would justly bring on a statesman of our time | perhaps contained in the motto which Sir censures of the most serious kind. But when Nicholas Bacon inscribed over the entrance of we consider the state of morality in their age, and the unscrupulous character of the adversaries against whom they had to contend, we are forced to admit, that it is not without reason that their names are still held in veneration by their countrymen.

There were, doubtless, many diversities in their intellectual and moral character. But there was a strong family likeness. The constitution of their minds was remarkably sound. No particular faculty was pre-eminently developed; but manly health and vigour were equally diffused through the whole.

his hall at Gorhambury-Mediocria firma. This maxim was constantly borne in mind-by himself and his colleagues. They were more solicitous to lay the foundations of their power deep, than to raise the structure to a conspicuous but insecure height. None of them aspired to be sole minister. None of them provoked envy by an ostentatious display of wealth and influence. None of them affected to outshine the ancient aristocracy of the kingdom. They were free from that childish love of titles which characterized the successful courtiers of the generation which preceded them, and that which followed them. As to money, none of them could, in that age, justly be considered as rapacious. Some of them would, even in our time, deserve the praise of

the state was incorruptible. Their private morals were without stain. Their households were sober and well governed.

They were men of letters. Their minds were by nature and by exercise well-fashioned for speculative pursuits. It was by circumstances rather than by any strong bias of inclination, that they were led to take a promi-eminent disinterestedness. Their fidelity to nent part in active life. In active life, however, no men could be more perfectly free from the faults of mere theorists and pedants. No men observed more accurately the signs of the times. No men had a greater practical acquaintance with human nature. Their policy was generally characterized rather by vigilance, by moderation, and by firmness, than by invention or by the spirit of enterprise.

They spoke and wrote in a manner worthy of their excellent sense. Their eloquence was less copious and less ingenious, but far purer and more manly than that of the succeeding generation. It was the eloquence of men who had lived with the first translators of the Bible, and with the authors of the Book of Common Prayer. It was luminous, dignified, solid, and very slightly tainted with that affectation which deformed the style of the ablest men of the next age. If, as sometimes chanced, they were under the necessity of taking a part in those theological controversies on which the dearest interests of kingdoms were then staked, they acquitted themselves as if their whole lives had been passed in the schools and the

convocation.

Among these statesmen Sir Nicholas Bacon was generally considered as ranking next to Burleigh. He was called by Camden, "Sacris conciliis alterum columen;" and by George Buchanan,

"Diu Britannici

Regni secundum columen."

The second wife of Sir Nicholas, and the mother of Francis Bacon, was Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook-a man of distinguished learning, who had been tutor to Edward the Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid considerable attention to the education of his daughters, and lived to see them all splendidly and happily married. Their classical acquirethe women of fashion of that age. Katherine, ments made them conspicuous even among who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin hexameters and pentameters which would appear with credit in the Musa Etmenses. Mildred, the wife of Lord Burleigh, was described by Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar among the young women of England, Lady Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, the mother of Francis Bacon, was distinguished both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corres. ponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologia from the Latin, so corcould suggest a single alteration. She also rectly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker

translated a series of sermons on fate and

This fact is the more curious, as Ochino was

one of that small and audacious band of Ita

There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the court and of the multitude. No intrigue, no combination of rivals, could deprive them of the confidence of their sovereign. No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled their names with any odious grievance. Their power ended only with their lives. In this re-freewill from the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. spect their fate presents a most remarkable contrast to that of the enterprising and brilliant politicians of the preceding, and of the succeeding generation. Burleigh was minister during forty years. Sir Nicholas Bacon held the great seal more than twenty years. Sir Thomas Smith was Secretary of State eighteen years; Sir Francis Walsingham about as Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly long. They all died in office, and in the full cultivated mind after the fashion of her age. enjoyment of public respect and royal favour. But we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded into the belief, that she and her sisters were Far different had been the fate of Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk, Somerset, and Northum- more accomplished women than many who berland. Far different also was the fate of are now living. On this subject there is, we Essex, of Raleigh, and of the still more illus- think, much misapprehension. We have often trious man whose life we propose to consider. heard men who wish, as almost all men of The explanation of this circumstance is

lian reformers-anathematized alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by Rome -from which the Socinian sect deduces its origin.

* Strype's Life of Parker.

changed, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift without Edipus and Medea, while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious irony of Plate, he may find some compensation in that of Pascal. If he is shut out from Nephelococcygia, he may take refuge in Lilliput. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards those great nations to which the hu man race owes art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, when we say, that the stock bequeathed by them to us has been so carefully improved that the accumulated interest now exceeds the principal. We believe that the books which have been written in the languages of western Europe, during the st two hundred and fifty years, are of greater value than all the books which, at the beginning of that period, were extant in the world. With the modern languages of Europe English women are at least as well acquainted as English men. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey and those of an accomplished young woman of our own time, we have no hesitation in awarding the supe riority to the latter. We hope that our readers will pardon this digression. It is long; but it can hardly be called unseasonable, if it tends to convince them that they are mistaken in thinking that their great-great-grandmothers were superior women to their sisters and their

sense wish, that women should be highly educated, speak with rapture of the English ladies of the sixteenth century, and lament that they can find no modern damsel resembling those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal page which tells how meekly and bravely the first great martyr of intellectual liberty took the cup from his weeping jailer. But surely these complaints have very little foundation. We would by no means disparage the 'adies of the sixteenth century or their pursuits But we conceive that those who extol them at the expense of the women of our time forget one very obvious and very important circumstance. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin Could read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was the cnly modern language which possessed any thing that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. England did not yet possess Shakspeare's plays, and the Faerie Queen; nor France Montaigne's Essays; nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking round a well-furnished library, how few English or French books can we find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth received their education. Chaucer, Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated or classically educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one of the ancient languages no person could then have any clear notions of what was passing in the political, the literary, or the religious world. The Latin was in the six-wives. teenth century all and more than all that the Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir French was in the eighteenth. It was the lan- Nicholas, was born at York House, his father's guage of courts as well as of the schools. It residence in the Strand, on the 22d of January, was the language of diplomacy; it was the 1561. His health was very delicate, and to language of theological and political contro- this circumstance may be partly attributed versy. Being a fixed language, while the living that gravity of carriage, and that love of se. languages were in a state of fluctuation, be- dentary pursuits, which distinguished him from ing universally known to the learned and the other boys. Everybody knows how much his polite, it was employed by almost every writer premature readiness of wit and sobriety of who aspired to a wide and durable reputation. deportment amused the queen; and how she A person who was ignorant of it was shut out used to call him her young Lord Keeper. We from all acquaintance-not merely with Ci- are told that while still a mere child he stole cero and Virgil-not merely with heavy trea- away from his playfellows to a vault in St. tises on canon-law and school divinity-but James's Fields, for the purpose of investi with the most interesting memoirs, state pa-gating the cause of a singular echo which he pers, and pamphlets of his own time; nay, even with the most admired poetry and the most popular squibs which appeared on the fleeting topics of the day-with Buchanan's complimentary verses, with Erasmus's dialogues, with Hutton's epistles.

This is no longer the case. All political and religious controversy is now conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only in comments on the ancient | writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are indeed still what they But though their positive value is un

were.

had observed there. It is certain that, at only twelve, he busied himself with very ingeni ous speculations on the art of legerdemaina subject which, as Professor Dugald Stewart has most justly observed, merits much more attention from philosophers that it has ever received. These are trifles. But the eminence which Bacon afterwards attained renders them interesting.

In the thirteenth year of his age he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge. I nat celebrated school of learning enjoyed the pe culiar favour of the Lord Treasurer and the

of deciphering with great interest; and invented one cipher so ingenious that many years later he thought it deserving of a place in the De Augmentis. In February, 1580, while engaged in these pursuits, he received intelligence of the almost sudden death of his father, and instantly returned to England.

Lord Keeper; and acknowledged the advantages which it derived from their patronage in a public letter which bears date just a month after the admission of Francis Bacon. The master was Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, a narrow-minded, mean, and tyrannical priest, who gained power by servility and adulation, and employed in persecuting His prospects were greatly overcast by this with impartial cruelty those who agreed with event. He was most desirous to obtain a proCalvin about church government, and those vision which might enable him to devote him. who differed from Calvin touching the doc- self to literature and politics. He applied to trine of reprobation. He was now in the chry- the government, and it seems strange that he salis state-putting off the worm and putting should have applied in vain. His wishes on the dragon-fly-a kind of intermediate grub were moderate. His hereditary claims on the between sycophant and oppressor. He was administration were great. He had himself indemnifying himself for the court which he been favourably noticed by the queen. His found it expedient to pay to the ministers, by uncle was Prime Minister. His own talents exercising much petty tyranny within his own were such as any minister might have been college. It would be unjust, however, to denveager to enlist in the public service. But his him the praise of having rendered about this solicitations were unsuccessful. The truth is, time one important service to letters. He stood that the Cecils disliked him, and did all that up manfully against those who wished to make they could decently do to keep him down. It Trinity College a mere appendage to West- has never been alleged that Bacon had done minster school, and by this act, the only good any thing to merit this dislike; nor is it at all act, as far as we remember, of his long public probable that a man whose temper was natulife, he saved the noblest place of education rally mild, whose manners were courteous, in England from the degrading fate of King's who, through life, nursed his fortunes with the College and New College. utmost care, and who was fearful even to a fault of offending the powerful, would have given any just canse of displeasure to a kinsman who had the means of rendering him essential service, and of doing him irreparable injury. The real explanation, we have no doubt, is this: Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, was younger by a few months athan Bacon. He had been educated with the utmost care; had been initiated, while still a boy, in the mysteries of diplomacy and court intrigue; and was just at this time about to be

It has often been said that Bacon, while still at college, planned that great intellectual revolution with which his name is inseparably connected. The evidence on this subject, however, is hardly sufficient to prove what is in itself so improbable as that any definite scheme of that kind should have been so early formed, even by so powerful and active mind. But it is certain that, after a residence of three years at Cambridge, Bacon departed, carrying with him a profound contempt for the course of study pursued there; a fixed convic-introduced on the stage of public life. The tion that the system of academic education in England was radically vicious; a just scorn for the trifles on which the followers of Aristotle had wasted their powers, and no great reverence for Aristotle himself.

In his sixteenth year he visited Paris, and resided there for some time, under the care of Sir Amias Paulet, Elizabeth's minister at the French court, and one of the ablest and most upright of the many valuable servants whom she employed. France was at that time in a deplorable state of agitation. The Huguenots and the Catholics were mustering all their force for the fiercest and most protracted of their many struggles: while the prince, whose duty it was to protect and to restrain both, had by his vices and follies degraded himself so deeply that he had no authority over either. Bacon, however, made a tour through several provinces, and appears to have passed some time at Poitiers. We have abundant proof that during his stay on the continent he did not neglect literary and scientific pursuits. But nis attention seems to have been chiefly directed to statistics and diplomacy. It was at this time that he wrote those Notes on the State of Europe which are printed in his works. He studied the principles of the art

♦ Strype's Life of Whitgift.

wish nearest to Burleigh's heart was that his own greatness might descend to this favourite child. But even Burleigh's fatherly partiality could hardly prevent him from perceiving that Robert, with all his abilities and acquirements, was no match for his cousin Francis. This seems to us the only rational explanation of the Treasurer's conduct. Mr. Montagu is more charitable. He supposes that Burleigh was influenced merely by affection for his nephew, and was "little disposed to encourage him to rely on others rather than on himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics, instead of the certain profession of the law.” If such were Burleigh's feelings, it seems strange that he should have suffered his son to venture on those quicksands from which he so carefully preserved his nephew. But the truth is, that if Burleigh had been so disposed, he might easily have secured to Bacon a comfortable provision which should have been exposed to no risk. And it is equally certain that he showed as little disposition to enable his nephew to live by a profession as to enable him to live without a profession. That Baco himself attributed the conduct of his relative; to jealousy of his superior talents, we have not the smallest doubt. In a letter, written many years after to Villiers, he expresses himself thus: " Countenance, encourage, and

advance able men in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the father and the son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed."*

Whatever Burleigh's motives might be, his purpose was unalterable. The supplications which Francis addressed to his uncle and aunt were earnest, humble, and almost servile. He was the most promising and accomplished young man of his time. His father had been the brother-in-law, the most useful colleague, the nearest friend of the minister. But all this availed poor Francis nothing. He was forced, much against his will, to betake himself to the study of the law. He was admitted at Gray's Inn, and, during some years, he laboured there in obscurity.

young barrister than his nearest kinsmen had been. In his twenty-sixth year he became a bencher of his Inn; and two years later he was appointed Lent reader. At length, in 1590, he obtained for the first time some show of favour from the court. He was sworn in Queen's Counsel extraordinary. But this mark of honour was not accompanied by any pecu niary emolument. He continued, therefore, to solicit his powerful relatives for some provision which might enable him to live without drudging at his profession. He bore with a patience and serenity, which, we fear, bordered on meanness, the morose humours of his uncle, and the sneering reflections which his cousin cast on speculative men, lost in philosophical dreams, and too wise to be capable of transacting public business. At length the Cecils were generous enough to procure for him the reversion of the Registrarship of the

but as many years elapsed before it fell in, he was still under the necessity of labouring for his daily bread.

What the extent of his legal attainments may have been, it is difficult to say. It was not hard for a man of his powers to acquire that very moderate portion of technical know-Star-Chamber. This was a lucrative place; ledge which, when joined to quickness, tact, wit, ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge of the world, is sufficient to raise an advocate to the highest professional eminence. The gene- In the Parliament which was called in 1593 ral opinion appears to have been that which he sat as member for the county of Middlesex, was on one occasion expressed by Elizabeth. and soon attained eminence as a debater. It "Bacon," said she, "had a great wit and much is easy to perceive from the scanty remains learning; but in law showeth to the uttermost of his oratory, that the same compactness of of his knowledge, and is not deep." The Ce-expression and richness of fancy which appear cils, we suspect, did their best to spread this in his writings characterized his speeches; opinion by whispers and insinuations. Coke and that his extensive acquaintance with liteopenly proclaimed it with that rancorous inso-rature and history enabled him to entertain lence which was habitual to him. No reports his audience with a vast variety of illustraare more readily believed than those which tions and allusions which were generally hapdisparage genius and soothe the envy of con- py and apposite, but which were probably not scious mediocrity. It must have been inex- least pleasing to the taste of that age when pressibly consoling to a stupid sergeant, the they were such as would now be thought forerunner of him who, a hundred and fifty childish or pedantic. It is evident also that years later, "shook his head at Murray as a he was, as indeed might have been expected, wit," to know that the most profound thinker, perfectly free from those faults which are and the most accomplished orator of the age, generally found in an advocate who, after havwas very imperfectly acquainted with the lawing risen to eminence at the bar, enters the touching bastard eigné and mulier puisné, and confounded the right of free fishery with that of common of piscary.

It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed during the century and a half which followed, was better acquainted with the philosophy of law. His technical knowledge was quite sufficient, with the help of his admirable talents, and his insinuating address, to procure clients. He rose very rapidly into business, and soon entertained hopes of being called within the bar. He applied to Lord Burleigh for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. Of the grounds of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon's answer, which is still extant. It seems that the old lord, whose temper, age, and gout had by no means altered for the better, and who omitted no opportunity of marking his dislike of the showy, quickwitted young men of the rising generation, took this opportunity to read Francis a very sharp lecture on his vanity, and want of respect for his betters. Francis returned a most submissive reply, thanked the Treasurer for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. Strangers meanwhile were less unjust to the

See page 61, vol. xii. of the present edition. VOL. II.-32.

House of Commons; that it was his habit to deal with every great question, not in small detached portions, but as a whole; that he refined little, and that his reasonings were those of a capacious rather than a subtle mind. Ben Jonson, a most unexceptionable judge, has described his eloquence in words, which, though often quoted, will bear to be quoted again. "There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look uside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." From the mention which is made of judges, it would seem that Jonson had heard Bacon only at the bar. Indeed, we imagine that the House of Commons was then almost inaccessible to strangers. It is not probable that a man of Bacon's nice observation would

speak in Parliament exactly as he spoke in the Court of King's Bench. But the graces of manner and language must, to a great extent, have been common between the Queen's Counsel and the Knight of the Shire.

ened with fear and envy as he contemplated the rising fame and influence of Essex.

The history of the factions which, towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, divided her court and her council, though pregnant with instruction, is by no means interesting or pleasing. Both parties employed the means which are familiar to unscrupulous statesmen; and neither had, or even pretended to have, any im

Bacon tried to play a very difficult game in politics. He wished to be at once a favourite at court and popular with the multitude. If any man could have succeeded in this attempt, a man of talents so rare, of judgment so pre-portant end in view. The public mind was maturely ripe, of temper so calm, and of man- then reposing from one great effort, and colners so plausible, might have been expected lecting strength for another. That impetuous to succeed, Nor indeed did he wholly fail. and appalling rush with which the human inOnce, however, he indulged in a burst of pa- tellect had moved forward in the career of truth triotism which cost him a long and bitter re- and liberty, during the fifty years which followmorse, and which he never ventured to repeat.ed the separation of Luther from the commuThe court asked for large subsidies, and for nion of the Church of Rome, was now over. speedy payment. The remains of Bacon's The boundary between Protestantism and Pospeech breathe all the spirit of the Long Par-pery had been fixed very nearly where it still liament. "The gentlemen," said he, "must remains. England, Scotland, the Northern sell their plate, and the farmers their brass kingdoms were on one side; Ireland, Spain, pots, ere this will be paid; and for us, we are Portugal, Italy, on the other. The line of dehere to search the wounds of the realm, and marcation ran, as it still runs, through the not to skin them over. The dangers are these. midst of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of First, we shall breed discontent and endanger Switzerland-dividing province from province, her majesty's safety, which must consist more electorate from electorate, and canton from in the love of the people than their wealth. canton. France might be considered as a deSecondly, this being granted in this sort, other batable land, in which the contest was still unprinces hereafter will look for the like; so that decided. Since that time, the two religions we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves have done little more than maintain their and on our posterity; and in histories, it is to ground. A few occasional incursions have be observed, of all nations, the English are not been made. But the general frontier remains to be subject, base, or taxable." The queen the same. During two hundred and fifty years and her ministers resented this outbreak of no great society has risen up like one man, public spirit in the highest manner. Indeed, and emancipated itself by one mighty effort many an honest member of the House of Com- from the enthralling superstition of ages. This mons had, for a much smaller matter, been spectacle was common in the middle of the sent to the Tower by the proud and hot-blooded sixteenth century. Why has it ceased to be Tudors. The young patriot condescended to so? Why has so violent a movement been make the most abject apologies. He adjured followed by so long a repose? The doctrines the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to of the Reformers are not less agreeable to reahis poor servant and ally. He bemoaned him-son or to revelation now than formerly. The self to the Lord Keeper, in a letter which may keep in countenance the most unmanly of the epistles which Cicero wrote during his banishment. The lesson was not thrown away. Bacon never offended in the same manner again.

He was now satisfied that he had little to hope from the patronage of those powerful kinsmen whom he had solicited during twelve years with such meek pertinacity; and he began to look towards a different quarter. Among the courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared a new favourite-young, noble, wealthy, accomplished, eloqaent, brave, generous, aspiring --a favourite who had obtained from the grayheaded queen such marks of regard as she had scarce vouchsafed to Leicester in the season of the passions; who was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol of the city; who was the common patron of men of letters and of men of the sword; who was the common refuge of the persecuted Catholic and of the persecuted Puritan. The calm prudence which had enabled Burleigh to shape his course through so many dangers, and the vast experience which he had acquired in dealing with two generations of colleagues and rivals, see ned scarcely sufficient to support him in this new competition; and Robert Cecil sick

public mind is assuredly not less enlightened now than formerly. Why is it that Protestantism, after carrying every thing before it in a time of comparatively little knowledge and little freedom, should make no perceptible progress in a reasoning and tolerant age; that the Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes, the Zwingles, should have left no successors; that during two centuries and a half fewer converts should have been brought over from the Church of Rome than at the time of the Reformation were sometimes gained in a year? This has always appeared to us one of the most curious and interesting problems in history. On some other occasion we may perhaps attempt to solve it. At present it is enough to say, that at the close of Elizabeth's reign, the Protestant party. to borrow the language of the Apocalypse, had left its first love and had ceased to do its first works.

The great struggle of the sixteenth century was over. The great struggle of the seventeenth century had not commenced. The confessors of Mary's reign were dead. The members of the Long Parliament were still in their cradles. The Papists had been deprived of all power in the state. The Puritans had not yet attained any formidable extent of power. True it is, that a student well acquainted with the