A.D. 1597. HE SUPPORTS THE SUBSIDY. b 25 Exchequer having moved for a supply, and been seconded by Mr. Secretary Cecil, Mr. Francis Bacon rose, not to say anything of "gentlemen selling their silver plate and yeomen their brass pots," but "to make it appear by demonstration, what opinion so ever be pretended by others, that, in point of payments to the Crown, never subjects were partakers of greater freedom and ease. Whether you look abroad into other countries, or look back to former times in this our own country, we shall find an exceeding difference in matter of taxes; which now I reserve to mention-neither will I make any observation upon her Majesty's manner of expending and issuing treasure,-being not upon excessive and exorbitant donations, nor upon sumptuous and unnecessary triumphs, buildings, or like magnificence, but upon the preservation, protection, and honour of the realm. I dare not scan her Majesty's actions, which it becometh me rather to admire in silence. Sure I am that the treasure which cometh from you to her Majesty is but a vapour which riseth from the earth, and, gathering into a cloud, stayeth not there long, but, on the same earth, falleth again." Accordingly a bill for a larger supply than was asked last parliament passed without opposition. Bacon was now in high favour at Court, as well as still popular in the House by his eloquence, and in the country by his writings. But he was desperately poor, for authorship, as yet, brought no profit, and his general practice at the bar was very inconsiderable. In spite of his economical habits, he had contracted some debts which were troublesome to him; and it was uncertain whether there might be an opening for him in the office of Solicitor General during the life of the Queen, who was now labouring under the infirmities of age. He therefore made a bold attempt to restore his position by matrimony. He was ever cold-blooded and calculating, not even affecting anything romantic or tender. "You may observe," says he, 'that amongst all the great and worthy persons whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent, there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love,-which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. There was never 66 b Thus he already has learned to sneer at the liberal party. c 1 Parl. Hist. 905. d "Comitiis parliamentariis inferioris con. cessus, dum in ea domo sedit, pergratus semper fuit; in qua sæpe peroravit non sine magno applausu."-Rawley. e proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it is well said that it is impossible to love and to be wise." He did not, on this occasion, at all depart from his notions of what was becoming in "a great and worthy person;" for instead of offering incense to Venus, he was only considering of a scheme to make his pot boil. A daughter of Sir Thomas Cecil, the eldest son of Lord Burghley, had married Sir William Hatton, the nephew and heir of Lord Chancellor Hatton, and was soon after left a widow with a very large fortune at her own disposal. She was likewise noted for her wit, spirit, and turn for fashionable amusements. What was worse, she was said to be of a capricious and violent temper. Upon the whole, Bacon thought that the advantages of the connexion predominated, and after a proper course of attention, in which he met with little encouragement, he proposed to her. It was a curious circumstance that she was at the same time addressed by his successful rival for the offices of Attorney and Solicitor General, Sir Edward Coke, who was then a widower with a large family and an immense fortune. If she had not read Francis Bacon's Essay on Love, and so suspected him to be of a cold constitution, one would have thought that she could not have hesitated for a moment between her accomplished cousin.--a bachelor between thirty and forty,—although then a briefless barrister, yet destined to high office, and the crabbed Attorney General, with all his practice and large estates, who was well stricken in years, and to whom there were 66 seven objections-his six children and himself." Bacon met with a flat refusal, and she evidently favoured his rival. He thought, however, that he might succeed through the recommendation of Essex, who was then embarking on his famous expedition to Cadiz, and whom he thus addressed :-" My suit to your Lordship is for your several letters to be left with me dormant to the gentlewoman and either of her parents. Wherein I do not doubt but, as the beams of your favour have often dissolved the coldness of my fortune, so in this argument your Lordship will do the like with your pen." 66 Essex's letter to the cruel young widow would have been a great curiosity, but it is lost. To Sir Thomas Cecil he writes, My dear and worthy friend Mr. Francis Bacon is a suitor to my Lady Hatton, your daughter. What his virtues and excellent parts are, you are not ignorant. What advantages you e Essay on Love. A.D. 1597. 66 ARRESTED FOR DEBT. 27 may give, both to yourself and to your house, by having a son-in-law so qualified, and so likely to rise in his profession, you may easily judge. Therefore, to warrant my moving of you to incline favourably to his suit, I will only add this, that, if she were my sister or daughter, I protest I would as confidently resolve to farther it as I now persuade you." He wrote a similar letter to Lady Cecil, who was one of the coheirs of Neville Lord Latimer, assuring her that she would happily bestow her daughter on Francis Bacon, "and if," says he, my faith be anything, I protest, if I had one as near to me as she is to you, I had rather match her with him than with men of far greater titles." Nevertheless, the wayward Lady Hatton thought fit to run off with the future Chief Justice, and to enter into a clandestine and irregular marriage with him, for which they were both prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Court. Bacon, in the result, had great reason to rejoice at this escape; for the lady, from the honeymoon onwards, led Coke a most wretched life-refusing even to take his name, separating from him, doing everything to vex and annoy him, and teaching his child to rebel against him. However, the first effect of this discomfiture of Bacon, which, as we may suppose, was much talked of at Court and in the City, was to bring down upon him a relentless creditor; and, instead of entertaining Elizabeth as he had expected at Harefield, part of Lady Hatton's possessions which had belonged to Sir Christopher, he soon found himself confined in a spunging-house. He had borrowed the sum of 3007. from a usurer in Lombard Street of the name of Sympson, for which he had given a bond. An action having been brought against him on the bond, -as he had no defence, he gave a cognovit, with a stay of execution. The time of forbearance expired, and he was still unprepared to pay. He denounces "the Lombard" as very hard-hearted, seemingly without much reason; for when there was a writ out against him in the city, and he came to dine with Sheriff More, orders were given to the officer not to disturb the festivity of the day by arresting him. But a few days after, information being given that he had been seen to enter the Tower, he was "trained" as he returned through the city, and a "b- bailiff" sacrilegiously placed his hand on the shoulder of the future Lord Chancellor, and author of the Novum Organum. They wished to carry him immediately to gaol: but his friend Sheriff More " recommended f This seems then to have been used as a term of reproach, as Jew now is with us. him to an handsome house in Coleman Street." The "Lombard," who lived close by, was sent for divers times, but would not so much as vouchsafe to come and speak with the poor prisoner, or take any order in the affair, but would leave him to his fate: "although," says Bacon, "a man I never provoked with a cross word-no, nor with many delays." 66 He In this extremity he wrote a letter to Lord Keeper Egerton, suggesting that, as he had gone to the Tower on a service of the Queen of no mean importance," he was privileged from arrest even in execution, "eundo manendo et redeundo;” but, without insisting on his privilege, requesting the Lord Keeper to send for Sympson, and to bring him to some reason. wrote a similar letter from his place of captivity to Mr. Secretary Cecil, in which he says,- To belay me while he knew I came from the Tower about her Majesty's special service was, to my understanding, very bold." A satisfactory arrangement was made for the payment of the debt, and in a few days he was set at liberty. 66 To this disgrazia Coke ungenerously alluded in the famous altercation he afterwards had with Bacon at the bar of the Court of Exchequer. Mr. Attorney seems to have taken great offence because, without his sanction, and without his having a brief and a fee, the Queen's Counsel had presumed to make a motion about re-seizing the lands of a relapsed recusant in which the Crown was concerned. Bacon in his own defence having used as gentle and reasonable terms as might be, Mr. Attorney kindled and said, "Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against me, pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good." Bacon (coldly)." Mr. Attorney, I respect you; I fear you not: and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it." Mr. Attorney." I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, who are less than little,-less than the least (adding other such strange light terms, with that insolence which cannot be expressed).” Bacon (stirred, yet self-possessed)." Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again when it please the Queen." "With this," says Bacon, "he spake neither I nor himself could tell what, as if he had been born Attorney General, and in 5 Letters to the Lord Keeper and Sir R. Cecil, September 1598. Works, vol. vi, 42. h Ibid. A.D. 1597. HIS LAW TRACTS. 29 the end bade me not meddle with the Queen's business but with mine own, and that I was unsworn.' Bacon. "Sworn or not sworn is all one to an honest man; I have ever set my service first, and myself second; and I wish to God you would do the like." Mr. Attorney."It were good to clap a capias utlegatum upon your back." Bacon." I thank God you cannot, but you are at fault and hunt upon an old scent." 66 An account of this scene was immediately sent by Bacon to Secretary Cecil, as one careful of his advancement and jealous of his wrongs," and it must be taken with some grains of allowance, though he says, he dared trust 1umour in it, unless it were malicious or extreme partial," but on both sides it greatly exceeded the licence of forensic logomachy in our times, and with us much less must have led to a hostile meeting on Wimbledon Common or at Calais. But the law of the duello, which was studied so sedulously in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. by all other classes of gentlemen, seems to have been entirely neglected by those who addicted themselves to the common law of this realm. Coke, conscious of his own inferiority in all liberal acquirements, continued to take every opportunity to " disgrace and disable" Bacon's law, and his experience, and his discretion as an advocate. Yet this year the Essayist and leader of the House of Commons gave proofs of professional learning and skill, which ought for ever to have saved him from such taunts. He wrote The History of the Alienation Office,' a treatise worthy of Hale, showing a most copious and accurate acquaintance with existing law, and with our legal antiquities. · He likewise published his celebrated argument in the Exchequer Chamber in Chudleigh's Case, or the Case of Perpetuities.' m About this time occurred a very important crisis in the history of the Law of Real Property in England. An attempt, which in the following century succeeded in Scotland, was making to introduce, by the artifices of conveyancing, a system of unlimited substitutions, or strict entails, which should effectually bar every species of alienation. The great question in this particular case was, 'whether, there being a remainder 66 i I.e. not sworn as Attorney or SolicitorGeneral; yet he must have taken the oaths to serve her Majesty as Queen's Counsel. k Bacon's Works, vol. vi. 46. |