these few wandering lines. (See p. 529, note, above.)

Thus have I presumed to write these few lines to your Lordship, in methodo ignorantiæ.-Spedding, Life, ii. 132.

As to the expedient of fathering the discourse on another man, this was only done in accordance with the practice which (as I have tried to show) was adopted by Bacon from his earliest boyhood, and, in this particular instance, it had the advantage of giving authority to the narrative, and of making it possible to utilise the Irish experience of such men as Sir Henry Sidney and Ralegh, between which and Spenser's there was sufficient similarity for the purpose.

A further question may occur, how the advocacy in the View of the policy of finding a post for Essex about the person of the Queen can be reconciled with the encouragement which unquestionably was given to the Earl by Bacon subsequently in undertaking the command in Ireland against Tyrone. But this is no more a question as between Spenser, the supposed author of the View, and Bacon as the author, than it is between Bacon in 1596 and Bacon in 1598, a subject on which much has already been written. It is difficult to suggest the answer without digressing beyond the limits appropriate to this book, but, speaking summarily, I may say that, in my opinion, the explanation lies in the conclusion at which Bacon had arrived that the Earl was a failure in the part for which he had intended him, and that the best thing he could do at that juncture was to let him run his course in his own way. He had begun at this time to lean more towards Ralegh, perhaps even to see that Robert Cecil was the only man, and that to measure his strength against him through a favourite, who, however great his personal charm and popularity, was a man without real ability, and a passionate sentimentalist besides, was to court failure, not only for the Earl (for whom perhaps he cared little), but for his own public career. It was the misfortune of Essex, or his fate, to come into the orbit of Bacon's restless genius, which, being debarred

on all sides from direct outlet, found its expression through byways and by proxy. If Essex had never been impregnated with Bacon's ideas, which he was incapable of assimilating, it seems probable that he would have been content with the life of a favoured courtier or of military adventure, and have left statesmanship to men of a different mould.

Two instances may be noted of the privileged and courtier-like tone which the writer adopts on the subject of the Queen's business and character; e.g. p. 651, "if the Queenes coffers be not soe well stored (which we are not to looke into)," and p. 655,"her Sacred Majestie, being by nature full of mercye and clemencye, whoe is most inclinable to such pitifull complaynts, and will not endure to heare such tragedyes made of her people and poore subjects as some about her may insinuate."

P. 653. Pardons.-The policy suggested is the same as Bacon's:

I would wish a proclamation were made generallye. That what persons soever would within twenty dayes absolutly submitt themselves (excepting onely the very principalls and ring-leaders) shoulde finde grace.

P. 654. The description of famine in Munster. The strong measures advocated will soon end the war, for— by this harde restraynte they would quickly consume themselves, and devoure one another. The proof wherof I sawe sufficiently ensampled in those late warres in Mounster; for notwithstanding that the same was a most riche and plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattell, that you would have thought they would have bene able to stand long, yet ere one yeare and a halfe they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stonye harte would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the woodes and glinnes they came creeping foorthe upon theyr handes, for theyr legges could not beare them; they looked like anatomyes of death, they spake like ghostes crying out of theyr graves; they did eate of the dead carrions, happy were they yf they could finde them, yea, and one another soone after, insoemuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theyr graves; and yf they founde a plotte of water-cresses or sham-rokes, there

they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithall; that in shorte space there were none allmost left, and a most populous and plentifull countrey suddaynly made voyde of man or beast: yet sure in all that warre, there perished not many by the swoorde, but all by the extremitye of famine which they themselves had wrought.

I have already suggested that this treatise was founded, to some extent, on Sir Henry Sidney's dispatches. This well-known description suggests, more than any other single passage, the soundness of this view, as the following extract from Sidney's account of Munster in his dispatch of 20th April 1567 indicates :

As touchinge the Estate of the whole Countie, for so muche as I sawe of it; havinge travailed from Youghall to Cork, from Cork to Kinsale, and from thence to the uttermost Boundes of it towards Limerick; like as I never was in a more pleasaunt Countrey in all my life: So never sawe I a more waste and desolate Lande, no, not in the Confynes of other Countries, where actuall Warre hath continuallie ben kepte, by the greatest Princies of Christendome; and there herde I suche lamentable Cryes and dolefull Complayntes, made by that small Remayne of poor People which yet are lefte. Who hardelie escaping the Furie of the Sworde, and Fire of their outeragious Neighbours, or the Famyn with the same, which their extorcious Lordes hath driven them unto, either by taking their Goodes from them, or by spending the same by their extorte Taking of Coyne and Liverie; make Demonstracion of the miserable Estate of that Countrie. Besides this, such horrible and lamentable Spectacles there are to beholde, as the Burninge of Villages, the Ruyn of Churches, the Wastinge of suche, as have been good Townes and Castells: Yea, the View of the Bones and Sculles of the ded Subjectes, who, partelie by Murder, partelie by Famyn, have died in the Feelds; as, in Troth hardlie any Christian with drie Eyes could beholde.1

Sir Henry Sidney was reporting to the Queen after a tour of inspection, and what he saw was not the result of operations by the Government, but of the internecine feuds between the Butlers and the Geraldines. The writer of the View has used this material, as I think, and worked it up into a highly sensational picture. But in so far as it represented the facts, they were the result

1 Collins, Letters and Memorials of State.

of the operations against Desmond by Pelham and Ormonde in 1579, and by Grey against the rebels in the two years following, and the closing words "which they themselves had wrought" are therefore an anachronism. At the same time they were probably put in by design, as containing some measure of truth, and putting the case of the Government in the best light. But they are fictitious writing, and they suggest that the rest is, to some extent at least, of the same character.1

Even Sidney's account (confined to Munster) was probably, to some extent, exaggerated, because the close of the dispatch shows that he was making a despairing appeal to the Queen to support him in his efforts, and that she was treating him with callous indifference. Following the passage in his account quoted above there is a hearsay report of barbarous outrages by one of the Earl of Desmond's servants, calculated to appeal to the feelings of a woman, and probably inserted with that object. In any case the accounts of Irish prosperity which Sidney sent home ten years later, before the Desmond rebellion, are difficult to reconcile, in view of the shortness of the interval, with the earlier one. Thus

Their land was never more universally tilled nor fuller of cattle than presently. Their citties and towns more populous than ever in memory of man. Their houses so far exceeding their ancestors, that they may be thought rather to be another and a new People than descendants of the old.2

Similarly the desolation attributed to Munster, apparently some fourteen years back, by the writer of the

1 In this connection it is of interest to inquire whether the "plotte of water-cresses or sham-rokes" is a correct piece of "local colour." I cannot speak with certainty on this subject, but I observe that Bagwell holds that "the original shamrock was the wood-sorrel" (iii. 99, 435). He does not however discuss the reference to "water-cresses," and I think it very possible that it comes from the following passage in Holinshed's Description of Ireland (ch. 8): "Watercresses, which they tearme shamrocks, roots and other herbs they feed upon," etc.

2 Sir Henry Sidney to the Queen, 20th May 1577. Compare this again with his enthusiastic account, from the point of view of the people as well as of the Crown, of the good results in Munster of Sir William Drury's government : "Mounster, Thankes be to God, contynueth in good Quiet," etc.-To the Council, 17th March 1576.

View seems inconsistent with the reference to it, as it was before the rising in 1598, by Spenser, in his petition to the Queen (no doubt from the point of view of the settlers), as "a Countrie so rich, so well peopled."1

There follows the defence of Lord Grey's government, whose recall is attributed (by Eudoxus) to the clemency of the Queen's disposition, who, he says, was induced, contrary to the public interest, to listen to charges of cruelty against him. This seems to be another instance of the courtier's attitude, which was always the attitude of Bacon; for it appears probable that the Queen's real reason for recalling Grey was that he spent too much money, and she had decided in her own mind at that time from motives of economy, and in view of Continental affairs, to let things go in Ireland for the present. Bagwell states that, with regard to the affair of Smerwick, she "censured Grey rather for sparing some of the principals than for slaying the accessories."2 This, however, may not have been known to the author of this treatise, and it is noticeable that it was also not known to Bacon (writing in his own name), or, at any rate, not admitted by him. See his remarks about Smerwick in 1624, quoted below. Apart from this question, however, there seems no doubt that Lord Grey in his government of Ireland was atrociously severe. On the other hand, it must be remembered that Spain and the Papal power were behind the Irish rising, that the Papacy had pretended to depose the Queen and claimed to absolve her subjects from their allegiance, and had no disapproval for the practices against her life and that of the Prince of Orange. Moreover, when Lord Grey went to Ireland only eight years had passed since the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day in Paris, of which the Pope had publicly expressed his approbation. It is not surprising, in these circumstances, that men were fanatical. Lord Grey was

1 See p. 571 n. below.

3 Bull of Pius V., 1570.

2 Ireland under the Tudors, iii. 75.

4 "The scene of the massacre was painted by the Pope's orders, with an inscription [Pontifex Colignii necem probat] immortalising his own gratification and approval.”—Froude, History of England, x. 410.