practice, amongst the Honourable Society of Gray's-Inn, of which house he was a member; where he erected that elegant pile or structure commonly known by the name of The Lord Bacon's Lodgings, which he inhabited by turns the most part of his life (some few years only excepted) unto his dying day. In which house he carried himself with such sweetness, comity, and generosity, that he was much revered and beloved by the readers and gentlemen of the house. Notwithstanding that he professed the law for his livelihood and subsistence, yet his heart and affection was more carried after the affairs and places of estate; for which, if the majesty royal then had been pleased, he was most fit. In his younger years he studied the service and fortunes (as they call them) of that noble but unfortunate earl, the Earl of Essex; unto whom he was, in a sort, a private and free counsellor, and gave him safe and honourable advice, till in the end the earl inclined too much to the violent and precipitate counsel of others his adherents and followers; which was his fate and ruin.' His birth and other capacities qualified him above others of his profession to have ordinary accesses at court, and to come frequently into the queen's eye, who would often grace him with private and free communication, not only about matters of his profession or business in law, but also about the arduous affairs of estate; from whom she received from time to time He written in 1606, in which he speaks of his "nine years' service of the crown." This would give 1597 as the year in which he began to serve as one of the learned council; at which time it was no extraordinary favour, seeing that he had been recommended for solicitor-general three or four years before, both by Burghley and Egerton. It appears however to have been no regular or formal appointment. was not sworn. He had no patent; not even a written warrant. His tenure was only ratione verbi regii Elizabethæ (see Rymer, A. D. 1604, p. 121.). Elizabeth, who "looked that her word should be a warrant," chose to employ him in the business which belonged properly to her learned council, and he was employed accordingly. His first service of that nature,-the first at least of which I find any record,—was in 1594. In 1597 he had come to be employed regularly, and so continued till the end of the reign, and was familiarly spoken of as "Mr. Bacon of the learned council." The connexion between Bacon and Essex appears to have commenced about the year 1590 or 1591, and furnishes matter for a long story—too long to be discussed in a note. His conduct was much misunderstood at the time by persons who had no means of knowing the truth, and has been much misrepresented since by writers who cannot plead that excuse. The case is not however one on which a unanimous verdict can be expected. Always, where choice has to be made between fidelity to the state and fidelity to a party or person, popular sympathy will run in favour of the man who chooses the narrower duty; for the narrower duty is not only easier to comprehend, but, being seen closer, appears the larger of the two. But though sentiments will continue to be divided, facts may be agreed upon; and for the correction of all errors in matter of fact, I must refer to the Occasional Works, where the whole story will necessarily come out in full detail. In the mean time I may say for myself that I have no fault to find with Bacon for any part of his conduct towards Essex, and I think many people will agree with me when they see the case fairly stated. great satisfaction. Nevertheless, though she cheered him much with the bounty of her countenance, yet she never cheered him with the bounty of her hand; having never conferred upon him any ordinary place or means of honour or profit, save only one dry reversion of the Register's Office in the Star Chamber, worth about 16007. per annum, for which he waited in expectation either fully or near twenty years'; of which his lordship would say in Queen Elizabeth's time, That it was like another man's ground buttalling upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn; (nevertheless, in the time of King James it fell unto him); which might be imputed, not so much to Her Majesty's averseness and disaffection towards him, as to the arts and policy of a great statesman then, who laboured by all industrious and secret means to suppress and keep him down; lest, if he had risen, he might have obscured his glory.2 But though he stood long at a stay in the days of his mistress Queen Elizabeth, yet after the change, and coming in of his new master King James, he made a great progress; by whom he was much comforted in places of trust, honour, and revenue. I have seen a letter of his lordship's to King James, wherein he makes acknowledgment, That he was that master to him, that had raised and advanced him nine times; thrice in dignity, and six times in office. His offices (as I conceive) were Counsel Learned Extraordinary 3 to His Majesty, as he had been to Queen Elizabeth; King's Solicitor-General; His Majesty's Attorney-General; Counsellor of Estate, being yet but Attorney; Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal of England; lastly, Lord Chancellor; which two last places, though they be the same in authority and power, yet they differ in patent, height, and favour of the prince; since whose time none of his successors, until 1 The reversion, for which he considered himself indebted to Burghley, was granted to him in October 1589. He succeeded to the office in July 1608. In the Latin version Rawley adds that he administered it by deputy. 2 The person here alluded to is probably his cousin Robert Cecil, who, though he always professed an anxiety to serve him, was supposed (apparently not without reason) to have thrown obstacles secretly in the way of his advancement. 3 See note 3. p. 5. Rawley should rather have said "counsel learned, no longer extraordinary." It is true indeed that King James did at his first entrance confirm Bacon by warrant under the sign manual in the same office which he had held under Elizabeth by special commandment. But it was the "establishing him and bringing him into ordinary" with a salary of 401., which he reckons as first in the series of advancements. This was in 1604. He was made solicitor in 1607, attorney in 1613, counsellor of state in 1616, lord-keeper in 1617, lord chancellor in 1618. Ilis successive dignities were conferred respectively in 1603, 1618, and 1620-1. this present honourable lord', did ever bear the title of Lord Chancellor. His dignities were first Knight, then Baron of Verulam; lastly, Viscount St. Alban; besides other good gifts and bounties of the hand which His Majesty gave him, both out of the Broad Seal and out of the Alienation Office2, to the value in both of eighteen hundred pounds per annum ; which, with his manor of Gorhambury, and other lands and possessions near thereunto adjoining, amounting to a third part more, he retained to his dying day. Towards his rising years, not before, he entered into a married estate, and took to wife Alice, one of the daughters and coheirs of Benedict Barnham, Esquire and Alderman of London; with whom he received a sufficiently ample and liberal portion in marriage. Children he had none; which, though they be the means to perpetuate our names after our deaths, yet he had other issues to perpetuate his name, the issues of his brain; in which he was ever happy and admired, as Jupiter was in the production of Pallas. Neither did the want of children detract from his good usage of his consort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endowments, besides a robe of honour which he invested her withal; which she wore unto her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death." The last five years of his life, being withdrawn from civil affairs and from an active life, he employed wholly in contem 5 1 Sir Edward Hyde, made Lord Chancellor June 1. 1660. This clause was added in 1661; the leaf having been cancelled for the purpose. 2 Here the paragraph ended in the first edition. The rest was added in 1661. It appears, from a manuscript preserved in Tenison's Library, that he had about 2204, a-year with his wife, and upon her mother's death was to have about 1401. a-year more By the "robe of honour" is meant, I presume, the title of viscountess. It appears however that a few months before Bacon's death his wife had given him some cause of grave offence. Special provision is made for her in the body of his will, but revoked in a codicil, "for just and great causes," the nature of which is not specified. Soon after his death she married Sir John Underwood, her gentleman-usher. She was buried at Eyworth in Bedfordshire on the 29th of June 1650. On the 3rd of May 1621, Bacon was condemned, upon a charge of corruption to which he pleaded guilty, to pay a fine of 40,000l.; to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure; to be for ever incapable of sitting in parliament or holding office in the state; and to be banished for life from the verge of the court. From that time his only business was to find means of subsistence and of satisfying his creditors, and to pursue his studies. His offence was the taking of presents from persons who had suits in his court, in some cases while the suit was still pending; an act which undoubtedly amounted to corruption as corruption was defined by the law. The degree of moral criminality involved in it is not so easily ascertained. To judge of this, we should know, First, what was the understanding, open or secret, upon which the presents were given and taken, - for a gift, though it be given to a judge, is not necessarily in the nature of a bargain to perveit plation and studies—a thing whereof his lordship would often speak during his active life, as if he affected to die in the shadow and not in the light; which also may be found in several passages of his works. In which time he composed the greatest part of his books and writings, both in English and Latin, which I will enumerate (as near as I can) in the just order wherein they were written1:— The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh; Abcedarium Naturæ, or a Metaphysical piece which is lost; Historia Ventorum; Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Historia Densi et Rari, not yet printed 3; Historia Gravis et Levis, which is also lost; a Discourse of a War with Spain; a justice: Secondly, to what extent the practice was prevalent at the time, for it is a rare virtue in a man to resist temptations to which all his neighbours yield: Thirdly, how far it was tolerated,—for a practice may be universally condemned and yet universally tolerated; people may be known to be guilty of it and yet received in society all the same: Fourthly, how it stood with regard to other abuses prevailing at the same time, for it is hard to reform all at once, and it is one thing for a man to leave a single abuse unreformed while he is labouring to remove or resist greater ones, and another thing to introduce it anew, or to leave all as it was, making no effort to remove any. Now all this is from the nature of the case very difficult to ascertain. But the whole question, as it regards Bacon's character, must be considered in connexion with the rest of his political life, and will be fully discussed in its place in the Occasional works; where all the evidence I can find shall be faithfully exhibited. In this place it may be enough to say that he himself always admitted the taking of presents as he had taken them to be indefensible, the sentence to be just, and the example salutary; and yet always denied that he had been an unjust judge, or "had ever had bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order;" and that I cannot find any reason for doubting that this was true. It is stated, indeed, in a manuscript of Sir Matthew Hale's, published by Hargrave, that the censure of Bacon "for many decrees made upon most gross bribery and corruption .. gave such a discredit and brand to the decrees thus obtained that they were easily set aside;" and it is true that some bills were brought into the House of Commons for the purpose of setting aside such decrees; but I cannot find that any one of them reached a third reading; and it is clear from Sir Matthew's own argument that he could not produce an instance of one reversed by the House of Lords; and if any had been reversed by a royal commission appointed for the purpose (which according to his statement was the only remaining way), it must surely have been heard of; yet where is the record of any such commission? Now if of all the decrees so discredited none were reversed, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that they had all been made bonâ fide with regard only to the merits of the cases, and were in fact unimpeachably just; and we may believe that Bacon pronounced a true judgment on his own case when he said to his friends (as I find it recorded in a manuscript of Dr. Rawley's in the Lambeth Library), "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure in parliament that was these two hundred years." In the Latin version Rawley adds, quam præsens observavi; which gives this list a peculiar value. 2 A fragment of this piece was recovered and printed by Tenison in the Baconiana; and will appear in this edition after the Historia Ventorum, which it was intended to accompany. This was true in 1657; but it was printed the next year in the Opuscula Philosophica; and, therefore, for "not yet printed," the Latin version substitutes jam primum typis mandata. In the edition of 1661 a corresponding alteration ought to have been made in the English, but was not; and as the words occur in one of the cancelled leaves they must have been left by oversight. This was probably the tract which Gruter says he once had in his hands, and which he describes as merely a skeleton, exhibiting heads of chapters not filled up. "De Gravi et Levi in manibus habui integrum et grande volumen, sed quod, præter Dialogue touching an Holy War; the Fable of the New Atlantis; Topica Inquisitionis de Luce et There is a commemoration due as well to his abilities and virtues as to the course of his life. Those abilities which commonly go single in other men, though of prime and observable parts, were all conjoined and met in him. of wit, memory, judgment, and elocution. his books do abundantly speak them; Those are, sharpness For the former three which 5 with what nudam delineatæ fabrica compagem ex titulis materiam prout eam conceperat Baconus absolventibus, nihil descriptionis continebat." See his letter to Rawley, May 29. 1652, in the Baconiana, p. 223. In this edition I have placed the De Augmentis before the Historia Ventorum ; because, though published after, it was prepared and arranged, and in that sense composed, before. And in this view I am supported by a slight variation which is introduced here in the Latin version, viz. "Intervenerat opus de Augmentis Scientiarum," &c. We learn also from the Latin version that Bacon worked at the translation of the Advancement of Learning himself: in quo e linguâ vernacula, proprio Marte, in Latinam transferendo honoratissimus auctor plurimum desudavit. 2 These were the Essays as they appeared in the third and last edition; but he gave them a weightier title when he had them translated into "the general language:" exinde dicti, sermones fideles, sive interiora rerum. The Latin version adds, apud quos expeti audiverat. 4 These words are omitted in the Latin version, and must have been left by oversight in the edition of 1661; for they occur in one of the cancelled leaves; and the works in question had been printed in 1658. The error is the more worth noticing because it shows that wherever the English and the Latin differ, the Latin must be regarded as the later and better authority. The Latin version adds, ut de Julio Casare Hirtius. |