a good place, and perceiving that your Majesty had taken some displeasure towards me, both these were arguments to move me to offer unto your Majesty my service, to the end to have means to deserve your favour, and to repair my error. Upon this ground I affected myself to no great matter, but only a place of my profession, such as I do see divers younger in proceeding to myself and men of no great note do without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press this matter, I do assure your Majesty my spirit is not with them." It sufficeth me that I have let your Majesty know that I am ready to do that for the service which I never would do for mine own gain. And if your Majesty like others better, I shall, with the Lacedemonian, be glad that there is such choice of abler men than myself. Your Majesty's favour, indeed, and access to your royal person, I did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, seek and desire, and I would be very glad to be reintegrate in that. But I will not wrong mine own good mind so much as to stand upon that now, when your Majesty may conceive I do it but to make my profit of it. But my mind turneth upon other wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that I wish your Majesty served answerable to yourself. Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos. Thus I most humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. God preserve your Majesty !" According to the fashion of the times, he accompanied this letter with the present of a jewel. His hopes were excited by a note he received a few days after from his friend Foulke Greville, who was at Court when the offering arrived, and talked to her Majesty on the subject. "It pleased her withal to tell of the jewel you offered her by Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, which she had refused, yet with exceeding praise. But either I deceive myself, or she was resolved to take it; and the con for now I am like a hawk that bates when I see occasion of service, but cannot fly because I am tied to another's fist. But meanwhile I continue my presumption of making to your Majesty my poor oblation of a garment -as unworthy the wearing as his service that sends it, but the approach to your excellent person may give worth to both, which is all the happiness I aspire unto." This garment was "one pettycoat of white sattin embroidered all over like feathers and billets, with three broad borders fair embroidered with snakes and fruitage, emblems of Wisdom and Beauty." In each year an exact inventory of new-year's gifts was taken and signed by the Queen, and attested by the proper officers. The donors vary in rank from the Lord Keeper Egerton to Charles Smith, dustman, who presents "two bottes of cambric." A.D. 1595. DETERMINES TO RETIRE FROM PUBLIC LIFE. 21 clusion was very kind and gracious. One hundred pounds to fifty you shall be her Solicitor." The Queen could not forget the “ subsidy speech," or was secretly influenced by Burghley, or was resolved to show that Essex was not her master,-and still no appointment took place. Bacon's patience had become entirely exhausted. He thus writes to Foulke Greville : "What though the Master of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex, and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condition to stand, so that, whatever service I do to her Majesty, it shall be thought but to be servitium viscatum, lime twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature, which will, I fear, much hurt her Majesty's service in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if her Majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which, when he is nearest, flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum,—I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends." A.D. 1595. He was at last thrown into a state of mind still more painful than suspense, by the overwhelming intelligence that a patent was certainly to pass the Great Seal, appointing Mr. Serjeant Fleming Solicitor General to her Majesty. He was at first wholly overpowered by the blow, and then he resolved for ever to retire from public life, and travel in foreign countries, a step which he thus defended: "Upon her Majesty's rejecting me with such circumstances, though my heart might be good, yet mine eyes would be sore, that I should take no pleasure to look upon my friends; for that I was not an impudent man that could face out a disgrace, and I hoped her Majesty would not be offended that, not able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade." P 66 He next softened his purpose to exile for the rest of his days in the University of Cambridge, where the degree of A.M. had been recently conferred upon him." Writing to Essex, after stating that his health was almost overthrown by what he had suffered, he says, "When I revolved the good memory of my father, the near degree of alliance I stand in to my Lord Trea P Letter to Sir Robert Cecil, January, 1595. 9 Grace, July 27, 1594. "Placet vobis ut Mr. Franciscus Bacon armiger honorabilis et nobilis viri domini Nicholai Bacon militis, &c., filius post studium decem annorum, par tim in hac academia nostra, partim in transmarinis regionibus in dialecticis, philosophicis, Græcis, Latinisque literis ac cæteris humanioribus disciplinis sufficiat ei ut cooptetur in ordinem magistrorum in artibus," &c. surer, your Lordship's so signalled and declared favour, the honourable testimony of so many councillors, the commendations unlaboured and in sort offered by my Lords the Judges and the Master of the Rolls;-that I was voiced with great expectation, and, though I say it myself, with the wishes of most men to the higher place; that I am a man that the Queen hath already done for,-and that Princes, especially her Majesty, love to make an end where they begin,-and then add hereunto the obscureness and many exceptions to my competitors, I cannot but conclude with myself that no man ever read a more exquisite disgrace; and therefore truly, my Lord, I was determined, if her Majesty reject me, this to do. My nature can take no evil ply; but I will, by God's assistance, with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet with that comfort of the good opinion of so many honourable and worthy persons, retire myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and contemplations without looking back.” He indulged in a short retreat to Essex's villa, Twickenham Park, "where he once again enjoyed the blessings of contemplation in that sweet solitariness which collecteth the mind as shutting the eyes does the sight." While there he writes to the Lord Keeper, "I thought it right to step aside for nine days, which is the durance of a wonder, and not for any dislike of the world; for I think her Majesty hath done me as great a favour in making an end of this matter as if she had enlarged me from some restraint. I will take it upon that which her Majesty hath often said, that she doth reserve me and not reject me." To Burghley he says, "My hope is that, whereas your Lordship told me her Majesty was somewhat gravelled upon the offence she took at my speech in parliament, your Lordship's favourable and good word that I spake to the best will be as good a tide to remove her from that shelf." "-He soon returned to business and ambition. His submission gave great satisfaction to the Queen, and an attempt was made to bring about a vacancy in the office of Solicitor General for him; but Fleming could not be conveniently got rid of-and there was no other move among the law officers of the crown during the remainder of this reign. Immediately upon his disappointment, Essex sought most munificently to console him. "After the Queen," he writes, The Attorney-Generalship-a little outbreak against Coke. $ 30 March, 1595. t 20 May, 1595. A.D. 1596-7. HIS MAXIMS AND ESSAYS. 23 "had denied me the Solicitor's place, for which his Lordship had been a long and earnest suitor on my behalf, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond to Twickenham Park, and brake with me, and said, Mr. Bacon, the Queen hath denied me the place for you, and hath placed another; I know you are the least part of your own matter; but you fare ill because you have chosen me for your mean and dependence; you have spent your time and thoughts in my matters: I die (these were his very words) if I do not somewhat towards your fortune; you shall not deny to accept a piece of land which I will bestow upon you." Francis, having made a decent show of resistance, yielded, and was enfeoffed of land at Twickenham, which he afterwards sold at an underprice for 18001. He could not cancel all the past obligations of affectionate friendship, but he might at any rate have reconveyed this estate before he appeared as counsel against his benefactor, and before he entered on the task of writing A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert Earl of Essex.' 66 A.D. 1596. Το prove that he was not deficient in legal acquirements, as his detractors had represented, he wrote a treatise Upon the Elements and Use of the Common Law,' giving a specimen of the application of his favourite mode of reasoning to jurisprudence by the enunciation of general truths or maxims," established by an extensive collection of particulars. In his preface he inculcated the doctrine which he often repeated, and which he acted upon notwithstanding his preference of other pursuits,-that there is a debt of obligation on every member of a profession to assist in improving the science in which he has successfully practised. He dedicated this work to the Queen, "as a sheaf and cluster of fruit of the favourable season enjoyed by the nation from the influence of her happy government, by which the people were taught that part of the study of a good prince was to adorn and honour times of peace by the improvement of the laws!" * To indemnify himself for this effort, in the early part of the year 1597 he gave to the world his Essays,' which A.D. 1597. we may fairly ascribe to his residence in France when Montaigne's Essays were first published and were read with rapture by all classes in that country, although it was not till long after that, by means of a bad translation, they be * It was only then handed about in MS., but it has passed through several editions as a separate treatise, and, containing much recondite and accurate learning, it is still cited as authority under the title of Lord Bacon's Maxims of the Law.' came popular in England. If not equal in lightness and grace to his original, he greatly exceeded him in depth of observation and aphoristic sententiousness: he did not succeed so much as a delineator of manners, but he laid open the springs of human action, and he clothed his thoughts in diction which, for the first time, showed the richness and melody of English prose. The Essays were not only very favourably received in England, but, being immediately translated into Latin and most of the Continental languages, they spread the fame of Bacon, as an elegant writer, all over Europe. But this lustre of reputation did not seduce him from his greater purposes. "As for my Essays, and some other particulars of that nature," said he, "I count them but as the recreations of my other studies, and in that manner purpose to continue them; though I am not ignorant that these kind of writings would, with less pains and assiduity, perhaps yield more lustre and reputation to my name than the others I have in hand." z 66 دو He was again returned to the parliament which met in October, 1597, and early in the session introduced two Bills against "Enclosures and the depopulation of towns." The practice of clearing estates was then going on in some parts of England, and we can easily forgive some bad political economy brought forward in attempts to prevent or mitigate the suffering which this system causes when recklessly pursued without regard to the maxim that "property has its duties as well as its rights." In his speech introducing his Bills he said, “I should be sorry to see within this kingdom that piece of Ovid's verse prove true, Jam seges ubi Troja fuit,—in England nought but green fields, a shepherd, and a dog. Nemo putat illud videri turpe quod sibi sit quæstuosum, and therefore there is almost no conscience made in destroying the savour of life; panis sapor vitæ." The Bills were referred to a committee, but did not pass. He was successful, however, in that which probably interested him a good deal more,-in for ever effacing the impression of his unlucky patriotic speech. The Chancellor of the y In the first edition there were only ten, but he afterwards expanded some of these and added considerably to their number. In his dedication to his brother he says, he published it to check the circulation of spurious copies, "like some owners of orchards, who gather the fruit before it is ripe to prevent stealing;" but this was only a pretence of authorship, and there can be no doubt that, by infinite pains, he had brought his compositions to his own standard of excellence before he committed them to the press. The 2nd edition was published in 1598, the 3rd in 1612, when he was Solicitor-General, and the 4th in 1626, after his fall and the year before his death. z Letter to the Bishop of Winchester. a 1 Parl. Hist. 890. |