whole\nenergy into the task of wiping out the arrears which the bad health of\nhis predecessor and the traditional sluggishness of the court had heaped\nup. In exactly three months from his appointment he was able to report\nthat these arrears had been cleared off. \"This day\" (June 8, 1617), he\nwrites to Buckingham, \"I have made even with the business of the kingdom\nfor common justice. Not one cause unheard. The lawyers drawn dry of all\nthe motions they were to make. Not one petition unheard. And this I\nthink could not be said in our time before.\"\n\nThe performance was splendid, and there is no reason to think that the\nwork so rapidly done was not well done. We are assured that Bacon's\ndecisions were unquestioned, and were not complained of. At the same\ntime, before this allegation is accepted as conclusive proof of the\npublic satisfaction, it must be remembered that the question of his\nadministration of justice, which was at last to assume such strange\nproportions, has never been so thoroughly sifted as, to enable us to\npronounce upon it, it should be. The natural tendency of Bacon's mind\nwould undoubtedly be to judge rightly and justly; but the negative\nargument of the silence at the time of complainants, in days when it was\nso dangerous to question authority, and when we have so little evidence\nof what men said at their firesides, is not enough to show that he never\nfailed.\n\nBut the serious thing is that Bacon subjected himself to two of the most\ndangerous influences which can act on the mind of a judge--the influence\nof the most powerful and most formidable man in England, and the\ninfluence of presents, in money and other gifts. From first to last he\nallowed Buckingham, whom no man, as Bacon soon found, could displease\nexcept at his own peril, to write letters to him on behalf of suitors\nwhose causes were before him; and he allowed suitors, not often while\nthe cause was pending, but sometimes even then, to send him directly, or\nthrough his servants, large sums of money. Both these things are\nexplained. It would have been characteristic of Bacon to be confident\nthat he could defy temptation: these habits were the fashion of the\ntime, and everybody took them for granted; Buckingham never asked his\ngood offices beyond what Bacon thought just and right, and asked them\nrather for the sake of expedition than to influence his judgment. And as\nto the money presents--every office was underpaid; this was the common\nway of acknowledging pains and trouble: it was analogous to a doctor's\nor a lawyer's fee now. And there is no proof that either influence ever\nled Bacon to do wrong. This has been said, and said with some degree of\nforce. But if it shows that Bacon was not in this matter below his age,\nit shows that he was not above it. No one knew better than Bacon that\nthere were no more certain dangers to honesty and justice than the\ninterference and solicitation of the great, and the old famous pest of\nbribes, of which all histories and laws were full. And yet on the\nhighest seat of justice in the realm he, the great reformer of its\nabuses, allowed them to make their customary haunt. He did not mean to\ndo wrong: his conscience was clear; he had not given thought to the\nmischief they must do, sooner or later, to all concerned with the Court\nof Chancery. With a magnificent carelessness he could afford to run\nsafely a course closely bordering on crime, in which meaner men would\nsin and be ruined.\n\nBefore six months were over Bacon found on what terms he must stand with\nBuckingham. By a strange fatality, quite unintentionally, he became\ndragged into the thick of the scandalous and grotesque dissensions of\nthe Coke family. The Court was away from London in the North; and Coke\nhad been trying, not without hope of success, to recover the King's\nfavour. Coke was a rich man, and Lady Compton, the mother of the\nVilliers, thought that Coke's daughter would be a good match for one of\nher younger sons. It was really a great chance for Coke; but he haggled\nabout the portion; and the opportunity, which might perhaps have led to\nhis taking Bacon's place, passed. But he found himself in trouble in\nother ways; his friends, especially Secretary Winwood, contrived to\nbring the matter on again, and he consented to the Villiers's terms. But\nhis wife, the young lady's mother, Lady Hatton, would not hear of it,\nand a furious quarrel followed. She carried off her daughter into the\ncountry. Coke, with a warrant from Secretary Winwood, which Bacon had\nrefused to give him, pursued her: \"with his son, 'Fighting Clem,' and\nten or eleven servants, weaponed, in a violent manner he repaired to\nthe house where she was remaining, and with a piece of timber or form\nbroke open the door and dragged her along to his coach.\" Lady Hatton\nrushed off the same afternoon for help to Bacon.\n\n     After an overturn by the way, \"at last to my Lord Keeper's they\n     come, but could not have instant access to him, for that his people\n     told them he was laid at rest, being not well. Then my La. Hatton\n     desired she might be in the next room where my Lord lay, that she\n     might be the first that [should] speak with him after he was\n     stirring. The door-keeper fulfilled her desire, and in the meantime\n     gave her a chair to rest herself in, and there left her alone; but\n     not long after, she rose up and bounced against my Lord Keeper's\n     door, and waked him and affrighted him, that he called his men to\n     him; and they opening the door, she thrust in with them, and\n     desired his Lp. to pardon her boldness, but she was like a cow that\n     had lost her calf, and so justified [herself] and pacified my\n     Lord's anger, and got his warrant and my Lo. Treasurer's warrant\n     and others of the Council to fetch her daughter from the father and\n     bring them both to the Council.\"\n\nIt was a chance that the late Chief-Justice and his wife, with their\narmed parties, did not meet on the road, in which case \"there were like\nto be strange tragedies.\" At length the Council compelled both sides to\nkeep the peace, and the young lady was taken for the present out of the\nhands of her raging parents. Bacon had assumed that the affair was the\nresult of an intrigue between Winwood and Coke, and that the Court would\ntake part against Coke, a man so deep in disgrace and so outrageously\nviolent. Supposing that he had the ear of Buckingham, he wrote\nearnestly, persuading him to put an end to the business; and in the\nmeantime the Council ordered Coke to be brought before the Star Chamber\n\"for riot and force,\" to \"be heard and sentenced as justice shall\nappertain.\" They had not the slightest doubt that they were doing what\nwould please the King. A few days after they met, and then they learned\nthe truth.\n\n     \"Coke and his friends,\" writes Chamberlain, \"complain of hard\n     measure from some of the greatest at that board, and that he was\n     too much trampled upon with ill language. And our friend [_i.e._\n     Winwood] passed out scot free for the warrant, which the greatest\n     [_word illegible_] there said was subject to a _pr\u00e6munire_; and\n     withal told the Lady Compton that they wished well to her and her\n     sons, and would be ready to serve the Earl of Buckingham with all\n     true affection, whereas others did it out of faction and\n     ambition--which words glancing directly at our good friend\n     (Winwood), he was driven to make his apology, and to show how it\n     was put upon him from time to time by the Queen and other parties;\n     and, for conclusion, showed a letter of approbation of all his\n     courses from the King, making the whole table judge what faction\n     and ambition appeared in this carriage. _Ad quod non fuit\n     responsum._\"\n\nNone indeed, but blank faces, and thoughts of what might come next. The\nCouncil, and Bacon foremost, had made a desperate mistake. \"It is\nevident,\" as Mr. Spedding says, \"that he had not divined Buckingham's\nfeelings on the subject.\" He was now to learn them. To his utter\namazement and alarm he found that the King was strong for the match, and\nthat the proceeding of the Council was condemned at Court as gross\nmisconduct. In vain he protested that he was quite willing to forward\nthe match; that in fact he had helped it. Bacon's explanations, and his\nwarnings against Coke the King \"rejected with some disdain;\" he\njustified Coke's action; he charged Bacon with disrespect and\ningratitude to Buckingham; he put aside his arguments and apologies as\nworthless or insincere. Such reprimands had not often been addressed,\neven to inferior servants. Bacon's letters to Buckingham remained at\nfirst without notice; when Buckingham answered he did so with scornful\nand menacing curtness. Meanwhile Bacon heard from Yelverton how things\nwere going at Court.\n\n     \"Sir E. Coke,\" he wrote, \"hath not forborne by any engine to heave\n     at both your Honour and myself, and he works the weightiest\n     instrument, the Earl of Buckingham, who, as I see, sets him as\n     close to him as his shirt, the Earl speaking in Sir Edward's\n     phrase, and as it were menacing in his spirit.\"\n\nBuckingham, he went on to say, \"did nobly and plainly tell me he would\nnot secretly bite, but whosoever had had any interest, or tasted of the\nopposition to his brother's marriage, he would as openly oppose them to\ntheir faces, and they should discern what favour he had by the power he\nwould use.\" The Court, like a pack of dogs, had set upon Bacon. \"It is\ntoo common in every man's mouth in Court that your greatness shall be\nabated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor unto some, so shall\ntheirs be to you.\" Buckingham said to every one that Bacon had been\nforgetful of his kindness and unfaithful to him: \"not forbearing in open\nspeech to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you, to be\nunfaithful unto him, as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset.\"\n\nAll this while Bacon had been clearly in the right. He had thrust\nhimself into no business that did not concern him. He had not, as\nBuckingham accuses him of having done, \"overtroubled\" himself with the\nmarriage. He had done his simple duty as a friend, as a councillor, as a\njudge. He had been honestly zealous for the Villiers's honour, and\nwarned Buckingham of things that were beyond question. He had curbed\nCoke's scandalous violence, perhaps with no great regret, but with\nmanifest reason. But for this he was now on the very edge of losing his\noffice; it was clear to him, as it is clear to us, that nothing could\nsave him but absolute submission. He accepted the condition. How this\nsubmission was made and received, and with what gratitude he found that\nhe was forgiven, may be seen in the two following letters. Buckingham\nthus extends his grace to the Lord Keeper, and exhorts him to better\nbehaviour:\n\n     \"But his Majesty's direction in answer of your letter hath given me\n     occasion to join hereunto a discovery unto you of mine inward\n     thoughts, proceeding upon the discourse you had with me this day.\n     For I do freely confess that your offer of submission unto me, and\n     in writing (if so I would have it), battered so the unkindness that\n     I had conceived in my heart for your behaviour towards me in my\n     absence, as out of the sparks of my old affection towards you I\n     went to sound his Majesty's intention how he means to behave\n     himself towards you, specially in any public meeting; where I found\n     on the one part his Majesty so little satisfied with your late\n     answer unto him, which he counted (for I protest I use his own\n     terms) _confused and childish_, and his vigorous resolution on the\n     other part so fixed, that he would put some public exemplary mark\n     upon you, as I protest the sight of his deep-conceived indignation\n     quenched my passion, making me upon the instant change from the\n     person of a party into a peace-maker; so as I was forced upon my\n     knees to beg of his Majesty that he would put no public act of\n     disgrace upon you, and, as I dare say, no other person would have\n     been patiently heard in this suit by his Majesty but myself, so did\n     I (though not without difficulty) obtain thus much--that he would\n     not so far disable you from the merit of your future service as to\n     put any particular mark of disgrace upon your person. Only thus far\n     his Majesty protesteth, that upon the conscience of his office he\n     cannot omit (though laying aside all passion) to give a kingly\n     reprimand at his first sitting in council to so many of his\n     councillors as were then here behind, and were actors in this\n     business, for their ill behaviour in it. Some of the particular\n     errors committed in this business he will name, but without\n     accusing any particular persons by name.\n\n     \"Thus your Lordship seeth the fruits of my natural inclination; and\n     I protest all this time past it was no small grief unto me to hear\n     the mouth of so many upon this occasion open to load you with\n     innumerable malicious and detracting speeches, as if no music were\n     more pleasing to my ears than to rail of you, which made me rather\n     regret the ill nature of mankind, that like dogs love to set upon\n     him that they see once snatched at. And to conclude, my Lord, you\n     have hereby a fair occasion so to make good hereafter your\n     reputation by your sincere service to his Majesty, as also by your\n     firm and constant kindness to your friends, as I may (your\n     Lordship's old friend) participate of the comfort and honour that\n     will thereby come to you. Thus I rest at last\n\n     \"Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant,\n     \"G.B.\"\n\n     \"MY EVER BEST LORD, now better than yourself,--Your Lordship's pen,\n     or rather pencil, hath pourtrayed towards me such magnanimity and\n     nobleness and true kindness, as methinketh I see the image of some\n     ancient virtue, and not anything of these times. It is the line of\n     my life, and not the lines of my letter, that must express my\n     thankfulness; wherein if I fail, then God fail me, and make me as\n     miserable as I think myself at this time happy by this reviver,\n     through his Majesty's singular clemency, and your incomparable love\n     and favour. God preserve you, prosper you, and reward you for your\n     kindness to\n\n     \"Your raised and infinitely obliged friend and servant,\n     \"Sept. 22, 1617.\n     FR. BACON, C.S.\"\n\nThus he had tried his strength with Buckingham. He had found that this,\n\"a little parent-like\" manner of advising him, and the doctrine that a\ntrue friend \"ought rather to go against his mind than his good,\" was not\nwhat Buckingham expected from him. And he never ventured on it again. It\nis not too much to say that a man who could write as he now did to\nBuckingham, could not trust himself in any matter in which Buckingham,\nwas interested.\n\nBut the reconciliation was complete, and Bacon took his place more and\nmore as one of the chief persons in the Government. James claimed so\nmuch to have his own way, and had so little scruple in putting aside, in\nhis superior wisdom, sometimes very curtly, Bacon's or any other\nperson's recommendations, that though his services were great, and were\nnot unrecognised, he never had the power and influence in affairs to\nwhich his boundless devotion to the Crown, his grasp of business, and\nhis willing industry, ought to have entitled him. He was still a\nservant, and made to feel it, though a servant in the \"first form.\" It\nwas James and Buckingham who determined the policy of the country, or\nsettled the course to be taken in particular transactions; when this was\nsettled, it was Bacon's business to carry it through successfully. In\nthis he was like all the other servants of the Crown, and like them he\nwas satisfied with giving his advice, whether it were taken or not; but\nunlike many of them he was zealous in executing with the utmost vigour\nand skill the instructions which were given him. Thus he was required to\nfind the legal means for punishing Raleigh; and, as a matter of duty, he\nfound them. He was required to tell the Government side of the story of\nRaleigh's crimes and punishment--which really was one side of the story,\nonly not by any means the whole; and he told it, as he had told the\nGovernment story against Essex, with force, moderation, and good sense.\nHimself, he never would have made James's miserable blunders about\nRaleigh; but the blunders being made, it was his business to do his best\nto help the King out of them. When Suffolk, the Lord Treasurer, was\ndisgraced and brought before the Star Chamber for corruption and\nembezzlement in his office, Bacon thought that he was doing no more than\nhis duty in keeping Buckingham informed day by day how the trial was\ngoing on; how he had taken care that Suffolk's submission should not\nstop it--\"for all would be but a play on the stage if justice went not\non in the right course;\" how he had taken care that the evidence went\nwell--\"I will not say I sometime holp it, as far as was fit for a\njudge;\" how, \"a little to warm the business\" ... \"I spake a word, that\nhe that did draw or milk treasure from Ireland, did not, _emulgere_,\nmilk money, but blood.\" This, and other \"little things\" like it, while\nhe was sitting as a judge to try, if the word may be used, a personal\nenemy of Buckingham, however bad the case might be against Suffolk,\nsound strange indeed to us; and not less so when, in reporting the\nsentence and the various opinions of the Council about it, he, for once,\npraises Coke for the extravagance of his severity: \"Sir Edward Coke did\nhis part--I have not heard him do better--and began with a fine of\n\u00a3100,000; but the judges first, and most of the rest, reduced it to\n\u00a330,000. I do not dislike that thing passed moderately; and all things\nconsidered, it is not amiss, and might easily have been worse.\"\n\nIn all this, which would have been perfectly natural from an\nAttorney-General of the time, Bacon saw but his duty, even as a judge\nbetween the Crown and the subject. It was what was expected of those\nwhom the King chose to employ, and whom Buckingham chose to favour. But\na worse and more cruel case, illustrating the system which a man like\nBacon could think reasonable and honourable, was the disgrace and\npunishment of Yelverton, the Attorney-General, the man who had stood by\nBacon, and in his defence had faced Buckingham, knowing well\nBuckingham's dislike of himself, when all the Court turned against Bacon\nin his quarrel with Coke and Lady Compton. Towards the end of the year\n1620, on the eve of a probable meeting of Parliament, there was great\nquestioning about what was to be done about certain patents and\nmonopolies--monopolies for making gold and silk thread, and for\nlicensing inns and ale-houses--which were in the hands of Buckingham's\nbrothers and their agents. The monopolies were very unpopular; there was\nalways doubt as to their legality; they were enforced oppressively and\nvexatiously by men like Michell and Mompesson, who acted for the\nVilliers; and the profits of them went, for the most part, not into the\nExchequer, but into the pockets of the hangers-on of Buckingham. Bacon\ndefended them both in law and policy, and his defence is thought by Mr.\nGardiner to be not without grounds; but he saw the danger of obstinacy\nin maintaining what had become so hateful in the country, and strongly\nrecommended that the more indefensible and unpopular patents should be\nspontaneously given up, the more so as they were of \"no great fruit.\"\nBut Buckingham's insolent perversity \"refused to be convinced.\" The\nCouncil, when the question was before them, decided to maintain them.\nBacon, who had rightly voted in the minority, thus explains his own vote\nto Buckingham: \"The King did wisely put it upon and consult, whether the\npatents were at this time to be removed by Act of Council before\nParliament. _I opined (but yet somewhat like Ovid's mistress, that\nstrove, but yet as one that would be overcome), that yes!_\" But in the\nvarious disputes which had arisen about them, Yelverton had shown that\nhe very much disliked the business of defending monopolies, and sending\nLondon citizens to jail for infringing them. He did it, but he did it\ngrudgingly. It was a great offence in a man whom Buckingham had always\ndisliked; and it is impossible to doubt that what followed was the\nconsequence of his displeasure.\n\n     \"In drawing up a new charter for the city of London,\" writes Mr.\n     Gardiner, \"Yelverton inserted clauses for which he was unable to\n     produce a warrant. The worst that could be said was that he had,\n     through inadvertence, misunderstood the verbal directions of the\n     King. Although no imputation of corruption was brought against\n     him, yet he was suspended from his office, and prosecuted in the\n     Star Chamber. He was then sentenced to dismissal from his post, to\n     a fine of \u00a34000, and to imprisonment during the Royal pleasure.\"\n\nIn the management of this business Bacon had the chief part. Yelverton,\non his suspension, at once submitted. The obnoxious clauses are not said\nto have been of serious importance, but they were new clauses which the\nKing had not sanctioned, and it would be a bad precedent to pass over\nsuch unauthorised additions even by an Attorney-General. \"I mistook many\nthings,\" said Yelverton afterwards, in words which come back into our\nminds at a later period, \"I was improvident in some things, and too\ncredulous in all things.\" It might have seemed that dismissal, if not a\nsevere reprimand, was punishment enough. But the submission was not\nenough, in Bacon's opinion, \"for the King's honour.\" He dwelt on the\ngreatness of the offence, and the necessity of making a severe example.\nAccording to his advice, Yelverton was prosecuted in the Star Chamber.\nIt was not merely a mistake of judgment. \"Herein,\" said Bacon, \"I note\nthe wisdom of the law of England, which termeth the highest contempt and\nexcesses of authority _Misprisions_; which (if you take the sound and\nderivation of the word) is but _mistaken_; but if you take the use and\nacception of the word, it is high and heinous contempt and usurpation of\nauthority; whereof the reason I take to be and the name excellently\nimposed, for that main mistaking, it is ever joined with contempt; for\nhe that reveres will not easily mistake; but he that slights, and thinks\nmore of the greatness of his place than of the duty of his place, will\nsoon commit misprisions.\" The day would come when this doctrine would be\npressed with ruinous effect against Bacon himself. But now he expounded\nwith admirable clearness the wrongness of carelessness about warrants\nand of taking things for granted. He acquitted his former colleague of\n\"corruption of reward;\" but \"in truth that makes the offence rather\ndivers than less;\" for some offences \"are black, and others scarlet,\nsome sordid, some presumptuous.\" He pronounced his sentence--the fine,\nthe imprisonment; \"for his place, I declare him unfit for it.\" \"And the\nnext day,\" says Mr. Spedding, \"he reported to Buckingham the result of\nthe proceeding,\" and takes no small credit for his own part in it.\n\nIt was thus that the Court used Bacon, and that Bacon submitted to be\nused. He could have done, if he had been listened to, much nobler\nservice. He had from the first seen, and urged as far as he could, the\nparamount necessity of retrenchment in the King's profligate\nexpenditure. Even Buckingham had come to feel the necessity of it at\nlast; and now that Bacon filled a seat at the Council, and that the\nprosecution of Suffolk and an inquiry into the abuses of the Navy had\nforced on those in power the urgency of economy, there was a chance of\nsomething being done to bring order into the confusion of the finances.\nRetrenchment began at the King's kitchen and the tables of his servants;\nan effort was made, not unsuccessfully, to extend it wider, under the\ndirection of Lionel Cranfield, a self-made man of business from the\ncity; but with such a Court the task was an impossible one. It was not\nBacon's fault, though he sadly mismanaged his own private affairs, that\nthe King's expenditure was not managed soberly and wisely. Nor was it\nBacon's fault, as far as advice went, that James was always trying\neither to evade or to outwit a Parliament which he could not, like the\nTudors, overawe. Bacon's uniform counsel had been--Look on a Parliament\nas a certain necessity, but not only as a necessity, as also a unique\nand most precious means for uniting the Crown with the nation, and\nproving to the world outside how Englishmen love and honour their King,\nand their King trusts his subjects. Deal with it frankly and nobly as\nbecomes a king, not suspiciously like a huckster in a bargain. Do not be\nafraid of Parliament. Be skilful in calling it, but don't attempt to\n\"pack\" it. Use all due adroitness and knowledge of human nature, and\nnecessary firmness and majesty, in managing it; keep unruly and\nmischievous people in their place, but do not be too anxious to\nmeddle--\"let nature work;\" and above all, though of course you want\nmoney from it, do not let that appear as the chief or real cause of\ncalling it. Take the lead in legislation. Be ready with some interesting\nor imposing points of reform, or policy, about which you ask your\nParliament to take counsel with you. Take care to \"frame and have ready\nsome commonwealth bills, that may add respect to the King's government\nand acknowledgment of his care; not _wooing_ bills to make the King and\nhis graces cheap, but good matter to set the Parliament on work, that an\nempty stomach do not feed on humour.\" So from the first had Bacon always\nthought; so he thought when he watched, as a spectator, James's blunders\nwith his first Parliament of 1604; so had he earnestly counselled James,\nwhen admitted to his confidence, as to the Parliaments of 1614 and 1615;\nso again, but in vain, as Chancellor, he advised him to meet the\nParliament of 1620. It was wise, and from his point of view honest\nadvice, though there runs all through it too much reliance on\nappearances which were not all that they seemed; there was too much\nthought of throwing dust in the eyes of troublesome and inconvenient\npeople. But whatever motives there might have been behind, it would have\nbeen well if James had learned from Bacon how to deal with Englishmen.\nBut he could not. \"I wonder,\" said James one day to Gondomar, \"that my\nancestors should ever have permitted such an institution as the House of\nCommons to have come into existence. I am a stranger, and found it here\nwhen I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get\nrid of.\" James was the only one of our many foreign kings who, to the\nlast, struggled to avoid submitting himself to the conditions of an\nEnglish throne.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nBACON'S FALL.\n\n\nWhen Parliament met on January 30, 1620/21, and Bacon, as Lord\nChancellor, set forth in his ceremonial speeches to the King and to the\nSpeaker the glories and blessings of James's reign, no man in England\nhad more reason to think himself fortunate. He had reached the age of\nsixty, and had gained the object of his ambition. More than that, he was\nconscious that in his great office he was finding full play for his\npowers and his high public purposes. He had won greatly on the\nconfidence of the King. He had just received a fresh mark of honour from\nhim: a few days before he had been raised a step in the peerage, and he\nwas now Viscount St. Alban's. With Buckingham he seemed to be on terms\nof the most affectionate familiarity, exchanging opinions freely with\nhim on every subject. And Parliament met in good-humour. They voted\nmoney at once. One of the matters which interested Bacon most--the\nrevision of the Statute Book--they took up as one of their first\nmeasures, and appointed a Select Committee to report upon it. And what,\namid the apparent felicity of the time, was of even greater personal\nhappiness to Bacon, the first step of the \"Great Instauration\" had been\ntaken. During the previous autumn, Oct. 12, 1620, the _Novum Organum_,\nthe first instalment of his vast design, was published, the result of\nthe work of thirty years; and copies were distributed to great people,\namong others to Coke. He apprehended no evil; he had nothing to fear,\nand much to hope from the times.\n\nHis sudden and unexpected fall, so astonishing and so irreparably\ncomplete, is one of the strangest events of that still imperfectly\ncomprehended time. There had been, and were still to be, plenty of\ninstances of the downfall of power, as ruinous and even more tragic,\nthough scarcely any one more pathetic in its surprise and its shame. But\nit is hard to find one of which so little warning was given, and the\ncauses of which are at once in part so clear, and in part so obscure and\nunintelligible. Such disasters had to be reckoned upon as possible\nchances by any one who ventured into public life. Montaigne advises that\nthe discipline of pain should be part of every boy's education, for the\nreason that every one in his day might be called upon to undergo the\ntorture. And so every public man, in the England of the Tudors and\nStuarts, entered on his career with the perfectly familiar expectation\nof possibly closing it--it might be in an honourable and ceremonious\nfashion, in the Tower and on the scaffold--just as he had to look\nforward to the possibility of closing it by small-pox or the plague. So\nthat when disaster came, though it might be unexpected, as death is\nunexpected, it was a turn of things which ought not to take a man by\nsurprise. But some premonitory signs usually gave warning. There was\nnothing to warn Bacon that the work which he believed he was doing so\nwell would be interrupted.\n\nWe look in vain for any threatenings of the storm. What the men of his\ntime thought and felt about Bacon it is not easy to ascertain.\nAppearances are faint and contradictory; he himself, though scornful of\njudges who sought to be \"popular,\" believed that he \"came in with the\nfavour of the general;\" that he \"had a little popular reputation, which\nfolloweth me whether I will or no.\" No one for years had discharged the\nduties of his office with greater efficiency. Scarcely a trace remains\nof any suspicion, previous to the attack upon him, of the justice of his\ndecisions; no instance was alleged that, in fact, impure motives had\ncontrolled the strength and lucidity of an intellect which loved to be\ntrue and right for the mere pleasure of being so. Nor was there anything\nin Bacon's political position to make him specially obnoxious above all\nothers of the King's Council. He maintained the highest doctrines of\nprerogative; but they were current doctrines, both at the Council board\nand on the bench; and they were not discredited nor extinguished by his\nfall. To be on good terms with James and Buckingham meant a degree of\nsubservience which shocks us now; but it did not shock people then, and\nhe did not differ from his fellows in regarding it as part of his duty\nas a public servant of the Crown. No doubt he had enemies--some with old\ngrudges like Southampton, who had been condemned with Essex; some like\nSuffolk, smarting under recent reprimands and the biting edge of Bacon's\ntongue; some like Coke, hating him from constitutional antipathies and\nthe strong antagonism of professional doctrines, for a long course of\nrivalry and for mortifying defeats. But there is no appearance of\npreconcerted efforts among them to bring about his overthrow. He did not\nat the time seem to be identified with anything dangerous or odious.\nThere was no doubt a good deal of dissatisfaction with Chancery--among\nthe common lawyers, because it interfered with their business; in the\npublic, partly from the traditions of its slowness, partly from its\nexpensiveness, partly because, being intended for special redress of\nlegal hardship, it was sure to disappoint one party to a suit. But Bacon\nthought that he had reformed Chancery. He had also done a great deal to\nbring some kind of order, or at least hopefulness of order, into the\nKing's desperate finances. And he had never set himself against\nParliament. On the contrary, he had always been forward to declare that\nthe King could not do without Parliament, and that Parliament only\nneeded to be dealt with generously, and as \"became a King,\" to be not a\ndanger and hindrance to the Crown but its most sincere and trustworthy\nsupport.\n\nWhat was then to portend danger to Bacon when the Parliament of 1620/21\nmet? The House of Commons at its meeting was thoroughly loyal and\nrespectful; it meant to be _benedictum et pacificum parliamentum_. Every\none knew that there would be \"grievances\" which would not be welcome to\nthe Court, but they did not seem likely to touch him. Every one knew\nthat there would be questions raised about unpopular patents and\noppressive monopolies, and about their legality; and it was pretty well\nagreed upon at Court that they should be given up as soon as complained\nof. But Bacon was not implicated more than the Crown lawyers before him,\nin what all the Crown lawyers had always defended. There was\ndissatisfaction about the King's extravagance and wastefulness, about\nhis indecision in the cause of the Elector Palatine, about his supposed\nintrigues with Papistical and tyrannical Spain; but Bacon had nothing to\ndo with all this except, as far as he could, to give wise counsel and\nwarning. The person who made the King despised and hated was the\nsplendid and insolent favourite, Buckingham. It might have been thought\nthat the one thing to be set against much that was wrong in the State\nwas the just and enlightened and speedy administration of equity in the\nChancery.\n\nWhen Parliament met, though nothing seemed to threaten mischief, it met\nwith a sturdy purpose of bringing to account certain delinquents whose\narrogance and vexations of the subjects had provoked the country, and\nwho were supposed to shelter themselves under the countenance of\nBuckingham. Michell and Mompesson were rascals whose misdemeanors might\nwell try the patience of a less spirited body than an English House of\nCommons. Buckingham could not protect them, and hardly tried to do so.\nBut just as one electric current \"induces\" another by neighbourhood, so\nall this deep indignation against Buckingham's creatures created a\nfierce temper of suspicion about corruption all through the public\nservice. Two Committees were early appointed by the House of Commons:\none a Committee on Grievances, such as the monopolies; the other, a\nCommittee to inquire into abuses in the Courts of Justice and receive\npetitions about them. In the course of the proceedings, the question\narose in the House as to the authorities or \"referees\" who had certified\nto the legality of the Crown patents or grants which had been so grossly\nabused; and among these \"referees\" were the Lord Chancellor and other\nhigh officers, both legal and political.\n\nIt was the little cloud. But lookers-on like Chamberlain did not think\nmuch of it. \"The referees,\" he wrote on Feb. 29th, \"who certified the\nlegality of the patents are glanced at, but they are chiefly above the\nreach of the House; they attempt so much that they will accomplish\nlittle.\" Coke, who was now the chief leader in Parliament, began to talk\nominously of precedents, and to lay down rules about the power of the\nHouse to punish--rules which were afterwards found to have no authority\nfor them. Cranfield, the representative of severe economy, insisted that\nthe honour of the King required that the referees, whoever they were,\nshould be called to account. The gathering clouds shifted a little, when\nthe sense of the House seemed to incline to giving up all retrospective\naction, and to a limitation for the future by statute of the\nquestionable prerogative--a limitation which was in fact attempted by a\nbill thrown out by the Lords. But they gathered again when the Commons\ndetermined to bring the whole matter before the House of Lords. The King\nwrote to warn Bacon of what was coming. The proposed conference was\nstaved off by management for a day or two, but it could not be averted,\nand the Lords showed their eagerness for it. And two things by this\ntime--the beginning of March--seemed now to have become clear, first,\nthat under the general attack on the referees was intended a blow\nagainst Bacon; next, that the person whom he had most reason to fear was\nSir Edward Coke.\n\nThe storm was growing; but Bacon was still unalarmed, though Buckingham\nhad been frightened into throwing the blame on the referees.\n\n     \"I do hear,\" he writes to Buckingham (dating his letter on March\n     7th, \"the day I received the seal\"), \"from divers of judgement,\n     that to-morrow's conference is like to pass in a calm, as to the\n     referees. Sir Lionel Cranfield, who hath been formerly the trumpet,\n     said yesterday that he did now incline unto Sir John Walter's\n     opinion and motion not to have the referees meddled with, otherwise\n     than to discount it from the King; and so not to look back, but to\n     the future. And I do hear almost all men of judgement in the House\n     wish now that way. I woo nobody; I do but listen, and I have doubt\n     only of Sir Edward Coke, who I wish had some round _caveat_ given\n     him from the King; for your Lordship hath no great power with him.\n     But a word from the King mates him.\"\n\nBut Coke's opportunity had come. The House of Commons was disposed for\ngentler measures. But he was able to make it listen to his harsher\ncounsels, and from this time his hand appears in all that was done. The\nfirst conference was a tame and dull one. The spokesmen had been slack\nin their disagreeable and perhaps dangerous duty. But Coke and his\nfriends took them sharply to task. \"The heart and tongue of Sir Edward\nCoke are true relations,\" said one of his fervent supporters; \"but his\npains hath not reaped that harvest of praise that he hath deserved. For\nthe referees, they are as transcendent delinquents as any other, and\nsure their souls made a wilful elopement from their bodies when they\nmade these certificates.\" A second conference was held with the Lords,\nand this time the charge was driven home. The referees were named, the\nChancellor at the head of them. When Bacon rose to explain and justify\nhis acts he was sharply stopped, and reminded that he was transgressing\nthe orders of the House in speaking till the Committees were named to\nexamine the matter. What was even more important, the King had come to\nthe House of Lords (March 10th), and frightened, perhaps, about his\nsubsidies, told them \"that he was not guilty of those grievances which\nare now discovered, but that he grounded his judgement upon others who\nhave misled him.\" The referees would be attacked, people thought, if the\nLower House had courage.\n\nAll this was serious. As things were drifting, it seemed as if Bacon\nmight have to fight the legal question of the prerogative in the form of\na criminal charge, and be called upon to answer the accusation of being\nthe minister of a crown which legal language pronounced absolute, and of\na King who interpreted legal language to the letter; and further, to\nmeet his accusers after the King himself had disavowed what his servant\nhad done. What passed between Bacon and the King is confused and\nuncertain; but after his speech the King could scarcely have thought of\ninterfering with the inquiry. The proceedings went on; Committees were\nnamed for the several points of inquiry; and Bacon took part in these\narrangements. It was a dangerous position to have to defend himself\nagainst an angry House of Commons, led and animated by Coke and\nCranfield. But though the storm had rapidly thickened, the charges\nagainst the referees were not against him alone. His mistake in law, if\nit was a mistake, was shared by some of the first lawyers and first\ncouncillors in England. There was a battle before him, but not a\nhopeless one. \"_Modic\u00e6 fidei, quare dubitasti_\" he writes about this\ntime to an anxious friend.\n\nBut in truth the thickening storm had been gathering over his head\nalone. It was against him that the whole attack was directed; as soon as\nit took a different shape, the complaints against the other referees,\nsuch as the Chief-Justice, who was now Lord Treasurer, though some\nattempt was made to press them, were quietly dropped. What was the\nsecret history of these weeks we do not know. But the result of Bacon's\nruin was that Buckingham was saved. \"As they speak of the Turquoise\nstone in a ring,\" Bacon had said to Buckingham when he was made\nChancellor, \"I will break into twenty pieces before you have the least\nfall.\" Without knowing what he pledged himself to, he was taken at his\nword.\n\nAt length the lightning fell. During the early part of March, while\nthese dangerous questions were mooted about the referees, a Committee,\nappointed early in the session, had also been sitting on abuses in\ncourts of justice, and as part of their business, an inquiry had been\ngoing on into the ways of the subordinate officers of the Court of\nChancery. Bacon had early (Feb. 17th) sent a message to the Committee\ncourting full inquiry, \"willingly consenting that any man might speak\nanything of his Court.\" On the 12th of March the chairman, Sir R.\nPhilips, reported that he had in his hands \"divers petitions, many\nfrivolous and clamorous, many of weight and consequence.\" Cranfield, who\npresided over the Court of Wards, had quarrelled fiercely with the\nChancery, where he said there was \"neither Law, Equity, nor Conscience,\"\nand pressed the inquiry, partly, it may be, to screen his own Court,\nwhich was found fault with by the lawyers. Some scandalous abuses were\nbrought to light in the Chancery. They showed that \"Bacon was at fault\nin the art of government,\" and did not know how to keep his servants in\norder. One of them, John Churchill, an infamous forger of Chancery\norders, finding things going hard with him, and \"resolved,\" it is said,\n\"not to sink alone,\" offered his confessions of all that was going on\nwrong in the Court. But on the 15th of March things took another turn.\nIt was no longer a matter of doubtful constitutional law; no longer a\nquestion of slack discipline over his officers. To the astonishment, if\nnot of the men of his own day, at least to the unexhausted astonishment\nof times following, a charge was suddenly reported from the Committee to\nthe Commons against the Lord Chancellor, not of straining the\nprerogative, or of conniving at his servants' misdoings, but of being\nhimself a corrupt and venal judge. Two suitors charged him with\nreceiving bribes. Bacon was beginning to feel worried and anxious, and\nhe wrote thus to Buckingham. At length he had begun to see the meaning\nof all these inquiries, and to what they were driving.\n\n     \"MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Your Lordship spake of Purgatory. I am now in\n     it, but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I\n     know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house\n     for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the\n     justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been\n     used against me, may for a time seem foul, specially in a time when\n     greatness is the mark and accusation is the game. And if this be to\n     be a Chancellor. I think if the great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath\n     nobody would take it up. But the King and your Lordship will, I\n     hope, put an end to these miseries one way or other. And in troth\n     that which I fear most is lest continual attendance and business,\n     together with these cares, and want of time to do my weak body\n     right this spring by diet and physic, will cast me down; and then\n     it will be thought feigning or fainting. But I hope in God I shall\n     hold out. God prosper you.\"\n\nThe first charges attracted others, which were made formal matters of\ncomplaint by the House of Commons. John Churchill, to save himself, was\nbusy setting down cases of misdoing; and probably suitors of themselves\nbecame ready to volunteer evidence. But of this Bacon as yet knew\nnothing. He was at this time only aware that there were persons who were\n\"hunting out complaints against him,\" that the attack was changed from\nhis law to his private character; he had found an unfavourable feeling\nin the House of Lords; and he knew well enough what it was to have\npowerful enemies in those days when a sentence was often settled before\na trial. To any one, such a state of things was as formidable as the\nfirst serious symptoms of a fever. He was uneasy, as a man might well be\non whom the House of Commons had fixed its eye, and to whom the House of\nLords had shown itself unfriendly. But he was as yet conscious of\nnothing fatal to his defence, and he knew that if false accusations\ncould be lightly made they could also be exposed.\n\nA few days after the first mention of corruption the Commons laid their\ncomplaints of him before the House of Lords, and on the same day (March\n19) Bacon, finding himself too ill to go to the House, wrote to the\nPeers by Buckingham, requesting them that as some \"complaints of base\nbribery\" had come before them, they would give him a fair opportunity of\ndefending himself, and of cross-examining witnesses; especially begging,\nthat considering the number of decrees which he had to make in a\nyear--more than two thousand--and \"the courses which had been taken in\nhunting out complaints against him,\" they would not let their opinion of\nhim be affected by the mere number of charges that might be made. Their\nshort verbal answer, moved by Southampton (March 20), that they meant to\nproceed by right rule of justice, and would be glad if he cleared his\nhonour, was not encouraging. And now that the Commons had brought the\nmatter before them, the Lords took it entirely into their own hands,\nappointing three Committees, and examining the witnesses themselves. New\nwitnesses came forward every day with fresh cases of gifts and presents,\n\"bribes\" received by the Lord Chancellor. When Parliament rose for the\nEaster vacation (March 27-April 17), the Committees continued sitting. A\ngood deal probably passed of which no record remains. When the Commons\nmet again (April 17) Coke was full of gibes about _Instauratio\nMagna_--the true _Instauratio_ was to restore laws--and two days after\nan Act was brought in for review and reversal of decrees in Courts of\nEquity. It was now clear that the case against Bacon had assumed\nformidable dimensions, and also a very strange, and almost monstrous\nshape. For the Lords, who were to be the judges, had by their Committees\ntaken the matter out of the hands of the Commons, the original accusers,\nand had become themselves the prosecutors, collecting and arranging\nevidence, accepting or rejecting depositions, and doing all that\ncounsel or the committing magistrate would do preliminary to a trial.\nThere appears to have been no cross-examining of witnesses on Bacon's\nbehalf, or hearing witnesses for him--not unnaturally at this stage of\nbusiness, when the prosecutors were engaged in making out their own\ncase; but considering that the future judges had of their own accord\nturned themselves into the prosecutors, the unfairness was great. At the\nsame time it does not appear that Bacon did anything to watch how things\nwent in the Committees, which had his friends in them as well as his\nenemies, and are said to have been open courts. Towards the end of\nMarch, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that \"the Houses were working hard\nat cleansing out the Aug\u00e6an stable of monopolies, and also extortions in\nCourts of Justice. The petitions against the Lord Chancellor were too\nnumerous to be got through: his chief friends and brokers of bargains,\nSir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, and others attacked, are\nobliged to accuse him in their own defence, though very reluctantly. His\nordinary bribes were \u00a3300, \u00a3400, and even \u00a31000.... The Lords admit no\nevidence except on oath. One Churchill, who was dismissed from the\nChancery Court for extortion, is the chief cause of the Chancellor's\nruin.\"[3] Bacon was greatly alarmed. He wrote to Buckingham, who was\n\"his anchor in these floods.\" He wrote to the King; he was at a loss to\naccount for the \"tempest that had come on him;\" he could not understand\nwhat he had done to offend the country or Parliament; he had never\n\"taken rewards to pervert justice, however he might be frail, and\npartake of the abuse of the time.\"\n\n     \"Time hath been when I have brought unto you _genitum columb\u00e6_,\n     from others. Now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your Majesty\n     with the wings of a dove, which once within these seven days I\n     thought would have carried me a higher flight.\n\n     \"When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a\n     tempest as is comen upon me. I have been (as your Majesty knoweth\n     best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to\n     have things carried _suavibus modis_. I have been no avaricious\n     oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty or intolerable or\n     hateful man, in my conversation or carriage. I have inherited no\n     hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should\n     this be? For these are the things that use to raise dislikes\n     abroad.\"\n\nAnd he ended by entreating the King to help him:\n\n     \"That which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is that\n     I may know by my matchless friend [Buckingham] that presenteth to\n     you this letter, your Majesty's heart (which is an _abyssus_ of\n     goodness, as I am an _abyssus_ of misery) towards me. I have been\n     ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself,\n     the property being yours; and now making myself an oblation to do\n     with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the\n     honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as\n\n     \"Clay in your Majesty's gracious hands,\n     \"Fr. St. Aldan, Canc.\n     \"March 25, 1621.\"\n\nTo the world he kept up an undismayed countenance: he went down to\nGorhambury, attended by troops of friends. \"This man,\" said Prince\nCharles, when he met his company, \"scorns to go out like a snuff.\" But\nat Gorhambury he made his will, leaving \"his name to the next ages and\nto foreign nations;\" and he wrote a prayer, which is a touching evidence\nof his state of mind--\n\n     \"Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my\n     Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou (O Lord) soundest and\n     searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts; thou knowledgest\n     the upright of heart, thou judgest the hypocrite, thou ponderest\n     men's thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their\n     intentions as with a line, vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid\n     from thee.\n\n     \"Remember (O Lord) how thy servant hath walked before thee;\n     remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in\n     mine intentions. I have loved thy assemblies, I have mourned for\n     the divisions of thy Church, I have delighted in the brightness of\n     thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this\n     nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first\n     and the latter rain; and that it might stretch her branches to the\n     seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and\n     oppressed have been precious in my eyes: I have hated all cruelty\n     and hardness of heart; I have (though in a despised weed) procured\n     the good of all men. If any have been mine enemies, I thought not\n     of them; neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I\n     have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy\n     creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have\n     sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found\n     thee in thy temples.\n\n     \"Thousand have been my sins, and ten thousand my transgressions;\n     but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart,\n     through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal upon thy altar. O\n     Lord, my strength, I have since my youth met with thee in all my\n     ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable\n     chastisements, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours\n     have increased upon me, so have thy corrections; so as thou hast\n     been alway near me, O Lord; and ever as my worldly blessings were\n     exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me; and when I have\n     ascended before men, I have descended in humiliation before thee.\n\n     \"And now when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy\n     upon me, and hath humbled me, according to thy former\n     loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a\n     bastard, but as a child. Just are thy judgements upon me for my\n     sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have\n     no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea to\n     the sea, earth, heavens? and all these are nothing to thy mercies.\n\n     \"Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee that I am\n     debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces,\n     which I have misspent in things for which I was least fit; so as I\n     may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my\n     pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me (O Lord) for my Saviour's sake,\n     and receive me into thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways.\"\n\nBacon up to this time strangely, if the Committees were \"open Courts,\"\nwas entirely ignorant of the particulars of the charge which was\naccumulating against him. He had an interview with the King, which was\nduly reported to the House, and he placed his case before James,\ndistinguishing between the \"three cases of bribery supposed in a\njudge--a corrupt bargain; carelessness in receiving a gift while the\ncause is going on; and, what is innocent, receiving a gift after it is\nended.\" And he meant in such words as these to place himself at the\nKing's disposal, and ask his direction:\n\n     \"For my fortune, _summa summarum_ with me is, that I may not be\n     made altogether unprofitable to do your Majesty service or honour.\n     If your Majesty continue me as I am, I hope I shall be a new man,\n     and shall reform things out of feeling, more than another can do\n     out of example. If I cast part of my burden, I shall be more strong\n     and _delivr\u00e9_ to bear the rest. And, to tell your Majesty what my\n     thoughts run upon, I think of writing a story of England, and of\n     recompiling of your laws into a better digest.\"\n\nThe King referred him to the House; and the House now (April 19th)\nprepared to gather up into \"one brief\" the charges against the Lord\nChancellor, still, however, continuing open to receive fresh complaints.\n\nMeanwhile the chase after abuses of all kinds was growing hotter in the\nCommons--abuses in patents and monopolies, which revived the complaints\nagainst referees, among whom Bacon was frequently named, and abuses in\nthe Courts of Justice. The attack passed by and spared the Common Law\nCourts, as was noticed in the course of the debates; it spared\nCranfield's Court, the Court of Wards. But it fell heavily on the\nChancery and the Ecclesiastical Courts. \"I have neither power nor will\nto defend Chancery,\" said Sir John Bennett, the judge of the Prerogative\nCourt; but a few weeks after his turn came, and a series of as ugly\ncharges as could well be preferred against a judge, charges of extortion\nas well as bribery, were reported to the House by its Committee. There\ncan be no doubt of the grossness of many of these abuses, and the zeal\nagainst them was honest, though it would have shown more courage if it\nhad flown at higher game; but the daily discussion of them helped to\nkeep alive and inflame the general feeling against so great a\n\"delinquent\" as the Lord Chancellor was supposed to be. And, indeed, two\nof the worst charges against him were made before the Commons. One was a\nstatement made in the House by Sir George Hastings, a member of the\nHouse, who had been the channel of Awbry's gift, that when he had told\nBacon that if questioned he must admit it, Bacon's answer was: \"George,\nif you do so, I must deny it upon my honour--upon my oath.\" The other\nwas that he had given an opinion in favour of some claim of the Masters\nin Chancery for which he received \u00a31200, and with which he said that all\nthe judges agreed--an assertion which all the judges denied. Of these\ncharges there is no contradiction.[4]\n\nBacon made one more appeal to the King (April 21). He hoped that, by\nresigning the seal, he might be spared the sentence:\n\n     \"But now if not _per omnipotentiam_ (as the divines speak), but\n     _per potestatem suaviter disponentem_, your Majesty will graciously\n     save me from a sentence with the good liking of the House, and that\n     cup may pass from me; it is the utmost of my desires.\n\n     \"This I move with the more belief, because I assure myself that if\n     it be reformation that is sought, the very taking away the seal,\n     upon my general submission, will be as much in example for these\n     four hundred years as any furder severity.\"\n\nAt length, informally, but for the first time distinctly, the full\nnature of the accusation, with its overwhelming list of cases, came to\nBacon's knowledge (April 20 or 21). From the single charge, made in the\nmiddle of March, it had swelled in force and volume like a rising\nmountain torrent. That all these charges should have sprung out of the\nground from their long concealment is strange enough. How is it that\nnothing was heard of them when the things happened? And what is equally\nstrange is that these charges were substantially true and undeniable;\nthat this great Lord Chancellor, so admirable in his despatch of\nbusiness, hitherto so little complained of for wrong or unfair\ndecisions, had been in the habit of receiving large sums of money from\nsuitors, in some cases certainly while the suit was pending. And\nfurther, while receiving them, while perfectly aware of the evil of\nreceiving gifts on the seat of judgment, while emphatically warning\ninferior judges against yielding to the temptation, he seems really to\nhave continued unconscious of any wrong-doing while gift after gift was\noffered and accepted. But nothing is so strange as the way in which\nBacon met the charges. Tremendous as the accusation was, he made not the\nslightest fight about it. Up to this time he had held himself innocent.\nNow, overwhelmed and stunned, he made no attempt at defence; he threw up\nthe game without a struggle, and volunteered an absolute and unreserved\nconfession of his guilt--that is to say, he declined to stand his trial.\nOnly, he made an earnest application to the House of Lords, in\nproceeding to sentence, to be content with a general admission of\nguilt, and to spare him the humiliation of confessing the separate facts\nof alleged \"bribery\" which were contained in the twenty-eight Articles\nof his accusation. This submission, \"grounded only on rumour,\" for the\nArticles of charge had not yet been communicated to him by the accusers,\ntook the House by surprise. \"No Lord spoke to it, after it had been\nread, for a long time.\" But they did not mean that he should escape with\nthis. The House treated the suggestion with impatient scorn (April 24).\n\"It is too late,\" said Lord Saye. \"No word of confession of any\ncorruption in the Lord Chancellor's submission,\" said Southampton; \"it\nstands with the justice and honour of this House not to proceed without\nthe parties' particular confession, or to have the parties to hear the\ncharge, and we to hear the parties answer.\" The demand of the Lords was\nstrictly just, but cruel; the Articles were now sent to him; he had been\ncharged with definite offences; he must answer yes or no, confess them\nor defend himself. A further question arose whether he should not be\nsent for to appear at the bar. He still held the seals. \"Shall the Great\nSeal come to the bar?\" asked Lord Pembroke. It was agreed that he was to\nbe asked whether he would acknowledge the particulars. His answer was\n\"that he will make no manner of defence to the charge, but meaneth to\nacknowledge corruption, and to make a particular confession to every\npoint, and after that a humble submission. But he humbly craves liberty\nthat, when the charge is more full than he finds the truth of the fact,\nhe may make a declaration of the truth in such particulars, the charge\nbeing brief and containing not all the circumstances.\" And such a\nconfession he made. \"My Lords,\" he said, to those who were sent to ask\nwhether he would stand to it, \"it is my act, my hand, my heart. I\nbeseech your Lordships be merciful to a broken reed.\" This was, of\ncourse, followed by a request to the King from the House to \"sequester\"\nthe Great Seal. A commission was sent to receive it (May 1). \"The worse,\nthe better,\" he answered to the wish, \"that it had been better with\nhim.\" \"By the King's great favour I received the Great Seal; by my own\ngreat fault I have lost it.\" They intended him now to come to the bar to\nreceive his sentence. But he was too ill to leave his bed. They did not\npush this point farther, but proceeded to settle the sentence (May 3).\nHe had asked for mercy, but he did not get it. There were men who talked\nof every extremity short of death. Coke, indeed, in the Commons, from\nhis store of precedents, had cited cases where judges had been hanged\nfor bribery. But the Lords would not hear of this. \"His offences foul,\"\nsaid Lord Arundel; \"his confession pitiful. Life not to be touched.\" But\nSouthampton, whom twenty years before he had helped to involve in\nEssex's ruin, urged that he should be degraded from the peerage; and\nasked whether, at any rate, \"he whom this House thinks unfit to be a\nconstable shall come to the Parliament.\" He was fined \u00a340,000. He was to\nbe imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was to be\nincapable of any office, place, or employment in the State or\nCommonwealth. He was never to sit in Parliament or come within the verge\nof the Court. This was agreed to, Buckingham only dissenting. \"The Lord\nChancellor is so sick,\" he said, \"that he cannot live long.\"\n\nWhat is the history of this tremendous catastrophe by which, in less\nthan two months, Bacon was cast down from the height of fortune to\nbecome a byword of shame? He had enemies, who certainly were glad, but\nthere is no appearance that it was the result of any plot or\ncombination against him. He was involved, accidentally, it may almost be\nsaid, in the burst of anger excited by the intolerable dealings of\nothers. The indignation provoked by Michell and Mompesson and their\nassociates at that particular moment found Bacon in its path, doing, as\nit seemed, in his great seat of justice, even worse than they; and when\nhe threw up all attempt at defence, and his judges had his hand to an\nunreserved confession of corruption, both generally, and in the long\nlist of cases alleged against him, it is not wonderful that they came to\nthe conclusion, as the rest of the world did, that he was as bad as the\naccusation painted him--a dishonest and corrupt judge. Yet it is strange\nthat they should not have observed that not a single charge of a\ndefinitely unjust decision was brought, at any rate was proved, against\nhim. He had taken money, they argued, and therefore he must be corrupt;\nbut if he had taken money to pervert judgment, some instance of the\niniquity would certainly have been brought forward and proved. There is\nno such instance to be found; though, of course, there were plenty of\ndissatisfied suitors; of course the men who had paid their money and\nlost their cause were furious. But in vain do we look for any case of\nproved injustice. The utmost that can be said is that in some cases he\nshowed favour in pushing forward and expediting suits. So that the real\ncharge against Bacon assumes, to us who have not to deal practically\nwith dangerous abuses, but to judge conduct and character, a different\ncomplexion. Instead of being the wickedness of perverting justice and\nselling his judgments for bribes, it takes the shape of allowing and\nsharing in a dishonourable and mischievous system of payment for\nservice, which could not fail to bring with it temptation and\ndiscredit, and in which fair reward could not be distinguished from\nunlawful gain. Such a system it was high time to stop; and in this rough\nand harsh way, which also satisfied some personal enmities, it was\nstopped. We may put aside for good the charge on which he was condemned,\nand which in words he admitted--of being corrupt as a judge. His real\nfault--and it was a great one--was that he did not in time open his eyes\nto the wrongness and evil, patent to every one, and to himself as soon\nas pointed out, of the traditional fashion in his court of eking out by\nirregular gifts the salary of such an office as his.\n\nThus Bacon was condemned both to suffering and to dishonour; and, as has\nbeen observed, condemned without a trial. But it must also be observed\nthat it was entirely owing to his own act that he had not a trial, and\nwith a trial the opportunity of cross-examining witnesses and of\nexplaining openly the matters urged against him. The proceedings in the\nLords were preliminary to the trial; when the time came, Bacon, of his\nown choice, stopped them from going farther, by his confession and\nsubmission. Considering the view which he claimed to take of his own\ncase, his behaviour was wanting in courage and spirit. From the moment\nthat the attack on him shifted from a charge of authorising illegal\nmonopolies to a charge of personal corruption, he never fairly met his\naccusers. The distress and anxiety, no doubt, broke down his health; and\ntwice, when he was called upon to be in his place in the House of Lords,\nhe was obliged to excuse himself on the ground that he was too ill to\nleave his bed. But between the time of the first charge and his\ncondemnation seven weeks elapsed; and though he was able to go down to\nGorhambury, he never in that time showed himself in the House of Lords.\nWhether or not, while the Committees were busy in collecting the\ncharges, he would have been allowed to take part, to put questions to\nthe witnesses, or to produce his own, he never attempted to do so; and\nby the course he took there was no other opportunity. To have stood his\ntrial could hardly have increased his danger, or aggravated his\npunishment; and it would only have been worthy of his name and place, if\nnot to have made a fight for his character and integrity, at least to\nhave bravely said what he had made up his mind to admit, and what no one\ncould have said more nobly and pathetically, in open Parliament. But he\nwas cowed at the fierceness of the disapprobation manifest in both\nHouses. He shrunk from looking his peers and his judges in the face. His\nfriends obtained for him that he should not be brought to the bar, and\nthat all should pass in writing. But they saved his dignity at the\nexpense of his substantial reputation. The observation that the charges\nagainst him were not sifted by cross-examination applies equally to his\nanswers to them. The allegations of both sides would have come down to\nus in a more trustworthy shape if the case had gone on. But to give up\nthe struggle, and to escape by any humiliation from a regular public\ntrial, seems to have been his only thought when he found that the King\nand Buckingham could not or would not save him.\n\nBut the truth is that he knew that a trial of this kind was a trial only\nin name. He knew that, when a charge of this sort was brought, it was\nnot meant to be really investigated in open court, but to be driven home\nby proofs carefully prepared beforehand, against which the accused had\nlittle chance. He knew, too, that in those days to resist in earnest an\naccusation was apt to be taken as an insult to the court which\nentertained it. And further, for the prosecutor to accept a submission\nand confession without pushing to the formality of a public trial, and\ntherefore a public exposure, was a favour. It was a favour which by his\nadvice, as against the King's honour, had been refused to Suffolk; it\nwas a favour which, in a much lighter charge, had by his advice been\nrefused to his colleague Yelverton only a few months before, when Bacon,\nin sentencing him, took occasion to expatiate on the heinous guilt of\nmisprisions or mistakes in men in high places. The humiliation was not\ncomplete without the trial, but it was for humiliation and not fair\ninvestigation that the trial was wanted. Bacon knew that the trial would\nonly prolong his agony, and give a further triumph to his enemies.\n\nThat there was any plot against Bacon, and much more that Buckingham to\nsave himself was a party to it, is of course absurd. Buckingham, indeed,\nwas almost the only man in the Lords who said anything for Bacon, and,\nalone, he voted against his punishment. But considering what Buckingham\nwas, and what he dared to do when he pleased, he was singularly cool in\nhelping Bacon. Williams, the astute Dean of Westminster, who was to be\nBacon's successor as Lord Keeper, had got his ear, and advised him not\nto endanger himself by trying to save delinquents. He did not. Indeed,\nas the inquiry went on, he began to take the high moral ground; he was\nshocked at the Chancellor's conduct; he would not have believed that it\ncould have been so bad; his disgrace was richly deserved. Buckingham\nkept up appearances by saying a word for him from time to time in\nParliament, which he knew would be useless, and which he certainly took\nno measures to make effective. It is sometimes said that Buckingham\nnever knew what dissimulation was. He was capable, at least, of the\nperfidy and cowardice of utter selfishness. Bacon's conspicuous fall\ndiverted men's thoughts from the far more scandalous wickedness of the\ngreat favourite. But though there was no plot, though the blow fell upon\nBacon almost accidentally, there were many who rejoiced to be able to\ndrive it home. We can hardly wonder that foremost among them was Coke.\nThis was the end of the long rivalry between Bacon and Coke, from the\ntime that Essex pressed Bacon against Coke in vain to the day when Bacon\nas Chancellor drove Coke from his seat for his bad law, and as Privy\nCouncillor ordered him to be prosecuted in the Star Chamber for\nriotously breaking open men's doors to get his daughter. The two men\nthoroughly disliked and undervalued one another. Coke made light of\nBacon's law. Bacon saw clearly Coke's narrowness and ignorance out of\nthat limited legal sphere in which he was supposed to know everything,\nhis prejudiced and interested use of his knowledge, his coarseness and\ninsolence. But now in Parliament Coke was supreme, \"our Hercules,\" as\nhis friends said. He posed as the enemy of all abuses and corruption. He\nbrought his unrivalled, though not always accurate, knowledge of law and\nhistory to the service of the Committees, and took care that the\nChancellor's name should not be forgotten when it could be connected\nwith some bad business of patent or Chancery abuse. It was the great\nrevenge of the Common Law on the encroaching and insulting Chancery\nwhich had now proved so foul. And he could not resist the opportunity of\nmarking the revenge of professional knowledge over Bacon's airs of\nphilosophical superiority. \"To restore things to their original\" was his\nsneer in Parliament, \"this, _Instauratio Magna. Instaurare\nparas--Instaura leges justitiamque prius_.\"[5]\n\nThe charge of corruption was as completely a surprise to Bacon as it was\nto the rest of the world. And yet, as soon as the blot was hit, he saw\nin a moment that his position was hopeless--he knew that he had been\ndoing wrong; though all the time he had never apparently given it a\nthought, and he insisted, what there is every reason to believe, that no\npresent had induced him to give an unjust decision. It was the power of\ncustom over a character naturally and by habit too pliant to\ncircumstances. Custom made him insensible to the evil of receiving\nrecommendations from Buckingham in favour of suitors. Custom made him\ninsensible to the evil of what it seems every one took for\ngranted--receiving gifts from suitors. In the Court of James I. the\natmosphere which a man in office breathed was loaded with the taint of\ngifts and bribes. Presents were as much the rule, as indispensable for\nthose who hoped to get on, as they are now in Turkey. Even in\nElizabeth's days, when Bacon was struggling to win her favour, and was\nin the greatest straits for money, he borrowed \u00a3500 to buy a jewel for\nthe Queen. When he was James's servant the giving of gifts became a\nnecessity. New Year's Day brought round its tribute of gold vases and\ngold pieces to the King and Buckingham. And this was the least. Money\nwas raised by the sale of officers and titles. For \u00a320,000, having\npreviously offered \u00a310,000 in vain, the Chief-Justice of England,\nMontague, became Lord Mandeville and Treasurer. The bribe was sometimes\ndisguised: a man became a Privy Councillor, like Cranfield, or a\nChief-Justice, like Ley (afterwards \"the good Earl,\" \"unstained with\ngold or fee,\" of Milton's Sonnet), by marrying a cousin or a niece of\nBuckingham. When Bacon was made a Peer, he had also given him \"the\nmaking of a Baron;\" that is to say, he might raise money by bargaining\nwith some one who wanted a peerage; when, however, later on, he asked\nBuckingham for a repetition of the favour, Buckingham gave him a lecture\non the impropriety of prodigality, which should make it seem that \"while\nthe King was asking money of Parliament with one hand he was giving with\nthe other.\" How things were in Chancery in the days of the Queen, and of\nBacon's predecessors, we know little; but Bacon himself implies that\nthere was nothing new in what he did. \"All my lawyers,\" said James, \"are\nso bred and nursed in corruption that they cannot leave it.\" Bacon's\nChancellorship coincided with the full bloom of Buckingham's favour; and\nBuckingham set the fashion, beyond all before him, of extravagance in\nreceiving and spending. Encompassed by such assumptions and such\ncustoms, Bacon administered the Chancery. Suitors did there what people\ndid everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they\ngave, or the benefit they gained. It may be that Bacon's known\ndifficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his\neasiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged\nthis profuseness of giving. And Bacon let it be. He asked no questions;\nhe knew that he worked hard and well; he knew that it could go on\nwithout affecting his purpose to do justice \"from the greatest to the\ngroom.\" A stronger character, a keener conscience, would have faced the\nquestion, not only whether he was not setting the most ruinous of\nprecedents, but whether any man could be so sure of himself as to go on\ndealing justly with gifts in his hands. But Bacon, who never dared to\nface the question, what James was, what Buckingham was, let himself be\nspellbound by custom. He knew in the abstract that judges ought to have\nnothing to do with gifts, and had said so impressively in his charges to\nthem. Yet he went on self-complacent, secure, almost innocent, building\nup a great tradition of corruption in the very heart of English justice,\ntill the challenge of Parliament, which began in him its terrible and\nrelentless, but most unequal, prosecution of justice against ministers\nwho had betrayed the commonwealth in serving the Crown, woke him from\nhis dream, and made him see, as others saw it, the guilt of a great\njudge who, under whatever extenuating pretext, allowed the suspicion to\narise that he might sell justice. \"In the midst of a state of as great\naffliction as mortal man can endure,\" he wrote to the Lords of the\nParliament, in making his submission, \"I shall begin with the professing\ngladness in some things. The first is that hereafter the greatness of a\njudge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness,\nwhich is the beginning of a golden world. The next, that after this\nexample it is like that judges will fly from anything that is in the\nlikeness of corruption as from a serpent.\" Bacon's own judgment on\nhimself, deliberately repeated, is characteristic, and probably comes\nnear the truth. \"Howsoever, I acknowledge the sentence just and for\nreformation's sake fit,\" he writes to Buckingham from the Tower, where,\nfor form's sake, he was imprisoned for a few miserable days, he yet had\nbeen \"the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes that\nhave been since Sir Nicolas Bacon's time.\" He repeated the same thing\nyet more deliberately in later times. \"_I was the justest judge that was\nin England these fifty years. But it was the justest censure in\nParliament that was these two hundred years._\"\n\nHe might have gone on to add, \"the Wisest Counsellor; and yet none on\nwhom rested heavier blame; none of whom England might more justly\ncomplain.\" Good counsels given, submissive acquiescence in the\nworst--this is the history of his statesmanship. Bacon, whose eye was\neverywhere, was not sparing of his counsels. On all the great questions\nof the time he has left behind abundant evidence, not only of what he\nthought, but of what he advised. And in every case these memorials are\nmarked with the insight, the independence, the breadth of view, and the\nmoderation of a mind which is bent on truth. He started, of course, from\na basis which we are now hardly able to understand or allow for, the\nidea of absolute royal power and prerogative which James had enlarged\nand hardened out of the Kingship of the Tudors, itself imperious and\narbitrary enough, but always seeking, with a tact of which James was\nincapable, to be in touch and sympathy with popular feeling. But it was\na basis which in principle every one of any account as yet held or\nprofessed to hold, and which Bacon himself held on grounds of philosophy\nand reason. He could see no hope for orderly and intelligent government\nexcept in a ruler whose wisdom had equal strength to assert itself; and\nhe looked down with incredulity and scorn on the notion of anything good\ncoming out of what the world then knew or saw of popular opinion or\nparliamentary government. But when it came to what was wise and fitting\nfor absolute power to do in the way of general measures and policy, he\nwas for the most part right. He saw the inexorable and pressing\nnecessity of putting the finance of the kingdom on a safe footing. He\nsaw the necessity of a sound and honest policy in Ireland. He saw the\nmischief of the Spanish alliance in spite of his curious friendship with\nGondomar, and detected the real and increasing weakness of the Spanish\nmonarchy, which still awed mankind. He saw the growing danger of abuses\nin Church and State which were left untouched, and were protected by the\npunishment of those who dared to complain of them. He saw the confusion\nand injustice of much of that common law of which the lawyers were so\nproud; and would have attempted, if he had been able, to emulate\nJustinian, and anticipate the Code Napoleon, by a rational and\nconsistent digest. Above all, he never ceased to impress on James the\nimportance, and, if wisely used, the immense advantages, of his\nParliaments. Himself, for great part of his life, an active and popular\nmember of the House of Commons, he saw that not only it was impossible\nto do without it, but that, if fairly, honourably, honestly dealt with,\nit would become a source of power and confidence which would double the\nstrength of the Government both at home and abroad. Yet of all this\nwisdom nothing came. The finance of the kingdom was still ruined by\nextravagance and corruption in a time of rapidly-developing prosperity\nand wealth. The wounds of Ireland were unhealed. It was neither peace\nnor war with Spain, and hot infatuation for its friendship alternated\nwith cold fits of distrust and estrangement. Abuses flourished and\nmultiplied under great patronage. The King's one thought about\nParliament was how to get as much money out of it as he could, with as\nlittle other business as possible. Bacon's counsels were the prophecies\nof Cassandra in that so prosperous but so disastrous reign. All that he\ndid was to lend the authority of his presence, in James's most intimate\ncounsels, to policy and courses of which he saw the unwisdom and the\nperils. James and Buckingham made use of him when they wanted. But they\nwould have been very different in their measures and their statesmanship\nif they had listened to him.\n\nMirabeau said, what of course had been said before him, \"On ne vaut,\ndans la partie ex\u00e9cutive de la vie humaine, que par le caract\u00e8re.\" This\nis the key to Bacon's failures as a judge and as a statesman, and why,\nknowing so much more and judging so much more wisely than James and\nBuckingham, he must be identified with the misdoings of that ignoble\nreign. He had the courage of his opinions; but a man wants more than\nthat: he needs the manliness and the public spirit to enforce them, if\nthey are true and salutary. But this is what Bacon had not. He did not\nmind being rebuffed; he knew that he was right, and did not care. But to\nstand up against the King, to contradict him after he had spoken, to\npress an opinion or a measure on a man whose belief in his own wisdom\nwas infinite, to risk not only being set down as a dreamer, but the\nKing's displeasure, and the ruin of being given over to the will of his\nenemies, this Bacon had not the fibre or the stiffness or the\nself-assertion to do. He did not do what a man of firm will and strength\nof purpose, a man of high integrity, of habitual resolution, would have\ndone. Such men insist when they are responsible, and when they know\nthat they are right; and they prevail, or accept the consequences.\nBacon, knowing all that he did, thinking all that he thought, was\ncontent to be the echo and the instrument of the cleverest, the\nfoolishest, the vainest, the most pitiably unmanly of English kings.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] _Calendar of State Papers_ (domestic), March 24, 1621.\n\n[4] _Commons' Journals_, March 17, April 27; iii. 560, 594-6.\n\n[5] _Commons' Journals_, iii. 578. In his copy of the _Novum Organum_,\nreceived _ex dono auctoris_, Coke wrote the same words.\n\n          \"_Auctori consilium_.\n  Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum:\n  Instaura leges justitiamque prius.\"\n\nHe added, with allusion to the ship in the frontispiece of the _Novum\nOrganum_,\n\n  \"It deserveth not to be read in schools,\n  But to be freighted in the ship of Fools.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nBACON'S LAST YEARS.\n\n[1621-1626.]\n\n\nThe tremendous sentences of those days, with their crushing fines, were\noften worse in sound than in reality. They meant that for the moment a\nman was defeated and disgraced. But it was quite understood that it did\nnot necessarily follow that they would be enforced in all their\nseverity. The fine might be remitted, the imprisonment shortened, the\nban of exclusion taken off. At another turn of events or caprice the man\nhimself might return to favour, and take his place in Parliament or the\nCouncil as if nothing had happened. But, of course, a man might have\npowerful enemies, and the sentence might be pressed. His fine might be\nassigned to some favourite; and he might be mined, even if in the long\nrun he was pardoned; or he might remain indefinitely a prisoner. Raleigh\nhad remained to perish at last in dishonour. Northumberland, Raleigh's\nfellow-prisoner, after fifteen years' captivity, was released this year.\nThe year after Bacon's condemnation such criminals as Lord and Lady\nSomerset were released from the Tower, after a six years' imprisonment.\nSouthampton, the accomplice of Essex, Suffolk, sentenced as late as 1619\nby Bacon for embezzlement, sat in the House of Peers which judged Bacon,\nand both of them took a prominent part in judging him.\n\nTo Bacon the sentence was ruinous. It proved an irretrievable overthrow\nas regards public life, and, though some parts of it were remitted and\nothers lightened, it plunged his private affairs into trouble which\nweighed heavily on him for his few remaining years. To his deep distress\nand horror he had to go to the Tower to satisfy the terms of his\nsentence. \"Good my Lord,\" he writes to Buckingham, May 31, \"procure my\nwarrant for my discharge this day. Death is so far from being unwelcome\nto me, as I have called for it as far as Christian resolution would\npermit any time these two months. But to die before the time of his\nMajesty's grace, in this disgraceful place, is even the worst that could\nbe.\" He was released after two or three days, and he thanks Buckingham\n(June 4) for getting him out to do him and the King faithful\nservice--\"wherein, by the grace of God, your Lordship shall find that my\nadversity hath neither _spent_ nor _pent_ my spirits.\" In the autumn his\nfine was remitted--that is, it was assigned to persons nominated by\nBacon, who, as the Crown had the first claim on all his goods, served as\na protection against his other creditors, who were many and some of them\nclamorous--and it was followed by his pardon. His successor, Williams,\nnow Bishop of Lincoln, who stood in great fear of Parliament, tried to\nstop the pardon. The assignment of the fine, he said to Buckingham, was\na gross job--\"it is much spoken against, not for the matter (for no man\nobjects to that), but for the manner, which is full of knavery, and a\nwicked precedent. For by this assignment he is protected from all his\ncreditors, which (I dare say) was neither his Majesty's nor your\nLordship's meaning.\" It was an ill-natured and cowardly piece of\nofficial pedantry to plunge deeper a drowning man; but in the end the\npardon was passed. It does not appear whether Buckingham interfered to\noverrule the Lord Keeper's scruples. Buckingham was certainly about this\ntime very much out of humour with Bacon, for a reason which, more than\nanything else, discloses the deep meanness which lurked under his show\nof magnanimity and pride. He had chosen this moment to ask Bacon for\nYork House. This meant that Bacon would never more want it. Even Bacon\nwas stung by such a request to a friend in his condition, and declined\nto part with it; and Buckingham accordingly was offended, and made Bacon\nfeel it. Indeed, there is reason to think with Mr. Spedding that for the\nsealing of his pardon Bacon was indebted to the good offices with the\nKing, not of Buckingham, but of the Spaniard, Gondomar, with whom Bacon\nhad always been on terms of cordiality and respect, and who at this time\ncertainly \"brought about something on his behalf, which his other\nfriends either had not dared to attempt or had not been able to obtain.\"\n\nBut, though Bacon had his pardon, he had not received permission to come\nwithin the verge of the Court, which meant that he could not live in\nLondon. His affairs were in great disorder, his health was bad, and he\nwas cut off from books. He wrote an appeal to the Peers who had\ncondemned him, asking them to intercede with the King for the\nenlargement of his liberty. \"I am old,\" he wrote, \"weak, ruined, in\nwant, a very subject of pity.\" The Tower at least gave him the\nneighbourhood of those who could help him. \"There I could have company,\nphysicians, conference with my creditors and friends about my debts and\nthe necessities of my estate, helps for my studies and the writings I\nhave in hand. Here I live upon the sword-point of a sharp air,\nendangered if I go abroad, dulled if I stay within, solitary and\ncomfortless, without company, banished from all opportunities to treat\nwith any to do myself good, and to help out my wrecks.\" If the Lords\nwould recommend his suit to the King, \"You shall do a work of charity\nand nobility, you shall do me good, you shall do my creditors good, and\nit may be you shall do posterity good, if out of the carcase of dead and\nrotten greatness (as out of Samson's lion) there may be honey gathered\nfor the use of future times.\" But Parliament was dissolved before the\ntouching appeal reached them; and Bacon had to have recourse to other\nexpedients. He consulted Selden about the technical legality of the\nsentence. He appealed to Buckingham, who vouchsafed to appear more\nplacable. Once more he had recourse to Gondomar, \"in that solitude of\nfriends, which is the base-court of adversity,\" as a man whom he had\n\"observed to have the magnanimity of his own nation and the cordiality\nof ours, and I am sure the wit of both\"--and who had been equally kind\nto him in \"both his fortunes;\" and he proposed through Gondomar to\npresent Gorhambury to Buckingham \"for nothing,\" as a peace-offering. But\nthe purchase of his liberty was to come in another way. Bacon had\nreconciled himself to giving up York House; but now Buckingham would not\nhave it: he had found another house, he said, which suited him as well.\nThat is to say, he did not now choose to have York House from Bacon\nhimself; but he meant to have it. Accordingly, Buckingham let Bacon know\nthrough a friend of Bacon's, Sir Edward Sackville, that the price of his\nliberty to live in London was the cession of York House--not to\nBuckingham, but of all men in the world, to Lionel Cranfield, the man\nwho had been so bitter against Bacon in the House of Commons. This is\nSir Edward Sackville's account to Bacon of his talk with Buckingham; it\nis characteristic of every one concerned:\n\n     \"In the forenoon he laid the law, but in the afternoon he preached\n     the gospel; when, after some revivations of the old distaste\n     concerning York House, he most nobly opened his heart unto me;\n     wherein I read that which augured much good towards you. After\n     which revelation the book was again sealed up, and must in his own\n     time only by himself be again manifested unto you. I have leave to\n     remember some of the vision, and am not forbidden to write it. He\n     vowed (not court like), but constantly to appear your friend so\n     much, as if his Majesty should abandon the care of you, you should\n     share his fortune with him. He pleased to tell me how much he had\n     been beholden to you, how well he loved you, how unkindly he took\n     the denial of your house (for so he will needs understand it); but\n     the close for all this was harmonious, since he protested he would\n     seriously begin to study your ends, now that the world should see\n     he had no ends on you. He is in hand with the work, and therefore\n     will by no means accept of your offer, though I can assure you the\n     tender hath much won upon him, and mellowed his heart towards you,\n     and your genius directed you aright when you writ that letter of\n     denial to the Duke. The King saw it, and all the rest, which made\n     him say unto the Marquis, you played an after-game well; and that\n     now he had no reason to be much offended.\n\n     \"I have already talked of the Revelation, and now am to speak in\n     apocalyptical language, which I hope you will rightly comment:\n     whereof if you make difficulty, the bearer can help you with the\n    key of the cypher.\n\n    \"My Lord Falkland by this time hath showed you London from Highgate.\n    _If York House were gone, the town were yours_, and all your\n    straitest shackles clean off, besides more comfort than the city air\n    only. The Marquis would be exceeding glad the Treasurer had it. This\n    I know; yet this you must not know from me. Bargain with him\n    presently, upon as good conditions as you can procure, so you have\n    direct motion from the Marquis to let him have it. Seem not to dive\n    into the secret of it, though you are purblind if you see not\n    through it. I have told Mr. Meautys how I would wish your Lordship\n    now to make an end of it. From him I beseech you take it, and from\n    me only the advice to perform it. If you part not speedily with it,\n    you may defer the good which is approaching near you, and\n    disappointing other aims (which must either shortly receive content\n    or never), perhaps anew yield matter of discontent, though you may\n    be indeed as innocent as before. Make the Treasurer believe that\n    since the Marquis will by no means accept of it, and that you must\n    part with it, you are more willing to pleasure him than anybody\n    else, because you are given to understand my Lord Marquis so\n    inclines; which inclination, if the Treasurer shortly send unto you\n    about it, desire may be more clearly manifested than as yet it hath\n    been; since as I remember none hitherto hath told you _in terminis\n    terminantibus_ that the Marquis desires you should gratify the\n    Treasurer. I know that way the hare runs, and that my Lord Marquis\n    longs until Cranfield hath it; and so I wish too, for your good; yet\n    would not it were absolutely passed until my Lord Marquis did send\n    or write unto you to let him have it; for then his so disposing of\n    it were but the next degree removed from the immediate acceptance of\n    it, and your Lordship freed from doing it otherwise than to please\n    him, and to comply with his own will and way.\"\n\nIt need hardly be said that when Cranfield got it, it soon passed into\nBuckingham's hands. \"Bacon consented to part with his house, and\nBuckingham in return consented to give him his liberty.\" Yet Bacon could\nwrite to him, \"low as I am, I had rather sojourn in a college in\nCambridge than recover a good fortune by any other but yourself.\" \"As\nfor York House,\" he bids Toby Matthews to let Buckingham know, \"that\n_whether in a straight line or a compass line_, I meant it for his\nLordship, in the way which I thought might please him best.\" But liberty\ndid not mean either money or recovered honour. All his life long he had\nmade light of being in debt; but since his fall this was no longer a\ncondition easy to bear. He had to beg some kind of pension of the King.\nHe had to beg of Buckingham; \"a small matter for my debts would do me\nmore good now than double a twelvemonth hence. I have lost six thousand\nby the year, besides caps and courtesies. Two things I may assure your\nLordship. The one, that I shall lead such a course of life as whatsoever\nthe King doth for me shall rather sort to his Majesty's and your\nLordship's honour than to envy; the other, that whatsoever men talk, I\ncan play the good husband, and the King's bounty shall not be lost.\"\n\nIt might be supposed from the tone of these applications that Bacon's\nmind was bowed down and crushed by the extremity of his misfortune.\nNothing could be farther from the truth. In his behaviour during his\naccusation there was little trace of that high spirit and fortitude\nshown by far inferior men under like disasters. But the moment the\ntremendous strain of his misfortunes was taken off, the vigour of his\nmind recovered itself. The buoyancy of his hopefulness, the elasticity\nof his energy, are as remarkable as his profound depression. When the\nend was approaching, his thoughts turned at once to other work to be\ndone, ready in plan, ready to be taken up and finished. At the close of\nhis last desperate letter to the King he cannot resist finishing at once\nwith a jest, and with the prospect of two great literary undertakings--\n\n     \"This is my last suit which I shall make to your Majesty in this\n     business, prostrating myself at your mercy seat, after fifteen\n     years service, wherein I have served your Majesty in my poor\n     endeavours with an entire heart, and, as I presumed to say unto\n     your Majesty, am still a virgin for matters that concern your\n     person and crown; and now only craving that after eight steps of\n     honour I be not precipitated altogether. But because he that hath\n     taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go furder, and present\n     your Majesty with a bribe. For if your Majesty will give me peace\n     and leisure, and God give me life, I will present your Majesty with\n     a good history of England, and a better digest of your laws.\"\n\nThe Tower did, indeed, to use a word of the time, \"mate\" him. But the\nmoment he was out of it, his quick and fertile mind was immediately at\nwork in all directions, reaching after all kinds of plans, making proof\nof all kinds of expedients to retrieve the past, arranging all kinds of\nwork according as events might point out the way. His projects for\nhistory, for law, for philosophy, for letters, occupy quite as much of\nhis thoughts as his pardon and his debts; and they, we have seen,\noccupied a good deal. If he was pusillanimous in the moment of the\nstorm, his spirit, his force, his varied interests, returned the moment\nthe storm was past. His self-reliance, which was boundless, revived. He\nnever allowed himself to think, however men of his own time might judge\nhim, that the future world would mistake him. \"_Aliquis fui inter\nvivos_,\" he writes to Gondomar, \"_neque omnino intermoriar apud\nposteros_.\" Even in his time he did not give up the hope of being\nrestored to honour and power. He compared himself to Demosthenes, to\nCicero, to Seneca, to Marcus Livius, who had been condemned for corrupt\ndealings as he had been, and had all recovered favour and position.\nLookers-on were puzzled and shocked. \"He has,\" writes Chamberlain, \"no\nmanner of feeling of his fall, but continuing vain and idle in all his\nhumours as when he was at the highest.\" \"I am said,\" Bacon himself\nwrites, \"to have a feather in my head.\"\n\nMen were mistaken. His thoughts were, for the moment, more than ever\nturned to the future; but he had not given up hope of having a good deal\nto say yet to the affairs of the present. Strangely enough, as it seems\nto us, in the very summer after that fatal spring of 1621 the King\ncalled for his opinion concerning the reformation of Courts of Justice;\nand Bacon, just sentenced for corruption and still unpardoned, proceeds\nto give his advice as if he were a Privy Councillor in confidential\nemployment. Early in the following year he, according to his fashion,\nsurveyed his position, and drew up a paper of memoranda, like the notes\nof the _Commentarius Solutus_ of 1608, about points to be urged to the\nKing at an interview. Why should not the King employ him again? \"Your\nMajesty never chid me;\" and as to his condemnation, \"as the fault was\nnot against your Majesty, so my fall was not your act.\" \"Therefore,\" he\ngoes on, \"if your Majesty do at any time find it fit for your affairs to\nemploy me publicly upon the stage, I shall so live and spend my time as\nneither discontinuance shall disable me nor adversity shall discourage\nme, nor anything that I do give any new scandal or envy upon me.\" He\ninsists very strongly that the King's service never miscarried in his\nhands, for he simply carried out the King's wise counsels. \"That his\nMajesty's business never miscarried in my hands I do not impute to any\nextraordinary ability in myself, but to my freedom from any particular,\neither friends or ends, and my careful receipt of his directions, being,\nas I have formerly said to him, but as a bucket and cistern to that\nfountain--a bucket to draw forth, a cistern to preserve.\" He is not\nafraid of the apparent slight to the censure passed on him by\nParliament. \"For envy, it is an almanack of the old year, and as a\nfriend of mine said, _Parliament died penitent towards me_.\" \"What the\nKing bestows on me will be further seen than on Paul's steeple.\" \"There\nbe mountebanks, as well in the civil body as in the natural; I ever\nserved his Majesty with modesty; no shouting, no undertaking.\" In the\nodd fashion of the time--a fashion in which no one more delighted than\nhimself--he lays hold of sacred words to give point to his argument.\n\n     \"I may allude to the three petitions of the Litany--_Libera nos\n     Domine_; _parce nobis, Domine_; _exaudi nos, Domine_. In the first,\n     I am persuaded that his Majesty had a mind to do it, and could not\n     conveniently in respect of his affairs. In the second, he hath done\n     it in my fine and pardon. In the third, he hath likewise\n     performed, in restoring to the light of his countenance.\"\n\nBut if the King did not see fit to restore him to public employment, he\nwould be ready to give private counsel; and he would apply himself to\nany \"literary province\" that the King appointed. \"I am like ground\nfresh. If I be left to myself I will graze and bear natural philosophy;\nbut if the King will plough me up again, and sow me with anything, I\nhope to give him some yield.\" \"Your Majesty hath power; I have faith.\nTherefore a miracle may be wrought.\" And he proposes, for matters in\nwhich his pen might be useful, first, as \"active\" works, the recompiling\nof laws; the disposing of wards, and generally the education of youth;\nthe regulation of the jurisdiction of Courts; and the regulation of\nTrade; and for \"contemplative,\" the continuation of the history of Henry\nVIII.; a general treatise _de Legibus et Justitia_; and the \"Holy War\"\nagainst the Ottomans.\n\nWhen he wrote this he had already shown what his unquelled energy could\naccomplish. In the summer and autumn after his condemnation, amid all\nthe worries and inconveniences of that time, moving about from place to\nplace, without his books, and without free access to papers and records,\nhe had written his _History of Henry VII_. The theme had, no doubt, been\nlong in his head. But the book was the first attempt at philosophical\nhistory in the language, and it at once takes rank with all that the\nworld had yet seen, in classical times and more recently in Italy, of\nsuch history. He sent the book, among other persons, to the Queen of\nBohemia, with a phrase, the translation of a trite Latin commonplace,\nwhich may have been the parent of one which became famous in our time;\nand with an expression of absolute confidence in the goodness of his own\nwork.\n\n     \"I have read in books that it is accounted a great bliss for a man\n     to have _Leisure with Honour_. That was never my fortune. For time\n     was, I had Honour without Leisure; and now I have _Leisure without\n     Honour_.... But my desire is now to have _Leisure without\n     Loitering_, and not to become an abbey-lubber, as the old proverb\n     was, but to yield some fruit of my private life.... If King Henry\n     were alive again, I hope verily he would not be so angry with me\n     for not flattering him, as well pleased in seeing himself so truly\n     described in colours that will last and be believed.\"\n\nBut the tide had turned against him for good. A few fair words, a few\ngrudging doles of money to relieve his pressing wants, and those\nsometimes intercepted and perhaps never rightly granted from an\nExchequer which even Cranfield's finance could not keep filled, were all\nthe graces that descended upon him from those fountains of goodness in\nwhich he professed to trust with such boundless faith. The King did not\nwant him, perhaps did not trust him, perhaps did not really like him.\nWhen the _Novum Organum_ came out, all that he had to say about it was\nin the shape of a profane jest that \"it was like the peace of God--it\npassed all understanding.\" Other men had the ear of Buckingham; shrewd,\npractical men of business like Cranfield, who hated Bacon's loose and\ncareless ways, or the clever ecclesiastic Williams, whose counsel had\nsteered Buckingham safely through the tempest that wrecked Bacon, and\nwho, with no legal training, had been placed in Bacon's seat. \"I\nthought,\" said Bacon, \"that I should have known my successor.\" Williams,\nfor his part, charged Bacon with trying to cheat his creditors, when his\nfine was remitted. With no open quarrel, Bacon's relations to Buckingham\nbecame more ceremonious and guarded; the \"My singular good Lord\" of the\nformer letters becomes, now that Buckingham had risen so high and Bacon\nhad sunk so low, \"Excellent Lord.\" The one friend to whom Bacon had\nonce wished to owe everything had become the great man, now only to be\napproached with \"sweet meats\" and elaborate courtesy. But it was no use.\nHis full pardon Bacon did not get, though earnestly suing for it, that\nhe might not \"die in ignominy.\" He never sat again in Parliament. The\nProvostship of Eton fell vacant, and Bacon's hopes were kindled. \"It\nwere a pretty cell for my fortune. The College and School I do not doubt\nbut I shall make to flourish.\" But Buckingham had promised it to some\nnameless follower, and by some process of exchange it went to Sir Henry\nWotton. His English history was offered in vain. His digest of the Laws\nwas offered in vain. In vain he wrote a memorandum on the regulation of\nusury; notes of advice to Buckingham; elaborate reports and notes of\nspeeches about a war with Spain, when that for a while loomed before the\ncountry. In vain he affected an interest which he could hardly have felt\nin the Spanish marriage, and the escapade of Buckingham and Prince\nCharles, which \"began,\" he wrote, \"like a fable of the poets, but\ndeserved all in a piece a worthy narration.\" In vain, when the Spanish\nmarriage was off and the French was on, he proposed to offer to\nBuckingham \"his service to live a summer as upon mine own delight at\nParis, to settle a fast intelligence between France and us;\" \"I have\nsomewhat of the French,\" he said, \"I love birds, as the King doth.\"\nPublic patronage and public employment were at an end for him. His\npetitions to the King and Buckingham ceased to be for office, but for\nthe clearing of his name and for the means of living. It is piteous to\nread the earnestness of his requests. \"Help me (dear Sovereign lord and\nmaster), pity me so far as that I who have borne a bag be not now in my\nage forced in effect to bear a wallet.\" The words are from a\ncarefully-prepared and rhetorical letter which was not sent, but they\nexpress what he added to a letter presenting the _De Augmentis; \"det\nVestra Majestas obolum Belisario_.\" Again, \"I prostrate myself at your\nMajesty's feet; I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age,\nand three years and five months old in misery. I desire not from your\nMajesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only after so long a time\nof expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the\nUpper House, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me,\nand from my memory and posterity, that I die not a condemned man, but\nmay be to your Majesty, as I am to God, _nova creatura_.\" But the pardon\nnever came. Sir John Bennett, who had been condemned as a corrupt judge\nby the same Parliament, and between whose case and Bacon's there was as\nmuch difference, \"I will not say as between black and white, but as\nbetween black and gray,\" had got his full pardon, \"and they say shall\nsit in Parliament.\" Lord Suffolk had been one of Bacon's judges. \"I hope\nI deserve not to be the only outcast.\" But whether the Court did not\ncare, or whether, as he once suspected, there was some old enemy like\nCoke, who \"had a tooth against him,\" and was watching any favour shown\nhim, he died without his wish being fulfilled, \"to live out of want and\nto die out of ignominy.\"\n\nBacon was undoubtedly an impoverished man, and straitened in his means;\nbut this must be understood as in relation to the rank and position\nwhich he still held, and the work which he wanted done for the\n_Instauratio_. His will, dated a few months before his death, shows that\nit would be a mistake to suppose that he was in penury. He no doubt\noften wanted ready money, and might be vexed by creditors. But he kept a\nlarge household, and was able to live in comfort at Gray's Inn or at\nGorhambury. A man who speaks in his will of his \"four coach geldings\nand his best caroache,\" besides many legacies, and who proposes to found\ntwo lectures at the universities, may have troubles about debts and be\ncramped in his expenditure, but it is only relatively to his station\nthat he can be said to be poor. And to subordinate officers of the\nTreasury who kept him out of his rights, he could still write a sharp\nletter, full of his old force and edge. A few months before his death he\nthus wrote to the Lord Treasurer Ley, who probably had made some\ndifficulty about a claim for money:\n\n     \"MY LORD,--I humbly entreat your Lordship, and (if I may use the\n     word) advise your Lordship to make me a better answer. Your\n     Lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion of all that hear\n     how I am dealt with. If your Lordship malice me for Long's cause,\n     surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in\n     Chancery. I will avouch it; and how deeply I was tempted therein,\n     your Lordship knoweth best. Your Lordship may do well to think of\n     your grave as I do of mine; and to beware of hardness of heart. And\n     as for fair words, it is a wind by which neither your Lordship nor\n     any man else can sail long. Howsoever, I am the man that shall give\n     all due respects and reverence to your great place.\n\n     \"20th June, 1625.\n     FR. ST. ALBAN.\"\n\nBacon always claimed that he was not \"vindicative.\" But considering how\nBishop Williams, when he was Lord Keeper, had charged Bacon with\n\"knavery\" and \"deceiving his creditors\" in the arrangements about his\nfine, it is not a little strange to find that at the end of his life\nBacon had so completely made friends with him that he chose him as the\nperson to whom he meant to leave his speeches and letters, which he was\n\"willing should not be lost,\" and also the charge of superintending two\nfoundations of \u00a3200 a year for Natural Science at the universities. And\nthe Bishop accepted the charge.\n\nThe end of this, one of the most pathetic of histories, was at hand;\nthe end was not the less pathetic because it came in so homely a\nfashion. On a cold day in March he stopped his coach in the snow on his\nway to Highgate, to try the effect of cold in arresting putrefaction. He\nbought a hen from a woman by the way, and stuffed it with snow. He was\ntaken with a bad chill, which forced him to stop at a strange house,\nLord Arundel's, to whom he wrote his last letter--a letter of apology\nfor using his house. He did not write the letter as a dying man. But\ndisease had fastened on him. A few days after, early on Easter morning,\nApril 9, 1626, he passed away. He was buried at St. Albans, in the\nChurch of St. Michael, \"the only Christian church within the walls of\nold Verulam.\" \"For my name and memory,\" he said in his will, \"I leave it\nto men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.\"\nSo he died: the brightest, richest, largest mind but one, in the age\nwhich had seen Shakespeare and his fellows; so bright and rich and large\nthat there have been found those who identify him with the writer of\n_Hamlet_ and _Othello_. That is idle. Bacon could no more have written\nthe plays than Shakespeare could have prophesied the triumphs of natural\nphilosophy. So ended a career, than which no other in his time had\ngrander and nobler aims--aims, however mistaken, for the greatness and\ngood of England; aims for the enlargement of knowledge and truth, and\nfor the benefit of mankind. So ended a career which had mounted slowly\nand painfully, but resolutely, to the highest pinnacle of\ngreatness--greatness full of honour and beneficent activity--suddenly to\nplunge down to depths where honour and hope were irrecoverable. So\nclosed, in disgrace and disappointment and neglect, the last sad chapter\nof a life which had begun so brightly, which had achieved such permanent\ntriumphs, which had lost itself so often in the tangles of insincerity\nand evil custom, which was disfigured and marred by great misfortunes,\nand still more by great mistakes of his own, which was in many ways\nmisunderstood not only by his generation but by himself, but which he\nleft in the constant and almost unaccountable faith that it would be\nunderstood and greatly honoured by posterity. With all its glories, it\nwas the greatest shipwreck, the greatest tragedy, of an age which saw\nmany.\n\nBut in these gloomy and dreary days of depression and vain hope to which\nhis letters bear witness--\"three years and five months old in misery,\"\nagain later, \"a long cleansing week of five years' expiation and\nmore\"--his interest in his great undertaking and his industry never\nflagged. The King did not want what he offered, did not want his\nhistories, did not want his help about law. Well, then, he had work of\nhis own on which his heart was set; and if the King did not want his\ntime, he had the more for himself. Even in the busy days of his\nChancellorship he had prepared and carried through the press the _Novum\nOrganum_, which he published on the very eve of his fall. It was one of\nthose works which quicken a man's powers, and prove to him what he can\ndo; and it had its effect. His mind was never more alert than in these\nyears of adversity, his labour never more indefatigable, his powers of\nexpression never more keen and versatile and strong. Besides the\npolitical writings of grave argument for which he found time, these five\nyears teem with the results of work. In the year before his death he\nsketched out once more, in a letter to a Venetian correspondent, Fra\nFulgenzio, the friend of Sarpi, the plan of his great work, on which he\nwas still busy, though with fast diminishing hopes of seeing it\nfinished. To another foreign correspondent, a professor of philosophy\nat Annecy, and a distinguished mathematician, Father Baranzan, who had\nraised some questions about Bacon's method, and had asked what was to be\ndone with metaphysics, he wrote in eager acknowledgment of the interest\nwhich his writings had excited, and insisting on the paramount\nnecessity, above everything, of the observation of facts and of natural\nhistory, out of which philosophy may be built. But the most\ncomprehensive view of his intellectual projects in all directions, \"the\nfullest account of his own personal feelings and designs as a writer\nwhich we have from his own pen,\" is given in a letter to the venerable\nfriend of his early days, Bishop Andrewes, who died a few months after\nhim. Part, he says, of his _Instauratio_, \"the work in mine own\njudgement (_si nunquam fallit imago_) I do most esteem,\" has been\npublished; but because he \"doubts that it flies too high over men's\nheads,\" he proposes \"to draw it down to the sense\" by examples of\nNatural History. He has enlarged and translated the _Advancement_ into\nthe _De Augmentis_. \"Because he could not altogether desert the civil\nperson that he had borne,\" he had begun a work on Laws, intermediate\nbetween philosophical jurisprudence and technical law. He had hoped to\ncompile a digest of English law, but found it more than he could do\nalone, and had laid it aside. The _Instauratio_ had contemplated the\ngood of men \"in the dowries of nature;\" the _Laws_, their good \"in\nsociety and the dowries of government.\" As he owed duty to his country,\nand could no longer do it service, he meant to do it honour by his\nhistory of Henry VII. His _Essays_ were but \"recreations;\" and\nremembering that all his writings had hitherto \"gone all into the City\nand none into the Temple,\" he wished to make \"some poor oblation,\" and\ntherefore had chosen an argument mixed of religious and civil\nconsiderations, the dialogue of \"an Holy War\" against the Ottoman,\nwhich he never finished, but which he intended to dedicate to Andrewes,\n\"in respect of our ancient and private acquaintance, and because amongst\nthe men of our times I hold you in special reverence.\"\n\nThe question naturally presents itself, in regard to a friend of Bishop\nAndrewes, What was Bacon as regards religion? And the answer, it seems\nto me, can admit of no doubt. The obvious and superficial thing to say\nis that his religion was but an official one, a tribute to custom and\nopinion. But it was not so. Both in his philosophical thinking, and in\nthe feelings of his mind in the various accidents and occasions of life,\nBacon was a religious man, with a serious and genuine religion. His\nsense of the truth and greatness of religion was as real as his sense of\nthe truth and greatness of nature; they were interlaced together, and\ncould not be separated, though they were to be studied separately and\nindependently. The call, repeated through all his works from the\nearliest to the last, _Da Fidel qu\u00e6 Fidel sunt_, was a warning against\nconfusing the two, but was an earnest recognition of the claims of each.\nThe solemn religious words in which his prefaces and general statements\noften wind up with thanksgiving and hope and prayer, are no mere words\nof course; they breathe the spirit of the deepest conviction. It is true\nthat he takes the religion of Christendom as he finds it. The grounds of\nbelief, the relation of faith to reason, the profounder inquiries into\nthe basis of man's knowledge of the Eternal and Invisible, are out of\nthe circle within which he works. What we now call the philosophy of\nreligion is absent from his writings. In truth, his mind was not\nqualified to grapple with such questions. There is no sign in his\nwritings that he ever tried his strength against them; that he ever\ncared to go below the surface into the hidden things of mind, and what\nmind deals with above and beyond sense--those metaphysical difficulties\nand depths, as we call them, which there is no escaping, and which are\nas hard to explore and as dangerous to mistake as the forces and\ncombinations of external nature. But it does not follow, because he had\nnot asked all the questions that others have asked, that he had not\nthought out his reasonable faith. His religion was not one of mere vague\nsentiment: it was the result of reflection and deliberate judgment. It\nwas the discriminating and intelligent Church of England religion of\nHooker and Andrewes, which had gone back to something deeper and nobler\nin Christianity than the popular Calvinism of the earlier Reformation;\nand though sternly hostile to the system of the Papacy, both on\nreligious and political grounds, attempted to judge it with knowledge\nand justice. This deliberate character of his belief is shown in the\nremarkable Confession of Faith which he left behind him: a\nclosely-reasoned and nobly-expressed survey of Christian theology--\"a\n_summa theologi\u00e6_, digested into seven pages of the finest English of\nthe days when its tones were finest.\" \"The entire scheme of Christian\ntheology,\" as Mr. Spedding says, \"is constantly in his thoughts;\nunderlies everything; defines for him the limits of human speculation;\nand, as often as the course of inquiry touches at any point the boundary\nline, never fails to present itself. There is hardly any occasion or any\nkind of argument into which it does not at one time or another\nincidentally introduce itself.\" Doubtless it was a religion which in him\nwas compatible, as it has been in others, with grave faults of\ntemperament and character. But it is impossible to doubt that it was\nhonest, that it elevated his thoughts, that it was a refuge and stay in\nthe times of trouble.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nBACON'S PHILOSOPHY.\n\n\nBacon was one of those men to whom posterity forgives a great deal for\nthe greatness of what he has done and attempted for posterity. It is\nidle, unless all honest judgment is foregone, to disguise the many\ndeplorable shortcomings of his life; it is unjust to have one measure\nfor him, and another for those about him and opposed to him. But it is\nnot too much to say that in temper, in honesty, in labour, in humility,\nin reverence, he was the most perfect example that the world had yet\nseen of the student of nature, the enthusiast for knowledge. That such a\nman was tempted and fell, and suffered the Nemesis of his fall, is an\ninstance of the awful truth embodied in the tragedy of _Faust_. But his\ngenuine devotion, so unwearied and so paramount, to a great idea and a\ngreat purpose for the good of all generations to come, must shield him\nfrom the insult of Pope's famous and shallow epigram. Whatever may have\nbeen his sins, and they were many, he cannot have been the \"meanest of\nmankind,\" who lived and died, holding unaltered, amid temptations and\nfalls, so noble a conception of the use and calling of his life: the\nduty and service of helping his brethren to know as they had never yet\nlearned to know. That thought never left him; the obligations it imposed\nwere never forgotten in the crush and heat of business; the toils,\nthankless at the time, which it heaped upon him in addition to the\nburdens of public life were never refused. Nothing diverted him, nothing\nmade him despair. He was not discouraged because he was not understood.\nThere never was any one in whose life the \"_Souverainet\u00e9 du but_\" was\nmore certain and more apparent; and that object was the second greatest\nthat man can have. To teach men to know is only next to making them\ngood.\n\nThe Baconian philosophy, the reforms of the _Novum Organum_, the method\nof experiment and induction, are commonplaces, and sometimes lead to a\nmisconception of what Bacon did. Bacon is, and is not, the founder of\nmodern science. What Bacon believed could be done, what he hoped and\ndivined, for the correction and development of human knowledge, was one\nthing; what his methods were, and how far they were successful, is\nanother. It would hardly be untrue to say that though Bacon is the\nparent of modern science, his methods contributed nothing to its actual\ndiscoveries; neither by possibility could they have done so. The great\nand wonderful work which the world owes to him was in the idea, and not\nin the execution. The idea was that the systematic and wide examination\nof facts was the first thing to be done in science, and that till this\nhad been done faithfully and impartially, with all the appliances and\nall the safeguards that experience and forethought could suggest, all\ngeneralisations, all anticipations from mere reasoning, must be\nadjourned and postponed; and further, that sought on these conditions,\nknowledge, certain and fruitful, beyond all that men then imagined,\ncould be attained. His was the faith of the discoverer, the imagination\nof the poet, the voice of the prophet. But his was not the warrior's\narm, the engineer's skill, the architect's creativeness. \"I only sound\nthe clarion,\" he says, \"but I enter not into the battle;\" and with a\nGreek quotation very rare with him, he compares himself to one of\nHomer's peaceful heralds, [Greek: chairete k\u00earukes, Dios angeloi \u00eade kai\nandr\u00f4n]. Even he knew not the full greatness of his own enterprise. He\nunderrated the vastness and the subtlety of nature. He overrated his own\nappliances to bring it under his command. He had not that incommunicable\ngenius and instinct of the investigator which in such men as Faraday\nclose hand to hand with phenomena. His weapons and instruments wanted\nprecision; they were powerful up to a certain point, but they had the\nclumsiness of an unpractised time. Cowley compared him to Moses on\nPisgah surveying the promised land; it was but a distant survey, and\nNewton was the Joshua who began to take possession of it.\n\nThe idea of the great enterprise, in its essential outline, and with a\nfull sense of its originality and importance, was early formed, and was\neven sketched on paper with Bacon's characteristic self-reliance when he\nwas but twenty-five. Looking back, in a letter written in the last year\nof his life, on the ardour and constancy with which he had clung to his\nfaith--\"in that purpose my mind never waxed old; in that long interval\nof time it never cooled\"--he remarks that it was then \"forty years since\nhe put together a youthful essay on these matters, which with vast\nconfidence I called by the high-sounding title, The Greatest Birth of\nTime.\" \"The Greatest Birth of Time,\" whatever it was, has perished,\nthough the name, altered to \"Partus Temporis _Masculus_\" has survived,\nattached to some fragments of uncertain date and arrangement. But in\nvery truth the child was born, and, as Bacon says, for forty years grew\nand developed, with many changes yet the same. Bacon was most\ntenacious, not only of ideas, but even of the phrases, images, and turns\nof speech in which they had once flashed on him and taken shape in his\nmind. The features of his undertaking remained the same from first to\nlast, only expanded and enlarged as time went on and experience widened;\nhis conviction that the knowledge of nature, and with it the power to\ncommand and to employ nature, were within the capacity of mankind and\nmight be restored to them; the certainty that of this knowledge men had\nas yet acquired but the most insignificant part, and that all existing\nclaims to philosophical truth were as idle and precarious as the guesses\nand traditions of the vulgar; his belief that no greater object could be\naimed at than to sweep away once and for ever all this sham knowledge\nand all that supported it, and to lay an entirely new and clear\nfoundation to build on for the future; his assurance that, as it was\neasy to point out with fatal and luminous certainty the rottenness and\nhollowness of all existing knowledge and philosophy, so it was equally\neasy to devise and practically apply new and natural methods of\ninvestigation and construction, which should replace it by knowledge of\ninfallible truth and boundless fruitfulness. His object--to gain the key\nto the interpretation of nature; his method--to gain it, not by the\nmeans common to all previous schools of philosophy, by untested\nreasonings and imposing and high-sounding generalisations, but by a\nseries and scale of rigorously verified inductions, starting from the\nlowest facts of experience to discoveries which should prove and realise\nthemselves by leading deductively to practical results--these, in one\nform or another, were the theme of his philosophical writings from the\nearliest sight of them that we gain.\n\nHe had disclosed what was in his mind in the letter to Lord Burghley,\nwritten when he was thirty-one (1590/91), in which he announced that he\nhad \"taken all knowledge for his province,\" to \"purge it of 'frivolous\ndisputations' and 'blind experiments,' and that whatever happened to\nhim, he meant to be a 'true pioneer in the mine of truth.'\" But the\nfirst public step in the opening of his great design was the publication\nin the autumn of 1605 of the _Advancement of Learning_, a careful and\nbalanced report on the existing stock and deficiencies of human\nknowledge. His endeavours, as he says in the _Advancement_ itself, are\n\"but as an image in a cross-way, that may point out the way, but cannot\ngo it.\" But from this image of his purpose, his thoughts greatly widened\nas time went on. The _Advancement_, in part at least, was probably a\nhurried work. It shadowed out, but only shadowed out, the lines of his\nproposed reform of philosophical thought; it showed his dissatisfaction\nwith much that was held to be sound and complete, and showed the\ndirection of his ideas and hopes. But it was many years before he took a\nfurther step. Active life intervened. In 1620, at the height of his\nprosperity, on the eve of his fall, he published the long meditated\n_Novum Organum_, the avowed challenge to the old philosophies, the\nengine and instrument of thought and discovery which was to put to shame\nand supersede all others, containing, in part at least, the principles\nof that new method of the use of experience which was to be the key to\nthe interpretation and command of nature, and, together with the method,\nan elaborate but incomplete exemplification of its leading processes.\nHere were summed up, and stated with the most solemn earnestness, the\nconclusions to which long study and continual familiarity with the\nmatters in question had led him. And with the _Novum Organum_ was at\nlength disclosed, though only in outline, the whole of the vast scheme\nin all its parts, object, method, materials, results, for the\n\"Instauration\" of human knowledge, the restoration of powers lost,\ndisused, neglected, latent, but recoverable by honesty, patience,\ncourage, and industry.\n\n     The _Instauratio_, as he planned the work, \"is to be divided,\" says\n     Mr. Ellis, \"into six portions, of which the _first_ is to contain a\n     general survey of the present state of knowledge. In the _second_,\n     men are to be taught how to use their understanding aright in the\n     investigation of nature. In the _third_, all the phenomena of the\n     universe are to be stored up as in a treasure-house, as the\n     materials on which the new method is to be employed. In the\n     _fourth_, examples are to be given of its operation and of the\n     results to which it leads. The _fifth_ is to contain what Bacon had\n     accomplished in natural philosophy _without_ the aid of his own\n     method, _ex eodem intellect\u00fbs usu quem alii in inquirendo et\n     inveniendo adhibere consueverunt_. It is therefore less important\n     than the rest, and Bacon declares that he will not bind himself to\n     the conclusions which it contains. Moreover, its value will\n     altogether cease when the _sixth_ part can be completed, wherein\n     will be set forth the new philosophy--the results of the\n     application of the new method to all the phenomena of the universe.\n     But to complete this, the last part of the _Instauratio_, Bacon\n     does not hope; he speaks of it as a thing, _et supra vires et ultra\n     spes nostras collocata_.\"--_Works_, i. 71.\n\nThe _Novum Organum_, itself imperfect, was the crown of all that he\nlived to do. It was followed (1622) by the publication, intended to be\nperiodical, of materials for the new philosophy to work upon, particular\nsections and classes of observations on phenomena--the _History of the\nWinds_, the _History of Life and Death_. Others were partly prepared but\nnot published by him. And finally, in 1623, he brought out in Latin a\ngreatly enlarged recasting of the _Advancement_; the nine books of the\n\"_De Augmentis_.\" But the great scheme was not completed; portions were\nleft more or less finished. Much that he purposed was left undone, and\ncould not have been yet done at that time.\n\nBut the works which he published represent imperfectly the labour spent\non the undertaking. Besides these there remains a vast amount of unused\nor rejected work, which shows how it was thought out, rearranged, tried\nfirst in one fashion and then in another, recast, developed. Separate\nchapters, introductions, \"experimental essays and discarded beginnings,\"\ntreatises with picturesque and imaginative titles, succeeded one another\nin that busy work-shop; and these first drafts and tentative essays have\nin them some of the freshest and most felicitous forms of his thoughts.\nAt one time his enterprise, connecting itself with his own life and\nmission, rose before his imagination and kindled his feelings, and\nembodied itself in the lofty and stately \"Proem\" already quoted. His\nquick and brilliant imagination saw shadows and figures of his ideas in\nthe ancient mythology, which he worked out with curious ingenuity and\noften much poetry in his _Wisdom of the Ancients_. Towards the end of\nhis life he began to embody his thoughts and plans in a philosophical\ntale, which he did not finish--the _New Atlantis_--a charming example of\nhis graceful fancy and of his power of easy and natural story-telling.\nBetween the _Advancement_ and the _Novum Organum_ (1605-20) much\nunderground work had been done. \"He had finally (about 1607) settled the\nplan of the _Great Instauration_, and began to call it by that name.\"\nThe plan, first in three or four divisions, had been finally digested\ninto six. Vague outlines had become definite and clear. Distinct\nportions had been worked out. Various modes of treatment had been tried,\nabandoned, modified. Prefaces were written to give the sketch and\npurpose of chapters not yet composed. The _Novum Organum_ had been\nwritten and rewritten twelve times over. Bacon kept his papers, and we\ncan trace in the unused portion of those left behind him much of the\nprogress of his work, and the shapes which much of it went through. The\n_Advancement_ itself is the filling-out and perfecting of what is found\nin germ, meagre and rudimentary, in a _Discourse in Praise of\nKnowledge_, written in the days of Elizabeth, and in some Latin chapters\nof an early date, the _Cogitationes de Scientia Humana_, on the limits\nand use of knowledge, and on the relation of natural history to natural\nphilosophy. These early essays, with much of the same characteristic\nillustration, and many of the favourite images and maxims and texts and\nphrases, which continue to appear in his writings to the end, contain\nthe thoughts of a man long accustomed to meditate and to see his way on\nthe new aspects of knowledge opening upon him. And before the\n_Advancement_ he had already tried his hand on a work intended to be in\ntwo books, which Mr. Ellis describes as a \"great work on the\nInterpretation of Nature,\" the \"earliest type of the _Instauratio_,\" and\nwhich Bacon called by the enigmatical name of _Valerius Terminus_. In\nit, as in a second draft, which in its turn was superseded by the\n_Advancement_, the line of thought of the Latin _Cogitationes_\nreappears, expanded and more carefully ordered; it contains also the\nfirst sketch of his certain and infallible method for what he calls the\n\"freeing of the direction\" in the search after Truth, and the first\nindications of the four classes of \"Idols\" which were to be so memorable\na portion of Bacon's teaching. And between the _Advancement_ and the\n_Novum Organum_ at least one unpublished treatise of great interest\nintervened, the _Visa et Cogitata_, on which he was long employed, and\nwhich he brought to a finished shape, fit to be submitted to his friends\nand critics, Sir Thomas Bodley and Bishop Andrewes. It is spoken of as\na book to be \"imparted _sicut videbitur_,\" in the review which he made\nof his life and objects soon after he was made Solicitor in 1608. A\nnumber of fragments also bear witness to the fierce scorn and wrath\nwhich possessed him against the older and the received philosophies. He\ntried his hand at declamatory onslaughts on the leaders of human wisdom,\nfrom the early Greeks and Aristotle down to the latest \"novellists;\" and\nhe certainly succeeded in being magnificently abusive. But he thought\nwisely that this was not the best way of doing what in the _Commentarius\nSolutus_ he calls on himself to do--\"taking a greater confidence and\nauthority in discourses of this nature, _tanquam sui certus et de alto\ndespiciens_;\" and the rhetorical _Redargutio Philosophiarum_ and\nwritings of kindred nature were laid aside by his more serious judgment.\nBut all these fragments witness to the immense and unwearied labour\nbestowed in the midst of a busy life on his undertaking; they suggest,\ntoo, the suspicion that there was much waste from interruption, and the\ndoubt whether his work would not have been better if it could have been\nmore steadily continuous. But if ever a man had a great object in life,\nand pursued it through good and evil report, through ardent hope and\nkeen disappointment, to the end, with unwearied patience and unshaken\nfaith, it was Bacon, when he sought the improvement of human knowledge\n\"for the glory of God and the relief of man's estate.\" It is not the\nleast part of the pathetic fortune of his life that his own success was\nso imperfect.\n\nWhen a reader first comes from the vague, popular notions of Bacon's\nwork to his definite proposals the effect is startling. Every one has\nheard that he contemplated a complete reform of the existing conceptions\nof human knowledge, and of the methods by which knowledge was to be\nsought; that rejecting them as vitiated, by the loose and untested way\nin which they had been formed, he called men from verbal generalisations\nand unproved assumptions to come down face to face with the realities of\nexperience; that he substituted for formal reasoning, from baseless\npremises and unmeaning principles, a methodical system of cautious and\nsifting inference from wide observation and experiment; and that he thus\nopened the path which modern science thenceforth followed, with its\namazing and unexhausted discoveries, and its vast and beneficent\npractical results. We credit all this to Bacon, and assuredly not\nwithout reason. All this is what was embraced in his vision of a changed\nworld of thought and achievement. All this is what was meant by that\n_Regnum Hominis_, which, with a play on sacred words which his age did\nnot shrink from, and which he especially pleased himself with, marked\nthe coming of that hitherto unimagined empire of man over the powers and\nforces which encompassed him. But the detail of all this is multifarious\nand complicated, and is not always what we expect; and when we come to\nsee how his work is estimated by those who, by greatest familiarity with\nscientific ideas and the history of scientific inquiries, are best\nfitted to judge of it, many a surprise awaits us.\n\nFor we find that the greatest differences of opinion exist on the value\nof what he did. Not only very unfavourable judgments have been passed\nupon it, on general grounds--as an irreligious, or a shallow and\none-sided, or a poor and \"utilitarian\" philosophy, and on a definite\ncomparison of it with the actual methods and processes which as a matter\nof history have been the real means of scientific discovery--but also\nsome of those who have most admired his genius, and with the deepest\nlove and reverence have spared no pains to do it full justice, have yet\ncome to the conclusion that as an instrument and real method of work\nBacon's attempt was a failure. It is not only De Maistre and Lord\nMacaulay who dispute his philosophical eminence. It is not only the\ndepreciating opinion of a contemporary like Harvey, who was actually\ndoing what Bacon was writing about. It is not only that men who after\nthe long history of modern science have won their place among its\nleaders, and are familiar by daily experience with the ways in which it\nworks--a chemist like Liebig, a physiologist like Claude Bernard--say\nthat they can find nothing to help them in Bacon's methods. It is not\nonly that a clear and exact critic like M. de R\u00e9musat looks at his\nattempt, with its success and failure, as characteristic of English,\nmassive, practical good sense rather than as marked by real\nphilosophical depth and refinement, such as Continental thinkers point\nto and are proud of in Descartes and Leibnitz. It is not even that a\ncompetent master of the whole domain of knowledge, Whewell, filled with\nthe deepest sense of all that the world owes to Bacon, takes for granted\nthat \"though Bacon's general maxims are sagacious and animating, his\nparticular precepts failed in his hands, and are now practically\nuseless;\" and assuming that Bacon's method is not the right one, and not\ncomplete as far as the progress of science up to his time could direct\nit, proceeds to construct a _Novum Organum Renovatum_. But Bacon's\nwritings have recently undergone the closest examination by two editors,\nwhose care for his memory is as loyal and affectionate as their capacity\nis undoubted, and their willingness to take trouble boundless. And Mr.\nEllis and Mr. Spedding, with all their interest in every detail of\nBacon's work, and admiration of the way in which he performed it, make\nno secret of their conclusion that he failed in the very thing on which\nhe was most bent--the discovery of practical and fruitful ways of\nscientific inquiry. \"Bacon,\" says Mr. Spedding, \"failed to devise a\npracticable method for the discovery of the Forms of Nature, because he\nmisconceived the conditions of the case.... For the same reason he\nfailed to make any single discovery which holds its place as one of the\nsteps by which science has in any direction really advanced. The clew\nwith which he entered the labyrinth did not reach far enough; before he\nhad nearly attained his end he was obliged either to come back or to go\non without it.\"\n\n     \"His peculiar system of philosophy,\" says Mr. Spedding in another\n     preface, \"that is to say, the peculiar method of investigation, the\n     \"_organum_,\" the \"_formula_,\" the \"_clavis_,\" the \"_ars ipsa\n     interpretandi naturam_,\" the \"_filum Labyrinthi_,\" or by whatever\n     of its many names we choose to call that artificial process by\n     which alone he believed man could attain a knowledge of the laws\n     and a command over the powers of nature--_of this philosophy we can\n     make nothing_. If we have not tried it, it is because we feel\n     confident that it would not answer. We regard it as a curious piece\n     of machinery, very subtle, elaborate, and ingenious, but not worth\n     constructing, because all the work it could do may be done more\n     easily another way.\"--_Works_, iii. 171.\n\nWhat his method really was is itself a matter of question. Mr. Ellis\nspeaks of it as a matter \"but imperfectly apprehended.\" He differs from\nhis fellow-labourer Mr. Spedding, in what he supposes to be its central\nand characteristic innovation. Mr. Ellis finds it in an improvement and\nperfection of logical machinery. Mr. Spedding finds it in the formation\nof a great \"natural and experimental history,\" a vast collection of\nfacts in every department of nature, which was to be a more important\npart of his philosophy than the _Novum Organum_ itself. Both of them\nthink that as he went on, the difficulties of the work grew upon him,\nand caused alterations in his plans, and we are reminded that \"there is\nno didactic exposition of his method in the whole of his writings,\" and\nthat \"this has not been sufficiently remarked by those who have spoken\nof his philosophy.\"\n\nIn the first place, the kind of intellectual instrument which he\nproposed to construct was a mistake. His great object was to place the\nhuman mind \"on a level with things and nature\" (_ut faciamus intellectum\nhumanum rebus et natur\u00e6 parem_), and this could only be done by a\nrevolution in methods. The ancients had all that genius could do for\nman; but it was a matter, he said, not of the strength and fleetness of\nthe running, but of the rightness of the way. It was a new method,\nabsolutely different from anything known, which he proposed to the\nworld, and which should lead men to knowledge, with the certainty and\nwith the impartial facility of a high-road. The Induction which he\nimagined to himself as the contrast to all that had yet been tried was\nto have two qualities. It was to end, by no very prolonged or difficult\nprocesses, in absolute certainty. And next, it was to leave very little\nto the differences of intellectual power: it was to level minds and\ncapacities. It was to give all men the same sort of power which a pair\nof compasses gives the hand in drawing a circle. \"_Absolute certainty,\nand a mechanical mode of procedure_\" says Mr. Ellis, \"_such that all men\nshould be capable of employing it, are the two great features of the\nBaconian system_.\" This he thought possible, and this he set himself to\nexpound--\"a method universally applicable, and in all cases infallible.\"\nIn this he saw the novelty and the vast importance of his discovery. \"By\nthis method all the knowledge which the human mind was capable of\nreceiving might be attained, and attained without unnecessary labour.\"\nIt was a method of \"a demonstrative character, with the power of\nreducing all minds to nearly the same level.\" The conception, indeed, of\na \"great Art of knowledge,\" of an \"Instauration\" of the sciences, of a\n\"Clavis\" which should unlock the difficulties which had hindered\ndiscovery, was not a new one. This attempt at a method which should be\ncertain, which should level capacities, which should do its work in a\nshort time, had a special attraction for the imagination of the wild\nspirits of the South, from Raimond Lulli in the thirteenth century to\nthe audacious Calabrians of the sixteenth. With Bacon it was something\nmuch more serious and reasonable and business-like. But such a claim has\nnever yet been verified; there is no reason to think that it ever can\nbe; and to have made it shows a fundamental defect in Bacon's conception\nof the possibilities of the human mind and the field it has to work in.\n\nIn the next place, though the prominence which he gave to the doctrine\nof Induction was one of those novelties which are so obvious after the\nevent, though so strange before it, and was undoubtedly the element in\nhis system which gave it life and power and influence on the course of\nhuman thought and discovery, his account of Induction was far from\ncomplete and satisfactory. Without troubling himself about the theory of\nInduction, as De R\u00e9musat has pointed out, he contented himself with\napplying to its use the precepts of common-sense and a sagacious\nperception of the circumstances in which it was to be employed. But even\nthese precepts, notable as they were, wanted distinctness, and the\nqualities needed for working rules. The change is great when in fifty\nyears we pass from the poetical science of Bacon to the mathematical and\nprecise science of Newton. His own time may well have been struck by\nthe originality and comprehensiveness of such a discriminating\narrangement of proofs as the \"Prerogative Instances\" of the _Novum\nOrganum_, so natural and real, yet never before thus compared and\nsystematized. But there is a great interval between his method of\nexperimenting, his \"_Hunt of Pan_\"--the three tables of Instances,\n\"_Presence_,\" \"_Absence_\" and \"_Degrees, or Comparisons_,\" leading to a\nprocess of sifting and exclusion, and to the _First Vintage_, or\nbeginnings of theory--and say, for instance, Mill's four methods of\nexperimental inquiry: the method of _agreement_, of _differences_, of\n_residues_, and of _concomitant variations_. The course which he marked\nout so laboriously and so ingeniously for Induction to follow was one\nwhich was found to be impracticable, and as barren of results as those\ndeductive philosophies on which he lavished his scorn. He has left\nprecepts and examples of what he meant by his cross-examining and\nsifting processes. As admonitions to cross-examine and to sift facts and\nphenomena they are valuable. Many of the observations and\nclassifications are subtle and instructive. But in his hands nothing\ncomes of them. They lead at the utmost to mere negative conclusions;\nthey show what a thing is not. But his attempt to elicit anything\npositive out of them breaks down, or ends at best in divinations and\nguesses, sometimes--as in connecting Heat and Motion--very near to later\nand more carefully-grounded theories, but always unverified. He had a\nradically false and mechanical conception, though in words he earnestly\ndisclaims it, of the way to deal with the facts of nature. He looked on\nthem as things which told their own story, and suggested the questions\nwhich ought to be put to them; and with this idea half his time was\nspent in collecting huge masses of indigested facts of the most various\nauthenticity and value, and he thought he was collecting materials\nwhich his method had only to touch in order to bring forth from them\nlight and truth and power. He thought that, not in certain sciences, but\nin all, one set of men could do the observing and collecting, and\nanother be set on the work of Induction and the discovery of \"axioms.\"\nDoubtless in the arrangement and sorting of them his versatile and\ningenious mind gave itself full play; he divides and distinguishes them\ninto their companies and groups, different kinds of Motion,\n\"Prerogative\" instances, with their long tale of imaginative titles. But\nwe look in vain for any use that he was able to make of them, or even to\nsuggest. Bacon never adequately realised that no promiscuous assemblage\nof even the most certain facts could ever lead to knowledge, could ever\nsuggest their own interpretation, without the action on them of the\nliving mind, without the initiative of an idea. In truth he was so\nafraid of assumptions and \"anticipations\" and prejudices--his great\nbugbear was so much the \"_intellectus sibi permissus_\" the mind given\nliberty to guess and imagine and theorise, instead of, as it ought,\nabsolutely and servilely submitting itself to the control of facts--that\nhe missed the true place of the rational and formative element in his\naccount of Induction. He does tell us, indeed, that \"truth emerges\nsooner from error than from confusion.\" He indulges the mind, in the\ncourse of its investigation of \"Instances,\" with a first \"vintage\" of\nprovisional generalisations. But of the way in which the living mind of\nthe discoverer works, with its ideas and insight, and thoughts that come\nno one knows whence, working hand in hand with what comes before the eye\nor is tested by the instrument, he gives us no picture. Compare his\nelaborate investigation of the \"Form of Heat\" in the _Novum Organum_,\nwith such a record of real inquiry as Wells's _Treatise on Dew_, or\nHerschel's analysis of it in his _Introduction to Natural Philosophy_.\nAnd of the difference of genius between a Faraday or a Newton, and the\ncrowd of average men who have used and finished off their work, he takes\nno account. Indeed, he thinks that for the future such difference is to\ndisappear.\n\n     \"That his method is impracticable,\" says Mr. Ellis, \"cannot, I\n     think, be denied, if we reflect not only that it never has produced\n     any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths\n     have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to\n     be in accordance with it. In all cases this process involves an\n     element to which nothing corresponds in the Tables of 'Comparence'\n     and 'Exclusion,' namely, the application to the facts of\n     observation of a principle of arrangement, an idea, existing in the\n     mind of the discoverer antecedently to the act of induction. It may\n     be said that this idea is precisely one of the _natur\u00e6_ into which\n     the facts of observation ought in Bacon's system to be analysed.\n     And this is in one sense true; but it must be added that this\n     analysis, if it be thought right so to call it, is of the essence\n     of the discovery which results from it. In most cases the act of\n     induction follows as a matter of course as soon as the appropriate\n     idea has been introduced.\"--Ellis, _General Preface_, i. 38.\n\nLastly, not only was Bacon's conception of philosophy so narrow as to\nexclude one of its greatest domains; for, says Mr. Ellis, \"it cannot be\ndenied that to Bacon all sound philosophy seemed to be included in what\nwe now call the natural sciences,\" and in all its parts was claimed as\nthe subject of his inductive method; but Bacon's scientific knowledge\nand scientific conceptions were often very imperfect--more imperfect\nthan they ought to have been for his time. Of one large part of science,\nwhich was just then beginning to be cultivated with high promise of\nsuccess--the knowledge of the heavens--he speaks with a coldness and\nsuspicion which contrasts remarkably with his eagerness about things\nbelonging to the sphere of the earth and within reach of the senses. He\nholds, of course, the unity of the world; the laws of the whole visible\nuniverse are one order; but the heavens, wonderful as they are to him,\nare--compared with other things--out of his track of inquiry. He had his\nastronomical theories; he expounded them in his \"_Descriptio Globi\nIntellectualis_\" and his _Thema Coeli_ He was not altogether ignorant of\nwhat was going on in days when Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were at\nwork. But he did not know how to deal with it, and there were men in\nEngland, before and then, who understood much better than he the\nproblems and the methods of astronomy. He had one conspicuous and\nstrange defect for a man who undertook what he did. He was not a\nmathematician: he did not see the indispensable necessity of mathematics\nin the great _Instauration_ which he projected; he did not much believe\nin what they could do. He cared so little about them that he takes no\nnotice of Napier's invention of Logarithms. He was not able to trace how\nthe direct information of the senses might be rightly subordinated to\nthe rational, but not self-evident results of geometry and arithmetic.\nHe was impatient of the subtleties of astronomical calculations; they\nonly attempted to satisfy problems about the motion of bodies in the\nsky, and told us nothing of physical fact; they gave us, as Prometheus\ngave to Jove, the outside skin of the offering, which was stuffed inside\nwith straw and rubbish. He entirely failed to see that before dealing\nwith physical astronomy, it must be dealt with mathematically. \"It is\nwell to remark,\" as Mr. Ellis says, \"that none of Newton's astronomical\ndiscoveries could have been made if astronomers had not continued to\nrender themselves liable to Bacon's censure.\" Bacon little thought that\nin navigation the compass itself would become a subordinate instrument\ncompared with the helps given by mathematical astronomy. In this, and in\nother ways, Bacon rose above his time in his conceptions of what _might\nbe_, but not of what _was_; the list is a long one, as given by Mr.\nSpedding (iii. 511), of the instances which show that he was\nill-informed about the advances of knowledge in his own time. And his\nmind was often not clear when he came to deal with complex phenomena.\nThus, though he constructed a table of specific gravities--\"the only\ncollection,\" says Mr. Ellis, \"of quantitative experiments that we find\nin his works,\" and \"wonderfully accurate considering the manner in which\nthey were obtained;\" yet he failed to understand the real nature of the\nfamous experiment of Archimedes. And so with the larger features of his\nteaching it is impossible not to feel how imperfectly he had emancipated\nhimself from the power of words and of common prepossessions; how for\none reason or another he had failed to call himself to account in the\nterms he employed, and the assumptions on which he argued. The caution\ndoes not seem to have occurred to him that the statement of a fact may,\nin nine cases out of ten, involve a theory. His whole doctrine of\n\"Forms\" and \"Simple natures,\" which is so prominent in his method of\ninvestigation, is an example of loose and slovenly use of unexamined and\nuntested ideas. He allowed himself to think that it would be possible to\narrive at an alphabet of nature, which, once attained, would suffice to\nspell out and constitute all its infinite combinations. He accepted,\nwithout thinking it worth a doubt, the doctrine of appetites and\npassions and inclinations and dislikes and horrors in inorganic nature.\nHis whole physiology of life and death depends on a doctrine of animal\nspirits, of which he traces the operations and qualities as if they were\nas certain as the nerves or the blood, and of which he gives this\naccount--\"that in every tangible body there is a spirit covered and\nenveloped in the grosser body;\" \"not a virtue, not an energy, not an\nactuality, nor any such idle matter, but a body thin and invisible, and\nyet having place and dimension, and real.\" ... \"a middle nature between\nflame, which is momentary, and air which is permanent.\" Yet these are\nthe very things for which he holds up Aristotle and the Scholastics and\nthe Italian speculators to reprobation and scorn. The clearness of his\nthinking was often overlaid by the immense profusion of decorative\nmaterial which his meditation brought along with it. The defect was\ngreater than that which even his ablest defenders admit. It was more\nthan that in that \"greatest and radical difference, which he himself\nobserves\" between minds, the difference between minds which were apt to\nnote _distinctions_, and those which were apt to note _likenesses_, he\nwas, without knowing it, defective in the first. It was that in many\ninstances he exemplified in his own work the very faults which he\ncharged on the older philosophies: haste, carelessness, precipitancy,\nusing words without thinking them out, assuming to know when he ought to\nhave perceived his real ignorance.\n\nWhat, then, with all these mistakes and failures, not always creditable\nor pardonable, has given Bacon his preeminent place in the history of\nscience?\n\n1. The answer is that with all his mistakes and failures, the principles\non which his mode of attaining a knowledge of nature was based were the\nonly true ones; and they had never before been propounded so\nsystematically, so fully, and so earnestly. His was not the first mind\non whom these principles had broken. Men were, and had been for some\ntime, pursuing their inquiries into various departments of nature\nprecisely on the general plan of careful and honest observation of real\nthings which he enjoined. They had seen, as he saw, the futility of all\nattempts at natural philosophy by mere thinking and arguing, without\ncoming into contact with the contradictions or corrections or\nverifications of experience. In Italy, in Germany, in England there were\nlaborious and successful workers, who had long felt that to be in touch\nwith nature was the only way to know. But no one had yet come before the\nworld to proclaim this on the house-tops, as the key of the only certain\npath to the secrets of nature, the watchword of a revolution in the\nmethods of interpreting her; and this Bacon did with an imposing\nauthority and power which enforced attention. He spoke the thoughts of\npatient toilers like Harvey with a largeness and richness which they\ncould not command, and which they perhaps smiled at. He disentangled and\nspoke the vague thoughts of his age, which other men had not the courage\nand clearness of mind to formulate. What Bacon _did_, indeed, and what\nhe _meant_, are separate matters. He _meant_ an infallible method by\nwhich man should be fully equipped for a struggle with nature; he meant\nan irresistible and immediate conquest, within a definite and not\ndistant time. It was too much. He himself saw no more of what he _meant_\nthan Columbus did of America. But what he _did_ was to persuade men for\nthe future that the intelligent, patient, persevering cross-examination\nof things, and the thoughts about them, was the only, and was the\nsuccessful road to know. No one had yet done this, and he did it. His\nwritings were a public recognition of real science, in its humblest\ntasks about the commonplace facts before our feet, as well as in its\nloftiest achievements. \"The man who is growing great and happy by\nelectrifying a bottle,\" says Dr. Johnson, \"wonders to see the world\nengaged in the prattle about peace and war,\" and the world was ready to\nsmile at the simplicity or the impertinence of his enthusiasm. Bacon\nimpressed upon the world for good, with every resource of subtle\nobservation and forcible statement, that \"the man who is growing great\nby electrifying a bottle\" is as important a person in the world's\naffairs as the arbiter of peace and war.\n\n2. Yet this is not all. An inferior man might have made himself the\nmouthpiece of the hopes and aspirations of his generation after a larger\nscience. But to Bacon these aspirations embodied themselves in the form\nof a great and absorbing idea; an idea which took possession of the\nwhole man, kindling in him a faith which nothing could quench, and a\npassion which nothing could dull; an idea which, for forty years, was\nhis daily companion, his daily delight, his daily business; an idea\nwhich he was never tired of placing in ever fresh and more attractive\nlights, from which no trouble could wean him, about which no disaster\ncould make him despair; an idea round which the instincts and intuitions\nand obstinate convictions of genius gathered, which kindled his rich\nimagination and was invested by it with a splendour and magnificence\nlike the dreams of fable. It is this idea which finds its fitting\nexpression in the grand and stately aphorisms of the _Novum Organum_, in\nthe varied fields of interest in the _De Augmentis_, in the romance of\nthe _New Atlantis_. It is this idea, this certainty of a new unexplored\nKingdom of Knowledge within the reach and grasp of man, if he will be\nhumble enough and patient enough and truthful enough to occupy it--this\nannouncement not only of a new system of thought, but of a change in the\ncondition of the world--a prize and possession such as man had not yet\nimagined; this belief in the fortunes of the human race and its issue,\n\"such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition of things and\nmen's minds cannot easily be conceived or imagined,\" yet more than\nverified in the wonders which our eyes have seen--it is this which gives\nits prerogative to Bacon's work. That he bungled about the processes of\nInduction, that he talked about an unintelligible doctrine of _Forms_,\ndid not affect the weight and solemnity of his call to learn, so full of\nwisdom and good-sense, so sober and so solid, yet so audaciously\nconfident. There had been nothing like it in its ardour of hope, in the\nglory which it threw around the investigation of nature. It was the\npresence and the power of a great idea--long become a commonplace to us,\nbut strange and perplexing at first to his own generation, which\nprobably shared Coke's opinion that it qualified its champion for a\nplace in the company of the \"Ship of Fools,\" which expressed its opinion\nof the man who wrote the _Novum Organum_, in the sentiment that \"a fool\n_could_ not have written it, and a wise man _would_ not\"--it is this\nwhich has placed Bacon among the great discoverers of the human race.\n\nIt is this imaginative yet serious assertion of the vast range and\npossibilities of human knowledge which, as M. de R\u00e9musat remarks--the\nkeenest and fairest of Bacon's judges--gives Bacon his claim to the\nundefinable but very real character of greatness. Two men stand out,\n\"the masters of those who know,\" without equals up to their time, among\nmen--the Greek Aristotle and the Englishman Bacon. They agree in the\nuniversality and comprehensiveness of their conception of human\nknowledge; and they were absolutely alone in their serious practical\nambition to work out this conception. In the separate departments of\nthought, of investigation, of art, each is left far behind by numbers of\nmen, who in these separate departments have gone far deeper than they,\nhave soared higher, have been more successful in what they attempted.\nBut Aristotle first, and for his time more successfully, and Bacon after\nhim, ventured on the daring enterprise of \"taking all knowledge for\ntheir province;\" and in this they stood alone. This present scene of\nman's existence, this that we call nature, the stage on which mortal\nlife begins and goes on and ends, the faculties with which man is\nequipped to act, to enjoy, to create, to hold his way amid or against\nthe circumstances and forces round him--this is what each wants to know,\nas thoroughly and really as can be. It is not to reduce things to a\ntheory or a system that they look around them on the place where they\nfind themselves with life and thought and power; that were easily done,\nand has been done over and over again, only to prove its futility. It is\nto know, as to the whole and its parts, as men understand _knowing_ in\nsome one subject of successful handling, whether art or science or\npractical craft. This idea, this effort, distinguishes these two men.\nThe Greeks--predecessors, contemporaries, successors of Aristotle--were\nspeculators, full of clever and ingenious guesses, in which the amount\nof clear and certain fact was in lamentable disproportion to the schemes\nblown up from it; or they devoted themselves more profitably to some one\nor two subjects of inquiry, moral or purely intellectual, with absolute\nindifference to what might be asked, or what might be known, of the real\nconditions under which they were passing their existence. Some of the\nRomans, Cicero and Pliny, had encyclop\u00e6dic minds; but the Roman mind\nwas the slave of precedent, and was more than satisfied with partially\nunderstanding and neatly arranging what the Greeks had left. The\nArabians looked more widely about them; but the Arabians were\nessentially sceptics, and resigned subjects to the inevitable and the\ninexplicable; there was an irony, open or covert, in their philosophy,\ntheir terminology, their transcendental mysticism, which showed how\nlittle they believed that they really knew. The vast and mighty\nintellects of the schoolmen never came into a real grapple with the\nimmensity of the facts of the natural or even of the moral world; within\nthe world of abstract thought, the world of language, with its infinite\ngrowths and consequences, they have never had their match for keenness,\nfor patience, for courage, for inexhaustible toil; but they were as much\ndisconnected from the natural world, which was their stage of life, as\nif they had been disembodied spirits. The Renaissance brought with it\nnot only the desire to know, but to know comprehensively and in all\npossible directions; it brought with it temptations to the awakened\nItalian genius, renewed, enlarged, refined, if not strengthened by its\npassage through the Middle Ages, to make thought deal with the real, and\nto understand the scene in which men were doing such strange and\nwonderful things; but Giordano Bruno, Telesio, Campanella, and their\nfellows, were not men capable of more than short flights, though they\nmight be daring and eager ones. It required more thoroughness, more\nhumble-minded industry, to match the magnitude of the task. And there\nhave been men of universal minds and comprehensive knowledge since\nBacon, Leibnitz, Goethe, Humboldt, men whose thoughts were at home\neverywhere, where there was something to be known. But even for them the\nworld of knowledge has grown too large. We shall never again see an\nAristotle or a Bacon, because the conditions of knowledge have altered.\nBacon, like Aristotle, belonged to an age of adventure, which went to\nsea little knowing whither it went, and ill furnished with knowledge and\ninstruments. He entered with a vast and vague scheme of discovery on\nthese unknown seas and new worlds which to us are familiar, and daily\ntraversed in every direction. This new world of knowledge has turned out\nin many ways very different from what Aristotle or Bacon supposed, and\nhas been conquered by implements and weapons very different in precision\nand power from what they purposed to rely on. But the combination of\npatient and careful industry, with the courage and divination of genius,\nin doing what none had done before, makes it equally stupid and idle to\nimpeach their greatness.\n\n3. Bacon has been charged with bringing philosophy down from the\nheights, not as of old to make men know themselves, and to be the\nteacher of the highest form of truth, but to be the purveyor of material\nutility. It contemplates only, it is said, the \"_commoda vit\u00e6_;\" about\nthe deeper and more elevating problems of thought it does not trouble\nitself. It concerns itself only about external and sensible nature,\nabout what is \"of the earth, earthy.\" But when it comes to the questions\nwhich have attracted the keenest and hardiest thinkers, the question,\nwhat it is that thinks and wills--what is the origin and guarantee of\nthe faculties by which men know anything at all and form rational and\ntrue conceptions about nature and themselves, whence it is that reason\ndraws its powers and materials and rules--what is the meaning of words\nwhich all use but few can explain--Time and Space, and Being and Cause,\nand consciousness and choice, and the moral law--Bacon is content with a\nloose and superficial treatment of them. Bacon certainly was not a\nmetaphysician, nor an exact and lucid reasoner. With wonderful flashes\nof sure intuition or happy anticipation, his mind was deficient in the\npowers which deal with the deeper problems of thought, just as it was\ndeficient in the mathematical faculty. The subtlety, the intuition, the\npenetration, the severe precision, even the force of imagination, which\nmake a man a great thinker on any abstract subject were not his; the\ninterest of questions which had interested metaphysicians had no\ninterest for him: he distrusted and undervalued them. When he touches\nthe \"ultimities\" of knowledge he is as obscure and hard to be understood\nas any of those restless Southern Italians of his own age, who shared\nwith him the ambition of reconstructing science. Certainly the science\nwhich most interested Bacon, the science which he found, as he thought,\nin so desperate a condition, and to which he gave so great an impulse,\nwas physical science. But physical science may be looked at and pursued\nin different ways, in different tempers, with different objects. It may\nbe followed in the spirit of Newton, of Boyle, of Herschel, of Faraday;\nor with a confined and low horizon it may be dwarfed and shrivelled into\na mean utilitarianism. But Bacon's horizon was not a narrow one. He\nbelieved in God and immortality and the Christian creed and hope. To him\nthe restoration of the Reign of Man was a noble enterprise, because man\nwas so great and belonged to so great an order of things, because the\nthings which he was bid to search into with honesty and truthfulness\nwere the works and laws of God, because it was so shameful and so\nmiserable that from an ignorance which industry and good-sense could\nremedy, the tribes of mankind passed their days in self-imposed darkness\nand helplessness. It was God's appointment that men should go through\nthis earthly stage of their being. Each stage of man's mysterious\nexistence had to be dealt with, not according to his own fancies, but\naccording to the conditions imposed on it; and it was one of man's first\nduties to arrange for his stay on earth according to the real laws which\nhe could find out if he only sought for them. Doubtless it was one of\nBacon's highest hopes that from the growth of true knowledge would\nfollow in surprising ways the relief of man's estate; this, as an end,\nruns through all his yearning after a fuller and surer method of\ninterpreting nature. The desire to be a great benefactor, the spirit of\nsympathy and pity for mankind, reign through this portion of his\nwork--pity for confidence so greatly abused by the teachers of man, pity\nfor ignorance which might be dispelled, pity for pain and misery which\nmight be relieved. In the quaint but beautiful picture of courtesy,\nkindness, and wisdom, which he imagines in the _New Atlantis_, the\nrepresentative of true philosophy, the \"Father of Solomon's House,\" is\nintroduced as one who \"had an aspect as if he pitied men.\" But unless it\nis utilitarianism to be keenly alive to the needs and pains of life, and\nto be eager and busy to lighten and assuage them, Bacon's philosophy was\nnot utilitarian. It may deserve many reproaches, but not this one. Such\na passage as the following--in which are combined the highest motives\nand graces and passions of the soul, love of truth, humility of mind,\npurity of purpose, reverence for God, sympathy for man, compassion for\nthe sorrows of the world and longing to heal them, depth of conviction\nand faith--fairly represents the spirit which runs through his works.\nAfter urging the mistaken use of imagination and authority in science,\nhe goes on--\n\n     \"There is not and never will be an end or limit to this; one\n     catches at one thing, another at another; each has his favourite\n     fancy; pure and open light there is none; every one philosophises\n     out of the cells of his own imagination, as out of Plato's cave;\n     the higher wits with more acuteness and felicity, the duller, less\n     happily, but with equal pertinacity. And now of late, by the\n     regulation of some learned and (as things now are) excellent men\n     (the former license having, I suppose, become wearisome), the\n     sciences are confined to certain and prescribed authors, and thus\n     restrained are imposed upon the old and instilled into the young;\n     so that now (to use the sarcasm of Cicero concerning C\u00e6sar's year)\n     the constellation of Lyra rises by edict, and authority is taken\n     for truth, not truth for authority. Which kind of institution and\n     discipline is excellent for present use, but precludes all prospect\n     of improvement. For we copy the sin of our first parents while we\n     suffer for it. They wished to be like God, but their posterity wish\n     to be even greater. For we create worlds, we direct and domineer\n     over nature, we will have it that all things _are_ as in our folly\n     we think they should be, not as seems fittest to the Divine wisdom,\n     or as they are found to be in fact; and I know not whether we more\n     distort the facts of nature or of our own wits; but we clearly\n     impress the stamp of our own image on the creatures and works of\n     God, instead of carefully examining and recognising in them the\n     stamp of the Creator himself. Wherefore our dominion over creatures\n     is a second time forfeited, not undeservedly; and whereas after the\n     fall of man some power over the resistance of creatures was still\n     left to him--the power of subduing and managing them by true and\n     solid arts--yet this too through our insolence, and because we\n     desire to be like God and to follow the dictates of our own reason,\n     we in great part lose. If, therefore, there be any humility towards\n     the Creator, any reverence for or disposition to magnify His works,\n     any charity for man and anxiety to relieve his sorrows and\n     necessities, any love of truth in nature, any hatred of darkness,\n     any desire for the purification of the understanding, we must\n     entreat men again and again to discard, or at least set apart for a\n     while, these volatile and preposterous philosophies which have\n     preferred theses to hypotheses, led experience captive, and\n     triumphed over the works of God; and to approach with humility and\n     veneration to unroll the volume of Creation, to linger and meditate\n     therein, and with minds washed clean from opinions to study it in\n     purity and integrity. For this is that sound and language which\n     \"went forth into all lands,\" and did not incur the confusion of\n     Babel; this should men study to be perfect in, and becoming again\n     as little children condescend to take the alphabet of it into their\n     hands, and spare no pains to search and unravel the interpretation\n     thereof, but pursue it strenuously and persevere even unto\n     death.\"--Preface to _Historia Naturalis_: translated, _Works_, v.\n     132-3.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nBACON AS A WRITER.\n\n\nBacon's name belongs to letters as well as to philosophy. In his own\nday, whatever his contemporaries thought of his _Instauration of\nKnowledge_, he was in the first rank as a speaker and a writer. Sir\nWalter Raleigh, contrasting him with Salisbury, who could speak but not\nwrite, and Northampton, who could write but not speak, thought Bacon\neminent both as a speaker and a writer. Ben Jonson, passing in review\nthe more famous names of his own and the preceding age, from Sir Thomas\nMore to Sir Philip Sidney, Hooker, Essex, and Raleigh, places Bacon\nwithout a rival at the head of the company as the man who had \"fulfilled\nall numbers,\" and \"stood as the mark and [Greek: akm\u00ea] of our language.\"\nAnd he also records Bacon's power as a speaker. \"No man,\" he says, \"ever\nspoke more neatly, more pressly, or suffered less emptiness, less\nidleness, in what he uttered.\"...\"His hearers could not cough or look\naside from him without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his\njudges angry and pleased at his devotion ... the fear of every man that\nheard him was that he should make an end.\" He notices one feature for\nwhich we are less prepared, though we know that the edge of Bacon's\nsarcastic tongue was felt and resented in James's Court. \"His speech,\"\nsays Ben Jonson, \"was nobly censorious when he could _spare and pass by\na jest_.\" The unpopularity which certainly seems to have gathered round\nhis name may have had something to do with this reputation.\n\nYet as an English writer Bacon did not expect to be remembered, and he\nhardly cared to be. He wrote much in Latin, and his first care was to\nhave his books put into a Latin dress. \"For these modern languages,\" he\nwrote to Toby Matthews towards the close of his life, \"will at one time\nor another play the bank-rowte with books, and since I have lost much\ntime with this age, I would be glad if God would give me leave to\nrecover it with posterity.\" He wanted to be read by the learned out of\nEngland, who were supposed to appreciate his philosophical ideas better\nthan his own countrymen, and the only way to this was to have his books\ntranslated into the \"general language.\" He sends Prince Charles the\n_Advancement_ in its new Latin dress. \"It is a book,\" he says, \"that\nwill live, and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not.\" And\nhe fitted it for continental reading by carefully weeding it of all\npassages that might give offence to the censors at Rome or Paris. \"I\nhave been,\" he writes to the King, \"mine own _Index Expurgatorius_, that\nit may be read in all places. For since my end of putting it in Latin\nwas to have it read everywhere, it had been an absurd contradiction to\nfree it in the language and to pen it up in the matter.\" Even the\n_Essays_ and the _History of Henry VII._ he had put into Latin \"by some\ngood pens that do not forsake me.\" Among these translators are said to\nhave been George Herbert and Hobbes, and on more doubtful authority, Ben\nJonson and Selden. The _Essays_ were also translated into Latin and\nItalian with Bacon's sanction.\n\nBacon's contemptuous and hopeless estimate of \"these modern languages,\"\nforty years after Spenser had proclaimed and justified his faith in his\nown language, is only one of the proofs of the short-sightedness of the\nwisest and the limitations of the largest-minded. Perhaps we ought not\nto wonder at his silence about Shakespeare. It was the fashion, except\namong a set of clever but not always very reputable people, to think the\nstage, as it was, below the notice of scholars and statesmen; and\nShakespeare took no trouble to save his works from neglect. Yet it is a\ncurious defect in Bacon that he should not have been more alive to the\npowers and future of his own language. He early and all along was\nprofoundly impressed with the contrast, which the scholarship of the age\nso abundantly presented, of words to things. He dwells in the\n_Advancement_ on that \"first distemper of learning, when men study words\nand not matter.\" He illustrates it at large from the reaction of the new\nlearning and of the popular teaching of the Reformation against the\nutilitarian and unclassical terminology of the schoolmen; a reaction\nwhich soon grew to excess, and made men \"hunt more after choiceness of\nthe phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the\nsweet falling of the clauses,\" than after worth of subject, soundness of\nargument, \"life of invention or depth of judgment.\" \"I have represented\nthis,\" he says, \"in an example of late times, but it hath been and will\nbe _secundum majus et minus_ in all times;\" and he likens this \"vanity\"\nto \"Pygmalion's frenzy\"--\"for to fall in love with words which are but\nthe images of matter, is all one as to fall in love with a picture.\" He\nwas dissatisfied with the first attempt at translation into Latin of the\n_Advancement_ by Dr. Playfer of Cambridge, because he \"desired not so\nmuch neat and polite, as clear, masculine, and apt expression.\" Yet,\nwith this hatred of circumlocution and prettiness, of the cloudy\namplifications, and pompous flourishings, and \"the flowing and watery\nvein,\" which the scholars of his time affected, it is strange that he\nshould not have seen that the new ideas and widening thoughts of which\nhe was the herald would want a much more elastic and more freely-working\ninstrument than Latin could ever become. It is wonderful indeed what can\nbe done with Latin. It was long after his day to be the language of the\nexact sciences. In his _History of the Winds_, which is full of his\nirrepressible fancy and picturesqueness, Bacon describes in clear and\nintelligible Latin the details of the rigging of a modern man-of-war,\nand the mode of sailing her. But such tasks impose a yoke, sometimes a\nrough one, on a language which has \"taken its ply\" in very different\nconditions, and of which the genius is that of indirect and circuitous\nexpression, \"full of majesty and circumstance.\" But it never, even in\nthose days of scholarship, could lend itself to the frankness, the\nstraightforwardness, the fulness and shades of suggestion and\nassociation, with which, in handling ideas of subtlety and difficulty, a\nwriter would wish to speak to his reader, and which he could find only\nin his mother tongue. It might have been thought that with Bacon's\ncontempt of form and ceremony in these matters, his consciousness of the\npowers of English in his hands might have led him to anticipate that a\nflexible and rich and strong language might create a literature, and\nthat a literature, if worth studying, would be studied in its own\nlanguage. But so great a change was beyond even his daring thoughts. To\nhim, as to his age, the only safe language was the Latin. For familiar\nuse English was well enough. But it could not be trusted; \"it would play\nthe bankrupt with books.\" And yet Galileo was writing in Italian as well\nas in Latin; only within twenty-five years later, Descartes was writing\n_De la M\u00e9thode_, and Pascal was writing in the same French in which he\nwrote the _Provincial Letters_, his _Nouvelles Exp\u00e9riences touchant le\nVide_, and the controversial pamphlets which followed it; showing how in\nthat interval of five-and-twenty years an instrument had been fashioned\nout of a modern language such as for lucid expression and clear\nreasoning, Bacon had not yet dreamed of. From Bacon to Pascal is the\nchange from the old scientific way of writing to the modern; from a\nmodern language, as learned and used in the 16th century, to one learned\nin the 17th.\n\nBut the language of the age of Elizabeth was a rich and noble one, and\nit reached a high point in the hands of Bacon. In his hands it lent\nitself to many uses, and assumed many forms, and he valued it, not\nbecause he thought highly of its qualities as a language, but because it\nenabled him with least trouble \"to speak as he would,\" in throwing off\nthe abundant thoughts that rose within his mind, and in going through\nthe variety of business which could not be done in Latin. But in all his\nwriting it is the matter, the real thing that he wanted to say, which\nwas uppermost. He cared how it was said, not for the sake of form or\nornament, but because the force and clearness of what was said depended\nso much on how it was said. Of course, what he wanted to say varied\nindefinitely with the various occasions of his life. His business may\nmerely be to write \"a device\" or panegyric for a pageant in the Queen's\nhonour, or for the revels of Gray's Inn. But even these trifles are the\nresult of real thought, and are full of ideas--ideas about the hopes of\nknowledge or about the policy of the State; and though, of course, they\nhave plenty of the flourishes and quaint absurdities indispensable on\nsuch occasions, yet the \"rhetorical affectation\" is in the thing itself,\nand not in the way it is handled; he had an opportunity of saying some\nof the things which were to him of deep and perpetual interest, and he\nused it to say them, as forcibly, as strikingly, as attractively as he\ncould. His manner of writing depends, not on a style, or a studied or\nacquired habit, but on the nature of the task which he has in hand.\nEverywhere his matter is close to his words, and governs, animates,\ninforms his words. No one in England before had so much as he had the\npower to say what he wanted to say, and exactly as he wanted to say it.\nNo one was so little at the mercy of conventional language or customary\nrhetoric, except when he persuaded himself that he had to submit to\nthose necessities of flattery, which cost him at last so dear.\n\nThe book by which English readers, from his own time to ours, have known\nhim best, better than by the originality and the eloquence of the\n_Advancement_, or than by the political weight and historical\nimagination of the _History of Henry VII._, is the first book which he\npublished, the volume of _Essays_. It is an instance of his self-willed\nbut most skilful use of the freedom and ease which the \"modern\nlanguage,\" which he despised, gave him. It is obvious that he might have\nexpanded these \"Counsels, moral and political,\" to the size which such\nessays used to swell to after his time. Many people would have thanked\nhim for doing so; and some have thought it a good book on which to hang\ntheir own reflections and illustrations. But he saw how much could be\ndone by leaving the beaten track of set treatise and discourse, and\nsetting down unceremoniously the observations which he had made, and the\nreal rules which he had felt to be true, on various practical matters\nwhich come home to men's \"business and bosoms.\" He was very fond of\nthese moral and political generalisations, both of his own collecting\nand as found in writers who, he thought, had the right to make them,\nlike the Latins of the Empire and the Italians and Spaniards of the\nRenaissance. But a mere string of maxims and quotations would have been\na poor thing and not new; and he cast what he had to say into connected\nwholes. But nothing can be more loose than the structure of the essays.\nThere is no art, no style, almost, except in a few--the political\nones--no order: thoughts are put down and left unsupported, unproved,\nundeveloped. In the first form of the ten, which composed the first\nedition of 1597, they are more like notes of analysis or tables of\ncontents; they are austere even to meagreness. But the general character\ncontinues in the enlarged and expanded ones of Bacon's later years. They\nare like chapters in Aristotle's Ethics and Rhetoric on virtues and\ncharacters; only Bacon's takes Aristotle's broad marking lines as drawn,\nand proceeds with the subtler and more refined observations of a much\nlonger and wider experience. But these short papers say what they have\nto say without preface, and in literary undress, without a superfluous\nword, without the joints and bands of structure; they say it in brief,\nrapid sentences, which come down, sentence after sentence, like the\nstrokes of a great hammer. No wonder that in their disdainful brevity\nthey seem rugged and abrupt, \"and do not seem to end, but fall.\" But\nwith their truth and piercingness and delicacy of observation, their\nroughness gives a kind of flavour which no elaboration could give. It is\nnone the less that their wisdom is of a somewhat cynical kind, fully\nalive to the slipperiness and self-deceits and faithlessness which are\nin the world and rather inclined to be amused at them. In some we can\nsee distinct records of the writer's own experience: one contains the\nsubstance of a charge delivered to Judge Hutton on his appointment;\nanother of them is a sketch drawn from life of a character which had\ncrossed Bacon's path, and in the essay on _Seeming Wise_ we can trace\nfrom the impatient notes put down in his _Commentarius Solutus_, the\npicture of the man who stood in his way, the Attorney-General Hobart.\nSome of them are memorable oracular utterances not inadequate to the\nsubject, on _Truth_ or _Death_ or _Unity_. Others reveal an utter\nincapacity to come near a subject, except as a strange external\nphenomena, like the essay on _Love_. There is a distinct tendency in\nthem to the Italian school of political and moral wisdom, the wisdom of\ndistrust and of reliance on indirect and roundabout ways. There is a\ngroup of them, \"of _Delays_,\" \"of _Cunning_,\" \"of _Wisdom for a Man's\nSelf_,\" \"of _Despatch_,\" which show how vigilantly and to what purpose\nhe had watched the treasurers and secretaries and intriguers of\nElizabeth's and James's Courts; and there are curious self-revelations,\nas in the essay on _Friendship_. But there are also currents of better\nand larger feeling, such as those which show his own ideal of \"_Great\nPlace_,\" and what he felt of its dangers and duties. And mixed with the\nfantastic taste and conceits of the time, there is evidence in them of\nBacon's keen delight in nature, in the beauty and scents of flowers, in\nthe charm of open-air life, as in the essay on _Gardens_, \"The purest of\nhuman pleasures, the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man.\"\n\nBut he had another manner of writing for what he held to be his more\nserious work. In the philosophical and historical works there is no want\nof attention to the flow and order and ornament of composition. When we\ncome to the _Advancement of Learning_, we come to a book which is one of\nthe landmarks of what high thought and rich imagination have made of\nthe English language. It is the first great book in English prose of\nsecular interest; the first book which can claim a place beside the\n_Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_. As regards its subject-matter, it has\nbeen partly thrown into the shade by the greatly enlarged and elaborate\nform in which it ultimately appeared, in a Latin dress, as the first\nportion of the scheme of the _Instauratio_, the _De Augmentis\nScientiarum_. Bacon looked on it as a first effort, a kind of call-bell\nto awaken and attract the interest of others in the thoughts and hopes\nwhich so interested himself. But it contains some of his finest writing.\nIn the _Essays_ he writes as a looker-on at the game of human affairs,\nwho, according to his frequent illustration, sees more of it than the\ngamesters themselves, and is able to give wiser and faithful counsel,\nnot without a touch of kindly irony at the mistakes which he observes.\nIn the _Advancement_ he is the enthusiast for a great cause and a great\nhope, and all that he has of passion and power is enlisted in the effort\nto advance it. The _Advancement_ is far from being a perfect book. As a\nsurvey of the actual state of knowledge in his day, of its deficiencies,\nand what was wanted to supply them, it is not even up to the materials\nof the time. Even the improved _De Augmentis_ is inadequate; and there\nis reason to think the _Advancement_ was a hurried book, at least in the\nlater part, and it is defective in arrangement and proportion of parts.\nTwo of the great divisions of knowledge--history and poetry--are\ndespatched in comparatively short chapters; while in the division on\n\"Civil Knowledge,\" human knowledge as it respects society, he inserts a\nlong essay, obviously complete in itself and clumsily thrust in here, on\nthe ways of getting on in the world, the means by which a man may be\n\"_Faber fortun\u00e6 su\u00e6_\"--the architect of his own success; too lively a\npicture to be pleasant of the arts with which he had become acquainted\nin the process of rising. The book, too, has the blemishes of its own\ntime; its want of simplicity, its inevitable though very often amusing\nand curious pedantries. But the _Advancement_ was the first of a long\nline of books which have attempted to teach English readers how to think\nof knowledge; to make it really and intelligently the interest, not of\nthe school or the study or the laboratory only, but of society at large.\nIt was a book with a purpose, new then, but of which we have seen the\nfulfilment. He wanted to impress on his generation, as a very practical\nmatter, all that knowledge might do in wise hands, all that knowledge\nhad lost by the faults and errors of men and the misfortunes of time,\nall that knowledge might be pushed to in all directions by faithful and\npatient industry and well-planned methods for the elevation and benefit\nof man in his highest capacities as well as in his humblest. And he\nfurther sought to teach them _how_ to know; to make them understand that\ndifficult achievement of self-knowledge, to know _what it is_ to know;\nto give the first attempted chart to guide them among the shallows and\nrocks and whirlpools which beset the course and action of thought and\ninquiry; to reveal to them the \"idols\" which unconsciously haunt the\nminds of the strongest as well as the weakest, and interpose their\ndelusions when we are least aware--\"the fallacies and false appearances\ninseparable from our nature and our condition of life.\" To induce men to\nbelieve not only that there was much to know that was not yet dreamed\nof, but that the way of knowing needed real and thorough improvement;\nthat the knowing mind bore along with it all kinds of snares and\ndisqualifications of which it is unconscious; and that it needed\ntraining quite as much as materials to work on, was the object of the\n_Advancement_. It was but a sketch; but it was a sketch so truly and\nforcibly drawn, that it made an impression which has never been\nweakened. To us its use and almost its interest is passed. But it is a\nbook which we can never open without coming on some noble interpretation\nof the realities of nature or the mind; some unexpected discovery of\nthat quick and keen eye which arrests us by its truth; some felicitous\nand unthought-of illustration, yet so natural as almost to be doomed to\nbecome a commonplace; some bright touch of his incorrigible\nimaginativeness, ever ready to force itself in amid the driest details\nof his argument.\n\nThe _Advancement_ was only one shape out of many into which he cast his\nthoughts. Bacon was not easily satisfied with his work; even when he\npublished he did so, not because he had brought his work to the desired\npoint, but lest anything should happen to him and it should \"perish.\"\nEasy and unstudied as his writing seems, it was, as we have seen, the\nresult of unintermitted trouble and varied modes of working. He was\nquite as much a talker as a writer, and beat out his thoughts into shape\nin talking. In the essay on _Friendship_ he describes the process with a\nvividness which tells of his own experience--\n\n     \"But before you come to that [the faithful counsel that a man\n     receiveth from his friend], certain it is that whosoever hath his\n     mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do\n     clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with\n     another. He tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them\n     more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into\n     words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an\n     hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by\n     Themistocles to the King of Persia, 'That speech was like cloth of\n     arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in\n     figure; whereas in thought they lie in packs.' Neither is this\n     second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding,\n     restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel.\n     (They are, indeed, best.) But even without that, a man learneth of\n     himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his\n     wits against a stone which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were\n     better relate himself to a _statua_ or a picture, than to suffer\n     his thoughts to pass in smother.\"\n\nBacon, as has been said, was a great maker of notes and note-books: he\nwas careful not of the thought only, but of the very words in which it\npresented itself; everything was collected that might turn out useful in\nhis writing or speaking, down to alternative modes of beginning or\nconnecting or ending a sentence. He watched over his intellectual\nappliances and resources much more strictly than over his money\nconcerns. He never threw away and never forgot what could be turned to\naccount. He was never afraid of repeating himself, if he thought he had\nsomething apt to say. He was never tired of recasting and rewriting,\nfrom a mere fragment or preface to a finished paper. He has favourite\nimages, favourite maxims, favourite texts, which he cannot do without.\n\"_Da Fidei qu\u00e6 sunt Fidei_\" comes in from his first book to his last.\nThe illustrations which he gets from the myth of Scylla, from Atalanta's\nball, from Borgia's saying about the French marking their lodgings with\nchalk, the saying that God takes delight, like the \"innocent play of\nchildren,\" \"to hide his works in order to have them found out,\" and to\nhave kings as \"his playfellows in that game,\" these, with many others,\nreappear, however varied the context, from the first to the last of his\ncompositions. An edition of Bacon, with marginal references and parallel\npassages, would show a more persistent recurrence of characteristic\nillustrations and sentences than perhaps any other writer.\n\nThe _Advancement_ was followed by attempts to give serious effect to its\nlesson. This was nearly all done in Latin. He did so, because in these\nworks he spoke to a larger and, as he thought, more interested audience;\nthe use of Latin marked the gravity of his subject as one that touched\nall mankind; and the majesty of Latin suited his taste and his thoughts.\nBacon spoke, indeed, impressively on the necessity of entering into the\nrealm of knowledge in the spirit of a little child. He dwelt on the\nparamount importance of beginning from the very bottom of the scale of\nfact, of understanding the commonplace things at our feet, so full of\nwonder and mystery and instruction, before venturing on theories. The\nsun is not polluted by shining on a dunghill, and no facts were too\nignoble to be beneath the notice of the true student of nature. But his\nown genius was for the grandeur and pomp of general views. The practical\ndetails of experimental science were, except in partial instances, yet a\ngreat way off; and what there was, he either did not care about or\nreally understand, and had no aptitude for handling. He knew enough to\ngive reality to his argument; he knew, and insisted on it, that the\nlabour of observation and experiment would have to be very heavy and\nquite indispensable. But his own business was with great principles and\nnew truths; these were what had the real attraction for him; it was the\nmagnificent thoughts and boundless hopes of the approaching \"kingdom of\nman\" which kindled his imagination and fired his ambition. \"He writes\nphilosophy,\" said Harvey, who had come to his own great discovery\nthrough patient and obscure experiments on frogs and monkeys--\"he writes\nphilosophy like a Lord Chancellor.\" And for this part of the work, the\nstateliness and dignity of the Latin corresponded to the proud claims\nwhich he made for his conception of the knowledge which was to be.\nEnglish seemed to him too homely to express the hopes of the world, too\nunstable to be trusted with them. Latin was the language of command and\nlaw. His Latin, without enslaving itself to Ciceronian types, and with a\nfree infusion of barbarous but most convenient words from the vast and\ningenious terminology of the schoolmen, is singularly forcible and\nexpressive. It is almost always easy and clear; it can be vague and\ngeneral, and it can be very precise where precision is wanted. It can,\non occasion, be magnificent, and its gravity is continually enlivened by\nthe play upon it, as upon a background, of his picturesque and\nunexpected fancies. The exposition of his philosophical principles was\nattempted in two forms. He began in English. He began, in the shape of a\npersonal account, a statement of a series of conclusions to which his\nthinking had brought him, which he called the \"Clue of the Labyrinth,\"\n_Filum Labyrinthi_. But he laid this aside unfinished, and rewrote and\ncompleted it in Latin, with the title _Cogitata et Visa_. It gains by\nbeing in Latin; as Mr. Spedding says, \"it must certainly be reckoned\namong the most perfect of Bacon's productions.\" The personal form with\neach paragraph begins and ends. \"_Franciscus Bacon sic cogitavit_ ...\n_itaque visum est ei_\" gives to it a special tone of serious conviction,\nand brings the interest of the subject more keenly to the reader. It has\nthe same kind of personal interest, only more solemn and commanding,\nwhich there is in Descartes's _Discours de la M\u00e9thode_. In this form\nBacon meant at first to publish. He sent it to his usual critics, Sir\nThomas Bodley, Toby Matthews, and Bishop Andrewes. And he meant to\nfollow it up with a practical exemplification of his method. But he\nchanged his plan. He had more than once expressed his preference for\nthe form of _aphorisms_ over the argumentative and didactic continuity\nof a set discourse. He had, indeed, already twice begun a series of\naphorisms on the true methods of interpreting nature, and directing the\nmind in the true path of knowledge, and had begun them with the same\nfamous aphorism with which the _Novum Organum_ opens. He now reverted to\nthe form of the aphorism, and resolved to throw the materials of the\n_Cogitata et Visa_ into this shape. The result is the _Novum Organum_.\nIt contains, with large additions, the substance of the treatise, but\nbroken up and rearranged in the new form of separate impersonal\ngeneralised observations. The points and assertions and issues which, in\na continuous discourse, careful readers mark and careless ones miss, are\none by one picked out and brought separately to the light. It begins\nwith brief, oracular, unproved maxims and propositions, and goes on\ngradually into larger developments and explanations. The aphorisms are\nmeant to strike, to awaken questions, to disturb prejudices, to let in\nlight into a nest of unsuspected intellectual confusions and\nself-misunderstandings, to be the mottoes and watchwords of many a\nlaborious and difficult inquiry. They form a connected and ordered\nchain, though the ties between each link are not given. In this way\nBacon put forth his proclamation of war on all that then called itself\nscience; his announcement that the whole work of solid knowledge must be\nbegun afresh, and by a new, and, as he thought, infallible method. On\nthis work Bacon concentrated all his care. It was twelve years in hand,\nand twelve times underwent his revision. \"In the first book especially,\"\nsays Mr. Ellis, \"every word seems to have been carefully weighed; and it\nwould be hard to omit or change anything without injuring the meaning\nwhich Bacon intended to convey.\" Severe as it is, it is instinct with\nenthusiasm, sometimes with passion. The Latin in which it is written\nanswers to it; it has the conciseness, the breadth, the lordliness of a\ngreat piece of philosophical legislation.\n\nThe world has agreed to date from Bacon the systematic reform of natural\nphilosophy, the beginning of an intelligent attempt, which has been\ncrowned by such signal success, to place the investigation of nature on\na solid foundation. On purely scientific grounds his title to this great\nhonour may require considerable qualification. What one thing, it is\nasked, would not have been discovered in the age of Galileo and Harvey,\nif Bacon had never written? What one scientific discovery can be traced\nto him, or to the observance of his peculiar rules? It was something,\nindeed, to have conceived, as clearly as he conceived it, the large and\ncomprehensive idea of what natural knowledge must be, and must rest\nupon, even if he were not able to realise his idea, and were mistaken in\nhis practical methods of reform. But great ideas and great principles\nneed their adequate interpreter, their _vates sacer_, if they are to\ninfluence the history of mankind. This was what Bacon was to science, to\nthat great change in the thoughts and activity of men in relation to the\nworld of nature around them: and this is his title to the great place\nassigned to him. He not only understood and felt what science might be,\nbut he was able to make others--and it was no easy task beforehand,\nwhile the wonders of discovery were yet in the future--understand and\nfeel it too. And he was able to do this because he was one of the most\nwonderful of thinkers and one of the greatest of writers. The\ndisclosure, the interpretation, the development of that great\nintellectual revolution which was in the air, and which was practically\ncarried forward in obscurity, day by day, by the fathers of modern\nastronomy and chemistry and physiology, had fallen to the task of a\ngenius, second only to Shakespeare. He had the power to tell the story\nof what they were doing and were to do with a force of imaginative\nreason of which they were utterly incapable. He was able to justify\ntheir attempts and their hopes as they themselves could not. He was able\nto interest the world in the great prospects opening on it, but of which\nnone but a few students had the key. The calculations of the astronomer,\nthe investigations of the physician, were more or less a subject of\ntalk, as curious or possibly useful employments. But that which bound\nthem together in the unity of science, which gave them their meaning\nbeyond themselves, which raised them to a higher level and gave them\ntheir real dignity among the pursuits of men, which forced all thinking\nmen to see what new and unsuspected possibilities in the knowledge and\nin the condition of mankind were opened before them, was not Bacon's own\nattempts at science, not even his collections of facts and his rules of\nmethod, but that great idea of the reality and boundless worth of\nknowledge which Bacon's penetrating and sure intuition had discerned,\nand which had taken possession of his whole nature. The impulse which he\ngave to the progress of science came from his magnificent and varied\nexposition of this idea; from his series of grand and memorable\ngeneralisations on the habits and faults of the human mind--on the\ndifficult and yet so obvious and so natural precautions necessary to\nguide it in the true and hopeful track. It came from the attractiveness,\nthe enthusiasm, and the persuasiveness of the pleading; from the clear\nand forcible statements, the sustained eloquence, the generous hopes,\nthe deep and earnest purpose of the _Advancement_ and the _De\nAugmentis_; from the nobleness, the originality, the picturesqueness,\nthe impressive and irresistible truth of the great aphorisms of the\n_Novum Organum_.\n\n     THE END","title":"Bacon","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":70549}