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diff --git a/old/13888.txt b/old/13888.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf5dccf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13888.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6751 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bacon, by Richard William Church + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Bacon + English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley + +Author: Richard William Church + +Release Date: October 29, 2004 [EBook #13888] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACON *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Michael Punch and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +BACON + +BY + +R.W. CHURCH + +DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S + +HONORARY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE + + + + +ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. + +EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY. + + +JOHNSON Leslie Stephen. +GIBBON J.C. Morison. +SCOTT R.H. Hutton. +SHELLEY J.A. Symonds. +HUME T.H. Huxley. +GOLDSMITH William Black. +DEFOE William Minto. +BURNS J.C. Shairp. +SPENSER R.W. Church. +THACKERAY Anthony Trollope. +BURKE John Morley. +MILTON Mark Pattison. +HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jr. +SOUTHEY E. Dowden. +CHAUCER A.W. Ward. +BUNYAN J.A. Froude. +COWPER Goldwin Smith. +POPE Leslie Stephen. +BYRON John Nichol. +LOCKE Thomas Fowler. +WORDSWORTH F. Myers. +DRYDEN G. Saintsbury. +LANDOR Sidney Colvin. +DE QUINCEY David Masson. +LAMB Alfred Ainger. +BENTLEY R.C. Jebb. +DICKENS A.W. Ward. +GRAY E.W. Gosse. +SWIFT Leslie Stephen. +STERNE H.D. Traill. +MACAULAY J. Cotter Morison. +FIELDING Austin Dobson. +SHERIDAN Mrs. Oliphant +ADDISON W.J. Courthope. +BACON R.W. Church. +COLERIDGE H.D. Traill. +SIR PHILIP SIDNEY J.A. Symonds. +KEATS Sidney Colvin. + +12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. +_Other volumes in preparation._ + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In preparing this sketch it is needless to say how deeply I am indebted +to Mr. Spedding and Mr. Ellis, the last editors of Bacon's writings, the +very able and painstaking commentators, the one on Bacon's life, the +other on his philosophy. It is impossible to overstate the affectionate +care and high intelligence and honesty with which Mr. Spedding has +brought together and arranged the materials for an estimate of Bacon's +character. In the result, in spite of the force and ingenuity of much of +his pleading, I find myself most reluctantly obliged to differ from him; +it seems to me to be a case where the French saying, cited by Bacon in +one of his commonplace books, holds good--"_Par trop se debattre, la +verite se perd_."[1] But this does not diminish the debt of gratitude +which all who are interested about Bacon must owe to Mr. Spedding. I +wish also to acknowledge the assistance which I have received from Mr. +Gardiner's _History of England_ and Mr. Fowler's edition of the _Novum +Organum_; and not least from M. de Remusat's work on Bacon, which seems +to me the most complete and the most just estimate both of Bacon's +character and work which has yet appeared; though even in this clear +and dispassionate survey we are reminded by some misconceptions, strange +in M. de Remusat, how what one nation takes for granted is +incomprehensible to its neighbour; and what a gap there is still, even +in matters of philosophy and literature, between the whole Continent and +ourselves-- + + "Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Promus_: edited by Mrs. H. Pott, p. 475. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. PAGE +EARLY LIFE 1 + +CHAPTER II. +BACON AND ELIZABETH 26 + +CHAPTER III. +BACON AND JAMES I. 55 + +CHAPTER IV. +BACON SOLICITOR-GENERAL 77 + +CHAPTER V. +BACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND CHANCELLOR 95 + +CHAPTER VI. +BACON'S FALL 118 + +CHAPTER VII. +BACON'S LAST YEARS--1621-1626 149 + +CHAPTER VIII. +BACON'S PHILOSOPHY 168 + +CHAPTER IX. +BACON AS A WRITER 198 + + + + +BACON. + +CHAPTER I. + +EARLY LIFE. + + +The life of Francis Bacon is one which it is a pain to write or to read. +It is the life of a man endowed with as rare a combination of noble +gifts as ever was bestowed on a human intellect; the life of one with +whom the whole purpose of living and of every day's work was to do great +things to enlighten and elevate his race, to enrich it with new powers, +to lay up in store for all ages to come a source of blessings which +should never fail or dry up; it was the life of a man who had high +thoughts of the ends and methods of law and government, and with whom +the general and public good was regarded as the standard by which the +use of public power was to be measured; the life of a man who had +struggled hard and successfully for the material prosperity and opulence +which makes work easy and gives a man room and force for carrying out +his purposes. All his life long his first and never-sleeping passion was +the romantic and splendid ambition after knowledge, for the conquest of +nature and for the service of man; gathering up in himself the spirit +and longings and efforts of all discoverers and inventors of the arts, +as they are symbolised in the mythical Prometheus. He rose to the +highest place and honour; and yet that place and honour were but the +fringe and adornment of all that made him great. It is difficult to +imagine a grander and more magnificent career; and his name ranks among +the few chosen examples of human achievement. And yet it was not only an +unhappy life; it was a poor life. We expect that such an overwhelming +weight of glory should be borne up by a character corresponding to it in +strength and nobleness. But that is not what we find. No one ever had a +greater idea of what he was made for, or was fired with a greater desire +to devote himself to it. He was all this. And yet being all this, seeing +deep into man's worth, his capacities, his greatness, his weakness, his +sins, he was not true to what he knew. He cringed to such a man as +Buckingham. He sold himself to the corrupt and ignominious Government of +James I. He was willing to be employed to hunt to death a friend like +Essex, guilty, deeply guilty, to the State, but to Bacon the most loving +and generous of benefactors. With his eyes open he gave himself up +without resistance to a system unworthy of him; he would not see what +was evil in it, and chose to call its evil good; and he was its first +and most signal victim. + +Bacon has been judged with merciless severity. But he has also been +defended by an advocate whose name alone is almost a guarantee for the +justness of the cause which he takes up, and the innocency of the client +for whom he argues. Mr. Spedding devoted nearly a lifetime, and all the +resources of a fine intellect and an earnest conviction, to make us +revere as well as admire Bacon. But it is vain. It is vain to fight +against the facts of his life: his words, his letters. "Men are made +up," says a keen observer, "of professions, gifts, and talents; and +also of _themselves_."[2] With all his greatness, his splendid genius, +his magnificent ideas, his enthusiasm for truth, his passion to be the +benefactor of his kind; with all the charm that made him loved by good +and worthy friends, amiable, courteous, patient, delightful as a +companion, ready to take any trouble--there was in Bacon's "self" a deep +and fatal flaw. He was a pleaser of men. There was in him that subtle +fault, noted and named both by philosophy and religion in the [Greek: +areskos] of Aristotle, the [Greek: anthropareskos] of St. Paul, which is +more common than it is pleasant to think, even in good people, but which +if it becomes dominant in a character is ruinous to truth and power. He +was one of the men--there are many of them--who are unable to release +their imagination from the impression of present and immediate power, +face to face with themselves. It seems as if he carried into conduct the +leading rule of his philosophy of nature, _parendo vincitur_. In both +worlds, moral and physical, he felt himself encompassed by vast forces, +irresistible by direct opposition. Men whom he wanted to bring round to +his purposes were as strange, as refractory, as obstinate, as +impenetrable as the phenomena of the natural world. It was no use +attacking in front, and by a direct trial of strength, people like +Elizabeth or Cecil or James; he might as well think of forcing some +natural power in defiance of natural law. The first word of his teaching +about nature is that she must be won by observation of her tendencies +and demands; the same radical disposition of temper reveals itself in +his dealings with men: they, too, must be won by yielding to them, by +adapting himself to their moods and ends; by spying into the drift of +their humour, by subtly and pliantly falling in with it, by circuitous +and indirect processes, the fruit of vigilance and patient thought. He +thought to direct, while submitting apparently to be directed. But he +mistook his strength. Nature and man are different powers, and under +different laws. He chose to please man, and not to follow what his soul +must have told him was the better way. He wanted, in his dealings with +men, that sincerity on which he insisted so strongly in his dealings +with nature and knowledge. And the ruin of a great life was the +consequence. + +Francis Bacon was born in London on the 22d of January, 1560/61, three +years before Galileo. He was born at York House, in the Strand; the +house which, though it belonged to the Archbishops of York, had been +lately tenanted by Lord Keepers and Lord Chancellors, in which Bacon +himself afterwards lived as Lord Chancellor, and which passed after his +fall into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, who has left his mark in +the Water Gate which is now seen, far from the river, in the garden of +the Thames Embankment. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, Elizabeth's +first Lord Keeper, the fragment of whose effigy in the Crypt of St. +Paul's is one of the few relics of the old Cathedral before the fire. +His uncle by marriage was that William Cecil who was to be Lord +Burghley. His mother, the sister of Lady Cecil, was one of the daughters +of Sir Antony Cook, a person deep in the confidence of the reforming +party, who had been tutor of Edward VI. She was a remarkable woman, +highly accomplished after the fashion of the ladies of her party, and as +would become her father's daughter and the austere and laborious family +to which she belonged. She was "exquisitely skilled in the Greek and +Latin tongues;" she was passionately religious, according to the +uncompromising religion which the exiles had brought back with them from +Geneva, Strasburg, and Zurich, and which saw in Calvin's theology a +solution of all the difficulties, and in his discipline a remedy for all +the evils, of mankind. This means that his boyhood from the first was +passed among the high places of the world--at one of the greatest crises +of English history--in the very centre and focus of its agitations. He +was brought up among the chiefs and leaders of the rising religion, in +the houses of the greatest and most powerful persons of the State, and +naturally, as their child, at times in the Court of the Queen, who joked +with him, and called him "her young Lord Keeper." It means also that the +religious atmosphere in which he was brought up was that of the nascent +and aggressive Puritanism, which was not satisfied with the compromises +of the Elizabethan Reformation, and which saw in the moral poverty and +incapacity of many of its chiefs a proof against the great traditional +system of the Church which Elizabeth was loath to part with, and which, +in spite of all its present and inevitable shortcomings, her political +sagacity taught her to reverence and trust. + +At the age of twelve he was sent to Cambridge, and put under Whitgift at +Trinity. It is a question which recurs continually to readers about +those times and their precocious boys, what boys were then? For whatever +was the learning of the universities, these boys took their place with +men and consorted with them, sharing such knowledge as men had, and +performing exercises and hearing lectures according to the standard of +men. Grotius at eleven was the pupil and companion of Scaliger and the +learned band of Leyden; at fourteen he was part of the company which +went with the ambassadors of the States-General to Henry IV.; at sixteen +he was called to the bar, he published an out-of-the-way Latin writer, +Martianus Capella, with a learned commentary, and he was the +correspondent of De Thou. When Bacon was hardly sixteen he was admitted +to the Society of "Ancients" of Gray's Inn, and he went in the household +of Sir Amyas Paulet, the Queen's Ambassador, to France. He thus spent +two years in France, not in Paris alone, but at Blois, Tours, and +Poitiers. If this was precocious, there is no indication that it was +thought precocious. It only meant that clever and promising boys were +earlier associated with men in important business than is customary now. +The old and the young heads began to work together sooner. Perhaps they +felt that there was less time to spare. In spite of instances of +longevity, life was shorter for the average of busy men, for the +conditions of life were worse. + +Two recollections only have been preserved of his early years. One is +that, as he told his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, late in life, he had +discovered, as far back as his Cambridge days, the "unfruitfulness" of +Aristotle's method. It is easy to make too much of this. It is not +uncommon for undergraduates to criticise their text-books; it was the +fashion with clever men, as, for instance, Montaigne, to talk against +Aristotle without knowing anything about him; it is not uncommon for men +who have worked out a great idea to find traces of it, on precarious +grounds, in their boyish thinking. Still, it is worth noting that Bacon +himself believed that his fundamental quarrel with Aristotle had begun +with the first efforts of thought, and that this is the one recollection +remaining of his early tendency in speculation. The other is more +trustworthy, and exhibits that inventiveness which was characteristic +of his mind. He tells us in the _De Augmentis_ that when he was in +France he occupied himself with devising an improved system of +cypher-writing--a thing of daily and indispensable use for rival +statesmen and rival intriguers. But the investigation, with its call on +the calculating and combining faculties, would also interest him, as an +example of the discovery of new powers by the human mind. + +In the beginning of 1579 Bacon, at eighteen, was called home by his +father's death. This was a great blow to his prospects. His father had +not accomplished what he had intended for him, and Francis Bacon was +left with only a younger son's "narrow portion." What was worse, he lost +one whose credit would have served him in high places. He entered on +life, not as he might have expected, independent and with court favour +on his side, but with his very livelihood to gain--a competitor at the +bottom of the ladder for patronage and countenance. This great change in +his fortunes told very unfavourably on his happiness, his usefulness, +and, it must be added, on his character. He accepted it, indeed, +manfully, and at once threw himself into the study of the law as the +profession by which he was to live. But the law, though it was the only +path open to him, was not the one which suited his genius, or his object +in life. To the last he worked hard and faithfully, but with doubtful +reputation as to his success, and certainly against the grain. And this +was not the worst. To make up for the loss of that start in life of +which his father's untimely death had deprived him, he became, for +almost the rest of his life, the most importunate and most untiring of +suitors. + +In 1579 or 1580 Bacon took up his abode at Gray's Inn, which for a long +time was his home. He went through the various steps of his profession. +He began, what he never discontinued, his earnest and humble appeals to +his relative the great Lord Burghley, to employ him in the Queen's +service, or to put him in some place of independence: through Lord +Burghley's favour he seems to have been pushed on at his Inn, where, in +1586, he was a Bencher; and in 1584 he came into Parliament for Melcombe +Regis. He took some small part in Parliament; but the only record of his +speeches is contained in a surly note of Recorder Fleetwood, who writes +as an old member might do of a young one talking nonsense. He sat again +for Liverpool in the year of the Armada (1588), and his name begins to +appear in the proceedings. These early years, we know, were busy ones. +In them Bacon laid the foundation of his observations and judgments on +men and affairs; and in them the great purpose and work of his life was +conceived and shaped. But they are more obscure years than might have +been expected in the case of a man of Bacon's genius and family, and of +such eager and unconcealed desire to rise and be at work. No doubt he +was often pinched in his means; his health was weak, and he was delicate +and fastidious in his care of it. Plunged in work, he lived very much as +a recluse in his chambers, and was thought to be reserved, and what +those who disliked him called arrogant. But Bacon was +ambitious--ambitious, in the first place, of the Queen's notice and +favour. He was versatile, brilliant, courtly, besides being his father's +son; and considering how rapidly bold and brilliant men were able to +push their way and take the Queen's favour by storm, it seems strange +that Bacon should have remained fixedly in the shade. Something must +have kept him back. Burghley was not the man to neglect a useful +instrument with such good will to serve him. But all that Mr. +Spedding's industry and profound interest in the subject has brought +together throws but an uncertain light on Bacon's long disappointment. +Was it the rooted misgiving of a man of affairs like Burghley at that +passionate contempt of all existing knowledge, and that undoubting +confidence in his own power to make men know, as they never had known, +which Bacon was even now professing? Or was it something soft and +over-obsequious in character which made the uncle, who knew well what +men he wanted, disinclined to encourage and employ the nephew? Was +Francis not hard enough, not narrow enough, too full of ideas, too much +alive to the shakiness of current doctrines and arguments on religion +and policy? Was he too open to new impressions, made by objections or +rival views? Or did he show signs of wanting backbone to stand amid +difficulties and threatening prospects? Did Burghley see something in +him of the pliability which he could remember as the serviceable quality +of his own young days--which suited those days of rapid change, but not +days when change was supposed to be over, and when the qualities which +were wanted were those which resist and defy it? The only thing that is +clear is that Burghley, in spite of Bacon's continual applications, +abstained to the last from advancing his fortunes. + +Whether employed by government or not, Bacon began at this time to +prepare those carefully-written papers on the public affairs of the day, +of which he has left a good many. In our day they would have been +pamphlets or magazine articles. In his they were circulated in +manuscript, and only occasionally printed. The first of any importance +is a letter of advice to the Queen, about the year 1585, on the policy +to be followed with a view to keeping in check the Roman Catholic +interest at home and abroad. It is calm, sagacious, and, according to +the fashion of the age, slightly Machiavellian. But the first subject on +which Bacon exhibited his characteristic qualities, his appreciation of +facts, his balance of thought, and his power, when not personally +committed, of standing aloof from the ordinary prejudices and +assumptions of men round him, was the religious condition and prospects +of the English Church. Bacon had been brought up in a Puritan household +of the straitest sect. His mother was an earnest, severe, and intolerant +Calvinist, deep in the interests and cause of her party, bitterly +resenting all attempts to keep in order its pretensions. She was a +masterful woman, claiming to meddle with her brother-in-law's policy, +and though a most affectionate mother she was a woman of violent and +ungovernable temper. Her letters to her son Antony, whom she loved +passionately, but whom she suspected of keeping dangerous and papistical +company, show us the imperious spirit in which she claimed to interfere +with her sons; and they show also that in Francis she did not find all +the deference which she looked for. Recommending Antony to frequent "the +religious exercises of the sincerer sort," she warns him not to follow +his brother's advice or example. Antony was advised to use prayer twice +a day with his servants. "Your brother," she adds, "is too negligent +therein." She is anxious about Antony's health, and warns him not to +fall into his brother's ill-ordered habits: "I verily think your +brother's weak stomach to digest hath been much caused and confirmed by +untimely going to bed, and then musing _nescio quid_ when he should +sleep, and then in consequent by late rising and long lying in bed, +whereby his men are made slothful and himself continueth sickly. But my +sons haste not to hearken to their mother's good counsel in time to +prevent." It seems clear that Francis Bacon had shown his mother that +not only in the care of his health, but in his judgment on religious +matters, he meant to go his own way. Mr. Spedding thinks that she must +have had much influence on him; it seems more likely that he resented +her interference, and that the hard and narrow arrogance which she read +into the Gospel produced in him a strong reaction. Bacon was obsequious +to the tyranny of power, but he was never inclined to bow to the tyranny +of opinion; and the tyranny of Puritan infallibility was the last thing +to which he was likely to submit. His mother would have wished him to +sit under Cartwright and Travers. The friend of his choice was the +Anglican preacher, Dr. Andrewes, to whom he submitted all his works, and +whom he called his "inquisitor general;" and he was proud to sign +himself the pupil of Whitgift, and to write for him--the archbishop of +whom Lady Bacon wrote to her son Antony, veiling the dangerous sentiment +in Greek, "that he was the ruin of the Church, for he loved his own +glory more than Christ's." + +Certainly, in the remarkable paper on _Controversies in the Church_ +(1589), Bacon had ceased to feel or to speak as a Puritan. The paper is +an attempt to compose the controversy by pointing out the mistakes in +judgment, in temper, and in method on both sides. It is entirely unlike +what a Puritan would have written: it is too moderate, too tolerant, too +neutral, though like most essays of conciliation it is open to the +rejoinder from both sides--certainly from the Puritan--that it begs the +question by assuming the unimportance of the matters about which each +contended with so much zeal. It is the confirmation, but also the +complement, and in some ways the correction of Hooker's contemporary +view of the quarrel which was threatening the life of the English +Church, and not even Hooker could be so comprehensive and so fair. For +Hooker had to defend much that was indefensible: he had to defend a +great traditional system, just convulsed by a most tremendous shock--a +shock and alteration, as Bacon says, "the greatest and most dangerous +that can be in a State," in which old clews and habits and rules were +confused and all but lost; in which a frightful amount of personal +incapacity and worthlessness had, from sheer want of men, risen to the +high places of the Church; and in which force and violence, sometimes of +the most hateful kind, had come to be accepted as ordinary instruments +in the government of souls. Hooker felt too strongly the unfairness, the +folly, the intolerant aggressiveness, the malignity of his opponents--he +was too much alive to the wrongs inflicted by them on his own side, and +to the incredible absurdity of their arguments--to do justice to what +was only too real in the charges and complaints of those opponents. But +Bacon came from the very heart of the Puritan camp. He had seen the +inside of Puritanism--its best as well as its worst side. He witnesses +to the humility, the conscientiousness, the labour, the learning, the +hatred of sin and wrong, of many of its preachers. He had heard, and +heard with sympathy, all that could be urged against the bishops' +administration, and against a system of legal oppression in the name of +the Church. Where religious elements were so confusedly mixed, and where +each side had apparently so much to urge on behalf of its claims, he saw +the deep mistake of loftily ignoring facts, and of want of patience and +forbearance with those who were scandalised at abuses, while the abuses, +in some cases monstrous, were tolerated and turned to profit. Towards +the bishops and their policy, though his language is very respectful, +for the government was implicated, he is very severe. They punish and +restrain, but they do not themselves mend their ways or supply what was +wanting; and theirs are "_injuriae potentiorum_"--"injuries come from +them that have the upperhand." But Hooker himself did not put his finger +more truly and more surely on the real mischief of the Puritan movement: +on the immense outbreak in it of unreasonable party spirit and visible +personal ambition--"these are the true successors of Diotrephes and not +my lord bishops"--on the gradual development of the Puritan theory till +it came at last to claim a supremacy as unquestionable and intolerant as +that of the Papacy; on the servile affectation of the fashions of Geneva +and Strasburg; on the poverty and foolishness of much of the Puritan +teaching--its inability to satisfy the great questions which it raised +in the soul, its unworthy dealing with Scripture--"naked examples, +conceited inferences, and forced allusions, which mine into all +certainty of religion"--"the word, the bread of life, they toss up and +down, they break it not;" on their undervaluing of moral worth, if it +did not speak in their phraseology--"as they censure virtuous men by the +names of _civil_ and _moral_, so do they censure men truly and godly +wise, who see into the vanity of their assertions, by the name of +_politiques_, saying that their wisdom is but carnal and savouring of +man's brain." Bacon saw that the Puritans were aiming at a tyranny +which, if they established it, would be more comprehensive, more +searching, and more cruel than that of the older systems; but he thought +it a remote and improbable danger, and that they might safely be +tolerated for the work they did in education and preaching, "because the +work of exhortation doth chiefly rest upon these men, and they have a +zeal and hate of sin." But he ends by warning them lest "that be true +which one of their adversaries said, _that they have but two small +wants--knowledge and love_." One complaint that he makes of them is a +curious instance of the changes of feeling, or at least of language, on +moral subjects. He accuses them of "having pronounced generally, and +without difference, all untruths unlawful," forgetful of the Egyptian +midwives, and Rahab, and Solomon, and even of Him "who, the more to +touch the hearts of the disciples with a holy dalliance, made as though +he would have passed Emmaus." He is thinking of their failure to apply a +principle which was characteristic of his mode of thought, that even a +statement about a virtue like veracity "hath limit as all things else +have;" but it is odd to find Bacon bringing against the Puritans the +converse of the charge which his age, and Pascal afterwards, brought +against the Jesuits. The essay, besides being a picture of the times as +regards religion, is an example of what was to be Bacon's characteristic +strength and weakness: his strength in lifting up a subject which had +been degraded by mean and wrangling disputations, into a higher and +larger light, and bringing to bear on it great principles and the +results of the best human wisdom and experience, expressed in weighty +and pregnant maxims; his weakness in forgetting, as, in spite of his +philosophy, he so often did, that the grandest major premises need +well-proved and ascertained minors, and that the enunciation of a +principle is not the same thing as the application of it. Doubtless +there is truth in his closing words; but each party would have made the +comment that what he had to prove, and had not proved, was that by +following his counsel they would "love the whole world better than a +part." + + "Let them not fear ... the fond calumny of _neutrality_; but let + them know that is true which is said by a wise man, _that neuters + in contentions are either better or worse than either side_. These + things have I in all sincerity and simplicity set down touching the + controversies which now trouble the Church of England; and that + without all art and insinuation, and therefore not like to be + grateful to either part. Notwithstanding, I trust what has been + said shall find a correspondence in their minds which are not + embarked in partiality, and which _love the whole letter than a + part_" + +Up to this time, though Bacon had showed himself capable of taking a +broad and calm view of questions which it was the fashion among good +men, and men who were in possession of the popular ear, to treat with +narrowness and heat, there was nothing to disclose his deeper +thoughts--nothing foreshadowed the purpose which was to fill his life. +He had, indeed, at the age of twenty-five, written a "youthful" +philosophical essay, to which he gave the pompous title "_Temporis +Partus Maximus_," "the Greatest Birth of Time." But he was thirty-one +when we first find an indication of the great idea and the great +projects which were to make his name famous. This indication is +contained in an earnest appeal to Lord Burghley for some help which +should not be illusory. Its words are distinct and far-reaching, and +they are the first words from him which tell us what was in his heart. +The letter has the interest to us of the first announcement of a promise +which, to ordinary minds, must have appeared visionary and extravagant, +but which was so splendidly fulfilled; the first distant sight of that +sea of knowledge which henceforth was opened to mankind, but on which no +man, as he thought, had yet entered. It contains the famous avowal--"_I +have taken all knowledge to be my province_"--made in the confidence +born of long and silent meditations and questionings, but made in a +simple good faith which is as far as possible from vain boastfulness. + + "MY LORD,--With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful + devotion unto your service and your honourable correspondence unto + me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto + your Lordship. I wax now somewhat ancient: one and thirty years is + a great deal of sand in the hour glass. My health, I thank God, I + find confirmed; and I do not fear that action shall impair it, + because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be + more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in + some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty, not + as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter, + that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me away + wholly), but as a man born under an excellent sovereign that + deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do not + find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my + thoughts are to deserve well (if I be able) of my friends, and + namely of your Lordship; who, being the Atlas of this commonwealth, + the honour of my house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I + am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy + kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do + you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move + me; for though I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or + slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. + Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have + moderate civil ends; for I have taken all knowledge to be my + province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof + the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, + the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and + impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in + industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable + inventions and discoveries: the best state of that province. This, + whether it be curiosity or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take + it favourably) _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot + be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable + countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's + own; which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship, + perhaps you shall not find more strength and less encounter in any + other. And if your Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I + do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your + Lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest + man. And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as + Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto + voluntary poverty, but this I will do--I will sell the inheritance + I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of + gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of + service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in + that mine of truth which (he said) lay so deep. This which I have + writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set + down without all art, disguising, or reservation. Wherein I have + done honour both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging that that + will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to your + Lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing from you. And even so + I wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and + occasions to be added to my faithful desire to do you service. From + my lodgings at Gray's Inn." + +This letter to his unsympathetic and suspicious, but probably not +unfriendly relative, is the key to Bacon's plan of life; which, with +numberless changes of form, he followed to the end. That is, a +profession, steadily, seriously, and laboriously kept to, in order to +provide the means of living; and beyond that, as the ultimate and real +end of his life, the pursuit, in a way unattempted before, of all +possible human knowledge, and of the methods to improve it and make it +sure and fruitful. And so his life was carried out. On the one hand it +was a continual and pertinacious seeking after government employment, +which could give credit to his name and put money in his +pocket--attempts by general behaviour, by professional services when the +occasion offered, by putting his original and fertile pen at the service +of the government, to win confidence, and to overcome the manifest +indisposition of those in power to think that a man who cherished the +chimera of universal knowledge could be a useful public servant. On the +other hand, all the while, in the crises of his disappointment or +triumph, the one great subject lay next his heart, filling him with +fire and passion--how really to know, and to teach men to know indeed, +and to use their knowledge so as to command nature; the great hope to be +the reformer and restorer of knowledge in a more wonderful sense than +the world had yet seen in the reformation of learning and religion, and +in the spread of civilised order in the great states of the Renaissance +time. To this he gave his best and deepest thoughts; for this he was for +ever accumulating, and for ever rearranging and reshaping those masses +of observation and inquiry and invention and mental criticism which were +to come in as parts of the great design which he had seen in the visions +of his imagination, and of which at last he was only able to leave noble +fragments, incomplete after numberless recastings. This was not indeed +the only, but it was the predominant and governing, interest of his +life. Whether as solicitor for Court favour or public office; whether +drudging at the work of the law or managing State prosecutions; whether +writing an opportune pamphlet against Spain or Father Parsons, or +inventing a "device" for his Inn or for Lord Essex to give amusement to +Queen Elizabeth; whether fulfilling his duties as member of Parliament +or rising step by step to the highest places in the Council Board and +the State; whether in the pride of success or under the amazement of +unexpected and irreparable overthrow, while it seemed as if he was only +measuring his strength against the rival ambitions of the day, in the +same spirit and with the same object as his competitors, the true motive +of all his eagerness and all his labours was not theirs. He wanted to be +powerful, and still more to be rich; but he wanted to be so, because +without power and without money he could not follow what was to him the +only thing worth following on earth--a real knowledge of the amazing and +hitherto almost unknown world in which he had to live. Bacon, to us, at +least, at this distance, who can only judge him from partial and +imperfect knowledge, often seems to fall far short of what a man should +be. He was not one of the high-minded and proud searchers after +knowledge and truth, like Descartes, who were content to accept a frugal +independence so that their time and their thoughts might be their own. +Bacon was a man of the world, and wished to live in and with the world. +He threatened sometimes retirement, but never with any very serious +intention. In the Court was his element, and there were his hopes. Often +there seems little to distinguish him from the ordinary place-hunters, +obsequious and selfish, of every age; little to distinguish him from the +servile and insincere flatterers, of whom he himself complains, who +crowded the antechambers of the great Queen, content to submit with +smiling face and thankful words to the insolence of her waywardness and +temper, in the hope, more often disappointed than not, of hitting her +taste on some lucky occasion, and being rewarded for the accident by a +place of gain or honour. Bacon's history, as read in his letters, is not +an agreeable one; after every allowance made for the fashions of +language and the necessities of a suitor, there is too much of insincere +profession of disinterestedness, too much of exaggerated profession of +admiration and devoted service, too much of disparagement and +insinuation against others, for a man who respected himself. He +submitted too much to the miserable conditions of rising which he found. +But, nevertheless, it must be said that it was for no mean object, for +no mere private selfishness or vanity, that he endured all this. He +strove hard to be a great man and a rich man. But it was that he might +have his hands free and strong and well furnished to carry forward the +double task of overthrowing ignorance and building up the new and solid +knowledge on which his heart was set--that immense conquest of nature on +behalf of man which he believed to be possible, and of which he believed +himself to have the key. + +The letter to Lord Burghley did not help him much. He received the +reversion of a place, the Clerkship of the Council, which did not become +vacant for twenty years. But these years of service declined and place +withheld were busy and useful ones. What he was most intent upon, and +what occupied his deepest and most serious thought, was unknown to the +world round him, and probably not very intelligible to his few intimate +friends, such as his brother Antony and Dr. Andrewes. Meanwhile he +placed his pen at the disposal of the authorities, and though they +regarded him more as a man of study than of practice and experience, +they were glad to make use of it. His versatile genius found another +employment. Besides his affluence in topics, he had the liveliest fancy +and most active imagination. But that he wanted the sense of poetic +fitness and melody, he might almost be supposed, with his reach and play +of thought, to have been capable, as is maintained in some eccentric +modern theories, of writing Shakespeare's plays. No man ever had a more +imaginative power of illustration drawn from the most remote and most +unlikely analogies; analogies often of the quaintest and most unexpected +kind, but often also not only felicitous in application but profound and +true. His powers were early called upon for some of those sportive +compositions in which that age delighted on occasions of rejoicing or +festival. Three of his contributions to these "devices" have been +preserved--two of them composed in honour of the Queen, as "triumphs," +offered by Lord Essex, one probably in 1592 and another in 1595; a +third for a Gray's Inn revel in 1594. The "devices" themselves were of +the common type of the time, extravagant, odd, full of awkward allegory +and absurd flattery, and running to a prolixity which must make modern +lovers of amusement wonder at the patience of those days; but the +"discourses" furnished by Bacon are full of fine observation and +brilliant thought and wit and happy illustration, which, fantastic as +the general conception is, raises them far above the level of such +fugitive trifles. + +Among the fragmentary papers belonging to this time which have come +down, not the least curious are those which throw light on his manner of +working. While he was following out the great ideas which were to be the +basis of his philosophy, he was as busy and as painstaking in fashioning +the instruments by which they were to be expressed; and in these papers +we have the records and specimens of this preparation. He was a great +collector of sentences, proverbs, quotations, sayings, illustrations, +anecdotes, and he seems to have read sometimes simply to gather phrases +and apt words. He jots down at random any good and pointed remark which +comes into his thought or his memory; at another time he groups a set of +stock quotations with a special drift, bearing on some subject, such as +the faults of universities or the habits of lawyers. Nothing is too +minute for his notice. He brings together in great profusion mere forms, +varied turns of expression, heads and tails of clauses and paragraphs, +transitions, connections; he notes down fashions of compliment, of +excuse or repartee, even morning and evening salutations; he records +neat and convenient opening and concluding sentences, ways of speaking +more adapted than others to give a special colour or direction to what +the speaker or writer has to say--all that hook-and-eye work which seems +so trivial and passes so unnoticed as a matter of course, and which yet +is often hard to reach, and which makes all the difference between +tameness and liveliness, between clearness and obscurity--all the +difference, not merely to the ease and naturalness, but often to the +logical force of speech. These collections it was his way to sift and +transcribe again and again, adding as well as omitting. From one of +these, belonging to 1594 and the following years, the _Promus of +Formularies and Elegancies_, Mr. Spedding has given curious extracts; +and the whole collection has been recently edited by Mrs. Henry Pott. +Thus it was that he prepared himself for what, as we read it, or as his +audience heard it, seems the suggestion or recollection of the moment. +Bacon was always much more careful of the value or aptness of a thought +than of its appearing new and original. Of all great writers he least +minds repeating himself, perhaps in the very same words; so that a +simile, an illustration, a quotation pleases him, he returns to it--he +is never tired of it; it obviously gives him satisfaction to introduce +it again and again. These collections of odds and ends illustrate +another point in his literary habits. His was a mind keenly sensitive to +all analogies and affinities, impatient of a strict and rigid logical +groove, but spreading as it were tentacles on all sides in quest of +chance prey, and quickened into a whole system of imagination by the +electric quiver imparted by a single word, at once the key and symbol of +the thinking it had led to. And so he puts down word or phrase, so +enigmatical to us who see it by itself, which to him would wake up a +whole train of ideas, as he remembered the occasion of it--how at a +certain time and place this word set the whole moving, seemed to +breathe new life and shed new light, and has remained the token, +meaningless in itself, which reminds him of so much. + +When we come to read his letters, his speeches, his works, we come +continually on the results and proofs of this early labour. Some of the +most memorable and familiar passages of his writings are to be traced +from the storehouses which he filled in these years of preparation. An +example of this correspondence between the note-book and the composition +is to be seen in a paper belonging to this period, written apparently to +form part of a masque, or as he himself calls it, a "Conference of +Pleasure," and entitled the _Praise of Knowledge_. It is interesting +because it is the first draught which we have from him of some of the +leading ideas and most characteristic language about the defects and the +improvement of knowledge, which were afterwards embodied in the +_Advancement_ and the _Novum Organum_. The whole spirit and aim of his +great reform is summed up in the following fine passage: + + "Facility to believe, impatience to doubt, temerity to assever, + glory to know, doubt to contradict, end to gain, sloth to search, + seeking things in words, resting in a part of nature--these and the + like have been the things which have forbidden the happy match + between the mind of man and the nature of things, and in place + thereof have married it to vain notions and blind experiments.... + Therefore, no doubt, the _sovereignty of man_ lieth hid in + knowledge; wherein many things are reserved which kings with their + treasures cannot buy nor with their force command; their spials and + intelligencers can give no news of them; their seamen and + discoverers cannot sail where they grow. Now we govern nature in + opinions, but we are thrall unto her in necessity; but if we could + be led by her in invention, we should command her in action." + +To the same occasion as the discourse on the _Praise of Knowledge_ +belongs, also, one in _Praise of the Queen_. As one is an early specimen +of his manner of writing on philosophy, so this is a specimen of what +was equally characteristic of him--his political and historical writing. +It is, in form, necessarily a panegyric, as high-flown and adulatory as +such performances in those days were bound to be. But it is not only +flattery. It fixes with true discrimination on the points in Elizabeth's +character and reign which were really subjects of admiration and homage. +Thus of her unquailing spirit at the time of the Spanish invasion-- + + "Lastly, see a Queen, that when her realm was to have been invaded + by an army, the preparation whereof was like the travail of an + elephant, the provisions infinite, the setting forth whereof was + the terror and wonder of Europe; it was not seen that her cheer, + her fashion, her ordinary manner was anything altered; not a cloud + of that storm did appear in that countenance wherein peace doth + ever shine; but with excellent assurance and advised security she + inspired her council, animated her nobility, redoubled the courage + of her people; still having this noble apprehension, not only that + she would communicate her fortune with them, but that it was she + that would protect them, and not they her; which she testified by + no less demonstration than her presence in camp. Therefore that + magnanimity that neither feareth greatness of alteration, nor the + vows of conspirators, nor the power of the enemy, is more than + heroical." + +These papers, though he put his best workmanship into them, as he +invariably did with whatever he touched, were of an ornamental kind. But +he did more serious work. In the year 1592 a pamphlet had been published +on the Continent in Latin and English, _Responsio ad Edictum Reginae +Angliae_, with reference to the severe legislation which followed on the +Armada, making such charges against the Queen and the Government as it +was natural for the Roman Catholic party to make, and making them with +the utmost virulence and unscrupulousness. It was supposed to be written +by the ablest of the Roman pamphleteers, Father Parsons. The Government +felt it to be a dangerous indictment, and Bacon was chosen to write the +answer to it. He had additional interest in the matter, for the pamphlet +made a special and bitter attack on Burghley, as the person mainly +responsible for the Queen's policy. Bacon's reply is long and elaborate, +taking up every charge, and reviewing from his own point of view the +whole course of the struggle between the Queen and the supporters of the +Roman Catholic interest abroad and at home. It cannot be considered an +impartial review; besides that it was written to order, no man in +England could then write impartially in that quarrel; but it is not more +one-sided and uncandid than the pamphlet which it answers, and Bacon is +able to recriminate with effect, and to show gross credulity and +looseness of assertion on the part of the Roman Catholic advocate. But +religion had too much to do with the politics of both sides for either +to be able to come into the dispute with clean hands: the Roman +Catholics meant much more than toleration, and the sanguinary +punishments of the English law against priests and Jesuits were edged by +something even keener than the fear of treason. But the paper contains +some large surveys of public affairs, which probably no one at that time +could write but Bacon. Bacon never liked to waste anything good which he +had written; and much of what he had written in the panegyric in _Praise +of the Queen_ is made use of again, and transferred with little change +to the pages of the _Observations on a Libel_. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Dr. Mozley. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +BACON AND ELIZABETH. + + +The last decade of the century, and almost of Elizabeth's reign +(1590-1600), was an eventful one to Bacon's fortunes. In it the vision +of his great design disclosed itself more and more to his imagination +and hopes, and with more and more irresistible fascination. In it he +made his first literary venture, the first edition of his _Essays_ +(1597), ten in number, the first-fruits of his early and ever watchful +observation of men and affairs. These years, too, saw his first steps in +public life, the first efforts to bring him into importance, the first +great trials and tests of his character. They saw the beginning and they +saw the end of his relations with the only friend who, at that time, +recognised his genius and his purposes, certainly the only friend who +ever pushed his claims; they saw the growth of a friendship which was to +have so tragical a close, and they saw the beginnings and causes of a +bitter personal rivalry which was to last through life, and which was to +be a potent element hereafter in Bacon's ruin. The friend was the Earl +of Essex. The competitor was the ablest, and also the most truculent and +unscrupulous of English lawyers, Edward Coke. + +While Bacon, in the shade, had been laying the foundations of his +philosophy of nature, and vainly suing for legal or political +employment, another man had been steadily rising in the Queen's favour +and carrying all before him at Court--Robert Devereux, Lord Essex; and +with Essex Bacon had formed an acquaintance which had ripened into an +intimate and affectionate friendship. We commonly think of Essex as a +vain and insolent favourite, who did ill the greatest work given him to +do--the reduction of Ireland; who did it ill from some unexplained +reason of spite and mischief; and who, when called to account for it, +broke out into senseless and idle rebellion. This was the end. But he +was not always thus. He began life with great gifts and noble ends; he +was a serious, modest, and large-minded student both of books and +things, and he turned his studies to full account. He had imagination +and love of enterprise, which gave him an insight into Bacon's ideas +such as none of Bacon's contemporaries had. He was a man of simple and +earnest religion; he sympathized most with the Puritans, because they +were serious and because they were hardly used. Those who most condemn +him acknowledge his nobleness and generosity of nature. Bacon in after +days, when all was over between them, spoke of him as a man always +_patientissimus veri_; "the more plainly and frankly you shall deal with +my lord," he writes elsewhere, "not only in disclosing particulars, but +in giving him _caveats_ and admonishing him of any error which in this +action he may commit (such is his lordship's nature), the better he will +take it." "He must have seemed," says Mr. Spedding, a little too +grandly, "in the eyes of Bacon like the hope of the world." The two men, +certainly, became warmly attached. Their friendship came to be one of +the closest kind, full of mutual services, and of genuine affection on +both sides. It was not the relation of a great patron and useful +dependant; it was, what might be expected in the two men, that of +affectionate equality. Each man was equally capable of seeing what the +other was, and saw it. What Essex's feelings were towards Bacon the +results showed. Bacon, in after years, repeatedly claimed to have +devoted his whole time and labour to Essex's service. Holding him, he +says, to be "the fittest instrument to do good to the State, I applied +myself to him in a manner which I think rarely happeneth among men; +neglecting the Queen's service, mine own fortune, and, in a sort, my +vocation, I did nothing but advise and ruminate with myself ... anything +that might concern his lordship's honour, fortune, or service." The +claim is far too wide. The "Queen's service" had hardly as yet come much +in Bacon's way, and he never neglected it when it did come, nor his own +fortune or vocation; his letters remain to attest his care in these +respects. But no doubt Bacon was then as ready to be of use to Essex, +the one man who seemed to understand and value him, as Essex was +desirous to be of use to Bacon. + +And it seemed as if Essex would have the ability as well as the wish. +Essex was, without exception, the most brilliant man who ever appeared +at Elizabeth's Court, and it seemed as if he were going to be the most +powerful. Leicester was dead. Burghley was growing old, and indisposed +for the adventures and levity which, with all her grand power of ruling, +Elizabeth loved. She needed a favourite, and Essex was unfortunately +marked out for what she wanted. He had Leicester's fascination, without +his mean and cruel selfishness. He was as generous, as gallant, as quick +to descry all great things in art and life, as Philip Sidney, with more +vigour and fitness for active life than Sidney. He had not Raleigh's +sad, dark depths of thought, but he had a daring courage equal to +Raleigh's, without Raleigh's cynical contempt for mercy and honour. He +had every personal advantage requisite for a time when intellect, and +ready wit, and high-tempered valour, and personal beauty, and skill in +affairs, with equal skill in amusements, were expected to go together in +the accomplished courtier. And Essex was a man not merely to be courted +and admired, to shine and dazzle, but to be loved. Elizabeth, with her +strange and perverse emotional constitution, loved him, if she ever +loved any one. Every one who served him loved him; and he was, as much +as any one could be in those days, a popular favourite. Under better +fortune he might have risen to a great height of character; in +Elizabeth's Court he was fated to be ruined. + +For in that Court all the qualities in him which needed control received +daily stimulus, and his ardour and high-aiming temper turned into +impatience and restless irritability. He had a mistress who was at one +time in the humour to be treated as a tender woman, at another as an +outrageous flirt, at another as the haughtiest and most imperious of +queens; her mood varied, no one could tell how, and it was most +dangerous to mistake it. It was part of her pleasure to find in her +favourite a spirit as high, a humour as contradictory and determined, as +her own; it was the charming contrast to the obsequiousness or the +prudence of the rest; but no one could be sure at what unlooked-for +moment, and how fiercely, she might resent in earnest a display of what +she had herself encouraged. Essex was ruined for all real greatness by +having to suit himself to this bewildering and most unwholesome and +degrading waywardness. She taught him to think himself irresistible in +opinion and in claims; she amused herself in teaching him how completely +he was mistaken. Alternately spoiled and crossed, he learned to be +exacting, unreasonable, absurd in his pettish resentments or brooding +sullenness. He learned to think that she must be dealt with by the same +methods which she herself employed. The effect was not produced in a +moment; it was the result of a courtiership of sixteen years. But it +ended in corrupting a noble nature. Essex came to believe that she who +cowed others must be frightened herself; that the stinging injustice +which led a proud man to expect, only to see how he would behave when +refused, deserved to be brought to reason by a counter-buffet as rough +as her own insolent caprice. He drifted into discontent, into +disaffection, into neglect of duty, into questionable schemings for the +future of a reign that must shortly end, into criminal methods of +guarding himself, of humbling his rivals and regaining influence. A +"fatal impatience," as Bacon calls it, gave his rivals an advantage +which, perhaps in self-defence, they could not fail to take; and that +career, so brilliant, so full of promise of good, ended in misery, in +dishonour, in remorse, on the scaffold of the Tower. + +With this attractive and powerful person Bacon's fortunes, in the last +years of the century, became more and more knit up. Bacon was now past +thirty, Essex a few years younger. In spite of Bacon's apparent +advantage and interest at Court, in spite of abilities, which, though +his genius was not yet known, his contemporaries clearly recognised, he +was still a struggling and unsuccessful man: ambitious to rise, for no +unworthy reasons, but needy, in weak health, with careless and expensive +habits, and embarrassed with debt. He had hoped to rise by the favour of +the Queen and for the sake of his father. For some ill-explained reason +he was to the last disappointed. Though she used him "for matters of +state and revenue," she either did not like him, or did not see in him +the servant she wanted to advance. He went on to the last pressing his +uncle, Lord Burghley. He applied in the humblest terms, he made himself +useful with his pen, he got his mother to write for him; but Lord +Burghley, probably because he thought his nephew more of a man of +letters than a sound lawyer and practical public servant, did not care +to bring him forward. From his cousin, Robert Cecil, Bacon received +polite words and friendly assurances. Cecil may have undervalued him, or +have been jealous of him, or suspected him as a friend of Essex; he +certainly gave Bacon good reason to think that his words meant nothing. +Except Essex, and perhaps his brother Antony--the most affectionate and +devoted of brothers--no one had yet recognised all that Bacon was. +Meanwhile time was passing. The vastness, the difficulties, the +attractions of that conquest of all knowledge which he dreamed of, were +becoming greater every day to his thoughts. The law, without which he +could not live, took up time and brought in little. Attendance on the +Court was expensive, yet indispensable, if he wished for place. His +mother was never very friendly, and thought him absurd and extravagant. +Debts increased and creditors grumbled. The outlook was discouraging, +when his friendship with Essex opened to him a more hopeful prospect. + +In the year 1593 the Attorney-General's place was vacant, and Essex, who +in that year became a Privy Councillor, determined that Bacon should be +Attorney-General. Bacon's reputation as a lawyer was overshadowed by his +philosophical and literary pursuits. He was thought young for the +office, and he had not yet served in any subordinate place. And there +was another man, who was supposed to carry all English law in his head, +full of rude force and endless precedents, hard of heart and voluble of +tongue, who also wanted it. An Attorney-General was one who would bring +all the resources and hidden subtleties of English law to the service of +the Crown, and use them with thorough-going and unflinching resolution +against those whom the Crown accused of treason, sedition, or invasion +of the prerogative. It is no wonder that the Cecils, and the Queen +herself, thought Coke likely to be a more useful public servant than +Bacon: it is certain what Coke himself thought about it, and what his +estimate was of the man whom Essex was pushing against him. But Essex +did not take up his friend's cause in the lukewarm fashion in which +Burghley had patronised his nephew. There was nothing that Essex pursued +with greater pertinacity. He importuned the Queen. He risked without +scruple offending her. She apparently long shrank from directly refusing +his request. The Cecils were for Coke--the "_Huddler_" as Bacon calls +him, in a letter to Essex; but the appointment was delayed. All through +1593, and until April, 1594, the struggle went on. + +When Robert Cecil suggested that Essex should be content with the +Solicitor's place for Bacon, "praying him to be well advised, for if his +Lordship had spoken of that it might have been of easier digestion to +the Queen," he turned round on Cecil-- + + "Digest me no digesting," said the Earl; "for the Attorneyship is + that I must have for Francis Bacon; and in that I will spend my + uttermost credit, friendship, and authority against whomsoever, and + that whosoever went about to procure it to others, that it should + cost both the mediators and the suitors the setting on before they + came by it. And this be you assured of, Sir Robert," quoth the + Earl, "for now do I fully declare myself; and for your own part, + Sir Robert, I do think much and strange both of my Lord your father + and you, that can have the mind to seek the preferment of a + stranger before so near a kinsman; namely, considering if you weigh + in a balance his parts and sufficiency in any respect with those + of his competitor, excepting only four poor years of admittance, + which Francis Bacon hath more than recompensed with the priority of + his reading; in all other respects you shall find no comparison + between them." + +But the Queen's disgust at some very slight show of independence on +Bacon's part in Parliament, unforgiven in spite of repeated apologies, +together with the influence of the Cecils and the pressure of so +formidable and so useful a man as Coke, turned the scale against Essex. +In April, 1594, Coke was made Attorney. Coke did not forget the +pretender to law, as he would think him, who had dared so long to +dispute his claims; and Bacon was deeply wounded. "No man," he thought, +"had ever received a more exquisite disgrace," and he spoke of retiring +to Cambridge "to spend the rest of his life in his studies and +contemplations." But Essex was not discouraged. He next pressed eagerly +for the Solicitorship. Again, after much waiting, he was foiled. An +inferior man was put over Bacon's head. Bacon found that Essex, who +could do most things, for some reason could not do this. He himself, +too, had pressed his suit with the greatest importunity on the Queen, on +Burghley, on Cecil, on every one who could help him; he reminded the +Queen how many years ago it was since he first kissed her hand in her +service, and ever since had used his wits to please; but it was all in +vain. For once he lost patience. He was angry with Essex; the Queen's +anger with Essex had, he thought, recoiled on his friend. He was angry +with the Queen; she held his long waiting cheap; she played with him and +amused herself with delay; he would go abroad, and he "knew her +Majesty's nature, that she neither careth though the whole surname of +the Bacons travelled, nor of the Cecils neither." He was very angry +with Robert Cecil; affecting not to believe them, he tells him stories +he has heard of his corrupt and underhand dealing. He writes almost a +farewell letter of ceremonious but ambiguous thanks to Lord Burghley, +hoping that he would impute any offence that Bacon might have given to +the "complexion of a suitor, and a tired sea-sick suitor," and speaking +despairingly of his future success in the law. The humiliations of what +a suitor has to go through torment him: "It is my luck," he writes to +Cecil, "still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature nor +would willingly meet with in my course, but yet cannot avoid without +show of base timorousness or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness." +And to his friend Fulke Greville he thus unburdens himself: + + "SIR,--I understand of your pains to have visited me, for which I + thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had + said _Requiesce anima mea_; but I now am otherwise put to my + psalter; _Nolite confidere_. I dare go no further. Her Majesty had + by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me + to her service, which I could not understand but of the place I had + been named to. And now whether _invidus homo hoc fecit_; or whether + my matter must be an appendix to my Lord of Essex suit; or whether + her Majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take + advantage of some errors which, like enough, at one time or other I + may commit; or what is it? but her Majesty is not ready to despatch + it. And what though the Master of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex, + and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the + meantime I have a hard condition, to stand so that whatsoever + service I do to her Majesty it shall be thought to be but + _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, of whom, nevertheless, I hope in + one course or other gratefully to deserve. And so, not forgetting + your business, I leave to trouble you with this idle letter; being + but _justa et moderata querimonia_; for indeed I do confess, + _primus amor_ will not easily be cast off. And thus again I commend + me to you." + +After one more effort the chase was given up, at least for the moment; +for it was soon resumed. But just now Bacon felt that all the world was +against him. He would retire "out of the sunshine into the shade." One +friend only encouraged him. He did more. He helped him when Bacon most +wanted help, in his straitened and embarrassed "estate." Essex, when he +could do nothing more, gave Bacon an estate worth at least L1800. +Bacon's resolution is recorded in the following letter: + + "IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--I pray God her Majesty's + weighing be not like the weight of a balance, _gravia deorsum levia + sursum_. But I am as far from being altered in devotion towards + her, as I am from distrust that she will be altered in opinion + towards me, when she knoweth me better. For myself, I have lost + some opinion, some time, and some means; this is my account; but + then for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh; for time, it + is true it goeth and cometh not; but yet I have learned that it may + be redeemed. For means, I value that most; and the rather, _because + I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law_ (_if her + Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her + willing service_); and my reason is only, _because it drinketh too + much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes_. But even for + that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion, + That a philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your Lordship seeth + how I comfort myself; to the increase whereof I would fain please + myself to believe that to be true which my Lord Treasurer writeth; + which is, that it is more than a philosopher morally can disgest. + But without any such high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out + of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child, and had + little philosophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your + Lordship, I do think myself more beholding to you than to any man. + And I say, I reckon myself as a _common_ (not popular but + _common_); and as much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so + much your Lordship shall be sure to have.--Your Lordship's to obey + your honourable commands, more settled than ever." + +It may be that, as Bacon afterwards maintained, the closing sentences of +this letter implied a significant reserve of his devotion. But during +the brilliant and stormy years of Essex's career which followed, Bacon's +relations to him continued unaltered. Essex pressed Bacon's claims +whenever a chance offered. He did his best to get Bacon a rich wife--the +young widow of Sir Christopher Hatton--but in vain. Instead of Bacon she +accepted Coke, and became famous afterwards in the great family quarrel, +in which Coke and Bacon again found themselves face to face, and which +nearly ruined Bacon before the time. Bacon worked for Essex when he was +wanted, and gave the advice which a shrewd and cautious friend would +give to a man who, by his success and increasing pride and +self-confidence, was running into serious dangers, arming against +himself deadly foes, and exposing himself to the chances of fortune. +Bacon was nervous about Essex's capacity for war, a capacity which +perhaps was not proved, even by the most brilliant exploit of the time, +the capture of Cadiz, in which Essex foreshadowed the heroic but +well-calculated audacities of Nelson and Cochrane, and showed himself as +little able as they to bear the intoxication of success, and to work in +concert with envious and unfriendly associates. At the end of the year +1596, the year in which Essex had won such reputation at Cadiz, Bacon +wrote him a letter of advice and remonstrance. It is a lively picture +of the defects and dangers of Essex's behaviour as the Queen's +favourite; and it is a most characteristic and worldly-wise summary of +the ways which Bacon would have him take, to cure the one and escape the +other. Bacon had, as he says, "good reason to think that the Earl's +fortune comprehended his own." And the letter may perhaps be taken as an +indirect warning to Essex that Bacon must, at any rate, take care of his +own fortune, if the Earl persisted in dangerous courses. Bacon shows how +he is to remove the impressions, strong in the Queen's mind, of Essex's +defects; how he is, by due submissions and stratagems, to catch her +humour-- + + "But whether I counsel you the best, or for the best, duty bindeth + me to offer to you my wishes. I said to your Lordship last time, + _Martha, Martha, attendis ad plurima, unum sufficit_; win the + Queen: if this be not the beginning, of any other course I see no + end." + +Bacon gives a series of minute directions how Essex is to disarm the +Queen's suspicions, and to neutralize the advantage which his rivals +take of them; how he is to remove "the opinion of his nature being +_opiniastre_ and not rulable;" how, avoiding the faults of Leicester and +Hatton, he is, as far as he can, to "allege them for authors and +patterns." Especially, he must give up that show of soldier-like +distinction, which the Queen so disliked, and take some quiet post at +Court. He must not alarm the Queen by seeking popularity; he must take +care of his estate; he must get rid of some of his officers; and he must +not be disquieted by other favourites. + +Bacon wished, as he said afterwards, to see him "with a white staff in +his hand, as my Lord of Leicester had," an honour and ornament to the +Court in the eyes of the people and foreign ambassadors. But Essex was +not fit for the part which Bacon urged upon him, that of an obsequious +and vigilant observer of the Queen's moods and humours. As time went on, +things became more and more difficult between him and his strange +mistress; and there were never wanting men who, like Cecil and Raleigh, +for good and bad reasons, feared and hated Essex, and who had the craft +and the skill to make the most of his inexcusable errors. At last he +allowed himself, from ambition, from the spirit of contradiction, from +the blind passion for doing what he thought would show defiance to his +enemies, to be tempted into the Irish campaign of 1599. Bacon at a later +time claimed credit for having foreseen and foretold its issue. "I did +as plainly see his overthrow, chained as it were by destiny to that +journey, as it is possible for any man to ground a judgment on future +contingents." He warned Essex, so he thought in after years, of the +difficulty of the work; he warned him that he would leave the Queen in +the hands of his enemies: "It would be ill for her, ill for him, ill for +the State." "I am sure," he adds, "I never in anything in my life dealt +with him in like earnestness by speech, by writing, and by all the means +I could devise." But Bacon's memory was mistaken. We have his letters. +When Essex went to Ireland, Bacon wrote only in the language of sanguine +hope--so little did he see "overthrow chained by destiny to that +journey," that "some good spirit led his pen to presage to his Lordship +success;" he saw in the enterprise a great occasion of honour to his +friend; he gave prudent counsels, but he looked forward confidently to +Essex being as "fatal a captain to that war, as Africanus was to the war +of Carthage." Indeed, however anxious he may have been, he could not +have foreseen Essex's unaccountable and to this day unintelligible +failure. But failure was the end, from whatever cause; failure, +disgraceful and complete. Then followed wild and guilty but abortive +projects for retrieving his failure, by using his power in Ireland to +make himself formidable to his enemies at Court, and even to the Queen +herself. He intrigued with Tyrone; he intrigued with James of Scotland; +he plunged into a whirl of angry and baseless projects, which came to +nothing the moment they were discussed. How empty and idle they were was +shown by his return against orders to tell his own story at Nonsuch, and +by thus placing himself alone and undeniably in the wrong, in the power +of the hostile Council. Of course it was not to be thought of that Cecil +should not use his advantage in the game. It was too early, irritated +though the Queen was, to strike the final blow. But it is impossible not +to see, looking back over the miserable history, that Essex was treated +in a way which was certain, sooner or later, to make him, being what he +was, plunge into a fatal and irretrievable mistake. He was treated as a +cat treats a mouse; he was worried, confined, disgraced, publicly +reprimanded, brought just within verge of the charge of treason, but not +quite, just enough to discredit and alarm him, but to leave him still a +certain amount of play. He was made to see that the Queen's favour was +not quite hopeless; but that nothing but the most absolute and +unreserved humiliation could recover it. It was plain to any one who +knew Essex that this treatment would drive Essex to madness. "These same +gradations of yours"--so Bacon represents himself expostulating with the +Queen on her caprices--"are fitter to corrupt than to correct any mind +of greatness." They made Essex desperate; he became frightened for his +life, and he had reason to be so, though not in the way which he feared. +At length came the stupid and ridiculous outbreak of the 8th of +February, 1600/1601, a plot to seize the palace and raise the city +against the ministers, by the help of a few gentlemen armed only with +their rapiers. As Bacon himself told the Queen, "if some base and +cruel-minded persons had entered into such an action, it might have +caused much blow and combustion; but it appeared well that they were +such as knew not how to play the malefactors!" But it was sufficient to +bring Essex within the doom of treason. + +Essex knew well what the stake was. He lost it, and deserved to lose it, +little as his enemies deserved to win it; for they, too, were doing what +would have cost them their heads if Elizabeth had known +it--corresponding, as Essex was accused of doing, with Scotland about +the succession, and possibly with Spain. But they were playing +cautiously and craftily; he with bungling passion. He had been so long +accustomed to power and place, that he could not endure that rivals +should keep him out of it. They were content to have their own way, +while affecting to be the humblest of servants; he would be nothing less +than a Mayor of the Palace. He was guilty of a great public crime, as +every man is who appeals to arms for anything short of the most sacred +cause. He was bringing into England, which had settled down into +peaceable ways, an imitation of the violent methods of France and the +Guises. But the crime as well as the penalty belonged to the age, and +crimes legally said to be against the State mean morally very different +things, according to the state of society and opinion. It is an +unfairness verging on the ridiculous, when the ground is elaborately +laid for keeping up the impression that Essex was preparing a real +treason against the Queen like that of Norfolk. It was a treason of the +same sort and order as that for which Northumberland sent Somerset to +the block: the treason of being an unsuccessful rival. + +Meanwhile Bacon had been getting gradually into the unofficial employ of +the Government. He had become one of the "Learned Counsel"--lawyers with +subordinate and intermittent work, used when wanted, but without patent +or salary, and not ranking with the regular law officers. The Government +had found him useful in affairs of the revenue, in framing +interrogatories for prisoners in the Tower, in drawing up reports of +plots against the Queen. He did not in this way earn enough to support +himself; but he had thus come to have some degree of access to the +Queen, which he represents as being familiar and confidential, though he +still perceived, as he says himself, that she did not like him. At the +first news of Essex's return to England, Bacon greeted him-- + + "MY LORD,--Conceiving that your Lordship came now up in the person + of a good servant to see your sovereign mistress, which kind of + compliments are many times _instar magnorum meritorum_, and + therefore it would be hard for me to find you, I have committed to + this poor paper the humble salutations of him _that is more yours + than any man's, and more yours than any man_. To these salutations + I add a due and joyful gratulation, confessing that your Lordship, + in your last conference with me before your journey, spake not in + vain, God making it good, That you trusted we should say _Quis + putasset_! Which as it is found true in a happy sense, so I wish + you do not find another _Quis putasset_ in the manner of taking + this so great a service. But I hope it is, as he said, _Nubecula + est, cito transibit_, and that your Lordship's wisdom and + obsequious circumspection and patience will turn all to the best. + So referring all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you + to God's best preservation." + +But when Essex's conduct in Ireland had to be dealt with, Bacon's +services were called for; and from this time his relations towards Essex +were altered. Every one, no one better than the Queen herself, knew all +that he owed to Essex. It is strangely illustrative of the time, that +especially as Bacon held so subordinate a position, he should have been +required, and should have been trusted, to act against his only and most +generous benefactor. It is strange, too, that however great his loyalty +to the Queen, however much and sincerely he might condemn his friend's +conduct, he should think it possible to accept the task. He says that he +made some remonstrance; and he says, no doubt truly, that during the +first stage of the business he used the ambiguous position in which he +was placed to soften Essex's inevitable punishment, and to bring about a +reconciliation between him and the Queen. But he was required, as the +Queen's lawyer, to set forth in public Essex's offences; and he admits +that he did so "not over tenderly." Yet all this, even if we have +misgivings about it, is intelligible. If he had declined, he could not, +perhaps, have done the service which he assures us that he tried to do +for Essex; and it is certain that he would have had to reckon with the +terrible lady who in her old age still ruled England from the throne of +Henry VIII., and who had certainly no great love for Bacon himself. She +had already shown him in a much smaller matter what was the forfeit to +be paid for any resistance to her will. All the hopes of his life must +perish; all the grudging and suspicious favours which he had won with +such unremitting toil and patient waiting would be sacrificed, and he +would henceforth live under the wrath of those who never forgave. And +whatever he did for himself, he believed that he was serving Essex. His +scheming imagination and his indefatigable pen were at work. He tried +strange indirect methods; he invented a correspondence between his +brother and Essex, which was to fall into the Queen's hands in order to +soften her wrath and show her Essex's most secret feelings. When the +Queen proposed to dine with him at his lodge in Twickenham Park, "though +I profess not to be a poet," he "prepared a sonnet tending and alluding +to draw on her Majesty's reconcilement to my Lord." It was an awkward +thing for one who had been so intimate with Essex to be so deep in the +counsels of those who hated him. He complains that many people thought +him ungrateful and disloyal to his friend, and that stories circulated +to his disadvantage, as if he were poisoning the Queen's ear against +Essex. But he might argue fairly enough that, wilful and wrong-headed as +Essex had been, it was the best that he could now do for him; and as +long as it was only a question of Essex's disgrace and enforced absence +from Court, Bacon could not be bound to give up the prospects of his +life--indeed, his public duty as a subordinate servant of government--on +account of his friend's inexcusable and dangerous follies. Essex did not +see it so, and in the subjoined correspondence had the advantage; but +Bacon's position, though a higher one might be imagined, where men had +been such friends as these two men had been, is quite a defensible one: + + "MY LORD,--No man can better expound my doings than your Lordship, + which maketh me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to + believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of + _bonus civis_, which with us is a good and true servant to the + Queen, and next of _bonus vir_, that is an honest man. I desire + your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some + things much better than I love your Lordship--as the Queen's + service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the + good of my country, and the like--yet I love few persons better + than yourself, both for gratitude's sake and for your own virtues, + which cannot hurt but by accident or abuse. Of which my good + affection I was ever ready and am ready to yield testimony by any + good offices, but with such reservations as yourself cannot but + allow; for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with + waxen wings, doubting Icarus's fortune, so for the growing up of + your own feathers, specially ostrich's, or any other save of a bird + of prey, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree + whereupon I have turned and shall turn, which to signify to you, + though I think you are of yourself persuaded as much, is the cause + of my writing; and so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness. + From Gray's Inn, this 20th day of July, 1600. + + "Your Lordship's most humbly, + "FR. BACON." + +To this letter Essex returned an answer of dignified reserve, such as +Bacon might himself have dictated-- + + "MR. BACON,--I can neither expound nor censure your late actions, + being ignorant of all of them, save one, and having directed my + sight inward only, to examine myself. You do pray me to believe + that you only aspire to the conscience and commendation of _bonus + civis_ and _bonus vir_; and I do faithfully assure you, that while + that is your ambition (though your course be active and mine + contemplative), yet we shall both _convenire in codem tertio_ and + _convenire inter nosipsos_. Your profession of affection and offer + of good offices are welcome to me. For answer to them I will say + but this, that you have believed I have been kind to you, and you + may believe that I cannot be other, either upon humour or my own + election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else I + should say somewhat of your poetical example. But this I must say, + that I never flew with other wings than desire to merit and + confidence in my Sovereign's favour; and when one of these wings + failed me I would light nowhere but at my Sovereign's feet, though + she suffered me to be bruised with my fall. And till her Majesty, + that knows I was never bird of prey, finds it to agree with her + will and her service that my wings should be imped again, I have + committed myself to the mire. No power but my God's and my + Sovereign's can alter this resolution of + + "Your retired friend, + "ESSEX." + +But after Essex's mad attempt in the city a new state of things arose. +The inevitable result was a trial for high treason, a trial of which no +one could doubt the purpose and end. The examination of accomplices +revealed speeches, proposals, projects, not very intelligible to us in +the still imperfectly understood game of intrigue that was going on +among all parties at the end of Elizabeth's reign, but quite enough to +place Essex at the mercy of the Government and the offended Queen. "The +new information," says Mr. Spedding, "had been immediately communicated +to Coke and Bacon." Coke, as Attorney-General, of course conducted the +prosecution; and the next prominent person on the side of the Crown was +not the Solicitor, or any other regular law officer, but Bacon, though +holding the very subordinate place of one of the "Learned Counsel." + +It does not appear that he thought it strange, that he showed any pain +or reluctance, that he sought to be excused. He took it as a matter of +course. The part assigned to Bacon in the prosecution was as important +as that of Coke; and he played it more skilfully and effectively. Trials +in those days were confused affairs, often passing into a mere wrangle +between the judges, lawyers, and lookers-on, and the prisoner at the +bar. It was so in this case. Coke is said to have blundered in his way +of presenting the evidence, and to have been led away from the point +into an altercation with Essex. Probably it really did not much matter; +but the trial was getting out of its course and inclining in favour of +the prisoner, till Bacon--Mr. Spedding thinks, out of his regular +turn--stepped forward and retrieved matters. This is Mr. Spedding's +account of what Bacon said and did: + + "By this time the argument had drifted so far away from the point + that it must have been difficult for a listener to remember what it + was that the prisoners were charged with, or how much of the charge + had been proved. And Coke, who was all this time the sole speaker + on behalf of the Crown, was still following each fresh topic that + rose before him, without the sign of an intention or the intimation + of a wish to return to the main question and reform the broken + ranks of his evidence. Luckily he seems to have been now at a loss + what point to take next, and the pause gave Bacon an opportunity of + rising. It can hardly have been in pursuance of previous + arrangements; for though it was customary in those days to + distribute the evidence into parts and to assign several parts to + several counsel, there had been no appearance as yet of any part + being concluded. It is probable that the course of the trial had + upset previous arrangements and confused the parts. At any rate so + it was, however it came to pass, that when Cecil and Essex had at + last finished their expostulation and parted with charitable + prayers, each that the other might be forgiven, then (says our + reporter) Mr. Bacon entered into a speech much after this fashion: + + "'In speaking of this late and horrible rebellion which hath been + in the eyes and ears of all men, I shall save myself much labour in + opening and enforcing the points thereof, insomuch as I speak not + before a country jury of ignorant men, but before a most honourable + assembly of the greatest Peers of the land, whose wisdoms conceive + far more than my tongue can utter; yet with your gracious and + honourable favours I will presume, if not for information of your + Honours, yet for the discharge of my duty, to say thus much. No man + can be ignorant, that knows matters of former ages--and all history + makes it plain--that there was never any traitor heard of that + durst directly attempt the seat of his liege prince but he always + coloured his practices with some plausible pretence. For God hath + imprinted such a majesty in the face of a prince that no private + man dare approach the person of his sovereign with a traitorous + intent. And therefore they run another side course, _oblique et a + latere_: some to reform corruptions of the State and religion; some + to reduce the ancient liberties and customs pretended to be lost + and worn out; some to remove those persons that being in high + places make themselves subject to envy; but all of them aim at the + overthrow of the State and destruction of the present rulers. And + this likewise is the use of those that work mischief of another + quality; as Cain, that first murderer, took up an excuse for his + fact, shaming to outface it with impudency, thus the Earl made his + colour the severing some great men and councillors from her + Majesty's favour, and the fear he stood in of his pretended enemies + lest they should murder him in his house. Therefore he saith he + was compelled to fly into the City for succour and assistance; not + much unlike Pisistratus, of whom it was so anciently written how he + gashed and wounded himself, and in that sort ran crying into Athens + that his life was sought and like to have been taken away; thinking + to have moved the people to have pitied him and taken his part by + such counterfeited harm and danger; whereas his aim and drift was + to take the government of the city into his hands and alter the + form thereof. With like pretences of dangers and assaults the Earl + of Essex entered the City of London and passed through the bowels + thereof, blanching rumours that he should have been murdered and + that the State was sold; whereas he had no such enemies, no such + dangers: persuading themselves that if they could prevail all would + have done well. But now _magna scelera terminantur in haeresin_; for + you, my Lord, should know that though princes give their subjects + cause of discontent, though they take away the honours they have + heaped upon them, though they bring them to a lower estate than + they raised them from, yet ought they not to be so forgetful of + their allegiance that they should enter into any undutiful act; + much less upon rebellion, as you, my Lord, have done. All + whatsoever you have or can say in answer hereof are but shadows. + And therefore methinks it were best for you to confess, not to + justify.'" + +Essex was provoked by Bacon's incredulous sneer about enemies and +dangers--"I call forth Mr. Bacon against Mr. Bacon," and referred to the +letters which Bacon had written in his name, and in which these +dangerous enmities were taken for granted. Bacon, in answer, repeated +what he said so often--"That he had spent more time in vain in studying +how to make the Earl a good servant to the Queen and State than he had +done in anything else." Once more Coke got the proceedings into a +tangle, and once more Bacon came forward to repair the miscarriage of +his leader. + + "'I have never yet seen in any case such favour shown to any + prisoner; so many digressions, such delivering of evidence by + fractions, and so silly a defence of such great and notorious + treasons. May it please your Grace, you have seen how weakly he + hath shadowed his purpose and how slenderly he hath answered the + objections against him. But, my Lord, I doubt the variety of + matters and the many digressions may minister occasion of + forgetfulness, and may have severed the judgments of the Lords; and + therefore I hold it necessary briefly to recite the Judges' + opinions.' + + "That being done, he proceeded to this effect: + + "'Now put the case that the Earl of Essex's intents were, as he + would have it believed, to go only as a suppliant to her Majesty. + Shall their petitions be presented by armed petitioners? This must + needs bring loss of property to the prince. Neither is it any point + of law, as my Lord of Southampton would have it believed, that + condemns them of treason. To take secret counsel, to execute it, to + run together in numbers armed with weapons--what can be the excuse? + Warned by the Lord Keeper, by a herald, and yet persist! Will any + simple man take this to be less than treason?' + + "The Earl of Essex answered that if he had purposed anything + against others than those his private enemies, he would not have + stirred with so slender a company. Whereunto Mr. Bacon answered: + + "'It was not the company you carried with you but the assistance + you hoped for in the City which you trusted unto. The Duke of Guise + thrust himself into the streets of Paris on the day of the + Barricades in his doublet and hose, attended only with eight + gentlemen, and found that help in the city which (thanks be to God) + you failed of here. And what followed? The King was forced to put + himself into a pilgrim's weeds, and in that disguise to steal away + to scape their fury. Even such was my Lord's confidence too, and + his pretence the same--an all-hail and a kiss to the City. But the + end was treason, as hath been sufficiently proved. But when he had + once delivered and engaged himself so far into that which the + shallowness of his conceit could not accomplish as he expected, the + Queen for her defence taking arms against him, he was glad to yield + himself; and thinking to colour his practices, turned his pretexts, + and alleged the occasion thereof to proceed from a private + quarrel.' + + "To this" (adds the reporter) "the Earl answered little. Nor was + anything said afterwards by either of the prisoners, either in the + thrust-and-parry dialogue with Coke that followed, or when they + spoke at large to the question why judgment should not be + pronounced, which at all altered the complexion of the case. They + were both found guilty and sentence passed in the usual form." + +Bacon's legal position was so subordinate a place that there must have +been a special reason for his employment. It is difficult to avoid the +conclusion that, on the part of the Government, Bacon was thus used for +the very reason that he had been the friend of Essex. He was not +commonly called upon in such prosecutions. He was not employed by Cecil +in the Winchester trials of Raleigh, Grey, and Cobham, three years +afterwards, nor in those connected with the Gunpowder Plot. He was +called upon now because no one could so much damage Essex; and this last +proof of his ready service was required by those whose favour, since +Essex had gone hopelessly wrong, he had been diligently seeking. And +Bacon acquiesced in the demand, apparently without surprise. No record +remains to show that he felt any difficulty in playing his part. He had +persuaded himself that his public duty, his duty as a good citizen to +the Queen and the commonwealth, demanded of him that he should obey the +call to do his best to bring a traitor to punishment. + +Public duty has claims on a man as well as friendship, and in many +conceivable cases claims paramount to those of friendship. And yet +friendship, too, has claims, at least on a man's memory. Essex had been +a dear friend, if words could mean anything. He had done more than any +man had done for Bacon, generously and nobly, and Bacon had acknowledged +it in the amplest terms. Only a year before he had written, "I am as +much yours as any man's, and as much yours as any man." It is not, and +it was not, a question of Essex's guilt. It may be a question whether +the whole matter was not exaggerated as to its purpose, as it certainly +was as to its real danger and mischief. We at least know that his +rivals dabbled in intrigue and foolish speeches as well as he; that +little more than two years afterwards Raleigh and Grey and Cobham were +condemned for treason in much the same fashion as he was; that Cecil to +the end of his days--with whatever purpose--was a pensioner of Spain. +The question was not whether Essex was guilty. The question for Bacon +was, whether it was becoming in him, having been what he had been to +Essex, to take a leading part in proceedings which were to end in his +ruin and death. He was not a judge. He was not a regular law officer +like Coke. His only employment had been casual and occasional. He might, +most naturally, on the score of his old friendship, have asked to be +excused. Condemning, as he did, his friend's guilt and folly, he might +have refused to take part in a cause of blood, in which his best friend +must perish. He might honestly have given up Essex as incorrigible, and +have retired to stand apart in sorrow and silence while the inevitable +tragedy was played out. The only answer to this is, that to have +declined would have incurred the Queen's displeasure: he would have +forfeited any chance of advancement; nay, closely connected as he had +been with Essex, he might have been involved in his friend's ruin. But +inferior men have marred their fortunes by standing by their friends in +not undeserved trouble, and no one knew better than Bacon what was +worthy and noble in human action. The choice lay before him. He seems +hardly to have gone through any struggle. He persuaded himself that he +could not help himself, under the constraint of his duty to the Queen, +and he did his best to get Essex condemned. + +And this was not all. The death of Essex was a shock to the popularity +of Elizabeth greater than anything that had happened in her long reign. +Bacon's name also had come into men's mouths as that of a time-server +who played fast and loose with Essex and his enemies, and who, when he +had got what he could from Essex, turned to see what he could get from +those who put him to death. A justification of the whole affair was felt +to be necessary; and Bacon was fixed upon for the distinction and the +dishonour of doing it. No one could tell the story so well, and it was +felt that he would not shrink from it. Nor did he. In cold blood he sat +down to blacken Essex, using his intimate personal knowledge of the past +to strengthen his statements against a friend who was in his grave, and +for whom none could answer but Bacon himself. It is a well-compacted and +forcible account of Essex's misdoings, on which of course the colour of +deliberate and dangerous treason was placed. Much of it, no doubt, was +true; but even of the facts, and much more of the colour, there was no +check to be had, and it is certain that it was an object to the +Government to make out the worst. It is characteristic that Bacon +records that he did not lose sight of the claims of courtesy, and +studiously spoke of "my Lord of Essex" in the draft submitted for +correction to the Queen; but she was more unceremonious, and insisted +that the "rebel" should be spoken of simply as "Essex." + +After a business of this kind, fines and forfeitures flowed in +abundantly, and were "usually bestowed on deserving servants or favoured +suitors by way of reward;" and Bacon came in for his share. Out of one +of the fines he received L1200. "The Queen hath done something for me," +he writes to a friendly creditor, "though not in the proportion I had +hoped," and he afterwards asked for something more. It was rather under +the value of Essex's gift to him in 1594. But she still refused him all +promotion. He was without an official place in the Queen's service, and +he never was allowed to have it. It is clear that the "Declaration of +the Treason of the Earl of Essex," if it justified the Government, did +not remove the odium which had fallen on Bacon. Mr. Spedding says that +he can find no signs of it. The proof of it is found in the "Apology" +which Bacon found it expedient to write after Elizabeth's death and +early in James's reign. He found that the recollection of the way in +which he had dealt with his friend hung heavy upon him; men hesitated to +trust him in spite of his now recognised ability. Accordingly, he drew +up an apology, which he addressed to Lord Mountjoy, the friend, in +reality half the accomplice, of Essex, in his wild, ill-defined plan for +putting pressure on Elizabeth. It is a clear, able, of course _ex parte_ +statement of the doings of the three chief actors, two of whom could no +longer answer for themselves, or correct and contradict the third. It +represents the Queen as implacable and cruel, Essex as incorrigibly and +outrageously wilful, proud, and undutiful, Bacon himself as using every +effort and device to appease the Queen's anger and suspiciousness, and +to bring Essex to a wiser and humbler mind. The picture is indeed a +vivid one, and full of dramatic force, of an unrelenting and merciless +mistress bent on breaking and bowing down to the dust the haughty spirit +of a once-loved but rebellious favourite, whom, though he has deeply +offended, she yet wishes to bring once more under her yoke; and of the +calm, keen-witted looker-on, watching the dangerous game, not without +personal interest, but with undisturbed presence of mind, and doing his +best to avert an irreparable and fatal breach. How far he honestly did +his best for his misguided friend we can only know from his own report; +but there is no reason to think that he did Essex ill service, though +he notices in passing an allegation that the Queen in one of her angry +fits had charged him with this. But his interest clearly was to make up +the quarrel between the Queen and Essex. Bacon would have been a greater +man with both of them if he had been able to do so. He had been too +deeply in Essex's intimacy to make his new position of mediator, with a +strong bias on the Queen's side, quite safe and easy for a man of +honourable mind; but a cool-judging and prudent man may well have acted +as he represents himself acting without forgetting what he owed to his +friend. Till the last great moment of trial there is a good deal to be +said for Bacon: a man keenly alive to Essex's faults, with a strong +sense of what he owed to the Queen and the State, and with his own +reasonable chances of rising greatly prejudiced by Essex's folly. But at +length came the crisis which showed the man, and threw light on all that +had passed before, when he was picked out, out of his regular place, to +be charged with the task of bringing home the capital charge against +Essex. He does not say he hesitated. He does not say that he asked to be +excused the terrible office. He did not flinch as the minister of +vengeance for those who required that Essex should die. He did his work, +we are told by his admiring biographer, better than Coke, and repaired +the blunders of the prosecution. He passes over very shortly this part +of the business: "It was laid upon me with the rest of my fellows;" yet +it is the knot and key of the whole, as far as his own character is +concerned. Bacon had his public duty: his public duty may have compelled +him to stand apart from Essex. But it was his interest, it was no part +of his public duty, which required him to accept the task of accuser of +his friend, and in his friend's direst need calmly to drive home a +well-directed stroke that should extinguish chances and hopes, and make +his ruin certain. No one who reads his anxious letters about preferment +and the Queen's favour, about his disappointed hopes, about his +straitened means and distress for money, about his difficulties with his +creditors--he was twice arrested for debt--can doubt that the question +was between his own prospects and his friend; and that to his own +interest he sacrificed his friend and his own honour. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BACON AND JAMES I. + + +Bacon's life was a double one. There was the life of high thinking, of +disinterested aims, of genuine enthusiasm, of genuine desire to delight +and benefit mankind, by opening new paths to wonder and knowledge and +power. And there was the put on and worldly life, the life of supposed +necessities for the provision of daily bread, the life of ambition and +self-seeking, which he followed, not without interest and satisfaction, +but at bottom because he thought he must--must be a great man, must be +rich, must live in the favour of the great, because without it his great +designs could not be accomplished. His original plan of life was +disclosed in his letter to Lord Burghley: to get some office with an +assured income and not much work, and then to devote the best of his +time to his own subjects. But this, if it was really his plan, was +gradually changed: first, because he could not get such a place; and +next because his connection with Essex, the efforts to gain him the +Attorney's place, and the use which the Queen made of him after Essex +could do no more for him, drew him more and more into public work, and +specially the career of the law. We know that he would not by preference +have chosen the law, and did not feel that his vocation lay that way; +but it was the only way open to him for mending his fortunes. And so +the two lives went on side by side, the worldly one--he would have said, +the practical one--often interfering with the life of thought and +discovery, and partly obscuring it, but yet always leaving it paramount +in his own mind. His dearest and most cherished ideas, the thoughts with +which he was most at home and happiest, his deepest and truest +ambitions, were those of an enthusiastic and romantic believer in a +great discovery just within his grasp. They were such as the dreams and +visions of his great Franciscan namesake, and of the imaginative seekers +after knowledge in the middle ages, real or mythical, Albert the Great, +Cornelius Agrippa, Dr. Faustus; they were the eager, undoubting hopes of +the physical students in Italy and England in his own time, Giordano +Bruno, Telesio, Campanella, Gilbert, Galileo, or the founders of the +Italian prototype of "Solomon's House" in the _New Atlantis_, the +precursor of our Royal Societies, the Academy of the _Lincei_ at Rome. +Among these meditations was his inner life. But however he may have +originally planned his course, and though at times under the influence +of disappointment he threatened to retire to Cambridge or to travel +abroad, he had bound himself fast to public life, and soon ceased to +think of quitting it. And he had a real taste for it--for its shows, its +prizes, for the laws and turns of the game, for its debates and +vicissitudes. He was no mere idealist or recluse to undervalue or +despise the real grandeur of the world. He took the keenest interest in +the nature and ways of mankind; he liked to observe, to generalise in +shrewd and sometimes cynical epigrams. He liked to apply his powerful +and fertile intellect to the practical problems of society and +government, to their curious anomalies, to their paradoxical phenomena; +he liked to address himself, either as an expounder or a reformer, to +the principles and entanglements of English law; he aspired, both as a +lecturer and a legislator, to improve and simplify it. It was not beyond +his hopes to shape a policy, to improve administration, to become +powerful by bringing his sagacity and largeness of thought to the +service of the State, in reconciling conflicting forces, in mediating +between jealous parties and dangerous claims. And he liked to enter into +the humours of a Court; to devote his brilliant imagination and +affluence of invention either to devising a pageant which should throw +all others into the shade, or a compromise which should get great +persons out of some difficulty of temper or pique. + +In all these things he was as industrious, as laborious, as calmly +persevering and tenacious, as he was in his pursuit of his philosophical +speculations. He was a compound of the most adventurous and most +diversified ambition, with a placid and patient temper, such as we +commonly associate with moderate desires and the love of retirement and +an easy life. To imagine and dare anything, and never to let go the +object of his pursuit, is one side of him; on the other he is +obsequiously desirous to please and fearful of giving offence, the +humblest and most grateful and also the most importunate of suitors, +ready to bide his time with an even cheerfulness of spirit, which yet it +was not safe to provoke by ill offices and the wish to thwart him. He +never misses a chance of proffering his services; he never lets pass an +opportunity of recommending himself to those who could help him. He is +so bent on natural knowledge that we have a sense of incongruity when we +see him engaging in politics as if he had no other interest. He throws +himself with such zest into the language of the moralist, the +theologian, the historian, that we forget we have before us the author +of a new departure in physical inquiry, and the unwearied compiler of +tables of natural history. When he is a lawyer, he seems only a lawyer. +If he had not been the author of the _Instauratio_, his life would not +have looked very different from that of any other of the shrewd and +supple lawyers who hung on to the Tudor and Stuart Courts, and who +unscrupulously pushed their way to preferment. He claimed to be, in +spite of the misgivings of Elizabeth and her ministers, as devoted to +public work and as capable of it as any of them. He was ready for +anything, for any amount of business, ready, as in everything, to take +infinite trouble about it. The law, if he did not like it, was yet no +by-work with him; he was as truly ambitious as the men with whom he +maintained so keen and for long so unsuccessful a rivalry. He felt +bitterly the disappointment of seeing men like Coke and Fleming and +Doddridge and Hobart pass before him; he could not, if he had been only +a lawyer, have coveted more eagerly the places, refused to him, which +they got; only, he had besides a whole train of purposes, an inner and +supreme ambition, of which they knew nothing. And with all this there is +no apparent consciousness of these manifold and varied interests. He +never affected to conceal from himself his superiority to other men in +his aims and in the grasp of his intelligence. But there is no trace +that he prided himself on the variety and versatility of these powers, +or that he even distinctly realized to himself that it was anything +remarkable that he should have so many dissimilar objects and be able so +readily to pursue them in such different directions. + +It is doubtful whether, as long as Elizabeth lived, Bacon could ever +have risen above his position among the "Learned Counsel," an office +without patent or salary or regular employment. She used, him, and he +was willing to be used; but he plainly did not appear in her eyes to be +the kind of man who would suit her in the more prominent posts of her +Government. Unusual and original ability is apt, till it is generally +recognised, to carry with it suspicion and mistrust as to its being +really all that it seems to be. Perhaps she thought of the possibility +of his flying out unexpectedly at some inconvenient pinch, and +attempting to serve her interests, not in her way, but in his own; +perhaps she distrusted in business and state affairs so brilliant a +discourser, whose heart was known, first and above all, to be set on +great dreams of knowledge; perhaps those interviews with her in which he +describes the counsels which he laid before her, and in which his +shrewdness and foresight are conspicuous, may not have been so welcome +to her as he imagined; perhaps, it is not impossible, that he may have +been too compliant for her capricious taste, and too visibly anxious to +please. Perhaps, too, she could not forget, in spite of what had +happened, that he had been the friend, and not the very generous friend, +of Essex. But, except as to a share of the forfeitures, with which he +was not satisfied, his fortunes did not rise under Elizabeth. + +Whatever may have been the Queen's feelings towards him, there is no +doubt that one powerful influence, which lasted into the reign of James, +was steadily adverse to his advancement. Burghley had been strangely +niggardly in what he did to help his brilliant nephew; he was going off +the scene, and probably did not care to trouble himself about a younger +and uncongenial aspirant to service. But his place was taken by his son, +Robert Cecil; and Cecil might naturally have been expected to welcome +the co-operation of one of his own family who was foremost among the +rising men of Cecil's own generation, and who certainly was most +desirous to do him service. But it is plain that he early made up his +mind to keep Bacon in the background. It is easy to imagine reasons, +though the apparent short-sightedness of the policy may surprise us; but +Cecil was too reticent and self-controlled a man to let his reasons +appear, and his words, in answer to his cousin's applications for his +assistance, were always kind, encouraging, and vague. But we must judge +by the event, and that makes it clear that Cecil did not care to see +Bacon in high position. Nothing can account for Bacon's strange failure +for so long a time to reach his due place in the public service but the +secret hostility, whatever may have been the cause, of Cecil. + +There was also another difficulty. Coke was the great lawyer of the day, +a man whom the Government could not dispense with, and whom it was +dangerous to offend. And Coke thoroughly disliked Bacon. He thought +lightly of his law, and he despised his refinement and his passion for +knowledge. He cannot but have resented the impertinence, as he must have +thought it, of Bacon having been for a whole year his rival for office. +It is possible that if people then agreed with Mr. Spedding's opinion as +to the management of Essex's trial, he may have been irritated by +jealousy; but a couple of months after the trial (April 29, 1601) Bacon +sent to Cecil, with a letter of complaint, the following account of a +scene in Court between Coke and himself: + + + "_A true remembrance of the abuse I received of Mr. + Attorney-General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term; + for the truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present._ + + "I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of Geo. Moore, a relapsed + recusant, a fugitive and a practising traytor; and showed better + matter for the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever + with a _salvo jure_. And this I did in as gentle and reasonable + terms as might be. + + "Mr. Attorney kindled at it, 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._' I answered coldly in + these very words: '_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._' + + "He replied, '_I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness + towards you, who are less than little; less than the least;_' and + other such strange light terms he gave me, with that insulting + which cannot be expressed. + + "Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this: '_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 he spake, neither I nor himself could tell what, as if + he had been born Attorney-General; and in the end bade me not + meddle with the Queen's business, but with mine own; and that I was + unsworn, etc. I told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest + man; and that I ever set my service first, and myself second; and + wished to God that he would do the like. + + "Then he said, it were good to clap a _cap. ultegatum_ upon my + back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault, + for he hunted upon an old scent. He gave me a number of disgraceful + words besides, which I answered with silence, and showing that I + was not moved with them." + +The threat of the _capias ultegatum_ was probably in reference to the +arrest of Bacon for debt in September, 1593. After this we are not +surprised at Bacon writing to Coke, "who take to yourself a liberty to +disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion," that, "since +I missed the Solicitor's place (the rather I think by your means) I +cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor +together, but either serve with another on your remove, or step into +some other course." And Coke, no doubt, took care that it should be so. +Cecil, too, may possibly have thought that Bacon gave no proof of his +fitness for affairs in thus bringing before him a squabble in which both +parties lost their tempers. + +Bacon was not behind the rest of the world in "the posting of men of +good quality towards the King," in the rash which followed the Queen's +death, of those who were eager to proffer their services to James, for +whose peaceful accession Cecil had so skilfully prepared the way. He +wrote to every one who, he thought, could help him: to Cecil, and to +Cecil's man--"I pray you, as you find time let him know that he is the +personage in the State which I love most;" to Northumberland, "If I may +be of any use to your Lordship, by my head, tongue, pen, means, or +friends, I humbly pray you to hold me your own;" to the King's Scotch +friends and servants, even to Southampton, the friend of Essex, who had +been shut up in the Tower since his condemnation with Essex, and who was +now released. "This great change," Bacon assured him, "hath wrought in +me no other change towards your Lordship than this, that I may safely be +now that which I truly was before." Bacon found in after years that +Southampton was not so easily conciliated. But at present Bacon was +hopeful: "In mine own particular," he writes, "I have many comforts and +assurances; but in mine own opinion the chief is, that the _canvassing +world is gone, and the deserving world is come_." He asks to be +recommended to the King--"I commend myself to your love and to the +well-using of my name, as well in repressing and answering for me, if +there be any biting or nibbling at it in that place, as in impressing a +good conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the King, as otherwise in +that Court." His pen had been used under the government of the Queen, +and he had offered a draft of a proclamation to the King's advisers. But +though he obtained an interview with the King, James's arrival in +England brought no immediate prospect of improvement in Bacon's +fortunes. Indeed, his name was at first inadvertently passed over in the +list of Queen's servants who were to retain their places. The first +thing we hear of is his arrest a second time for debt; and his letters +of thanks to Cecil, who had rendered him assistance, are written in deep +depression. + + "For my purpose or course I desire to meddle as little as I can in + the King's causes, his Majesty now abounding in counsel, and to + follow my private thrift and practice, and to marry with some + convenient advancement. For as for any ambition, I do assure your + Honour, mine is quenched. In the Queen's, my excellent Mistress's, + time the _quorum_ was small: her service was a kind of freehold, + and it was a more solemn time. All those points agreed with my + nature and judgment. My ambition now I shall only put upon my pen, + whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times + succeeding. + + "Lastly, for this divulged and almost prostituted title of + knighthood, I could without charge, by your Honour's mean, be + content to have it, both because of this late disgrace and because + I have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn's commons; and + because I have found out an alderman's daughter, an handsome + maiden, to my liking." + +Cecil, however, seems to have required that the money should be repaid +by the day; and Bacon only makes a humble request, which, it might be +supposed, could have been easily granted. + + "IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--In answer of your last + letter, your money shall be ready before your day: principal, + interest, and costs of suit. So the sheriff promised, when I + released errors; and a Jew takes no more. The rest cannot be + forgotten, for I cannot forget your Lordship's _dum memor ipse + mei_; and if there have been _aliquid nimis_, it shall be amended. + And, to be plain with your Lordship, that will quicken me now which + slackened me before. Then I thought you might have had more use of + me than now I suppose you are like to have. Not but I think the + impediment will be rather in my mind than in the matter or times. + But to do you service I will come out of my religion at any time. + + "For my knighthood, I wish the manner might be such as might grace + me, since the matter will not; I mean, that I might not be merely + gregarious in a troop. The coronation is at hand. It may please + your Lordship to let me hear from you speedily. So I continue your + Lordship's ever much bounden, + + "FR. BACON. + "From Gorhambury, this 16th of July, 1603." + +But it was not done. He "obtained his title, but not in a manner to +distinguish him. He was knighted at Whitehall two days before the +coronation, but had to share the honour with 300 others." + +It was not quite true that his "ambition was quenched." For the rest of +Cecil's life Cecil was the first man at James's Court; and to the last +there was one thing that Bacon would not appear to believe--he did not +choose to believe that it was Cecil who kept him back from employment +and honour. To the last he persisted in assuming that Cecil was the +person who would help, if he could, a kinsman devoted to his interests +and profoundly conscious of his worth. To the last he commended his +cause to Cecil in terms of unstinted affection and confiding hope. It is +difficult to judge of the sincerity of such language. The mere customary +language of compliment employed by every one at this time was of a kind +which to us sounds intolerable. It seems as if nothing that ingenuity +could devise was too extravagant for an honest man to use, and for a man +who respected himself to accept. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that +conventionalities, as well as insincerity, differ in their forms in +different times; and that insincerity may lurk behind frank and clear +words, when they are the fashion, as much as in what is like mere +fulsome adulation. But words mean something, in spite of forms and +fashions. When a man of great genius writes his private letters, we wish +generally to believe on the whole what he says; and there are no limits +to the esteem, the honour, the confidence, which Bacon continued to the +end to express towards Cecil. Bacon appeared to trust him--appeared, in +spite of continued disappointments, to rely on his good-will and good +offices. But for one reason or another Bacon still remained in the +shade. He was left to employ his time as he would, and to work his way +by himself. + +He was not idle. He prepared papers which he meant should come before +the King, on the pressing subjects of the day. The Hampton Court +conference between the Bishops and the Puritan leaders was at hand, and +he drew up a moderating paper on the _Pacification of the Church_. The +feeling against him for his conduct towards Essex had not died away, and +he addressed to Lord Mountjoy that _Apology concerning the Earl of +Essex_, so full of interest, so skilfully and forcibly written, so vivid +a picture of the Queen's ways with her servants, which has every merit +except that of clearing Bacon from the charge of disloyalty to his best +friend. The various questions arising out of the relations of the two +kingdoms, now united under James, were presenting themselves. They were +not of easy solution, and great mischief would follow if they were +solved wrongly. Bacon turned his attention to them. He addressed a +discourse to the King on the union of the two kingdoms, the first of a +series of discussions on the subject which Bacon made peculiarly his +own, and which, no doubt, first drew the King's attention and favour to +him. + +But for the first year of James's reign he was unnoticed by the King, +and he was able to give his attention more freely to the great thought +and hope of his life. This time of neglect gave him the opportunity of +leisurely calling together and examining the ideas which had long had +hold of his mind about the state of human knowledge, about the +possibilities of extending it, about the hopes and powers which that new +knowledge opened, and about the methods of realising this great +prospect. This, the passion of his life, never asleep even in the +hottest days of business or the most hopeless days of defeat, must have +had full play during these days of suspended public employment. He was a +man who was not easily satisfied with his attempts to arrange the order +and proportions of his plans for mastering that new world of unknown +truth, which he held to be within the grasp of man if he would only dare +to seize it; and he was much given to vary the shape of his work, and to +try experiments in composition and even style. He wrote and rewrote. +Besides what was finally published, there remains a larger quantity of +work which never reached the stage of publication. He repeated over and +over again the same thoughts, the same images and characteristic +sayings. Among these papers is one which sums up his convictions about +the work before him, and the vocation to which he had been called in +respect of it. It is in the form of a "Proem" to a treatise on the +_Interpretation of Nature_. It was never used in his published works; +but, as Mr. Spedding says, it has a peculiar value as an authentic +statement of what he looked upon as his special business in life. It is +this mission which he states to himself in the following paper. It is +drawn up in "stately Latin." Mr. Spedding's translation is no unworthy +representation of the words of the great Prophet of Knowledge: + + "Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and + regarding the care of the Commonwealth as a kind of common property + which, like the air and water, belongs to everybody, I set myself + to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what + service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform. + + "Now among all the benefits that could be conferred upon mankind, I + found none so great as the discovery of new arts, endowments, and + commodities for the bettering of man's life.... But if a man could + succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however + useful, but in kindling a light in nature--a light that should in + its very rising touch and illuminate all the border regions that + confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading + further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight + all that is most hidden and secret in the world--that man (I + thought) would be the benefactor indeed of the human race--the + propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of + liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities. + + "For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for + the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to + catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point), and at + the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler + differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, + patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, + readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; + and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires + what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought + my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth. + + "Nevertheless, because my birth and education had seasoned me in + business of State; and because opinions (so young as I was) would + sometimes stagger me; and because I thought that a man's own country + has some special claims upon him more than the rest of the world; + and because I hoped that, if I rose to any place of honour in the + State, I should have a larger command of industry and ability to + help me in my work--for these reasons I both applied myself to + acquire the arts of civil life, and commended my service, so far as + in modesty and honesty I might, to the favour of such friends as had + any influence. In which also I had another motive: for I felt that + those things I have spoken of--be they great or small--reach no + further than the condition and culture of this mortal life; and I + was not without hope (the condition of religion being at that time + not very prosperous) that if I came to hold office in the State, I + might get something done too for the good of men's souls. When I + found, however, that my zeal was mistaken for ambition, and my life + had already readied the turning-point, and my breaking health + reminded me how ill I could afford to be so slow, and I reflected, + moreover, that in leaving undone the good that I could do by myself + alone, and applying myself to that which could not be done without + the help and consent of others, I was by no means discharging the + duty that lay upon me--I put all those thoughts aside, and (in + pursuance of my old determination) betook myself wholly to this + work. Nor am I discouraged from it because I see signs in the times + of the decline and overthrow of that knowledge and erudition which + is now in use. Not that I apprehend any more barbarian invasions + (unless possibly the Spanish empire should recover its strength, and + having crushed other nations by arms should itself sink under its + own weight); but the civil wars which may be expected, I think + (judging from certain fashions which have come in of late), to + spread through many countries--together with the malignity of sects, + and those compendious artifices and devices which have crept into + the place of solid erudition--seem to portend for literature and the + sciences a tempest not less fatal, and one against which the + Printing-office will be no effectual security. And no doubt but that + fair-weather learning which is nursed by leisure, blossoms under + reward and praise, which cannot withstand the shock of opinion, and + is liable to be abused by tricks and quackery, will sink under such + impediments as these. Far otherwise is it with that knowledge whose + dignity is maintained by works of utility and power. For the + injuries, therefore, which should proceed from the times, I am not + afraid of them; and for the injuries which proceed from men, I am + not concerned. For if any one charge me with seeking to be wise + over-much, I answer simply that modesty and civil respect are fit + for civil matters; in contemplations nothing is to be respected but + Truth. If any one call on me for _works_, and that presently, I tell + him frankly, without any imposture at all, that for me--a man not + old, of weak health, my hands full of civil business, entering + without guide or light upon an argument of all others the most + obscure--I hold it enough to have constructed the machine, though I + may not succeed in setting it on work.... If, again, any one ask me, + not indeed for actual works, yet for definite premises and + forecasts of the works that are to be, I would have him know that + the knowledge which we now possess will not teach a man even what to + _wish_. Lastly--though this is a matter of less moment--if any of + our politicians, who used to make their calculations and conjectures + according to persons and precedents, must needs interpose his + judgment in a thing of this nature, I would but remind him how + (according to the ancient fable) the lame man keeping the course won + the race of the swift man who left it; and that there is no thought + to be taken about precedents, for the thing is without precedent. + + "For myself, my heart is not set upon any of those things which + depend upon external accidents. I am not hunting for fame: I have no + desire to found a sect, after the fashion of heresiarchs; and to + look for any private gain from such an undertaking as this I count + both ridiculous and base. Enough for me the consciousness of + well-deserving, and those real and effectual results with which + Fortune itself cannot interfere." + +In 1604 James's first Parliament met, and with it Bacon returned to an +industrious public life, which was not to be interrupted till it finally +came to an end with his strange and irretrievable fall. The opportunity +had come; and Bacon, patient, vigilant, and conscious of great powers +and indefatigable energy, fully aware of all the conditions of the time, +pushed at once to the front in the House of Commons. He lost no time in +showing that he meant to make himself felt. The House of Commons had no +sooner met than it was involved in a contest with the Chancery, with the +Lords, and finally with the King himself, about its privileges--in this +case its exclusive right to judge of the returns of its members. Bacon's +time was come for showing the King both that he was willing to do him +service, and that he was worth being employed. He took a leading part in +the discussions, and was trusted by the House as their spokesman and +reporter in the various conferences. The King, in his overweening +confidence in his absolute prerogative, had, indeed, got himself into +serious difficulty; for the privilege was one which it was impossible +for the Commons to give up. But Bacon led the House to agree to an +arrangement which saved their rights; and under a cloud of words of +extravagant flattery he put the King in good-humour, and elicited from +him the spontaneous proposal of a compromise which ended a very +dangerous dispute. "The King's voice," said Bacon, in his report to the +House, "was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth +of man; I do not say the voice of God and not of man; I am not one of +Herod's flatterers; a curse fell upon him that said it, a curse on him +that suffered it. We might say, as was said to Solomon, We are glad, O +King, that we give account to you, because you discern what is spoken." + +The course of this Parliament, in which Bacon was active and prominent, +showed the King, probably for the first time, what Bacon was. The +session was not so stormy as some of the later ones; but occasions arose +which revealed to the King and to the House of Commons the deeply +discordant assumptions and purposes by which each party was influenced, +and which brought out Bacon's powers of adjusting difficulties and +harmonising claims. He never wavered in his loyalty to his own House, +where it is clear that his authority was great. But there was no limit +to the submission and reverence which he expressed to the King, and, +indeed, to his desire to bring about what the King desired, as far as it +could be safely done. Dealing with the Commons, his policy was "to be +content with the substance and not to stand on the form." Dealing with +the King, he was forward to recognise all that James wanted recognised +of his kingcraft and his absolute sovereignty. Bacon assailed with a +force and keenness which showed what he could do as an opponent, the +amazing and intolerable grievances arising out of the survival of such +feudal customs as Wardship and Purveyance; customs which made over a +man's eldest son and property, during a minority, to the keeping of the +King, that is, to a King's favourite, and allowed the King's servants to +cut down a man's timber before the windows of his house. But he urged +that these grievances should be taken away with the utmost tenderness +for the King's honour and the King's purse. In the great and troublesome +questions relating to the Union he took care to be fully prepared. He +was equally strong on points of certain and substantial importance, +equally quick to suggest accommodations where nothing substantial was +touched. His attitude was one of friendly and respectful independence. +It was not misunderstood by the King. Bacon, who had hitherto been an +unsworn and unpaid member of the Learned Counsel, now received his +office by patent, with a small salary, and he was charged with the grave +business of preparing the work for the Commissioners for the Union of +the Kingdoms, in which, when the Commission met, he took a foremost and +successful part. + +But the Parliament before which their report was to be laid did not meet +till ten months after the work of the Commission was done (Dec., +1604--Nov., 1605). For nearly another year Bacon had no public work. The +leisure was used for his own objects. He was interested in history in a +degree only second to his interest in nature; indeed, but for the +engrossing claims of his philosophy of nature, he might have been the +first and one of the greatest of our historians. He addressed a letter +to the Chancellor Ellesmere on the deficiencies of British history, and +on the opportunities which offered for supplying them. He himself could +at present do nothing; "but because there be so many good painters, both +for hand and colours, it needeth but encouragement and instructions to +give life and light unto it." But he mistook, in this as in other +instances, the way in which such things are done. Men do not accomplish +such things to order, but because their souls compel them, as he himself +was building up his great philosophical structure, in the midst of his +ambition and disappointment. And this interval of quiet enabled him to +bring out his first public appeal on the subject which most filled his +mind. He completed in English the _Two Books of the Advancement of +Knowledge_, which were published at a book-shop at the gateway of Gray's +Inn in Holborn (Oct., 1605). He intended that it should be published in +Latin also; but he was dissatisfied with the ornate translation sent him +from Cambridge, and probably he was in a hurry to get the book out. It +was dedicated to the King, not merely by way of compliment, but with the +serious hope that his interest might be awakened in the subjects which +were nearest Bacon's heart. Like other of Bacon's hopes, it was +disappointed. The King's studies and the King's humours were not of the +kind to make him care for Bacon's visions of the future, or his eager +desire to begin at once a novel method of investigating the facts and +laws of nature; and the appeal to him fell dead. Bacon sent the book +about to his friends with explanatory letters. To Sir T. Bodley he +writes: + + "I think no man may more truly say with the Psalm, _Multum incola + fuit anima mea_ [Ps. 120] than myself. For I do confess since I was + of any understanding, my mind hath in effect been absent from that + I have done; and in absence are many errors which I willingly + acknowledge; and among them, this great one which led the rest: + that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book + than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which + I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation + of my mind. Therefore, calling myself home, I have now enjoyed + myself; whereof likewise I desire to make the world partaker." + +To Lord Salisbury, in a note of elaborate compliment, he describes his +purpose by an image which he repeats more than once. "I shall content +myself to awake better spirits, _like a bell-ringer, which is first up +to call others to church_." But the two friends whose judgment he +chiefly valued, and who, as on other occasions, were taken into his most +intimate literary confidence, were Bishop Andrewes, his "inquisitor," +and Toby Matthews, a son of the Archbishop of York, who had become a +Roman Catholic, and lived in Italy, seeing a good deal of learned men +there, apparently the most trusted of all Bacon's friends. + +When Parliament met again in November, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot and its +consequences filled all minds. Bacon was not employed about it by +Government, and his work in the House was confined to carrying on +matters left unfinished from the previous session. On the rumour of +legal promotions and vacancies Bacon once more applied to Salisbury for +the Solicitorship (March, 1606). But no changes were made, and Bacon was +"still next the door." In May, 1606, he did what had for some time been +in his thoughts: he married; not the lady whom Essex had tried to win +for him, that Lady Hatton who became the wife of his rival Coke, but one +whom Salisbury helped him to gain, an alderman's daughter, Alice +Barnham, "an handsome maiden," with some money and a disagreeable +mother, by her second marriage, Lady Packington. Bacon's curious love of +pomp amused the gossips of the day. "Sir Francis Bacon," writes Carleton +to Chamberlain, "was married yesterday to his young wench, in Maribone +Chapel. He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and +his wife such store of raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it +draws deep into her portion." Of his married life we hear next to +nothing: in his _Essay on Marriage_ he is not enthusiastic in its +praise; almost the only thing we know is that in his will, twenty years +afterwards, he showed his dissatisfaction with his wife, who after his +death married again. But it gave him an additional reason, and an +additional plea, for pressing for preferment, and in the summer of 1606 +the opening came. Coke was made Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, +leaving the Attorney's place vacant. A favourite of Salisbury's, Hobart, +became Attorney, and Bacon hoped for some arrangement by which the +Solicitor Doddridge might be otherwise provided for, and he himself +become Solicitor. Hopeful as he was, and patient of disappointments, and +of what other men would have thought injustice and faithlessness, he +felt keenly both the disgrace and the inconvenience of so often +expecting place, and being so often passed over. While the question was +pending, he wrote to the King, the Chancellor, and Salisbury. His letter +to the King is a record in his own words of his public services. To the +Chancellor, whom he believed to be his supporter, he represented the +discredit which he suffered--he was a common gaze and a speech;" "the +little reputation which by his industry he gathered, being scattered and +taken away by continual disgraces, _every new man coming above me_;" and +his wife and his wife's friends were making him feel it. The letters +show what Bacon thought to be his claims, and how hard he found it to +get them recognised. To the Chancellor he urged, among other things, +that time was slipping by-- + + "I humbly pray your Lordship to consider that time groweth precious + with me, and that a married man is seven years elder in his + thoughts the first day.... And were it not to satisfy my wife's + friends, and to get myself out of being a common gaze and a speech, + I protest before God I would never speak word for it. But to + conclude, as my honourable Lady your wife was some mean to make me + to change the name of another, so if it please you to help me to + change my own name, I can be but more and more bounden to you; and + I am much deceived if your Lordship find not the King well + inclined, and my Lord of Salisbury forward and affectionate." + +To Salisbury he writes: + + "I may say to your Lordship, in the confidence of your poor + kinsman, and of a man by you advanced, _Tu idem fer opem, qui spem + dedisti_; for I am sure it was not possible for any living man to + have received from another more significant and comfortable words + of hope; your Lordship being pleased to tell me, during the course + of my last service, that you would raise me; and that when you had + resolved to raise a man, you were more careful of him than himself; + and that what you had done for me in my marriage was a benefit to + me, but of no use to your Lordship.... And I know, and all the + world knoweth, that your Lordship is no dealer of holy water, but + noble and real; and on my part I am of a sure ground that I have + committed nothing that may deserve alteration. And therefore my + hope is your Lordship will finish a good work, and consider that + time groweth precious with me, and that I am now _vergentibus + annis_. And although I know your fortune is not to need an hundred + such as I am, yet I shall be ever ready to give you my best and + first fruits, and to supply (as much as in me lieth) worthiness by + thankfulness." + +Still the powers were deaf to his appeals; at any rate he had to be +content with another promise. Considering the ability which he had shown +in Parliament, the wisdom and zeal with which he had supported the +Government, and the important position which he held in the House of +Commons, the neglect of him is unintelligible, except on two +suppositions: that the Government, that is Cecil, were afraid of +anything but the mere routine of law, as represented by such men as +Hobart and Doddridge; or that Coke's hostility to him was unabated, and +Coke still too important to be offended. + +Bacon returned to work when the Parliament met, November, 1606. The +questions arising out of the Union, the question of naturalisation, its +grounds and limits, the position of Scotchmen born _before_ or _since_ +the King's accession, the _Antenati_ and _Postnati_, the question of a +union of laws, with its consequences, were discussed with great keenness +and much jealous feeling. On the question of naturalisation Bacon took +the liberal and larger view. The immediate union of laws he opposed as +premature. He was a willing servant of the House, and the House readily +made use of him. He reported the result of conferences, even when his +own opinion was adverse to that of the House. And he reported the +speeches of such persons as Lord Salisbury, probably throwing into them +both form and matter of his own. At length, "silently, on the 25th of +June," 1607, he was appointed Solicitor-General. He was then +forty-seven. + +"It was also probably about this time," writes Mr. Spedding, "that Bacon +finally settled the plan of his '_Great Instauration_,' and began to +call it by that name." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +BACON SOLICITOR-GENERAL. + + +The great thinker and idealist, the great seer of a world of knowledge +to which the men of his own generation were blind, and which they could +not, even with his help, imagine a possible one, had now won the first +step in that long and toilsome ascent to success in life, in which for +fourteen years he had been baffled. He had made himself, for good and +for evil, a servant of the Government of James I. He was prepared to +discharge with zeal and care all his duties. He was prepared to perform +all the services which that Government might claim from its servants. He +had sought, he had passionately pressed to be admitted within that +circle in which the will of the King was the supreme law; after that, it +would have been ruin to have withdrawn or resisted. But it does not +appear that the thought or wish to resist or withdraw ever presented +itself; he had thoroughly convinced himself that in doing what the King +required he was doing the part of a good citizen, and a faithful servant +of the State and Commonwealth. The two lives, the two currents of +purpose and effort, were still there. Behind all the wrangle of the +courts and the devising of questionable legal subtleties to support some +unconstitutional encroachment, or to outflank the defence of some +obnoxious prisoner, the high philosophical meditations still went on; +the remembrance of their sweetness and grandeur wrung more than once +from the jaded lawyer or the baffled counsellor the complaint, in words +which had a great charm for him, _Multum incola fuit anima mea_--"My +soul hath long dwelt" where it would not be. But opinion and ambition +and the immense convenience of being great and rich and powerful, and +the supposed necessities of his condition, were too strong even for his +longings to be the interpreter and the servant of nature. There is no +trace of the faintest reluctance on his part to be the willing minister +of a court of which not only the principal figure, but the arbiter and +governing spirit, was to be George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. + +The first leisure that Bacon had after he was appointed Solicitor he +used in a characteristic way. He sat down to make a minute stock-taking +of his position and its circumstances. In the summer of 1608 he devoted +a week of July to this survey of his life, its objects and its +appliances; and he jotted down, day by day, through the week, from his +present reflections, or he transcribed from former note-books, a series +of notes in loose order, mostly very rough and not always intelligible, +about everything that could now concern him. This curious and intimate +record, which he called _Commentarius Solutus_, was discovered by Mr. +Spedding, who not unnaturally had some misgivings about publishing so +secret and so ambiguous a record of a man's most private confidences +with himself. But there it was, and, as it was known, he no doubt +decided wisely in publishing it as it stands; he has done his best to +make it intelligible, and he has also done his best to remove any +unfavourable impressions that might arise from it. It is singularly +interesting as an evidence of Bacon's way of working, of his +watchfulness, his industry, his care in preparing himself long +beforehand for possible occasions, his readiness to take any amount of +trouble about his present duties, his self-reliant desire for more +important and difficult ones. It exhibits his habit of self-observation +and self-correction, his care to mend his natural defects of voice, +manner, and delivery; it is even more curious in showing him watching +his own physical constitution and health, in the most minute details of +symptoms and remedies, equally with a scientific and a practical object. +It contains his estimate of his income, his expenditure, his debts, +schedules of lands and jewels, his rules for the economy of his estate, +his plans for his new gardens and terraces and ponds and buildings at +Gorhambury. He was now a rich man, valuing his property at L24,155 and +his income at L4975, burdened with a considerable debt, but not more +than he might easily look to wipe out. But, besides all these points, +there appear the two large interests of his life--the reform of +philosophy, and his ideal of a great national policy. The "greatness of +Britain" was one of his favourite subjects of meditation. He puts down +in his notes the outline of what should be aimed at to secure and +increase it; it is to make the various forces of the great and growing +empire work together in harmonious order, without waste, without +jealousy, without encroachment and collision; to unite not only the +interests but the sympathies and aims of the Crown with those of the +people and Parliament; and so to make Britain, now in peril from nothing +but from the strength of its own discordant elements, that "Monarchy of +the West" in reality, which Spain was in show, and, as Bacon always +maintained, only in show. The survey of the condition of his +philosophical enterprise takes more space. He notes the stages and +points to which his plans have reached; he indicates, with a favourite +quotation or apophthegm--"_Plus ultra_"--"_ausus vana +contemnere_"--"_aditus non nisi sub persona infantis_" soon to be +familiar to the world in his published writings--the lines of argument, +sometimes alternative ones, which were before him; he draws out schemes +of inquiry, specimen tables, distinctions and classifications about the +subject of Motion, in English interlarded with Latin, or in Latin +interlarded with English, of his characteristic and practical sort; he +notes the various sources from which he might look for help and +co-operation--"of learned men beyond the seas"--"to begin first in +France to print it"--"laying for a place to command wits and pens;" he +has his eye on rich and childless bishops, on the enforced idleness of +State prisoners in the Tower, like Northumberland and Raleigh, on the +great schools and universities, where he might perhaps get hold of some +college for "Inventors"--as we should say, for the endowment of +research. These matters fill up a large space of his notes. But his +thoughts were also busy about his own advancement. And to these sheets +of miscellaneous memoranda Bacon confided not only his occupations and +his philosophical and political ideas, but, with a curious innocent +unreserve, the arts and methods which he proposed to use in order to win +the favour of the great and to pull down the reputation of his rivals. +He puts down in detail how he is to recommend himself to the King and +the King's favourites-- + + "To set on foot and maintain access with his Majesty, Dean of the + Chapel, May, Murray. Keeping a course of access at the beginning of + every term and vacation, with a memorial. To attend some time his + repasts, or to fall into a course of familiar discourse. To find + means to win a conceit, not open, but private, of being + affectionate and assured to the Scotch, and fit to succeed + Salisbury in his manage in that kind; Lord Dunbar, Duke of Lennox, + and Daubiny: secret." + +Then, again, of Salisbury-- + + "Insinuate myself to become privy to my Lord of Salisbury's + estate." "To correspond with Salisbury in a habit of natural but no + ways perilous boldness, and in vivacity, invention, care to cast + and enterprise (but with due caution), for this manner I judge both + in his nature freeth the stands, and in his ends pleaseth him best, + and promiseth more use of me. I judge my standing out, and not + favoured by Northampton, must needs do me good with Salisbury, + especially comparative to the Attorney." + +The Attorney Hobart filled the place to which Bacon had so long aspired, +and which he thought, perhaps reasonably, that he could fill much +better. At any rate, one of the points to which he recurs frequently in +his notes is to exhort himself to make his own service a continual +contrast to the Attorney's--"to have in mind and use the Attorney's +weakness," enumerating a list of instances: "Too full of cases and +distinctions. Nibbling solemnly, he distinguisheth but apprehends not;" +"No gift with his pen in proclamations and the like;" and at last he +draws out in a series of epigrams his view of "Hubbard's +disadvantages"-- + + "Better at shift than at drift.... _Subtilitas sine acrimonia_.... + No power with the judge.... He will alter a thing but not mend.... + He puts into patents and deeds words not of law but of common sense + and discourse.... Sociable save in profit.... He doth depopulate + mine office; otherwise called inclose.... I never knew any one of + so good a speech with a worse pen." ... + +Then in a marginal note--"Solemn goose. Stately, leastwise nodd (?) +crafty. They have made him believe that he is wondrous wise." And, +finally, he draws up a paper of counsels and rules for his own +conduct--"_Custumae aptae ad Individuum_"--which might supply an outline +for an essay on the arts of behaviour proper for a rising official, a +sequel to the biting irony of the essays on _Cunning_ and _Wisdom for a +Man's Self_. + + "To furnish my L. of S. with ornaments for public speeches. To make + him think how he should be reverenced by a Lord Chancellor, if I + were; Princelike. + + "To prepare him for matters to be handled in Council or before the + King aforehand, and to show him and yield him the fruits of my + care. + + "To take notes in tables, when I attend the Council, and sometimes + to move out of a memorial shewed and seen. To have particular + occasions, fit and graceful and continual, to maintain private + speech with every the great persons, and sometimes drawing more + than one together. _Ex imitatione Att._ This specially in public + places, and without care or affectation. At Council table to make + good my L. of Salisb. motions and speeches, and for the rest + sometimes one sometimes another; chiefly his, that is most earnest + and in affection. + + "To suppress at once my speaking, with panting and labour of breath + and voice. Not to fall upon the main too sudden, but to induce and + intermingle speech of good fashion. To use at once upon entrance + given of speech, though abrupt, to compose and draw in myself. To + free myself at once from payt. (?) of formality and compliment, + though with some show of carelessness, pride, and rudeness." + + (And then follows a long list of matters of business to be attended + to.) + +These arts of a court were not new; it was not new for men to observe +them in their neighbours and rivals. What was new was the writing them +down, with deliberate candour, among a man's private memoranda, as +things to be done and with the intention of practising them. This of +itself, it has been suggested, shows that they were unfamiliar and +uncongenial to Bacon; for a man reminds himself of what he is apt to +forget. But a man reminds himself also of what seems to him, at the +moment, most important, and what he lays most stress upon. And it is +clear that these are the rules, rhetorical and ethical, which Bacon laid +down for himself in pursuing the second great object of his life--his +official advancement; and that, whatever we think of them, they were the +means which he deliberately approved. + +As long as Salisbury lived, the distrust which had kept Bacon so long in +the shade kept him at a distance from the King's ear, and from influence +on his counsels. Salisbury was the one Englishman in whom the King had +become accustomed to confide, in his own conscious strangeness to +English ways and real dislike and suspicion of them; Salisbury had an +authority which no one else had, both from his relations with James at +the end of Elizabeth's reign, and as the representative of her policy +and the depositary of its traditions; and if he had lived, things might +not, perhaps, have been better in James's government, but many things, +probably, would have been different. But while Salisbury was supreme, +Bacon, though very alert and zealous, was mainly busied with his +official work; and the Solicitor's place had become, as he says, a "mean +thing" compared with the Attorney's, and also an extremely laborious +place--"one of the painfullest places in the kingdom." Much of it was +routine, but responsible and fatiguing routine. But if he was not in +Salisbury's confidence, he was prominent in the House of Commons. The +great and pressing subject of the time was the increasing difficulties +of the revenue, created partly by the inevitable changes of a growing +state, but much more by the King's incorrigible wastefulness. It was +impossible to realise completely the great dream and longing of the +Stuart kings and their ministers to make the Crown independent of +parliamentary supplies; but to dispense with these supplies as much as +possible, and to make as much as possible of the revenue permanent, was +the continued and fatal policy of the Court. The "Great Contract"--a +scheme by which, in return for the surrender by the Crown of certain +burdensome and dangerous claims of the Prerogative, the Commons were to +assure a large compensating yearly income to the Crown--was Salisbury's +favourite device during the last two years of his life. It was not a +prosperous one. The bargain was an ill-imagined and not very decorous +transaction between the King and his people. Both parties were naturally +jealous of one another, suspicious of underhand dealing and tacit +changes of terms, prompt to resent and take offence, and not easy to +pacify when they thought advantage had been taken; and Salisbury, either +by his own fault, or by yielding to the King's canny shiftiness, gave +the business a more haggling and huckstering look than it need have had. +Bacon, a subordinate of the Government, but a very important person in +the Commons, did his part, loyally, as it seems, and skilfully in +smoothing differences and keeping awkward questions from making their +appearance. Thus he tried to stave off the risk of bringing definitely +to a point the King's cherished claim to levy "impositions," or custom +duties, on merchandise, by virtue of his prerogative--a claim which he +warned the Commons not to dispute, and which Bacon, maintaining it as +legal in theory, did his best to prevent them from discussing, and to +persuade them to be content with restraining. Whatever he thought of the +"Great Contract," he did what was expected of him in trying to gain for +it fair play. But he made time for other things also. He advised, and +advised soundly, on the plantation and finance of Ireland. It was a +subject in which he took deep interest. A few years later, with only +too sure a foresight, he gave the warning, "lest Ireland civil become +more dangerous to us than Ireland savage." He advised--not soundly in +point of law, but curiously in accordance with modern notions--about +endowments; though, in this instance, in the famous will case of Thomas +Sutton, the founder of the Charter House, his argument probably covered +the scheme of a monstrous job in favour of the needy Court. And his own +work went on in spite of the pressure of the Solicitor's place. To the +first years of his official life belong three very interesting +fragments, intended to find a provisional place in the plan of the +"Great Instauration." To his friend Toby Matthews, at Florence, he sent +in manuscript the great attack on the old teachers of knowledge, which +is perhaps the most brilliant, and also the most insolently unjust and +unthinking piece of rhetoric ever composed by him--the _Redargutio +Philosophiarum_. + + "I send you at this time the only part which hath any harshness; + and yet I framed to myself an opinion, that whosoever allowed well + of that preface which you so much commend, will not dislike, or at + least ought not to dislike, this other speech of preparation; for + it is written out of the same spirit, and out of the same + necessity. Nay it doth more fully lay open that the question + between me and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but + of the rightness of the way. And to speak truth, it is to the other + but as _palma_ to _pugnus_, part of the same thing more large.... + Myself am like the miller of Huntingdon, that was wont to pray for + peace amongst the willows; for while the winds blew, the wind-mills + wrought, and the water-mill was less customed. So I see that + controversies of religion must hinder the advancement of sciences. + Let me conclude with my perpetual wish towards yourself, that the + approbation of yourself by your own discreet and temperate + carriage, may restore you to your country, and your friends to your + society. And so I commend you to God's goodness. + + "Gray's Inn, this 10th of October, 1609." + +To Bishop Andrewes he sent, also in manuscript, another piece, +belonging to the same plan--the deeply impressive treatise called _Visa +et Cogitata_--what Francis Bacon had seen of nature and knowledge, and +what he had come by meditation to think of what he had seen. The letter +is not less interesting than the last, in respect to the writer's +purposes, his manner of writing, and his relations to his correspondent. + + "MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Now your Lordship hath been so long in the + church and the palace disputing between kings and popes, methinks + you should take pleasure to look into the field, and refresh your + mind with some matter of philosophy, though that science be now + through age waxed a child again, and left to boys and young men; + and because you were wont to make me believe you took liking to my + writings, I send you some of this vacation's fruits, and thus much + more of my mind and purpose. I hasten not to publish; perishing I + would prevent. And I am forced to respect as well my times as the + matter. For with me it is thus, and I think with all men in my + case, if I bind myself to an argument, it loadeth my mind; but if I + rid my mind of the present cogitation, it is rather a recreation. + This hath put me into these miscellanies, which I purpose to + suppress, if God give me leave to write a just and perfect volume + of philosophy, which I go on with, though slowly. I send not your + Lordship too much, lest it may glut you. Now let me tell you what + my desire is. If your Lordship be so good now as when you were the + good Dean of Westminster, my request to you is, that not by pricks, + but by notes, you would mark unto me whatsoever shall seem unto you + either not current in the style, or harsh to credit and opinion, or + inconvenient for the person of the writer; for no man can be judge + and party, and when our minds judge by reflection of ourselves, + they are more subject to error. And though for the matter itself my + judgement be in some things fixed, and not accessible by any man's + judgement that goeth not my way, yet even in those things the + admonition of a friend may make me express myself diversly. I would + have come to your Lordship, but that I am hastening to my house in + the country. And so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness." + +There was yet another production of this time, of which we have a +notice from himself in a letter to Toby Matthews, the curious and +ingenious little treatise on the _Wisdom of the Ancients_, "one of the +most popular of his works," says Mr. Spedding, "in his own and in the +next generation," but of value to us mainly for its quaint poetical +colour, and the unexpected turns, like answers to a riddle, given to the +ancient fables. When this work was published, it was the third time that +he had appeared as an author in print. He thus writes about it and +himself: + + "MR. MATTHEWS,--I do heartily thank you for your letter of the 24th + of August from Salamanca; and in recompense thereof I send you a + little work of mine that hath begun to pass the world. They tell me + my Latin is turned into silver, and become current. Had you been + here, you should have been my inquisitor before it came forth; but + I think the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it.... My great + work goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter ever when I add. + So that nothing is finished till all be finished. + + "From Gray's Inn, the 17th of February, 1610." + +In the autumn of 1611 the Attorney-General was ill, and Bacon reminded +both the King and Salisbury of his claim. He was afraid, he writes to +the King, with an odd forgetfulness of the persistency and earnestness +of his applications, "that _by reason of my slowness to sue_, and +apprehend occasions upon the sudden, keeping one plain course of painful +service, I may _in fine dierum_ be in danger to be neglected and +forgotten." The Attorney recovered, but Bacon, on New Year's Tide of +1611/12, wrote to Salisbury to thank him for his good-will. It is the +last letter of Bacon's to Salisbury which has come down to us. + + "IT MAY PLEASE YOUR GOOD LORDSHIP,--I would entreat the new year to + answer for the old, in my humble thanks to your Lordship, both for + many your favours, and chiefly that upon the occasion of Mr. + Attorney's infirmity I found your Lordship even as I would wish. + This doth increase a desire in me to express my thankful mind to + your Lordship; hoping that though I find age and decays grow upon + me, yet I may have a flash or two of spirit left to do you service. + And I do protest before God, without compliment or any light vein + of mind, that if I knew in what course of life to do you best + service, I would take it, and make my thoughts, which now fly to + many pieces, be reduced to that center. But all this is no more + than I am, which is not much, but yet the entire of him that is--" + +In the following May (May 24, 1612) Salisbury died. From this date James +passed from government by a minister, who, whatever may have been his +faults, was laborious, public-spirited, and a statesman, into his own +keeping and into the hands of favourites, who cared only for themselves. +With Cecil ceased the traditions of the days of Elizabeth and Burghley, +in many ways evil and cruel traditions, but not ignoble and sordid ones; +and James was left without the stay, and also without the check, which +Cecil's power had been to him. The field was open for new men and new +ways; the fashions and ideas of the time had altered during the last ten +years, and those of the Queen's days had gone out of date. Would the new +turn out for the better or the worse? Bacon, at any rate, saw the +significance of the change and the critical eventfulness of the moment. +It was his habit of old to send memorials of advice to the heads of the +Government, apparently without such suggestions seeming more intrusive +or officious than a leading article seems now, and perhaps with much the +same effect. It was now a time to do so, if ever; and he was in an +official relation to the King which entitled him to proffer advice. He +at once prepared to lay his thoughts before the King, and to suggest +that he could do far better service than Cecil, and was ready to take +his place. The policy of the "Great Contract" had certainly broken +down, and the King, under Cecil's guidance, had certainly not known how +to manage an English parliament. In writing to the King he found it hard +to satisfy himself. Several draft letters remain, and it is not certain +which of them, if any, was sent. But immediately on Salisbury's death he +began, May 29th, a letter in which he said that he had never yet been +able to show his affection to the King, "having been as a hawk tied to +another's fist;" and if, "as was said to one that spake great words, +_Amice, verba tua desiderant civitatem_, your Majesty say to me, _Bacon, +your words require a place to speak them_," yet that "place or not +place" was with the King. But the draft breaks off abruptly, and with +the date of the 31st we have the following: + + "Your Majesty hath lost a great subject and a great servant. But if + I should praise him in propriety, I should say that he was a fit + man to keep things from growing worse, but no very fit man to + reduce things to be much better. For he loved to have the eyes of + all Israel a little too much upon himself, and to have all business + still under the hammer, and like clay in the hands of the potter, + to mould it as he thought good; so that he was more _in operatione_ + than _in opere_. And though he had fine passages of action, yet the + real conclusions came slowly on. So that although your Majesty hath + grave counsellors and worthy persons left, yet you do as it were + turn a leaf, wherein if your Majesty shall give a frame and + constitution to matters, before you place the persons, in my simple + opinion it were not amiss. But the great matter and most instant + for the present, is the consideration of a Parliament, for two + effects: the one for the supply of your estate, the other for the + better knitting of the hearts of your subjects unto your Majesty, + according to your infinite merit; for both which, Parliaments have + been and are the antient and honourable remedy. + + "Now because I take myself to have a little skill in that region, + as one that ever affected that your Majesty mought in all your + causes not only prevail, but prevail with satisfaction of the inner + man; and though no man can say but I was a perfect and peremptory + royalist, yet every man makes me believe that I was never one hour + out of credit with the Lower House; my desire is to know whether + your Majesty will give me leave to meditate and propound unto you + some preparative remembrances touching the future Parliament." + +Whether he sent this or not, he prepared another draft. What had +happened in the mean while we know not, but Bacon was in a bitter mood, +and the letter reveals, for the first time, what was really in Bacon's +heart about the "great subject and great servant," of whom he had just +written so respectfully, and with whom he had been so closely connected +for most of his life. The fierceness which had been gathering for years +of neglect and hindrance under that placid and patient exterior broke +out. He offered himself as Cecil's successor in business of State. He +gave his reason for being hopeful of success. Cecil's bitterest enemy +could not have given it more bitterly. + + "My principal end being to do your Majesty service, I crave leave + to make at this time to your Majesty this most humble oblation of + myself. I may truly say with the psalm, _Multum incola fuit anima + mea_, for my life hath been conversant in things wherein I take + little pleasure. Your Majesty may have heard somewhat that my + father was an honest man, and somewhat you may have seen of myself, + though not to make any true judgement by, because I have hitherto + had only _potestatem verborum_, nor that neither. I was three of my + young years bred with an ambassador in France, and since I have + been an old truant in the school-house of your council-chamber, + though on the second form, yet longer than any that now sitteth + hath been upon the head form. If your Majesty find any aptness in + me, or if you find any scarcity in others, whereby you may think it + fit for your service to remove me to business of State, although I + have a fair way before me for profit (and by your Majesty's grace + and favour for honour and advancement), and in a course less + exposed to the blasts of fortune, _yet now that he is gone, quo + vivente virtutibus certissimum exitium_, I will be ready as a + chessman to be wherever your Majesty's royal hand shall set me. + Your Majesty will bear me witness, I have not suddenly opened + myself thus far. I have looked upon others, I see the exceptions, + I see the distractions, and I fear Tacitus will be a prophet, + _magis alii homines quam alii mores_. I know mine own heart, and I + know not whether God that hath touched my heart with the affection + may not touch your royal heart to discern it. Howsoever, I shall at + least go on honestly in mine ordinary course, and supply the rest + in prayers for you, remaining, etc." + +This is no hasty outburst. In a later paper on the true way of +retrieving the disorders of the King's finances, full of large and wise +counsel, after advising the King not to be impatient, and assuring him +that a state of debt is not so intolerable--"for it is no new thing for +the greatest Kings to be in debt," and all the great men of the Court +had been in debt without any "manner of diminution of their +greatness"--he returns to the charge in detail against Salisbury and the +Great Contract. + + "My second prayer is, that your Majesty--in respect to the hasty + freeing of your state--would not descend to any means, or degree of + means, which carrieth not a symmetry with your Majesty and + greatness. _He is gone from whom those courses did wholly flow._ To + have your wants and necessities in particular as it were hanged up + in two tablets before the eyes of your lords and commons, to be + talked of for four months together; To have all your courses to + help yourself in revenue or profit put into printed books, which + were wont to be held _arcana imperii_; To have such worms of + aldermen to lend for ten in the hundred upon good assurance, and + with such entreaty (?) as if it should save the bark of your + fortune; To contract still where mought be had the readiest + payment, and not the best bargain; To stir a number of projects for + your profit, and then to blast them, and leave your Majesty nothing + but the scandal of them; To pretend even carriage between your + Majesty's rights and ease of the people, and to satisfy neither. + These courses and others the like I hope are gone with the deviser + of them; which have turned your Majesty to inestimable prejudice." + +And what he thought of saying, but on further consideration struck out, +was the following. It is no wonder that he struck it out, but it shows +what he felt towards Cecil. + + "I protest to God, though I be not superstitious, when I saw your + M.'s book against Vorstius and Arminius, and noted your zeal to + deliver the majesty of God from the vain and indign comprehensions + of heresy and degenerate philosophy, as you had by your pen formerly + endeavoured to deliver kings from the usurpation of Rome, _perculsit + illico animum_ that God would set shortly upon you some visible + favour, _and let me not live if I thought not of the taking away of + that man_." + +And from this time onwards he scarcely ever mentions Cecil's name in his +correspondence with James but with words of condemnation, which imply +that Cecil's mischievous policy was the result of private ends. Yet this +was the man to whom he had written the "New Year's Tide" letter six +months before; a letter which is but an echo to the last of all that he +had been accustomed to write to Cecil when asking assistance or offering +congratulation. Cecil had, indeed, little claim on Bacon's gratitude; he +had spoken him fair in public, and no doubt in secret distrusted and +thwarted him. But to the last Bacon did not choose to acknowledge this. +Had James disclosed something of his dead servant, who left some strange +secrets behind him, which showed his unsuspected hostility to Bacon? +Except on this supposition (but there is nothing to support it), no +exaggeration of the liberty allowed to the language of compliment is +enough to clear Bacon of an insincerity which is almost inconceivable in +any but the meanest tools of power. + +"I assure myself," wrote Bacon to the King, "your Majesty taketh not me +for one of a busy nature; for my estate being free from all +difficulties, and I having such a large field for contemplation, as I +have partly and shall much more make manifest unto your Majesty and the +world, to occupy my thoughts, nothing could make me active but love and +affection." So Bacon described his position with questionable +accuracy--for his estate was not "free from difficulties"--in the new +time coming. He was still kept out of the inner circle of the Council; +but from the moment of Salisbury's death he became a much more important +person. He still sued for advancement, and still met with +disappointment; the "mean men" still rose above him. The lucrative place +of Master of the Wards was vacated by Salisbury's death. Bacon was +talked of for it, and probably expected it, for he drew up new rules for +it, and a speech for the new master; but the office and the speech went +to Sir George Carey. Soon after Sir George Carey died. Bacon then +applied for it through the new favourite, Rochester. "He was so +confident of the place that he put most of his men into new cloaks;" and +the world of the day amused itself at his disappointment, when the place +was given to another "mean man," Sir Walter Cope, of whom the gossips +wrote that if the "last two Treasurers could look out of their graves to +see those successors in that place, they would be out of countenance +with themselves, and say to the world _quantum mutatus_." But Bacon's +hand and counsel appear more and more in important matters--the +improvement of the revenue; the defence of extreme rights of the +prerogative in the case against Whitelocke; the great question of +calling a parliament, and of the true and "princely" way of dealing with +it. His confidential advice to the King about calling a parliament was +marked by his keen perception of the facts of the situation; it was +marked too by his confident reliance on skilful indirect methods and +trust in the look of things; it bears traces also of his bitter feeling +against Salisbury, whom he charges with treacherously fomenting the +opposition of the last Parliament. There was no want of worldly wisdom +in it; certainly it was more adapted to James's ideas of state-craft +than the simpler plan of Sir Henry Nevill, that the King should throw +himself frankly on the loyalty and good-will of Parliament. And thus he +came to be on easy terms with James, who was quite capable of +understanding Bacon's resource and nimbleness of wit. In the autumn of +1613 the Chief-Justiceship of the King's Bench became vacant. Bacon at +once gave the King reasons for sending Coke from the Common Pleas--where +he was a check on the prerogative--to the King's Bench, where he could +do less harm; while Hobart went to the Common Pleas. The promotion was +obvious, but the Common Pleas suited Coke better, and the place was more +lucrative. Bacon's advice was followed. Coke, very reluctantly, knowing +well who had given it, and why, "not only weeping himself but followed +by the tears" of all the Court of Common Pleas, moved up to the higher +post. The Attorney Hobart succeeded, and Bacon at last became Attorney +(October 27, 1613). In Chamberlain's gossip we have an indication, such +as occurs only accidentally, of the view of outsiders: "There is a +strong apprehension that little good is to be expected by this change, +and that Bacon may prove a dangerous instrument." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +BACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL AND CHANCELLOR. + + +Thus, at last, at the age of fifty-two, Bacon had gained the place which +Essex had tried to get for him at thirty-two. The time of waiting had +been a weary one, and it is impossible not to see that it had been +hurtful to Bacon. A strong and able man, very eager to have a field for +his strength and ability, who is kept out of it, as he thinks unfairly, +and is driven to an attitude of suppliant dependency in pressing his +claim on great persons who amuse him with words, can hardly help +suffering in the humiliating process. It does a man no good to learn to +beg, and to have a long training in the art. And further, this long +delay kept up the distraction of his mind between the noble work on +which his soul was bent, and the necessities of that "civil" or +professional and political life by which he had to maintain his estate. +All the time that he was "canvassing" (it is his own word) for office, +and giving up his time and thoughts to the work which it involved, the +great _Instauration_ had to wait his hours of leisure; and his +exclamation, so often repeated, _Multum incola fuit anima mea_, bears +witness to the longings that haunted him in his hours of legal drudgery, +or in the service of his not very thankful employers. Not but that he +found compensation in the interest of public questions, in the company +of the great, in the excitement of state-craft and state employment, in +the pomp and enjoyment of court life. He found too much compensation; it +was one of his misfortunes. But his heart was always sound in its +allegiance to knowledge; and if he had been fortunate enough to have +risen earlier to the greatness which he aimed at as a vantage-ground for +his true work, or if he had had self-control to have dispensed with +wealth and position--if he had escaped the long necessity of being a +persistent and still baffled suitor--we might have had as a completed +whole what we have now only in great fragments, and we should have been +spared the blots which mar a career which ought to have been a noble +one. + +The first important matter that happened after Bacon's new appointment +was the Essex divorce case, and the marriage of Lady Essex with the +favourite whom Cecil's death had left at the height of power, and who +from Lord Rochester was now made Earl of Somerset. With the divorce, the +beginning of the scandals and tragedies of James's reign, Bacon had +nothing to do. At the marriage which followed Bacon presented as his +offering a masque, performed by the members of Gray's Inn, of which he +bore the charges, and which cost him the enormous sum of L2000. Whether +it were to repay his obligations to the Howards, or in lieu of a "fee" +to Rochester, who levied toll on all favours from the King, it can +hardly be said, as has been suggested, to be a protest against the great +abuse of the times, the sale of offices for money. The "very splendid +trifle, the Masque of Flowers," was one form of the many extravagant +tributes paid but too willingly to high-handed worthlessness, of which +the deeper and darker guilt was to fill all faces with shame two years +afterwards. + +As Attorney, Bacon had to take a much more prominent part in affairs, +legal, criminal, constitutional, administrative, than he had yet been +allowed to have. We know that it was his great object to show how much +more active and useful an Attorney he could be than either Coke or +Hobart; and as far as unflagging energy and high ability could make a +good public servant, he fully carried out his purpose. In Parliament, +the "addled Parliament" of 1614, in which he sat for the University of +Cambridge, he did his best to reconcile what were fast becoming +irreconcilable, the claims and prerogatives of an absolute king, +irritable, suspicious, exacting, prodigal, with the ancient rights and +liberties, growing stronger in their demands by being denied, resisted, +or outwitted, of the popular element in the State. In the trials, which +are so large and disagreeable a part of the history of these +years--trials arising out of violent words provoked by the violent acts +of power, one of which, Peacham's, became famous, because in the course +of it torture was resorted to, or trials which witnessed to the +corruption of the high society of the day, like the astounding series of +arraignments and condemnations following on the discoveries relating to +Overbury's murder, which had happened just before the Somerset +marriage--Bacon had to make the best that he could for the cruel and +often unequal policy of the Court; and Bacon must take his share in the +responsibility for it. An effort on James's part to stop duelling +brought from Bacon a worthier piece of service, in the shape of an +earnest and elaborate argument against it, full of good sense and good +feeling, but hopelessly in advance of the time. On the many questions +which touched the prerogative, James found in his Attorney a ready and +skilful advocate of his claims, who knew no limit to them but in the +consideration of what was safe and prudent to assert. He was a better +and more statesmanlike counsellor, in his unceasing endeavours to +reconcile James to the expediency of establishing solid and good +relations with his Parliament, and in his advice as to the wise and +hopeful ways of dealing with it. Bacon had no sympathy with popular +wants and claims; of popularity, of all that was called popular, he had +the deepest suspicion and dislike; the opinions and the judgment of +average men he despised, as a thinker, a politician, and a courtier; the +"malignity of the people" he thought great. "I do not love," he says, +"the word _people_." But he had a high idea of what was worthy of a +king, and was due to the public interests, and he saw the folly of the +petty acts and haughty words, the use of which James could not resist. +In his new office he once more urged on, and urged in vain, his +favourite project for revising, simplifying, and codifying the law. This +was a project which would find little favour with Coke, and the crowd of +lawyers who venerated him--men whom Bacon viewed with mingled contempt +and apprehension both in the courts and in Parliament where they were +numerous, and whom he more than once advised the King to bridle and keep +"in awe." Bacon presented his scheme to the King in a Proposition, or, +as we should call it, a Report. It is very able and interesting; marked +with his characteristic comprehensiveness and sense of practical needs, +and with a confidence in his own knowledge of law which contrasts +curiously with the current opinion about it. He speaks with the utmost +honour of Coke's work, but he is not afraid of a comparison with him. "I +do assure your Majesty," he says, "I am in good hope that when Sir +Edward Coke's Reports and my Rules and Decisions shall come to +posterity, there will be (whatever is now thought) question who was the +greater lawyer." But the project, though it was entertained and +discussed in Parliament, came to nothing. No one really cared about it +except Bacon. + +But in these years (1615 and 1616) two things happened of the utmost +consequence to him. One was the rise, more extravagant than anything +that England had seen for centuries, and in the end more fatal, of the +new favourite, who from plain George Villiers became the all-powerful +Duke of Buckingham. Bacon, like the rest of the world, saw the necessity +of bowing before him; and Bacon persuaded himself that Villiers was +pre-eminently endowed with all the gifts and virtues which a man in his +place would need. We have a series of his letters to Villiers; they are +of course in the complimentary vein which was expected; but if their +language is only compliment, there is no language left for expressing +what a man wishes to be taken for truth. The other matter was the +humiliation, by Bacon's means and in his presence, of his old rival +Coke. In the dispute about jurisdiction, always slumbering and lately +awakened and aggravated by Coke, between the Common Law Courts and the +Chancery, Coke had threatened the Chancery with Praemunire. The King's +jealousy took alarm, and the Chief-Justice was called before the +Council. There a decree, based on Bacon's advice and probably drawn up +by him, peremptorily overruled the legal doctrine maintained by the +greatest and most self-confident judge whom the English courts had seen. +The Chief-Justice had to acquiesce in this reading of the law; and then, +as if such an affront were not enough, Coke was suspended from his +office, and, further, enjoined to review and amend his published +reports, where they were inconsistent with the view of law which on +Bacon's authority the Star Chamber had adopted (June, 1616). This he +affected to do, but the corrections were manifestly only colourable; +his explanations of his legal heresies against the prerogative, as these +heresies were formulated by the Chancellor and Bacon, and presented to +him for recantation, were judged insufficient; and in a decree, prefaced +by reasons drawn up by Bacon, in which, besides Coke's errors of law, +his "deceit, contempt, and slander of the Government," his "perpetual +turbulent carriage," and his affectation of popularity, were noted--he +was removed from his office (Nov., 1616). So, for the present, the old +rivalry had ended in a triumph for Bacon. Bacon, whom Coke had so long +headed in the race, whom he had sneered at as a superficial pretender to +law, and whose accomplishments and enthusiasm for knowledge he utterly +despised, had not only defeated him, but driven him from his seat with +dishonour. When we remember what Coke was, what he had thought of Bacon, +and how he prized his own unique reputation as a representative of +English law, the effects of such a disgrace on a man of his temper +cannot easily be exaggerated. + +But for the present Bacon had broken through the spell which had so long +kept him back. He won a great deal of the King's confidence, and the +King was more and more ready to make use of him, though by no means +equally willing to think that Bacon knew better than himself. Bacon's +view of the law, and his resources of argument and expression to make it +good, could be depended upon in the keen struggle to secure and enlarge +the prerogative which was now beginning. In the prerogative both James +and Bacon saw the safety of the State and the only reasonable hope of +good government; but in Bacon's larger and more elevated views of +policy--of a policy worthy of a great king, and a king of England--James +was not likely to take much interest. The memorials which it was +Bacon's habit to present on public affairs were wasted on one who had so +little to learn from others--so he thought and so all assured him--about +the secrets of empire. Still they were proofs of Bacon's ready mind; and +James, even when he disagreed with Bacon's opinion and arguments, was +too clever not to see their difference from the work of other men. Bacon +rose in favour; and from the first he was on the best of terms with +Villiers. He professed to Villiers the most sincere devotion. According +to his custom he presented him with a letter of wise advice on the +duties and behaviour of a favourite. He at once began, and kept up with +him to the end, a confidential correspondence on matters of public +importance. He made it clear that he depended upon Villiers for his own +personal prospects, and it had now become the most natural thing that +Bacon should look forward to succeeding the Lord Chancellor, Ellesmere, +who was fast failing. Bacon had already (Feb. 12, 1615/16). in terms +which seem strange to us, but were less strange then, set forth in a +letter to the King the reasons why he should be Chancellor; criticising +justly enough, only that he was a party interested, the qualifications +of other possible candidates, Coke, Hobart, and the Archbishop Abbott. +Coke would be "an overruling nature in an overruling place," and +"popular men were no sure mounters for your Majesty's saddle." Hobart +was incompetent. As to Abbott, the Chancellor's place required "a whole +man," and to have both jurisdiction, spiritual and temporal, "was fit +only for a king." The promise that Bacon should have the place came to +him three days afterwards through Villiers. He acknowledged it in a +burst of gratitude (Feb. 15, 1615/16). "I will now wholly rely on your +excellent and happy self.... I am yours surer to you than my own life. +For, as they speak of the Turquoise stone in a ring, I will break into +twenty pieces before you bear the least fall." They were unconsciously +prophetic words. But Ellesmere lasted longer than was expected. It was +not till a year after this promise that he resigned. On the 7th of +March, 1616/17, Bacon received the seals. He expresses his obligations +to Villiers, now Lord Buckingham, in the following letter: + + "MY DEAREST LORD,--It is both in cares and kindness that small ones + float up to the tongue, and great ones sink down into the heart + with silence. Therefore I could speak little to your Lordship + to-day, neither had I fit time; but I must profess thus much, that + in this day's work you are the truest and perfectest mirror and + example of firm and generous friendship that ever was in court. And + I shall count every day lost, wherein I shall not either study your + well-doing in thought, or do your name honour in speech, or perform + you service in deed. Good my Lord, account and accept me your most + bounden and devoted friend and servant of all men living, + + "March 7, 1616 (_i.e._ 1616/1617). + FR. BACON, C.S." + +He himself believed the appointment to be a popular one. "I know I am +come in," he writes to the King soon after, "with as strong an envy of +some particulars as with the love of the general." On the 7th of May, +1617, he took his seat in Chancery with unusual pomp and magnificence, +and set forth, in an opening speech, with all his dignity and force, the +duties of his great office and his sense of their obligation. But there +was a curious hesitation in treating him as other men were treated in +like cases. He was only "Lord Keeper." It was not till the following +January (1617/18) that he received the office of Lord Chancellor. It was +not till half a year afterwards that he was made a Peer. Then he became +Baron Verulam (July, 1618), and in January, 1620/21, Viscount St. +Alban's. + +From this time Bacon must be thought of, first and foremost, as a Judge +in the great seat which he had so earnestly sought. It was the place not +merely of law, which often tied the judge's hands painfully, but of true +justice, when law failed to give it. Bacon's ideas of the duties of a +judge were clear and strong, as he showed in various admirable speeches +and charges: his duties as regards his own conduct and reputation; his +duties in keeping his subordinates free from the taint of corruption. He +was not ignorant of the subtle and unacknowledged ways in which unlawful +gains may be covered by custom, and an abuse goes on because men will +not choose to look at it. He entered on his office with the full purpose +of doing its work better than it had ever been done. He saw where it +wanted reforming, and set himself at once to reform. The accumulation +and delay of suits had become grievous; at once he threw his whole +energy into the task of wiping out the arrears which the bad health of +his predecessor and the traditional sluggishness of the court had heaped +up. In exactly three months from his appointment he was able to report +that these arrears had been cleared off. "This day" (June 8, 1617), he +writes to Buckingham, "I have made even with the business of the kingdom +for common justice. Not one cause unheard. The lawyers drawn dry of all +the motions they were to make. Not one petition unheard. And this I +think could not be said in our time before." + +The performance was splendid, and there is no reason to think that the +work so rapidly done was not well done. We are assured that Bacon's +decisions were unquestioned, and were not complained of. At the same +time, before this allegation is accepted as conclusive proof of the +public satisfaction, it must be remembered that the question of his +administration of justice, which was at last to assume such strange +proportions, has never been so thoroughly sifted as, to enable us to +pronounce upon it, it should be. The natural tendency of Bacon's mind +would undoubtedly be to judge rightly and justly; but the negative +argument of the silence at the time of complainants, in days when it was +so dangerous to question authority, and when we have so little evidence +of what men said at their firesides, is not enough to show that he never +failed. + +But the serious thing is that Bacon subjected himself to two of the most +dangerous influences which can act on the mind of a judge--the influence +of the most powerful and most formidable man in England, and the +influence of presents, in money and other gifts. From first to last he +allowed Buckingham, whom no man, as Bacon soon found, could displease +except at his own peril, to write letters to him on behalf of suitors +whose causes were before him; and he allowed suitors, not often while +the cause was pending, but sometimes even then, to send him directly, or +through his servants, large sums of money. Both these things are +explained. It would have been characteristic of Bacon to be confident +that he could defy temptation: these habits were the fashion of the +time, and everybody took them for granted; Buckingham never asked his +good offices beyond what Bacon thought just and right, and asked them +rather for the sake of expedition than to influence his judgment. And as +to the money presents--every office was underpaid; this was the common +way of acknowledging pains and trouble: it was analogous to a doctor's +or a lawyer's fee now. And there is no proof that either influence ever +led Bacon to do wrong. This has been said, and said with some degree of +force. But if it shows that Bacon was not in this matter below his age, +it shows that he was not above it. No one knew better than Bacon that +there were no more certain dangers to honesty and justice than the +interference and solicitation of the great, and the old famous pest of +bribes, of which all histories and laws were full. And yet on the +highest seat of justice in the realm he, the great reformer of its +abuses, allowed them to make their customary haunt. He did not mean to +do wrong: his conscience was clear; he had not given thought to the +mischief they must do, sooner or later, to all concerned with the Court +of Chancery. With a magnificent carelessness he could afford to run +safely a course closely bordering on crime, in which meaner men would +sin and be ruined. + +Before six months were over Bacon found on what terms he must stand with +Buckingham. By a strange fatality, quite unintentionally, he became +dragged into the thick of the scandalous and grotesque dissensions of +the Coke family. The Court was away from London in the North; and Coke +had been trying, not without hope of success, to recover the King's +favour. Coke was a rich man, and Lady Compton, the mother of the +Villiers, thought that Coke's daughter would be a good match for one of +her younger sons. It was really a great chance for Coke; but he haggled +about the portion; and the opportunity, which might perhaps have led to +his taking Bacon's place, passed. But he found himself in trouble in +other ways; his friends, especially Secretary Winwood, contrived to +bring the matter on again, and he consented to the Villiers's terms. But +his wife, the young lady's mother, Lady Hatton, would not hear of it, +and a furious quarrel followed. She carried off her daughter into the +country. Coke, with a warrant from Secretary Winwood, which Bacon had +refused to give him, pursued her: "with his son, 'Fighting Clem,' and +ten or eleven servants, weaponed, in a violent manner he repaired to +the house where she was remaining, and with a piece of timber or form +broke open the door and dragged her along to his coach." Lady Hatton +rushed off the same afternoon for help to Bacon. + + After an overturn by the way, "at last to my Lord Keeper's they + come, but could not have instant access to him, for that his people + told them he was laid at rest, being not well. Then my La. Hatton + desired she might be in the next room where my Lord lay, that she + might be the first that [should] speak with him after he was + stirring. The door-keeper fulfilled her desire, and in the meantime + gave her a chair to rest herself in, and there left her alone; but + not long after, she rose up and bounced against my Lord Keeper's + door, and waked him and affrighted him, that he called his men to + him; and they opening the door, she thrust in with them, and + desired his Lp. to pardon her boldness, but she was like a cow that + had lost her calf, and so justified [herself] and pacified my + Lord's anger, and got his warrant and my Lo. Treasurer's warrant + and others of the Council to fetch her daughter from the father and + bring them both to the Council." + +It was a chance that the late Chief-Justice and his wife, with their +armed parties, did not meet on the road, in which case "there were like +to be strange tragedies." At length the Council compelled both sides to +keep the peace, and the young lady was taken for the present out of the +hands of her raging parents. Bacon had assumed that the affair was the +result of an intrigue between Winwood and Coke, and that the Court would +take part against Coke, a man so deep in disgrace and so outrageously +violent. Supposing that he had the ear of Buckingham, he wrote +earnestly, persuading him to put an end to the business; and in the +meantime the Council ordered Coke to be brought before the Star Chamber +"for riot and force," to "be heard and sentenced as justice shall +appertain." They had not the slightest doubt that they were doing what +would please the King. A few days after they met, and then they learned +the truth. + + "Coke and his friends," writes Chamberlain, "complain of hard + measure from some of the greatest at that board, and that he was + too much trampled upon with ill language. And our friend [_i.e._ + Winwood] passed out scot free for the warrant, which the greatest + [_word illegible_] there said was subject to a _praemunire_; and + withal told the Lady Compton that they wished well to her and her + sons, and would be ready to serve the Earl of Buckingham with all + true affection, whereas others did it out of faction and + ambition--which words glancing directly at our good friend + (Winwood), he was driven to make his apology, and to show how it + was put upon him from time to time by the Queen and other parties; + and, for conclusion, showed a letter of approbation of all his + courses from the King, making the whole table judge what faction + and ambition appeared in this carriage. _Ad quod non fuit + responsum._" + +None indeed, but blank faces, and thoughts of what might come next. The +Council, and Bacon foremost, had made a desperate mistake. "It is +evident," as Mr. Spedding says, "that he had not divined Buckingham's +feelings on the subject." He was now to learn them. To his utter +amazement and alarm he found that the King was strong for the match, and +that the proceeding of the Council was condemned at Court as gross +misconduct. In vain he protested that he was quite willing to forward +the match; that in fact he had helped it. Bacon's explanations, and his +warnings against Coke the King "rejected with some disdain;" he +justified Coke's action; he charged Bacon with disrespect and +ingratitude to Buckingham; he put aside his arguments and apologies as +worthless or insincere. Such reprimands had not often been addressed, +even to inferior servants. Bacon's letters to Buckingham remained at +first without notice; when Buckingham answered he did so with scornful +and menacing curtness. Meanwhile Bacon heard from Yelverton how things +were going at Court. + + "Sir E. Coke," he wrote, "hath not forborne by any engine to heave + at both your Honour and myself, and he works the weightiest + instrument, the Earl of Buckingham, who, as I see, sets him as + close to him as his shirt, the Earl speaking in Sir Edward's + phrase, and as it were menacing in his spirit." + +Buckingham, he went on to say, "did nobly and plainly tell me he would +not secretly bite, but whosoever had had any interest, or tasted of the +opposition to his brother's marriage, he would as openly oppose them to +their faces, and they should discern what favour he had by the power he +would use." The Court, like a pack of dogs, had set upon Bacon. "It is +too common in every man's mouth in Court that your greatness shall be +abated, and as your tongue hath been as a razor unto some, so shall +theirs be to you." Buckingham said to every one that Bacon had been +forgetful of his kindness and unfaithful to him: "not forbearing in open +speech to tax you, as if it were an inveterate custom with you, to be +unfaithful unto him, as you were to the Earls of Essex and Somerset." + +All this while Bacon had been clearly in the right. He had thrust +himself into no business that did not concern him. He had not, as +Buckingham accuses him of having done, "overtroubled" himself with the +marriage. He had done his simple duty as a friend, as a councillor, as a +judge. He had been honestly zealous for the Villiers's honour, and +warned Buckingham of things that were beyond question. He had curbed +Coke's scandalous violence, perhaps with no great regret, but with +manifest reason. But for this he was now on the very edge of losing his +office; it was clear to him, as it is clear to us, that nothing could +save him but absolute submission. He accepted the condition. How this +submission was made and received, and with what gratitude he found that +he was forgiven, may be seen in the two following letters. Buckingham +thus extends his grace to the Lord Keeper, and exhorts him to better +behaviour: + + "But his Majesty's direction in answer of your letter hath given me + occasion to join hereunto a discovery unto you of mine inward + thoughts, proceeding upon the discourse you had with me this day. + For I do freely confess that your offer of submission unto me, and + in writing (if so I would have it), battered so the unkindness that + I had conceived in my heart for your behaviour towards me in my + absence, as out of the sparks of my old affection towards you I + went to sound his Majesty's intention how he means to behave + himself towards you, specially in any public meeting; where I found + on the one part his Majesty so little satisfied with your late + answer unto him, which he counted (for I protest I use his own + terms) _confused and childish_, and his vigorous resolution on the + other part so fixed, that he would put some public exemplary mark + upon you, as I protest the sight of his deep-conceived indignation + quenched my passion, making me upon the instant change from the + person of a party into a peace-maker; so as I was forced upon my + knees to beg of his Majesty that he would put no public act of + disgrace upon you, and, as I dare say, no other person would have + been patiently heard in this suit by his Majesty but myself, so did + I (though not without difficulty) obtain thus much--that he would + not so far disable you from the merit of your future service as to + put any particular mark of disgrace upon your person. Only thus far + his Majesty protesteth, that upon the conscience of his office he + cannot omit (though laying aside all passion) to give a kingly + reprimand at his first sitting in council to so many of his + councillors as were then here behind, and were actors in this + business, for their ill behaviour in it. Some of the particular + errors committed in this business he will name, but without + accusing any particular persons by name. + + "Thus your Lordship seeth the fruits of my natural inclination; and + I protest all this time past it was no small grief unto me to hear + the mouth of so many upon this occasion open to load you with + innumerable malicious and detracting speeches, as if no music were + more pleasing to my ears than to rail of you, which made me rather + regret the ill nature of mankind, that like dogs love to set upon + him that they see once snatched at. And to conclude, my Lord, you + have hereby a fair occasion so to make good hereafter your + reputation by your sincere service to his Majesty, as also by your + firm and constant kindness to your friends, as I may (your + Lordship's old friend) participate of the comfort and honour that + will thereby come to you. Thus I rest at last + + "Your Lordship's faithful friend and servant, + "G.B." + + "MY EVER BEST LORD, now better than yourself,--Your Lordship's pen, + or rather pencil, hath pourtrayed towards me such magnanimity and + nobleness and true kindness, as methinketh I see the image of some + ancient virtue, and not anything of these times. It is the line of + my life, and not the lines of my letter, that must express my + thankfulness; wherein if I fail, then God fail me, and make me as + miserable as I think myself at this time happy by this reviver, + through his Majesty's singular clemency, and your incomparable love + and favour. God preserve you, prosper you, and reward you for your + kindness to + + "Your raised and infinitely obliged friend and servant, + "Sept. 22, 1617. + FR. BACON, C.S." + +Thus he had tried his strength with Buckingham. He had found that this, +"a little parent-like" manner of advising him, and the doctrine that a +true friend "ought rather to go against his mind than his good," was not +what Buckingham expected from him. And he never ventured on it again. It +is not too much to say that a man who could write as he now did to +Buckingham, could not trust himself in any matter in which Buckingham, +was interested. + +But the reconciliation was complete, and Bacon took his place more and +more as one of the chief persons in the Government. James claimed so +much to have his own way, and had so little scruple in putting aside, in +his superior wisdom, sometimes very curtly, Bacon's or any other +person's recommendations, that though his services were great, and were +not unrecognised, he never had the power and influence in affairs to +which his boundless devotion to the Crown, his grasp of business, and +his willing industry, ought to have entitled him. He was still a +servant, and made to feel it, though a servant in the "first form." It +was James and Buckingham who determined the policy of the country, or +settled the course to be taken in particular transactions; when this was +settled, it was Bacon's business to carry it through successfully. In +this he was like all the other servants of the Crown, and like them he +was satisfied with giving his advice, whether it were taken or not; but +unlike many of them he was zealous in executing with the utmost vigour +and skill the instructions which were given him. Thus he was required to +find the legal means for punishing Raleigh; and, as a matter of duty, he +found them. He was required to tell the Government side of the story of +Raleigh's crimes and punishment--which really was one side of the story, +only not by any means the whole; and he told it, as he had told the +Government story against Essex, with force, moderation, and good sense. +Himself, he never would have made James's miserable blunders about +Raleigh; but the blunders being made, it was his business to do his best +to help the King out of them. When Suffolk, the Lord Treasurer, was +disgraced and brought before the Star Chamber for corruption and +embezzlement in his office, Bacon thought that he was doing no more than +his duty in keeping Buckingham informed day by day how the trial was +going on; how he had taken care that Suffolk's submission should not +stop it--"for all would be but a play on the stage if justice went not +on in the right course;" how he had taken care that the evidence went +well--"I will not say I sometime holp it, as far as was fit for a +judge;" how, "a little to warm the business" ... "I spake a word, that +he that did draw or milk treasure from Ireland, did not, _emulgere_, +milk money, but blood." This, and other "little things" like it, while +he was sitting as a judge to try, if the word may be used, a personal +enemy of Buckingham, however bad the case might be against Suffolk, +sound strange indeed to us; and not less so when, in reporting the +sentence and the various opinions of the Council about it, he, for once, +praises Coke for the extravagance of his severity: "Sir Edward Coke did +his part--I have not heard him do better--and began with a fine of +L100,000; but the judges first, and most of the rest, reduced it to +L30,000. I do not dislike that thing passed moderately; and all things +considered, it is not amiss, and might easily have been worse." + +In all this, which would have been perfectly natural from an +Attorney-General of the time, Bacon saw but his duty, even as a judge +between the Crown and the subject. It was what was expected of those +whom the King chose to employ, and whom Buckingham chose to favour. But +a worse and more cruel case, illustrating the system which a man like +Bacon could think reasonable and honourable, was the disgrace and +punishment of Yelverton, the Attorney-General, the man who had stood by +Bacon, and in his defence had faced Buckingham, knowing well +Buckingham's dislike of himself, when all the Court turned against Bacon +in his quarrel with Coke and Lady Compton. Towards the end of the year +1620, on the eve of a probable meeting of Parliament, there was great +questioning about what was to be done about certain patents and +monopolies--monopolies for making gold and silk thread, and for +licensing inns and ale-houses--which were in the hands of Buckingham's +brothers and their agents. The monopolies were very unpopular; there was +always doubt as to their legality; they were enforced oppressively and +vexatiously by men like Michell and Mompesson, who acted for the +Villiers; and the profits of them went, for the most part, not into the +Exchequer, but into the pockets of the hangers-on of Buckingham. Bacon +defended them both in law and policy, and his defence is thought by Mr. +Gardiner to be not without grounds; but he saw the danger of obstinacy +in maintaining what had become so hateful in the country, and strongly +recommended that the more indefensible and unpopular patents should be +spontaneously given up, the more so as they were of "no great fruit." +But Buckingham's insolent perversity "refused to be convinced." The +Council, when the question was before them, decided to maintain them. +Bacon, who had rightly voted in the minority, thus explains his own vote +to Buckingham: "The King did wisely put it upon and consult, whether the +patents were at this time to be removed by Act of Council before +Parliament. _I opined (but yet somewhat like Ovid's mistress, that +strove, but yet as one that would be overcome), that yes!_" But in the +various disputes which had arisen about them, Yelverton had shown that +he very much disliked the business of defending monopolies, and sending +London citizens to jail for infringing them. He did it, but he did it +grudgingly. It was a great offence in a man whom Buckingham had always +disliked; and it is impossible to doubt that what followed was the +consequence of his displeasure. + + "In drawing up a new charter for the city of London," writes Mr. + Gardiner, "Yelverton inserted clauses for which he was unable to + produce a warrant. The worst that could be said was that he had, + through inadvertence, misunderstood the verbal directions of the + King. Although no imputation of corruption was brought against + him, yet he was suspended from his office, and prosecuted in the + Star Chamber. He was then sentenced to dismissal from his post, to + a fine of L4000, and to imprisonment during the Royal pleasure." + +In the management of this business Bacon had the chief part. Yelverton, +on his suspension, at once submitted. The obnoxious clauses are not said +to have been of serious importance, but they were new clauses which the +King had not sanctioned, and it would be a bad precedent to pass over +such unauthorised additions even by an Attorney-General. "I mistook many +things," said Yelverton afterwards, in words which come back into our +minds at a later period, "I was improvident in some things, and too +credulous in all things." It might have seemed that dismissal, if not a +severe reprimand, was punishment enough. But the submission was not +enough, in Bacon's opinion, "for the King's honour." He dwelt on the +greatness of the offence, and the necessity of making a severe example. +According to his advice, Yelverton was prosecuted in the Star Chamber. +It was not merely a mistake of judgment. "Herein," said Bacon, "I note +the wisdom of the law of England, which termeth the highest contempt and +excesses of authority _Misprisions_; which (if you take the sound and +derivation of the word) is but _mistaken_; but if you take the use and +acception of the word, it is high and heinous contempt and usurpation of +authority; whereof the reason I take to be and the name excellently +imposed, for that main mistaking, it is ever joined with contempt; for +he that reveres will not easily mistake; but he that slights, and thinks +more of the greatness of his place than of the duty of his place, will +soon commit misprisions." The day would come when this doctrine would be +pressed with ruinous effect against Bacon himself. But now he expounded +with admirable clearness the wrongness of carelessness about warrants +and of taking things for granted. He acquitted his former colleague of +"corruption of reward;" but "in truth that makes the offence rather +divers than less;" for some offences "are black, and others scarlet, +some sordid, some presumptuous." He pronounced his sentence--the fine, +the imprisonment; "for his place, I declare him unfit for it." "And the +next day," says Mr. Spedding, "he reported to Buckingham the result of +the proceeding," and takes no small credit for his own part in it. + +It was thus that the Court used Bacon, and that Bacon submitted to be +used. He could have done, if he had been listened to, much nobler +service. He had from the first seen, and urged as far as he could, the +paramount necessity of retrenchment in the King's profligate +expenditure. Even Buckingham had come to feel the necessity of it at +last; and now that Bacon filled a seat at the Council, and that the +prosecution of Suffolk and an inquiry into the abuses of the Navy had +forced on those in power the urgency of economy, there was a chance of +something being done to bring order into the confusion of the finances. +Retrenchment began at the King's kitchen and the tables of his servants; +an effort was made, not unsuccessfully, to extend it wider, under the +direction of Lionel Cranfield, a self-made man of business from the +city; but with such a Court the task was an impossible one. It was not +Bacon's fault, though he sadly mismanaged his own private affairs, that +the King's expenditure was not managed soberly and wisely. Nor was it +Bacon's fault, as far as advice went, that James was always trying +either to evade or to outwit a Parliament which he could not, like the +Tudors, overawe. Bacon's uniform counsel had been--Look on a Parliament +as a certain necessity, but not only as a necessity, as also a unique +and most precious means for uniting the Crown with the nation, and +proving to the world outside how Englishmen love and honour their King, +and their King trusts his subjects. Deal with it frankly and nobly as +becomes a king, not suspiciously like a huckster in a bargain. Do not be +afraid of Parliament. Be skilful in calling it, but don't attempt to +"pack" it. Use all due adroitness and knowledge of human nature, and +necessary firmness and majesty, in managing it; keep unruly and +mischievous people in their place, but do not be too anxious to +meddle--"let nature work;" and above all, though of course you want +money from it, do not let that appear as the chief or real cause of +calling it. Take the lead in legislation. Be ready with some interesting +or imposing points of reform, or policy, about which you ask your +Parliament to take counsel with you. Take care to "frame and have ready +some commonwealth bills, that may add respect to the King's government +and acknowledgment of his care; not _wooing_ bills to make the King and +his graces cheap, but good matter to set the Parliament on work, that an +empty stomach do not feed on humour." So from the first had Bacon always +thought; so he thought when he watched, as a spectator, James's blunders +with his first Parliament of 1604; so had he earnestly counselled James, +when admitted to his confidence, as to the Parliaments of 1614 and 1615; +so again, but in vain, as Chancellor, he advised him to meet the +Parliament of 1620. It was wise, and from his point of view honest +advice, though there runs all through it too much reliance on +appearances which were not all that they seemed; there was too much +thought of throwing dust in the eyes of troublesome and inconvenient +people. But whatever motives there might have been behind, it would have +been well if James had learned from Bacon how to deal with Englishmen. +But he could not. "I wonder," said James one day to Gondomar, "that my +ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution as the House of +Commons to have come into existence. I am a stranger, and found it here +when I arrived, so that I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get +rid of." James was the only one of our many foreign kings who, to the +last, struggled to avoid submitting himself to the conditions of an +English throne. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +BACON'S FALL. + + +When Parliament met on January 30, 1620/21, and Bacon, as Lord +Chancellor, set forth in his ceremonial speeches to the King and to the +Speaker the glories and blessings of James's reign, no man in England +had more reason to think himself fortunate. He had reached the age of +sixty, and had gained the object of his ambition. More than that, he was +conscious that in his great office he was finding full play for his +powers and his high public purposes. He had won greatly on the +confidence of the King. He had just received a fresh mark of honour from +him: a few days before he had been raised a step in the peerage, and he +was now Viscount St. Alban's. With Buckingham he seemed to be on terms +of the most affectionate familiarity, exchanging opinions freely with +him on every subject. And Parliament met in good-humour. They voted +money at once. One of the matters which interested Bacon most--the +revision of the Statute Book--they took up as one of their first +measures, and appointed a Select Committee to report upon it. And what, +amid the apparent felicity of the time, was of even greater personal +happiness to Bacon, the first step of the "Great Instauration" had been +taken. During the previous autumn, Oct. 12, 1620, the _Novum Organum_, +the first instalment of his vast design, was published, the result of +the work of thirty years; and copies were distributed to great people, +among others to Coke. He apprehended no evil; he had nothing to fear, +and much to hope from the times. + +His sudden and unexpected fall, so astonishing and so irreparably +complete, is one of the strangest events of that still imperfectly +comprehended time. There had been, and were still to be, plenty of +instances of the downfall of power, as ruinous and even more tragic, +though scarcely any one more pathetic in its surprise and its shame. But +it is hard to find one of which so little warning was given, and the +causes of which are at once in part so clear, and in part so obscure and +unintelligible. Such disasters had to be reckoned upon as possible +chances by any one who ventured into public life. Montaigne advises that +the discipline of pain should be part of every boy's education, for the +reason that every one in his day might be called upon to undergo the +torture. And so every public man, in the England of the Tudors and +Stuarts, entered on his career with the perfectly familiar expectation +of possibly closing it--it might be in an honourable and ceremonious +fashion, in the Tower and on the scaffold--just as he had to look +forward to the possibility of closing it by small-pox or the plague. So +that when disaster came, though it might be unexpected, as death is +unexpected, it was a turn of things which ought not to take a man by +surprise. But some premonitory signs usually gave warning. There was +nothing to warn Bacon that the work which he believed he was doing so +well would be interrupted. + +We look in vain for any threatenings of the storm. What the men of his +time thought and felt about Bacon it is not easy to ascertain. +Appearances are faint and contradictory; he himself, though scornful of +judges who sought to be "popular," believed that he "came in with the +favour of the general;" that he "had a little popular reputation, which +followeth me whether I will or no." No one for years had discharged the +duties of his office with greater efficiency. Scarcely a trace remains +of any suspicion, previous to the attack upon him, of the justice of his +decisions; no instance was alleged that, in fact, impure motives had +controlled the strength and lucidity of an intellect which loved to be +true and right for the mere pleasure of being so. Nor was there anything +in Bacon's political position to make him specially obnoxious above all +others of the King's Council. He maintained the highest doctrines of +prerogative; but they were current doctrines, both at the Council board +and on the bench; and they were not discredited nor extinguished by his +fall. To be on good terms with James and Buckingham meant a degree of +subservience which shocks us now; but it did not shock people then, and +he did not differ from his fellows in regarding it as part of his duty +as a public servant of the Crown. No doubt he had enemies--some with old +grudges like Southampton, who had been condemned with Essex; some like +Suffolk, smarting under recent reprimands and the biting edge of Bacon's +tongue; some like Coke, hating him from constitutional antipathies and +the strong antagonism of professional doctrines, for a long course of +rivalry and for mortifying defeats. But there is no appearance of +preconcerted efforts among them to bring about his overthrow. He did not +at the time seem to be identified with anything dangerous or odious. +There was no doubt a good deal of dissatisfaction with Chancery--among +the common lawyers, because it interfered with their business; in the +public, partly from the traditions of its slowness, partly from its +expensiveness, partly because, being intended for special redress of +legal hardship, it was sure to disappoint one party to a suit. But Bacon +thought that he had reformed Chancery. He had also done a great deal to +bring some kind of order, or at least hopefulness of order, into the +King's desperate finances. And he had never set himself against +Parliament. On the contrary, he had always been forward to declare that +the King could not do without Parliament, and that Parliament only +needed to be dealt with generously, and as "became a King," to be not a +danger and hindrance to the Crown but its most sincere and trustworthy +support. + +What was then to portend danger to Bacon when the Parliament of 1620/21 +met? The House of Commons at its meeting was thoroughly loyal and +respectful; it meant to be _benedictum et pacificum parliamentum_. Every +one knew that there would be "grievances" which would not be welcome to +the Court, but they did not seem likely to touch him. Every one knew +that there would be questions raised about unpopular patents and +oppressive monopolies, and about their legality; and it was pretty well +agreed upon at Court that they should be given up as soon as complained +of. But Bacon was not implicated more than the Crown lawyers before him, +in what all the Crown lawyers had always defended. There was +dissatisfaction about the King's extravagance and wastefulness, about +his indecision in the cause of the Elector Palatine, about his supposed +intrigues with Papistical and tyrannical Spain; but Bacon had nothing to +do with all this except, as far as he could, to give wise counsel and +warning. The person who made the King despised and hated was the +splendid and insolent favourite, Buckingham. It might have been thought +that the one thing to be set against much that was wrong in the State +was the just and enlightened and speedy administration of equity in the +Chancery. + +When Parliament met, though nothing seemed to threaten mischief, it met +with a sturdy purpose of bringing to account certain delinquents whose +arrogance and vexations of the subjects had provoked the country, and +who were supposed to shelter themselves under the countenance of +Buckingham. Michell and Mompesson were rascals whose misdemeanors might +well try the patience of a less spirited body than an English House of +Commons. Buckingham could not protect them, and hardly tried to do so. +But just as one electric current "induces" another by neighbourhood, so +all this deep indignation against Buckingham's creatures created a +fierce temper of suspicion about corruption all through the public +service. Two Committees were early appointed by the House of Commons: +one a Committee on Grievances, such as the monopolies; the other, a +Committee to inquire into abuses in the Courts of Justice and receive +petitions about them. In the course of the proceedings, the question +arose in the House as to the authorities or "referees" who had certified +to the legality of the Crown patents or grants which had been so grossly +abused; and among these "referees" were the Lord Chancellor and other +high officers, both legal and political. + +It was the little cloud. But lookers-on like Chamberlain did not think +much of it. "The referees," he wrote on Feb. 29th, "who certified the +legality of the patents are glanced at, but they are chiefly above the +reach of the House; they attempt so much that they will accomplish +little." Coke, who was now the chief leader in Parliament, began to talk +ominously of precedents, and to lay down rules about the power of the +House to punish--rules which were afterwards found to have no authority +for them. Cranfield, the representative of severe economy, insisted that +the honour of the King required that the referees, whoever they were, +should be called to account. The gathering clouds shifted a little, when +the sense of the House seemed to incline to giving up all retrospective +action, and to a limitation for the future by statute of the +questionable prerogative--a limitation which was in fact attempted by a +bill thrown out by the Lords. But they gathered again when the Commons +determined to bring the whole matter before the House of Lords. The King +wrote to warn Bacon of what was coming. The proposed conference was +staved off by management for a day or two, but it could not be averted, +and the Lords showed their eagerness for it. And two things by this +time--the beginning of March--seemed now to have become clear, first, +that under the general attack on the referees was intended a blow +against Bacon; next, that the person whom he had most reason to fear was +Sir Edward Coke. + +The storm was growing; but Bacon was still unalarmed, though Buckingham +had been frightened into throwing the blame on the referees. + + "I do hear," he writes to Buckingham (dating his letter on March + 7th, "the day I received the seal"), "from divers of judgement, + that to-morrow's conference is like to pass in a calm, as to the + referees. Sir Lionel Cranfield, who hath been formerly the trumpet, + said yesterday that he did now incline unto Sir John Walter's + opinion and motion not to have the referees meddled with, otherwise + than to discount it from the King; and so not to look back, but to + the future. And I do hear almost all men of judgement in the House + wish now that way. I woo nobody; I do but listen, and I have doubt + only of Sir Edward Coke, who I wish had some round _caveat_ given + him from the King; for your Lordship hath no great power with him. + But a word from the King mates him." + +But Coke's opportunity had come. The House of Commons was disposed for +gentler measures. But he was able to make it listen to his harsher +counsels, and from this time his hand appears in all that was done. The +first conference was a tame and dull one. The spokesmen had been slack +in their disagreeable and perhaps dangerous duty. But Coke and his +friends took them sharply to task. "The heart and tongue of Sir Edward +Coke are true relations," said one of his fervent supporters; "but his +pains hath not reaped that harvest of praise that he hath deserved. For +the referees, they are as transcendent delinquents as any other, and +sure their souls made a wilful elopement from their bodies when they +made these certificates." A second conference was held with the Lords, +and this time the charge was driven home. The referees were named, the +Chancellor at the head of them. When Bacon rose to explain and justify +his acts he was sharply stopped, and reminded that he was transgressing +the orders of the House in speaking till the Committees were named to +examine the matter. What was even more important, the King had come to +the House of Lords (March 10th), and frightened, perhaps, about his +subsidies, told them "that he was not guilty of those grievances which +are now discovered, but that he grounded his judgement upon others who +have misled him." The referees would be attacked, people thought, if the +Lower House had courage. + +All this was serious. As things were drifting, it seemed as if Bacon +might have to fight the legal question of the prerogative in the form of +a criminal charge, and be called upon to answer the accusation of being +the minister of a crown which legal language pronounced absolute, and of +a King who interpreted legal language to the letter; and further, to +meet his accusers after the King himself had disavowed what his servant +had done. What passed between Bacon and the King is confused and +uncertain; but after his speech the King could scarcely have thought of +interfering with the inquiry. The proceedings went on; Committees were +named for the several points of inquiry; and Bacon took part in these +arrangements. It was a dangerous position to have to defend himself +against an angry House of Commons, led and animated by Coke and +Cranfield. But though the storm had rapidly thickened, the charges +against the referees were not against him alone. His mistake in law, if +it was a mistake, was shared by some of the first lawyers and first +councillors in England. There was a battle before him, but not a +hopeless one. "_Modicae fidei, quare dubitasti_" he writes about this +time to an anxious friend. + +But in truth the thickening storm had been gathering over his head +alone. It was against him that the whole attack was directed; as soon as +it took a different shape, the complaints against the other referees, +such as the Chief-Justice, who was now Lord Treasurer, though some +attempt was made to press them, were quietly dropped. What was the +secret history of these weeks we do not know. But the result of Bacon's +ruin was that Buckingham was saved. "As they speak of the Turquoise +stone in a ring," Bacon had said to Buckingham when he was made +Chancellor, "I will break into twenty pieces before you have the least +fall." Without knowing what he pledged himself to, he was taken at his +word. + +At length the lightning fell. During the early part of March, while +these dangerous questions were mooted about the referees, a Committee, +appointed early in the session, had also been sitting on abuses in +courts of justice, and as part of their business, an inquiry had been +going on into the ways of the subordinate officers of the Court of +Chancery. Bacon had early (Feb. 17th) sent a message to the Committee +courting full inquiry, "willingly consenting that any man might speak +anything of his Court." On the 12th of March the chairman, Sir R. +Philips, reported that he had in his hands "divers petitions, many +frivolous and clamorous, many of weight and consequence." Cranfield, who +presided over the Court of Wards, had quarrelled fiercely with the +Chancery, where he said there was "neither Law, Equity, nor Conscience," +and pressed the inquiry, partly, it may be, to screen his own Court, +which was found fault with by the lawyers. Some scandalous abuses were +brought to light in the Chancery. They showed that "Bacon was at fault +in the art of government," and did not know how to keep his servants in +order. One of them, John Churchill, an infamous forger of Chancery +orders, finding things going hard with him, and "resolved," it is said, +"not to sink alone," offered his confessions of all that was going on +wrong in the Court. But on the 15th of March things took another turn. +It was no longer a matter of doubtful constitutional law; no longer a +question of slack discipline over his officers. To the astonishment, if +not of the men of his own day, at least to the unexhausted astonishment +of times following, a charge was suddenly reported from the Committee to +the Commons against the Lord Chancellor, not of straining the +prerogative, or of conniving at his servants' misdoings, but of being +himself a corrupt and venal judge. Two suitors charged him with +receiving bribes. Bacon was beginning to feel worried and anxious, and +he wrote thus to Buckingham. At length he had begun to see the meaning +of all these inquiries, and to what they were driving. + + "MY VERY GOOD LORD,--Your Lordship spake of Purgatory. I am now in + it, but my mind is in a calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I + know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house + for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the + justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been + used against me, may for a time seem foul, specially in a time when + greatness is the mark and accusation is the game. And if this be to + be a Chancellor. I think if the great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath + nobody would take it up. But the King and your Lordship will, I + hope, put an end to these miseries one way or other. And in troth + that which I fear most is lest continual attendance and business, + together with these cares, and want of time to do my weak body + right this spring by diet and physic, will cast me down; and then + it will be thought feigning or fainting. But I hope in God I shall + hold out. God prosper you." + +The first charges attracted others, which were made formal matters of +complaint by the House of Commons. John Churchill, to save himself, was +busy setting down cases of misdoing; and probably suitors of themselves +became ready to volunteer evidence. But of this Bacon as yet knew +nothing. He was at this time only aware that there were persons who were +"hunting out complaints against him," that the attack was changed from +his law to his private character; he had found an unfavourable feeling +in the House of Lords; and he knew well enough what it was to have +powerful enemies in those days when a sentence was often settled before +a trial. To any one, such a state of things was as formidable as the +first serious symptoms of a fever. He was uneasy, as a man might well be +on whom the House of Commons had fixed its eye, and to whom the House of +Lords had shown itself unfriendly. But he was as yet conscious of +nothing fatal to his defence, and he knew that if false accusations +could be lightly made they could also be exposed. + +A few days after the first mention of corruption the Commons laid their +complaints of him before the House of Lords, and on the same day (March +19) Bacon, finding himself too ill to go to the House, wrote to the +Peers by Buckingham, requesting them that as some "complaints of base +bribery" had come before them, they would give him a fair opportunity of +defending himself, and of cross-examining witnesses; especially begging, +that considering the number of decrees which he had to make in a +year--more than two thousand--and "the courses which had been taken in +hunting out complaints against him," they would not let their opinion of +him be affected by the mere number of charges that might be made. Their +short verbal answer, moved by Southampton (March 20), that they meant to +proceed by right rule of justice, and would be glad if he cleared his +honour, was not encouraging. And now that the Commons had brought the +matter before them, the Lords took it entirely into their own hands, +appointing three Committees, and examining the witnesses themselves. New +witnesses came forward every day with fresh cases of gifts and presents, +"bribes" received by the Lord Chancellor. When Parliament rose for the +Easter vacation (March 27-April 17), the Committees continued sitting. A +good deal probably passed of which no record remains. When the Commons +met again (April 17) Coke was full of gibes about _Instauratio +Magna_--the true _Instauratio_ was to restore laws--and two days after +an Act was brought in for review and reversal of decrees in Courts of +Equity. It was now clear that the case against Bacon had assumed +formidable dimensions, and also a very strange, and almost monstrous +shape. For the Lords, who were to be the judges, had by their Committees +taken the matter out of the hands of the Commons, the original accusers, +and had become themselves the prosecutors, collecting and arranging +evidence, accepting or rejecting depositions, and doing all that +counsel or the committing magistrate would do preliminary to a trial. +There appears to have been no cross-examining of witnesses on Bacon's +behalf, or hearing witnesses for him--not unnaturally at this stage of +business, when the prosecutors were engaged in making out their own +case; but considering that the future judges had of their own accord +turned themselves into the prosecutors, the unfairness was great. At the +same time it does not appear that Bacon did anything to watch how things +went in the Committees, which had his friends in them as well as his +enemies, and are said to have been open courts. Towards the end of +March, Chamberlain wrote to Carleton that "the Houses were working hard +at cleansing out the Augaean stable of monopolies, and also extortions in +Courts of Justice. The petitions against the Lord Chancellor were too +numerous to be got through: his chief friends and brokers of bargains, +Sir George Hastings and Sir Richard Young, and others attacked, are +obliged to accuse him in their own defence, though very reluctantly. His +ordinary bribes were L300, L400, and even L1000.... The Lords admit no +evidence except on oath. One Churchill, who was dismissed from the +Chancery Court for extortion, is the chief cause of the Chancellor's +ruin."[3] Bacon was greatly alarmed. He wrote to Buckingham, who was +"his anchor in these floods." He wrote to the King; he was at a loss to +account for the "tempest that had come on him;" he could not understand +what he had done to offend the country or Parliament; he had never +"taken rewards to pervert justice, however he might be frail, and +partake of the abuse of the time." + + "Time hath been when I have brought unto you _genitum columbae_, + from others. Now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your Majesty + with the wings of a dove, which once within these seven days I + thought would have carried me a higher flight. + + "When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a + tempest as is comen upon me. I have been (as your Majesty knoweth + best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to + have things carried _suavibus modis_. I have been no avaricious + oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty or intolerable or + hateful man, in my conversation or carriage. I have inherited no + hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should + this be? For these are the things that use to raise dislikes + abroad." + +And he ended by entreating the King to help him: + + "That which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is that + I may know by my matchless friend [Buckingham] that presenteth to + you this letter, your Majesty's heart (which is an _abyssus_ of + goodness, as I am an _abyssus_ of misery) towards me. I have been + ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, + the property being yours; and now making myself an oblation to do + with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the + honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as + + "Clay in your Majesty's gracious hands, + "Fr. St. Aldan, Canc. + "March 25, 1621." + +To the world he kept up an undismayed countenance: he went down to +Gorhambury, attended by troops of friends. "This man," said Prince +Charles, when he met his company, "scorns to go out like a snuff." But +at Gorhambury he made his will, leaving "his name to the next ages and +to foreign nations;" and he wrote a prayer, which is a touching evidence +of his state of mind-- + + "Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my + Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter. Thou (O Lord) soundest and + searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts; thou knowledgest + the upright of heart, thou judgest the hypocrite, thou ponderest + men's thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their + intentions as with a line, vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid + from thee. + + "Remember (O Lord) how thy servant hath walked before thee; + remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in + mine intentions. I have loved thy assemblies, I have mourned for + the divisions of thy Church, I have delighted in the brightness of + thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this + nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first + and the latter rain; and that it might stretch her branches to the + seas and to the floods. The state and bread of the poor and + oppressed have been precious in my eyes: I have hated all cruelty + and hardness of heart; I have (though in a despised weed) procured + the good of all men. If any have been mine enemies, I thought not + of them; neither hath the sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I + have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. Thy + creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have + sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found + thee in thy temples. + + "Thousand have been my sins, and ten thousand my transgressions; + but thy sanctifications have remained with me, and my heart, + through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal upon thy altar. O + Lord, my strength, I have since my youth met with thee in all my + ways, by thy fatherly compassions, by thy comfortable + chastisements, and by thy most visible providence. As thy favours + have increased upon me, so have thy corrections; so as thou hast + been alway near me, O Lord; and ever as my worldly blessings were + exalted, so secret darts from thee have pierced me; and when I have + ascended before men, I have descended in humiliation before thee. + + "And now when I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy + upon me, and hath humbled me, according to thy former + loving-kindness, keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a + bastard, but as a child. Just are thy judgements upon me for my + sins, which are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have + no proportion to thy mercies; for what are the sands of the sea to + the sea, earth, heavens? and all these are nothing to thy mercies. + + "Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee that I am + debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and graces, + which I have misspent in things for which I was least fit; so as I + may truly say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my + pilgrimage. Be merciful unto me (O Lord) for my Saviour's sake, + and receive me into thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways." + +Bacon up to this time strangely, if the Committees were "open Courts," +was entirely ignorant of the particulars of the charge which was +accumulating against him. He had an interview with the King, which was +duly reported to the House, and he placed his case before James, +distinguishing between the "three cases of bribery supposed in a +judge--a corrupt bargain; carelessness in receiving a gift while the +cause is going on; and, what is innocent, receiving a gift after it is +ended." And he meant in such words as these to place himself at the +King's disposal, and ask his direction: + + "For my fortune, _summa summarum_ with me is, that I may not be + made altogether unprofitable to do your Majesty service or honour. + If your Majesty continue me as I am, I hope I shall be a new man, + and shall reform things out of feeling, more than another can do + out of example. If I cast part of my burden, I shall be more strong + and _delivre_ to bear the rest. And, to tell your Majesty what my + thoughts run upon, I think of writing a story of England, and of + recompiling of your laws into a better digest." + +The King referred him to the House; and the House now (April 19th) +prepared to gather up into "one brief" the charges against the Lord +Chancellor, still, however, continuing open to receive fresh complaints. + +Meanwhile the chase after abuses of all kinds was growing hotter in the +Commons--abuses in patents and monopolies, which revived the complaints +against referees, among whom Bacon was frequently named, and abuses in +the Courts of Justice. The attack passed by and spared the Common Law +Courts, as was noticed in the course of the debates; it spared +Cranfield's Court, the Court of Wards. But it fell heavily on the +Chancery and the Ecclesiastical Courts. "I have neither power nor will +to defend Chancery," said Sir John Bennett, the judge of the Prerogative +Court; but a few weeks after his turn came, and a series of as ugly +charges as could well be preferred against a judge, charges of extortion +as well as bribery, were reported to the House by its Committee. There +can be no doubt of the grossness of many of these abuses, and the zeal +against them was honest, though it would have shown more courage if it +had flown at higher game; but the daily discussion of them helped to +keep alive and inflame the general feeling against so great a +"delinquent" as the Lord Chancellor was supposed to be. And, indeed, two +of the worst charges against him were made before the Commons. One was a +statement made in the House by Sir George Hastings, a member of the +House, who had been the channel of Awbry's gift, that when he had told +Bacon that if questioned he must admit it, Bacon's answer was: "George, +if you do so, I must deny it upon my honour--upon my oath." The other +was that he had given an opinion in favour of some claim of the Masters +in Chancery for which he received L1200, and with which he said that all +the judges agreed--an assertion which all the judges denied. Of these +charges there is no contradiction.[4] + +Bacon made one more appeal to the King (April 21). He hoped that, by +resigning the seal, he might be spared the sentence: + + "But now if not _per omnipotentiam_ (as the divines speak), but + _per potestatem suaviter disponentem_, your Majesty will graciously + save me from a sentence with the good liking of the House, and that + cup may pass from me; it is the utmost of my desires. + + "This I move with the more belief, because I assure myself that if + it be reformation that is sought, the very taking away the seal, + upon my general submission, will be as much in example for these + four hundred years as any furder severity." + +At length, informally, but for the first time distinctly, the full +nature of the accusation, with its overwhelming list of cases, came to +Bacon's knowledge (April 20 or 21). From the single charge, made in the +middle of March, it had swelled in force and volume like a rising +mountain torrent. That all these charges should have sprung out of the +ground from their long concealment is strange enough. How is it that +nothing was heard of them when the things happened? And what is equally +strange is that these charges were substantially true and undeniable; +that this great Lord Chancellor, so admirable in his despatch of +business, hitherto so little complained of for wrong or unfair +decisions, had been in the habit of receiving large sums of money from +suitors, in some cases certainly while the suit was pending. And +further, while receiving them, while perfectly aware of the evil of +receiving gifts on the seat of judgment, while emphatically warning +inferior judges against yielding to the temptation, he seems really to +have continued unconscious of any wrong-doing while gift after gift was +offered and accepted. But nothing is so strange as the way in which +Bacon met the charges. Tremendous as the accusation was, he made not the +slightest fight about it. Up to this time he had held himself innocent. +Now, overwhelmed and stunned, he made no attempt at defence; he threw up +the game without a struggle, and volunteered an absolute and unreserved +confession of his guilt--that is to say, he declined to stand his trial. +Only, he made an earnest application to the House of Lords, in +proceeding to sentence, to be content with a general admission of +guilt, and to spare him the humiliation of confessing the separate facts +of alleged "bribery" which were contained in the twenty-eight Articles +of his accusation. This submission, "grounded only on rumour," for the +Articles of charge had not yet been communicated to him by the accusers, +took the House by surprise. "No Lord spoke to it, after it had been +read, for a long time." But they did not mean that he should escape with +this. The House treated the suggestion with impatient scorn (April 24). +"It is too late," said Lord Saye. "No word of confession of any +corruption in the Lord Chancellor's submission," said Southampton; "it +stands with the justice and honour of this House not to proceed without +the parties' particular confession, or to have the parties to hear the +charge, and we to hear the parties answer." The demand of the Lords was +strictly just, but cruel; the Articles were now sent to him; he had been +charged with definite offences; he must answer yes or no, confess them +or defend himself. A further question arose whether he should not be +sent for to appear at the bar. He still held the seals. "Shall the Great +Seal come to the bar?" asked Lord Pembroke. It was agreed that he was to +be asked whether he would acknowledge the particulars. His answer was +"that he will make no manner of defence to the charge, but meaneth to +acknowledge corruption, and to make a particular confession to every +point, and after that a humble submission. But he humbly craves liberty +that, when the charge is more full than he finds the truth of the fact, +he may make a declaration of the truth in such particulars, the charge +being brief and containing not all the circumstances." And such a +confession he made. "My Lords," he said, to those who were sent to ask +whether he would stand to it, "it is my act, my hand, my heart. I +beseech your Lordships be merciful to a broken reed." This was, of +course, followed by a request to the King from the House to "sequester" +the Great Seal. A commission was sent to receive it (May 1). "The worse, +the better," he answered to the wish, "that it had been better with +him." "By the King's great favour I received the Great Seal; by my own +great fault I have lost it." They intended him now to come to the bar to +receive his sentence. But he was too ill to leave his bed. They did not +push this point farther, but proceeded to settle the sentence (May 3). +He had asked for mercy, but he did not get it. There were men who talked +of every extremity short of death. Coke, indeed, in the Commons, from +his store of precedents, had cited cases where judges had been hanged +for bribery. But the Lords would not hear of this. "His offences foul," +said Lord Arundel; "his confession pitiful. Life not to be touched." But +Southampton, whom twenty years before he had helped to involve in +Essex's ruin, urged that he should be degraded from the peerage; and +asked whether, at any rate, "he whom this House thinks unfit to be a +constable shall come to the Parliament." He was fined L40,000. He was to +be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was to be +incapable of any office, place, or employment in the State or +Commonwealth. He was never to sit in Parliament or come within the verge +of the Court. This was agreed to, Buckingham only dissenting. "The Lord +Chancellor is so sick," he said, "that he cannot live long." + +What is the history of this tremendous catastrophe by which, in less +than two months, Bacon was cast down from the height of fortune to +become a byword of shame? He had enemies, who certainly were glad, but +there is no appearance that it was the result of any plot or +combination against him. He was involved, accidentally, it may almost be +said, in the burst of anger excited by the intolerable dealings of +others. The indignation provoked by Michell and Mompesson and their +associates at that particular moment found Bacon in its path, doing, as +it seemed, in his great seat of justice, even worse than they; and when +he threw up all attempt at defence, and his judges had his hand to an +unreserved confession of corruption, both generally, and in the long +list of cases alleged against him, it is not wonderful that they came to +the conclusion, as the rest of the world did, that he was as bad as the +accusation painted him--a dishonest and corrupt judge. Yet it is strange +that they should not have observed that not a single charge of a +definitely unjust decision was brought, at any rate was proved, against +him. He had taken money, they argued, and therefore he must be corrupt; +but if he had taken money to pervert judgment, some instance of the +iniquity would certainly have been brought forward and proved. There is +no such instance to be found; though, of course, there were plenty of +dissatisfied suitors; of course the men who had paid their money and +lost their cause were furious. But in vain do we look for any case of +proved injustice. The utmost that can be said is that in some cases he +showed favour in pushing forward and expediting suits. So that the real +charge against Bacon assumes, to us who have not to deal practically +with dangerous abuses, but to judge conduct and character, a different +complexion. Instead of being the wickedness of perverting justice and +selling his judgments for bribes, it takes the shape of allowing and +sharing in a dishonourable and mischievous system of payment for +service, which could not fail to bring with it temptation and +discredit, and in which fair reward could not be distinguished from +unlawful gain. Such a system it was high time to stop; and in this rough +and harsh way, which also satisfied some personal enmities, it was +stopped. We may put aside for good the charge on which he was condemned, +and which in words he admitted--of being corrupt as a judge. His real +fault--and it was a great one--was that he did not in time open his eyes +to the wrongness and evil, patent to every one, and to himself as soon +as pointed out, of the traditional fashion in his court of eking out by +irregular gifts the salary of such an office as his. + +Thus Bacon was condemned both to suffering and to dishonour; and, as has +been observed, condemned without a trial. But it must also be observed +that it was entirely owing to his own act that he had not a trial, and +with a trial the opportunity of cross-examining witnesses and of +explaining openly the matters urged against him. The proceedings in the +Lords were preliminary to the trial; when the time came, Bacon, of his +own choice, stopped them from going farther, by his confession and +submission. Considering the view which he claimed to take of his own +case, his behaviour was wanting in courage and spirit. From the moment +that the attack on him shifted from a charge of authorising illegal +monopolies to a charge of personal corruption, he never fairly met his +accusers. The distress and anxiety, no doubt, broke down his health; and +twice, when he was called upon to be in his place in the House of Lords, +he was obliged to excuse himself on the ground that he was too ill to +leave his bed. But between the time of the first charge and his +condemnation seven weeks elapsed; and though he was able to go down to +Gorhambury, he never in that time showed himself in the House of Lords. +Whether or not, while the Committees were busy in collecting the +charges, he would have been allowed to take part, to put questions to +the witnesses, or to produce his own, he never attempted to do so; and +by the course he took there was no other opportunity. To have stood his +trial could hardly have increased his danger, or aggravated his +punishment; and it would only have been worthy of his name and place, if +not to have made a fight for his character and integrity, at least to +have bravely said what he had made up his mind to admit, and what no one +could have said more nobly and pathetically, in open Parliament. But he +was cowed at the fierceness of the disapprobation manifest in both +Houses. He shrunk from looking his peers and his judges in the face. His +friends obtained for him that he should not be brought to the bar, and +that all should pass in writing. But they saved his dignity at the +expense of his substantial reputation. The observation that the charges +against him were not sifted by cross-examination applies equally to his +answers to them. The allegations of both sides would have come down to +us in a more trustworthy shape if the case had gone on. But to give up +the struggle, and to escape by any humiliation from a regular public +trial, seems to have been his only thought when he found that the King +and Buckingham could not or would not save him. + +But the truth is that he knew that a trial of this kind was a trial only +in name. He knew that, when a charge of this sort was brought, it was +not meant to be really investigated in open court, but to be driven home +by proofs carefully prepared beforehand, against which the accused had +little chance. He knew, too, that in those days to resist in earnest an +accusation was apt to be taken as an insult to the court which +entertained it. And further, for the prosecutor to accept a submission +and confession without pushing to the formality of a public trial, and +therefore a public exposure, was a favour. It was a favour which by his +advice, as against the King's honour, had been refused to Suffolk; it +was a favour which, in a much lighter charge, had by his advice been +refused to his colleague Yelverton only a few months before, when Bacon, +in sentencing him, took occasion to expatiate on the heinous guilt of +misprisions or mistakes in men in high places. The humiliation was not +complete without the trial, but it was for humiliation and not fair +investigation that the trial was wanted. Bacon knew that the trial would +only prolong his agony, and give a further triumph to his enemies. + +That there was any plot against Bacon, and much more that Buckingham to +save himself was a party to it, is of course absurd. Buckingham, indeed, +was almost the only man in the Lords who said anything for Bacon, and, +alone, he voted against his punishment. But considering what Buckingham +was, and what he dared to do when he pleased, he was singularly cool in +helping Bacon. Williams, the astute Dean of Westminster, who was to be +Bacon's successor as Lord Keeper, had got his ear, and advised him not +to endanger himself by trying to save delinquents. He did not. Indeed, +as the inquiry went on, he began to take the high moral ground; he was +shocked at the Chancellor's conduct; he would not have believed that it +could have been so bad; his disgrace was richly deserved. Buckingham +kept up appearances by saying a word for him from time to time in +Parliament, which he knew would be useless, and which he certainly took +no measures to make effective. It is sometimes said that Buckingham +never knew what dissimulation was. He was capable, at least, of the +perfidy and cowardice of utter selfishness. Bacon's conspicuous fall +diverted men's thoughts from the far more scandalous wickedness of the +great favourite. But though there was no plot, though the blow fell upon +Bacon almost accidentally, there were many who rejoiced to be able to +drive it home. We can hardly wonder that foremost among them was Coke. +This was the end of the long rivalry between Bacon and Coke, from the +time that Essex pressed Bacon against Coke in vain to the day when Bacon +as Chancellor drove Coke from his seat for his bad law, and as Privy +Councillor ordered him to be prosecuted in the Star Chamber for +riotously breaking open men's doors to get his daughter. The two men +thoroughly disliked and undervalued one another. Coke made light of +Bacon's law. Bacon saw clearly Coke's narrowness and ignorance out of +that limited legal sphere in which he was supposed to know everything, +his prejudiced and interested use of his knowledge, his coarseness and +insolence. But now in Parliament Coke was supreme, "our Hercules," as +his friends said. He posed as the enemy of all abuses and corruption. He +brought his unrivalled, though not always accurate, knowledge of law and +history to the service of the Committees, and took care that the +Chancellor's name should not be forgotten when it could be connected +with some bad business of patent or Chancery abuse. It was the great +revenge of the Common Law on the encroaching and insulting Chancery +which had now proved so foul. And he could not resist the opportunity of +marking the revenge of professional knowledge over Bacon's airs of +philosophical superiority. "To restore things to their original" was his +sneer in Parliament, "this, _Instauratio Magna. Instaurare +paras--Instaura leges justitiamque prius_."[5] + +The charge of corruption was as completely a surprise to Bacon as it was +to the rest of the world. And yet, as soon as the blot was hit, he saw +in a moment that his position was hopeless--he knew that he had been +doing wrong; though all the time he had never apparently given it a +thought, and he insisted, what there is every reason to believe, that no +present had induced him to give an unjust decision. It was the power of +custom over a character naturally and by habit too pliant to +circumstances. Custom made him insensible to the evil of receiving +recommendations from Buckingham in favour of suitors. Custom made him +insensible to the evil of what it seems every one took for +granted--receiving gifts from suitors. In the Court of James I. the +atmosphere which a man in office breathed was loaded with the taint of +gifts and bribes. Presents were as much the rule, as indispensable for +those who hoped to get on, as they are now in Turkey. Even in +Elizabeth's days, when Bacon was struggling to win her favour, and was +in the greatest straits for money, he borrowed L500 to buy a jewel for +the Queen. When he was James's servant the giving of gifts became a +necessity. New Year's Day brought round its tribute of gold vases and +gold pieces to the King and Buckingham. And this was the least. Money +was raised by the sale of officers and titles. For L20,000, having +previously offered L10,000 in vain, the Chief-Justice of England, +Montague, became Lord Mandeville and Treasurer. The bribe was sometimes +disguised: a man became a Privy Councillor, like Cranfield, or a +Chief-Justice, like Ley (afterwards "the good Earl," "unstained with +gold or fee," of Milton's Sonnet), by marrying a cousin or a niece of +Buckingham. When Bacon was made a Peer, he had also given him "the +making of a Baron;" that is to say, he might raise money by bargaining +with some one who wanted a peerage; when, however, later on, he asked +Buckingham for a repetition of the favour, Buckingham gave him a lecture +on the impropriety of prodigality, which should make it seem that "while +the King was asking money of Parliament with one hand he was giving with +the other." How things were in Chancery in the days of the Queen, and of +Bacon's predecessors, we know little; but Bacon himself implies that +there was nothing new in what he did. "All my lawyers," said James, "are +so bred and nursed in corruption that they cannot leave it." Bacon's +Chancellorship coincided with the full bloom of Buckingham's favour; and +Buckingham set the fashion, beyond all before him, of extravagance in +receiving and spending. Encompassed by such assumptions and such +customs, Bacon administered the Chancery. Suitors did there what people +did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they +gave, or the benefit they gained. It may be that Bacon's known +difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his +easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged +this profuseness of giving. And Bacon let it be. He asked no questions; +he knew that he worked hard and well; he knew that it could go on +without affecting his purpose to do justice "from the greatest to the +groom." A stronger character, a keener conscience, would have faced the +question, not only whether he was not setting the most ruinous of +precedents, but whether any man could be so sure of himself as to go on +dealing justly with gifts in his hands. But Bacon, who never dared to +face the question, what James was, what Buckingham was, let himself be +spellbound by custom. He knew in the abstract that judges ought to have +nothing to do with gifts, and had said so impressively in his charges to +them. Yet he went on self-complacent, secure, almost innocent, building +up a great tradition of corruption in the very heart of English justice, +till the challenge of Parliament, which began in him its terrible and +relentless, but most unequal, prosecution of justice against ministers +who had betrayed the commonwealth in serving the Crown, woke him from +his dream, and made him see, as others saw it, the guilt of a great +judge who, under whatever extenuating pretext, allowed the suspicion to +arise that he might sell justice. "In the midst of a state of as great +affliction as mortal man can endure," he wrote to the Lords of the +Parliament, in making his submission, "I shall begin with the professing +gladness in some things. The first is that hereafter the greatness of a +judge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary or protection of guiltiness, +which is the beginning of a golden world. The next, that after this +example it is like that judges will fly from anything that is in the +likeness of corruption as from a serpent." Bacon's own judgment on +himself, deliberately repeated, is characteristic, and probably comes +near the truth. "Howsoever, I acknowledge the sentence just and for +reformation's sake fit," he writes to Buckingham from the Tower, where, +for form's sake, he was imprisoned for a few miserable days, he yet had +been "the justest Chancellor that hath been in the five changes that +have been since Sir Nicolas Bacon's time." He repeated the same thing +yet more deliberately in later times. "_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._" + +He might have gone on to add, "the Wisest Counsellor; and yet none on +whom rested heavier blame; none of whom England might more justly +complain." Good counsels given, submissive acquiescence in the +worst--this is the history of his statesmanship. Bacon, whose eye was +everywhere, was not sparing of his counsels. On all the great questions +of the time he has left behind abundant evidence, not only of what he +thought, but of what he advised. And in every case these memorials are +marked with the insight, the independence, the breadth of view, and the +moderation of a mind which is bent on truth. He started, of course, from +a basis which we are now hardly able to understand or allow for, the +idea of absolute royal power and prerogative which James had enlarged +and hardened out of the Kingship of the Tudors, itself imperious and +arbitrary enough, but always seeking, with a tact of which James was +incapable, to be in touch and sympathy with popular feeling. But it was +a basis which in principle every one of any account as yet held or +professed to hold, and which Bacon himself held on grounds of philosophy +and reason. He could see no hope for orderly and intelligent government +except in a ruler whose wisdom had equal strength to assert itself; and +he looked down with incredulity and scorn on the notion of anything good +coming out of what the world then knew or saw of popular opinion or +parliamentary government. But when it came to what was wise and fitting +for absolute power to do in the way of general measures and policy, he +was for the most part right. He saw the inexorable and pressing +necessity of putting the finance of the kingdom on a safe footing. He +saw the necessity of a sound and honest policy in Ireland. He saw the +mischief of the Spanish alliance in spite of his curious friendship with +Gondomar, and detected the real and increasing weakness of the Spanish +monarchy, which still awed mankind. He saw the growing danger of abuses +in Church and State which were left untouched, and were protected by the +punishment of those who dared to complain of them. He saw the confusion +and injustice of much of that common law of which the lawyers were so +proud; and would have attempted, if he had been able, to emulate +Justinian, and anticipate the Code Napoleon, by a rational and +consistent digest. Above all, he never ceased to impress on James the +importance, and, if wisely used, the immense advantages, of his +Parliaments. Himself, for great part of his life, an active and popular +member of the House of Commons, he saw that not only it was impossible +to do without it, but that, if fairly, honourably, honestly dealt with, +it would become a source of power and confidence which would double the +strength of the Government both at home and abroad. Yet of all this +wisdom nothing came. The finance of the kingdom was still ruined by +extravagance and corruption in a time of rapidly-developing prosperity +and wealth. The wounds of Ireland were unhealed. It was neither peace +nor war with Spain, and hot infatuation for its friendship alternated +with cold fits of distrust and estrangement. Abuses flourished and +multiplied under great patronage. The King's one thought about +Parliament was how to get as much money out of it as he could, with as +little other business as possible. Bacon's counsels were the prophecies +of Cassandra in that so prosperous but so disastrous reign. All that he +did was to lend the authority of his presence, in James's most intimate +counsels, to policy and courses of which he saw the unwisdom and the +perils. James and Buckingham made use of him when they wanted. But they +would have been very different in their measures and their statesmanship +if they had listened to him. + +Mirabeau said, what of course had been said before him, "On ne vaut, +dans la partie executive de la vie humaine, que par le caractere." This +is the key to Bacon's failures as a judge and as a statesman, and why, +knowing so much more and judging so much more wisely than James and +Buckingham, he must be identified with the misdoings of that ignoble +reign. He had the courage of his opinions; but a man wants more than +that: he needs the manliness and the public spirit to enforce them, if +they are true and salutary. But this is what Bacon had not. He did not +mind being rebuffed; he knew that he was right, and did not care. But to +stand up against the King, to contradict him after he had spoken, to +press an opinion or a measure on a man whose belief in his own wisdom +was infinite, to risk not only being set down as a dreamer, but the +King's displeasure, and the ruin of being given over to the will of his +enemies, this Bacon had not the fibre or the stiffness or the +self-assertion to do. He did not do what a man of firm will and strength +of purpose, a man of high integrity, of habitual resolution, would have +done. Such men insist when they are responsible, and when they know +that they are right; and they prevail, or accept the consequences. +Bacon, knowing all that he did, thinking all that he thought, was +content to be the echo and the instrument of the cleverest, the +foolishest, the vainest, the most pitiably unmanly of English kings. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] _Calendar of State Papers_ (domestic), March 24, 1621. + +[4] _Commons' Journals_, March 17, April 27; iii. 560, 594-6. + +[5] _Commons' Journals_, iii. 578. In his copy of the _Novum Organum_, +received _ex dono auctoris_, Coke wrote the same words. + + "_Auctori consilium_. + Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophorum: + Instaura leges justitiamque prius." + +He added, with allusion to the ship in the frontispiece of the _Novum +Organum_, + + "It deserveth not to be read in schools, + But to be freighted in the ship of Fools." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +BACON'S LAST YEARS. + +[1621-1626.] + + +The tremendous sentences of those days, with their crushing fines, were +often worse in sound than in reality. They meant that for the moment a +man was defeated and disgraced. But it was quite understood that it did +not necessarily follow that they would be enforced in all their +severity. The fine might be remitted, the imprisonment shortened, the +ban of exclusion taken off. At another turn of events or caprice the man +himself might return to favour, and take his place in Parliament or the +Council as if nothing had happened. But, of course, a man might have +powerful enemies, and the sentence might be pressed. His fine might be +assigned to some favourite; and he might be mined, even if in the long +run he was pardoned; or he might remain indefinitely a prisoner. Raleigh +had remained to perish at last in dishonour. Northumberland, Raleigh's +fellow-prisoner, after fifteen years' captivity, was released this year. +The year after Bacon's condemnation such criminals as Lord and Lady +Somerset were released from the Tower, after a six years' imprisonment. +Southampton, the accomplice of Essex, Suffolk, sentenced as late as 1619 +by Bacon for embezzlement, sat in the House of Peers which judged Bacon, +and both of them took a prominent part in judging him. + +To Bacon the sentence was ruinous. It proved an irretrievable overthrow +as regards public life, and, though some parts of it were remitted and +others lightened, it plunged his private affairs into trouble which +weighed heavily on him for his few remaining years. To his deep distress +and horror he had to go to the Tower to satisfy the terms of his +sentence. "Good my Lord," he writes to Buckingham, May 31, "procure my +warrant for my discharge this day. Death is so far from being unwelcome +to me, as I have called for it as far as Christian resolution would +permit any time these two months. But to die before the time of his +Majesty's grace, in this disgraceful place, is even the worst that could +be." He was released after two or three days, and he thanks Buckingham +(June 4) for getting him out to do him and the King faithful +service--"wherein, by the grace of God, your Lordship shall find that my +adversity hath neither _spent_ nor _pent_ my spirits." In the autumn his +fine was remitted--that is, it was assigned to persons nominated by +Bacon, who, as the Crown had the first claim on all his goods, served as +a protection against his other creditors, who were many and some of them +clamorous--and it was followed by his pardon. His successor, Williams, +now Bishop of Lincoln, who stood in great fear of Parliament, tried to +stop the pardon. The assignment of the fine, he said to Buckingham, was +a gross job--"it is much spoken against, not for the matter (for no man +objects to that), but for the manner, which is full of knavery, and a +wicked precedent. For by this assignment he is protected from all his +creditors, which (I dare say) was neither his Majesty's nor your +Lordship's meaning." It was an ill-natured and cowardly piece of +official pedantry to plunge deeper a drowning man; but in the end the +pardon was passed. It does not appear whether Buckingham interfered to +overrule the Lord Keeper's scruples. Buckingham was certainly about this +time very much out of humour with Bacon, for a reason which, more than +anything else, discloses the deep meanness which lurked under his show +of magnanimity and pride. He had chosen this moment to ask Bacon for +York House. This meant that Bacon would never more want it. Even Bacon +was stung by such a request to a friend in his condition, and declined +to part with it; and Buckingham accordingly was offended, and made Bacon +feel it. Indeed, there is reason to think with Mr. Spedding that for the +sealing of his pardon Bacon was indebted to the good offices with the +King, not of Buckingham, but of the Spaniard, Gondomar, with whom Bacon +had always been on terms of cordiality and respect, and who at this time +certainly "brought about something on his behalf, which his other +friends either had not dared to attempt or had not been able to obtain." + +But, though Bacon had his pardon, he had not received permission to come +within the verge of the Court, which meant that he could not live in +London. His affairs were in great disorder, his health was bad, and he +was cut off from books. He wrote an appeal to the Peers who had +condemned him, asking them to intercede with the King for the +enlargement of his liberty. "I am old," he wrote, "weak, ruined, in +want, a very subject of pity." The Tower at least gave him the +neighbourhood of those who could help him. "There I could have company, +physicians, conference with my creditors and friends about my debts and +the necessities of my estate, helps for my studies and the writings I +have in hand. Here I live upon the sword-point of a sharp air, +endangered if I go abroad, dulled if I stay within, solitary and +comfortless, without company, banished from all opportunities to treat +with any to do myself good, and to help out my wrecks." If the Lords +would recommend his suit to the King, "You shall do a work of charity +and nobility, you shall do me good, you shall do my creditors good, and +it may be you shall do posterity good, if out of the carcase of dead and +rotten greatness (as out of Samson's lion) there may be honey gathered +for the use of future times." But Parliament was dissolved before the +touching appeal reached them; and Bacon had to have recourse to other +expedients. He consulted Selden about the technical legality of the +sentence. He appealed to Buckingham, who vouchsafed to appear more +placable. Once more he had recourse to Gondomar, "in that solitude of +friends, which is the base-court of adversity," as a man whom he had +"observed to have the magnanimity of his own nation and the cordiality +of ours, and I am sure the wit of both"--and who had been equally kind +to him in "both his fortunes;" and he proposed through Gondomar to +present Gorhambury to Buckingham "for nothing," as a peace-offering. But +the purchase of his liberty was to come in another way. Bacon had +reconciled himself to giving up York House; but now Buckingham would not +have it: he had found another house, he said, which suited him as well. +That is to say, he did not now choose to have York House from Bacon +himself; but he meant to have it. Accordingly, Buckingham let Bacon know +through a friend of Bacon's, Sir Edward Sackville, that the price of his +liberty to live in London was the cession of York House--not to +Buckingham, but of all men in the world, to Lionel Cranfield, the man +who had been so bitter against Bacon in the House of Commons. This is +Sir Edward Sackville's account to Bacon of his talk with Buckingham; it +is characteristic of every one concerned: + + "In the forenoon he laid the law, but in the afternoon he preached + the gospel; when, after some revivations of the old distaste + concerning York House, he most nobly opened his heart unto me; + wherein I read that which augured much good towards you. After + which revelation the book was again sealed up, and must in his own + time only by himself be again manifested unto you. I have leave to + remember some of the vision, and am not forbidden to write it. He + vowed (not court like), but constantly to appear your friend so + much, as if his Majesty should abandon the care of you, you should + share his fortune with him. He pleased to tell me how much he had + been beholden to you, how well he loved you, how unkindly he took + the denial of your house (for so he will needs understand it); but + the close for all this was harmonious, since he protested he would + seriously begin to study your ends, now that the world should see + he had no ends on you. He is in hand with the work, and therefore + will by no means accept of your offer, though I can assure you the + tender hath much won upon him, and mellowed his heart towards you, + and your genius directed you aright when you writ that letter of + denial to the Duke. The King saw it, and all the rest, which made + him say unto the Marquis, you played an after-game well; and that + now he had no reason to be much offended. + + "I have already talked of the Revelation, and now am to speak in + apocalyptical language, which I hope you will rightly comment: + whereof if you make difficulty, the bearer can help you with the + key of the cypher. + + "My Lord Falkland by this time hath showed you London from Highgate. + _If York House were gone, the town were yours_, and all your + straitest shackles clean off, besides more comfort than the city air + only. The Marquis would be exceeding glad the Treasurer had it. This + I know; yet this you must not know from me. Bargain with him + presently, upon as good conditions as you can procure, so you have + direct motion from the Marquis to let him have it. Seem not to dive + into the secret of it, though you are purblind if you see not + through it. I have told Mr. Meautys how I would wish your Lordship + now to make an end of it. From him I beseech you take it, and from + me only the advice to perform it. If you part not speedily with it, + you may defer the good which is approaching near you, and + disappointing other aims (which must either shortly receive content + or never), perhaps anew yield matter of discontent, though you may + be indeed as innocent as before. Make the Treasurer believe that + since the Marquis will by no means accept of it, and that you must + part with it, you are more willing to pleasure him than anybody + else, because you are given to understand my Lord Marquis so + inclines; which inclination, if the Treasurer shortly send unto you + about it, desire may be more clearly manifested than as yet it hath + been; since as I remember none hitherto hath told you _in terminis + terminantibus_ that the Marquis desires you should gratify the + Treasurer. I know that way the hare runs, and that my Lord Marquis + longs until Cranfield hath it; and so I wish too, for your good; yet + would not it were absolutely passed until my Lord Marquis did send + or write unto you to let him have it; for then his so disposing of + it were but the next degree removed from the immediate acceptance of + it, and your Lordship freed from doing it otherwise than to please + him, and to comply with his own will and way." + +It need hardly be said that when Cranfield got it, it soon passed into +Buckingham's hands. "Bacon consented to part with his house, and +Buckingham in return consented to give him his liberty." Yet Bacon could +write to him, "low as I am, I had rather sojourn in a college in +Cambridge than recover a good fortune by any other but yourself." "As +for York House," he bids Toby Matthews to let Buckingham know, "that +_whether in a straight line or a compass line_, I meant it for his +Lordship, in the way which I thought might please him best." But liberty +did not mean either money or recovered honour. All his life long he had +made light of being in debt; but since his fall this was no longer a +condition easy to bear. He had to beg some kind of pension of the King. +He had to beg of Buckingham; "a small matter for my debts would do me +more good now than double a twelvemonth hence. I have lost six thousand +by the year, besides caps and courtesies. Two things I may assure your +Lordship. The one, that I shall lead such a course of life as whatsoever +the King doth for me shall rather sort to his Majesty's and your +Lordship's honour than to envy; the other, that whatsoever men talk, I +can play the good husband, and the King's bounty shall not be lost." + +It might be supposed from the tone of these applications that Bacon's +mind was bowed down and crushed by the extremity of his misfortune. +Nothing could be farther from the truth. In his behaviour during his +accusation there was little trace of that high spirit and fortitude +shown by far inferior men under like disasters. But the moment the +tremendous strain of his misfortunes was taken off, the vigour of his +mind recovered itself. The buoyancy of his hopefulness, the elasticity +of his energy, are as remarkable as his profound depression. When the +end was approaching, his thoughts turned at once to other work to be +done, ready in plan, ready to be taken up and finished. At the close of +his last desperate letter to the King he cannot resist finishing at once +with a jest, and with the prospect of two great literary undertakings-- + + "This is my last suit which I shall make to your Majesty in this + business, prostrating myself at your mercy seat, after fifteen + years service, wherein I have served your Majesty in my poor + endeavours with an entire heart, and, as I presumed to say unto + your Majesty, am still a virgin for matters that concern your + person and crown; and now only craving that after eight steps of + honour I be not precipitated altogether. But because he that hath + taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go furder, and present + your Majesty with a bribe. For if your Majesty will give me peace + and leisure, and God give me life, I will present your Majesty with + a good history of England, and a better digest of your laws." + +The Tower did, indeed, to use a word of the time, "mate" him. But the +moment he was out of it, his quick and fertile mind was immediately at +work in all directions, reaching after all kinds of plans, making proof +of all kinds of expedients to retrieve the past, arranging all kinds of +work according as events might point out the way. His projects for +history, for law, for philosophy, for letters, occupy quite as much of +his thoughts as his pardon and his debts; and they, we have seen, +occupied a good deal. If he was pusillanimous in the moment of the +storm, his spirit, his force, his varied interests, returned the moment +the storm was past. His self-reliance, which was boundless, revived. He +never allowed himself to think, however men of his own time might judge +him, that the future world would mistake him. "_Aliquis fui inter +vivos_," he writes to Gondomar, "_neque omnino intermoriar apud +posteros_." Even in his time he did not give up the hope of being +restored to honour and power. He compared himself to Demosthenes, to +Cicero, to Seneca, to Marcus Livius, who had been condemned for corrupt +dealings as he had been, and had all recovered favour and position. +Lookers-on were puzzled and shocked. "He has," writes Chamberlain, "no +manner of feeling of his fall, but continuing vain and idle in all his +humours as when he was at the highest." "I am said," Bacon himself +writes, "to have a feather in my head." + +Men were mistaken. His thoughts were, for the moment, more than ever +turned to the future; but he had not given up hope of having a good deal +to say yet to the affairs of the present. Strangely enough, as it seems +to us, in the very summer after that fatal spring of 1621 the King +called for his opinion concerning the reformation of Courts of Justice; +and Bacon, just sentenced for corruption and still unpardoned, proceeds +to give his advice as if he were a Privy Councillor in confidential +employment. Early in the following year he, according to his fashion, +surveyed his position, and drew up a paper of memoranda, like the notes +of the _Commentarius Solutus_ of 1608, about points to be urged to the +King at an interview. Why should not the King employ him again? "Your +Majesty never chid me;" and as to his condemnation, "as the fault was +not against your Majesty, so my fall was not your act." "Therefore," he +goes on, "if your Majesty do at any time find it fit for your affairs to +employ me publicly upon the stage, I shall so live and spend my time as +neither discontinuance shall disable me nor adversity shall discourage +me, nor anything that I do give any new scandal or envy upon me." He +insists very strongly that the King's service never miscarried in his +hands, for he simply carried out the King's wise counsels. "That his +Majesty's business never miscarried in my hands I do not impute to any +extraordinary ability in myself, but to my freedom from any particular, +either friends or ends, and my careful receipt of his directions, being, +as I have formerly said to him, but as a bucket and cistern to that +fountain--a bucket to draw forth, a cistern to preserve." He is not +afraid of the apparent slight to the censure passed on him by +Parliament. "For envy, it is an almanack of the old year, and as a +friend of mine said, _Parliament died penitent towards me_." "What the +King bestows on me will be further seen than on Paul's steeple." "There +be mountebanks, as well in the civil body as in the natural; I ever +served his Majesty with modesty; no shouting, no undertaking." In the +odd fashion of the time--a fashion in which no one more delighted than +himself--he lays hold of sacred words to give point to his argument. + + "I may allude to the three petitions of the Litany--_Libera nos + Domine_; _parce nobis, Domine_; _exaudi nos, Domine_. In the first, + I am persuaded that his Majesty had a mind to do it, and could not + conveniently in respect of his affairs. In the second, he hath done + it in my fine and pardon. In the third, he hath likewise + performed, in restoring to the light of his countenance." + +But if the King did not see fit to restore him to public employment, he +would be ready to give private counsel; and he would apply himself to +any "literary province" that the King appointed. "I am like ground +fresh. If I be left to myself I will graze and bear natural philosophy; +but if the King will plough me up again, and sow me with anything, I +hope to give him some yield." "Your Majesty hath power; I have faith. +Therefore a miracle may be wrought." And he proposes, for matters in +which his pen might be useful, first, as "active" works, the recompiling +of laws; the disposing of wards, and generally the education of youth; +the regulation of the jurisdiction of Courts; and the regulation of +Trade; and for "contemplative," the continuation of the history of Henry +VIII.; a general treatise _de Legibus et Justitia_; and the "Holy War" +against the Ottomans. + +When he wrote this he had already shown what his unquelled energy could +accomplish. In the summer and autumn after his condemnation, amid all +the worries and inconveniences of that time, moving about from place to +place, without his books, and without free access to papers and records, +he had written his _History of Henry VII_. The theme had, no doubt, been +long in his head. But the book was the first attempt at philosophical +history in the language, and it at once takes rank with all that the +world had yet seen, in classical times and more recently in Italy, of +such history. He sent the book, among other persons, to the Queen of +Bohemia, with a phrase, the translation of a trite Latin commonplace, +which may have been the parent of one which became famous in our time; +and with an expression of absolute confidence in the goodness of his own +work. + + "I have read in books that it is accounted a great bliss for a man + to have _Leisure with Honour_. That was never my fortune. For time + was, I had Honour without Leisure; and now I have _Leisure without + Honour_.... But my desire is now to have _Leisure without + Loitering_, and not to become an abbey-lubber, as the old proverb + was, but to yield some fruit of my private life.... If King Henry + were alive again, I hope verily he would not be so angry with me + for not flattering him, as well pleased in seeing himself so truly + described in colours that will last and be believed." + +But the tide had turned against him for good. A few fair words, a few +grudging doles of money to relieve his pressing wants, and those +sometimes intercepted and perhaps never rightly granted from an +Exchequer which even Cranfield's finance could not keep filled, were all +the graces that descended upon him from those fountains of goodness in +which he professed to trust with such boundless faith. The King did not +want him, perhaps did not trust him, perhaps did not really like him. +When the _Novum Organum_ came out, all that he had to say about it was +in the shape of a profane jest that "it was like the peace of God--it +passed all understanding." Other men had the ear of Buckingham; shrewd, +practical men of business like Cranfield, who hated Bacon's loose and +careless ways, or the clever ecclesiastic Williams, whose counsel had +steered Buckingham safely through the tempest that wrecked Bacon, and +who, with no legal training, had been placed in Bacon's seat. "I +thought," said Bacon, "that I should have known my successor." Williams, +for his part, charged Bacon with trying to cheat his creditors, when his +fine was remitted. With no open quarrel, Bacon's relations to Buckingham +became more ceremonious and guarded; the "My singular good Lord" of the +former letters becomes, now that Buckingham had risen so high and Bacon +had sunk so low, "Excellent Lord." The one friend to whom Bacon had +once wished to owe everything had become the great man, now only to be +approached with "sweet meats" and elaborate courtesy. But it was no use. +His full pardon Bacon did not get, though earnestly suing for it, that +he might not "die in ignominy." He never sat again in Parliament. The +Provostship of Eton fell vacant, and Bacon's hopes were kindled. "It +were a pretty cell for my fortune. The College and School I do not doubt +but I shall make to flourish." But Buckingham had promised it to some +nameless follower, and by some process of exchange it went to Sir Henry +Wotton. His English history was offered in vain. His digest of the Laws +was offered in vain. In vain he wrote a memorandum on the regulation of +usury; notes of advice to Buckingham; elaborate reports and notes of +speeches about a war with Spain, when that for a while loomed before the +country. In vain he affected an interest which he could hardly have felt +in the Spanish marriage, and the escapade of Buckingham and Prince +Charles, which "began," he wrote, "like a fable of the poets, but +deserved all in a piece a worthy narration." In vain, when the Spanish +marriage was off and the French was on, he proposed to offer to +Buckingham "his service to live a summer as upon mine own delight at +Paris, to settle a fast intelligence between France and us;" "I have +somewhat of the French," he said, "I love birds, as the King doth." +Public patronage and public employment were at an end for him. His +petitions to the King and Buckingham ceased to be for office, but for +the clearing of his name and for the means of living. It is piteous to +read the earnestness of his requests. "Help me (dear Sovereign lord and +master), pity me so far as that I who have borne a bag be not now in my +age forced in effect to bear a wallet." The words are from a +carefully-prepared and rhetorical letter which was not sent, but they +express what he added to a letter presenting the _De Augmentis; "det +Vestra Majestas obolum Belisario_." Again, "I prostrate myself at your +Majesty's feet; I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age, +and three years and five months old in misery. I desire not from your +Majesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only after so long a time +of expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the +Upper House, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, +and from my memory and posterity, that I die not a condemned man, but +may be to your Majesty, as I am to God, _nova creatura_." But the pardon +never came. Sir John Bennett, who had been condemned as a corrupt judge +by the same Parliament, and between whose case and Bacon's there was as +much difference, "I will not say as between black and white, but as +between black and gray," had got his full pardon, "and they say shall +sit in Parliament." Lord Suffolk had been one of Bacon's judges. "I hope +I deserve not to be the only outcast." But whether the Court did not +care, or whether, as he once suspected, there was some old enemy like +Coke, who "had a tooth against him," and was watching any favour shown +him, he died without his wish being fulfilled, "to live out of want and +to die out of ignominy." + +Bacon was undoubtedly an impoverished man, and straitened in his means; +but this must be understood as in relation to the rank and position +which he still held, and the work which he wanted done for the +_Instauratio_. His will, dated a few months before his death, shows that +it would be a mistake to suppose that he was in penury. He no doubt +often wanted ready money, and might be vexed by creditors. But he kept a +large household, and was able to live in comfort at Gray's Inn or at +Gorhambury. A man who speaks in his will of his "four coach geldings +and his best caroache," besides many legacies, and who proposes to found +two lectures at the universities, may have troubles about debts and be +cramped in his expenditure, but it is only relatively to his station +that he can be said to be poor. And to subordinate officers of the +Treasury who kept him out of his rights, he could still write a sharp +letter, full of his old force and edge. A few months before his death he +thus wrote to the Lord Treasurer Ley, who probably had made some +difficulty about a claim for money: + + "MY LORD,--I humbly entreat your Lordship, and (if I may use the + word) advise your Lordship to make me a better answer. Your + Lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion of all that hear + how I am dealt with. If your Lordship malice me for Long's cause, + surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in + Chancery. I will avouch it; and how deeply I was tempted therein, + your Lordship knoweth best. Your Lordship may do well to think of + your grave as I do of mine; and to beware of hardness of heart. And + as for fair words, it is a wind by which neither your Lordship nor + any man else can sail long. Howsoever, I am the man that shall give + all due respects and reverence to your great place. + + "20th June, 1625. + FR. ST. ALBAN." + +Bacon always claimed that he was not "vindicative." But considering how +Bishop Williams, when he was Lord Keeper, had charged Bacon with +"knavery" and "deceiving his creditors" in the arrangements about his +fine, it is not a little strange to find that at the end of his life +Bacon had so completely made friends with him that he chose him as the +person to whom he meant to leave his speeches and letters, which he was +"willing should not be lost," and also the charge of superintending two +foundations of L200 a year for Natural Science at the universities. And +the Bishop accepted the charge. + +The end of this, one of the most pathetic of histories, was at hand; +the end was not the less pathetic because it came in so homely a +fashion. On a cold day in March he stopped his coach in the snow on his +way to Highgate, to try the effect of cold in arresting putrefaction. He +bought a hen from a woman by the way, and stuffed it with snow. He was +taken with a bad chill, which forced him to stop at a strange house, +Lord Arundel's, to whom he wrote his last letter--a letter of apology +for using his house. He did not write the letter as a dying man. But +disease had fastened on him. A few days after, early on Easter morning, +April 9, 1626, he passed away. He was buried at St. Albans, in the +Church of St. Michael, "the only Christian church within the walls of +old Verulam." "For my name and memory," he said in his will, "I leave it +to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages." +So he died: the brightest, richest, largest mind but one, in the age +which had seen Shakespeare and his fellows; so bright and rich and large +that there have been found those who identify him with the writer of +_Hamlet_ and _Othello_. That is idle. Bacon could no more have written +the plays than Shakespeare could have prophesied the triumphs of natural +philosophy. So ended a career, than which no other in his time had +grander and nobler aims--aims, however mistaken, for the greatness and +good of England; aims for the enlargement of knowledge and truth, and +for the benefit of mankind. So ended a career which had mounted slowly +and painfully, but resolutely, to the highest pinnacle of +greatness--greatness full of honour and beneficent activity--suddenly to +plunge down to depths where honour and hope were irrecoverable. So +closed, in disgrace and disappointment and neglect, the last sad chapter +of a life which had begun so brightly, which had achieved such permanent +triumphs, which had lost itself so often in the tangles of insincerity +and evil custom, which was disfigured and marred by great misfortunes, +and still more by great mistakes of his own, which was in many ways +misunderstood not only by his generation but by himself, but which he +left in the constant and almost unaccountable faith that it would be +understood and greatly honoured by posterity. With all its glories, it +was the greatest shipwreck, the greatest tragedy, of an age which saw +many. + +But in these gloomy and dreary days of depression and vain hope to which +his letters bear witness--"three years and five months old in misery," +again later, "a long cleansing week of five years' expiation and +more"--his interest in his great undertaking and his industry never +flagged. The King did not want what he offered, did not want his +histories, did not want his help about law. Well, then, he had work of +his own on which his heart was set; and if the King did not want his +time, he had the more for himself. Even in the busy days of his +Chancellorship he had prepared and carried through the press the _Novum +Organum_, which he published on the very eve of his fall. It was one of +those works which quicken a man's powers, and prove to him what he can +do; and it had its effect. His mind was never more alert than in these +years of adversity, his labour never more indefatigable, his powers of +expression never more keen and versatile and strong. Besides the +political writings of grave argument for which he found time, these five +years teem with the results of work. In the year before his death he +sketched out once more, in a letter to a Venetian correspondent, Fra +Fulgenzio, the friend of Sarpi, the plan of his great work, on which he +was still busy, though with fast diminishing hopes of seeing it +finished. To another foreign correspondent, a professor of philosophy +at Annecy, and a distinguished mathematician, Father Baranzan, who had +raised some questions about Bacon's method, and had asked what was to be +done with metaphysics, he wrote in eager acknowledgment of the interest +which his writings had excited, and insisting on the paramount +necessity, above everything, of the observation of facts and of natural +history, out of which philosophy may be built. But the most +comprehensive view of his intellectual projects in all directions, "the +fullest account of his own personal feelings and designs as a writer +which we have from his own pen," is given in a letter to the venerable +friend of his early days, Bishop Andrewes, who died a few months after +him. Part, he says, of his _Instauratio_, "the work in mine own +judgement (_si nunquam fallit imago_) I do most esteem," has been +published; but because he "doubts that it flies too high over men's +heads," he proposes "to draw it down to the sense" by examples of +Natural History. He has enlarged and translated the _Advancement_ into +the _De Augmentis_. "Because he could not altogether desert the civil +person that he had borne," he had begun a work on Laws, intermediate +between philosophical jurisprudence and technical law. He had hoped to +compile a digest of English law, but found it more than he could do +alone, and had laid it aside. The _Instauratio_ had contemplated the +good of men "in the dowries of nature;" the _Laws_, their good "in +society and the dowries of government." As he owed duty to his country, +and could no longer do it service, he meant to do it honour by his +history of Henry VII. His _Essays_ were but "recreations;" and +remembering that all his writings had hitherto "gone all into the City +and none into the Temple," he wished to make "some poor oblation," and +therefore had chosen an argument mixed of religious and civil +considerations, the dialogue of "an Holy War" against the Ottoman, +which he never finished, but which he intended to dedicate to Andrewes, +"in respect of our ancient and private acquaintance, and because amongst +the men of our times I hold you in special reverence." + +The question naturally presents itself, in regard to a friend of Bishop +Andrewes, What was Bacon as regards religion? And the answer, it seems +to me, can admit of no doubt. The obvious and superficial thing to say +is that his religion was but an official one, a tribute to custom and +opinion. But it was not so. Both in his philosophical thinking, and in +the feelings of his mind in the various accidents and occasions of life, +Bacon was a religious man, with a serious and genuine religion. His +sense of the truth and greatness of religion was as real as his sense of +the truth and greatness of nature; they were interlaced together, and +could not be separated, though they were to be studied separately and +independently. The call, repeated through all his works from the +earliest to the last, _Da Fidel quae Fidel sunt_, was a warning against +confusing the two, but was an earnest recognition of the claims of each. +The solemn religious words in which his prefaces and general statements +often wind up with thanksgiving and hope and prayer, are no mere words +of course; they breathe the spirit of the deepest conviction. It is true +that he takes the religion of Christendom as he finds it. The grounds of +belief, the relation of faith to reason, the profounder inquiries into +the basis of man's knowledge of the Eternal and Invisible, are out of +the circle within which he works. What we now call the philosophy of +religion is absent from his writings. In truth, his mind was not +qualified to grapple with such questions. There is no sign in his +writings that he ever tried his strength against them; that he ever +cared to go below the surface into the hidden things of mind, and what +mind deals with above and beyond sense--those metaphysical difficulties +and depths, as we call them, which there is no escaping, and which are +as hard to explore and as dangerous to mistake as the forces and +combinations of external nature. But it does not follow, because he had +not asked all the questions that others have asked, that he had not +thought out his reasonable faith. His religion was not one of mere vague +sentiment: it was the result of reflection and deliberate judgment. It +was the discriminating and intelligent Church of England religion of +Hooker and Andrewes, which had gone back to something deeper and nobler +in Christianity than the popular Calvinism of the earlier Reformation; +and though sternly hostile to the system of the Papacy, both on +religious and political grounds, attempted to judge it with knowledge +and justice. This deliberate character of his belief is shown in the +remarkable Confession of Faith which he left behind him: a +closely-reasoned and nobly-expressed survey of Christian theology--"a +_summa theologiae_, digested into seven pages of the finest English of +the days when its tones were finest." "The entire scheme of Christian +theology," as Mr. Spedding says, "is constantly in his thoughts; +underlies everything; defines for him the limits of human speculation; +and, as often as the course of inquiry touches at any point the boundary +line, never fails to present itself. There is hardly any occasion or any +kind of argument into which it does not at one time or another +incidentally introduce itself." Doubtless it was a religion which in him +was compatible, as it has been in others, with grave faults of +temperament and character. But it is impossible to doubt that it was +honest, that it elevated his thoughts, that it was a refuge and stay in +the times of trouble. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +BACON'S PHILOSOPHY. + + +Bacon was one of those men to whom posterity forgives a great deal for +the greatness of what he has done and attempted for posterity. It is +idle, unless all honest judgment is foregone, to disguise the many +deplorable shortcomings of his life; it is unjust to have one measure +for him, and another for those about him and opposed to him. But it is +not too much to say that in temper, in honesty, in labour, in humility, +in reverence, he was the most perfect example that the world had yet +seen of the student of nature, the enthusiast for knowledge. That such a +man was tempted and fell, and suffered the Nemesis of his fall, is an +instance of the awful truth embodied in the tragedy of _Faust_. But his +genuine devotion, so unwearied and so paramount, to a great idea and a +great purpose for the good of all generations to come, must shield him +from the insult of Pope's famous and shallow epigram. Whatever may have +been his sins, and they were many, he cannot have been the "meanest of +mankind," who lived and died, holding unaltered, amid temptations and +falls, so noble a conception of the use and calling of his life: the +duty and service of helping his brethren to know as they had never yet +learned to know. That thought never left him; the obligations it imposed +were never forgotten in the crush and heat of business; the toils, +thankless at the time, which it heaped upon him in addition to the +burdens of public life were never refused. Nothing diverted him, nothing +made him despair. He was not discouraged because he was not understood. +There never was any one in whose life the "_Souverainete du but_" was +more certain and more apparent; and that object was the second greatest +that man can have. To teach men to know is only next to making them +good. + +The Baconian philosophy, the reforms of the _Novum Organum_, the method +of experiment and induction, are commonplaces, and sometimes lead to a +misconception of what Bacon did. Bacon is, and is not, the founder of +modern science. What Bacon believed could be done, what he hoped and +divined, for the correction and development of human knowledge, was one +thing; what his methods were, and how far they were successful, is +another. It would hardly be untrue to say that though Bacon is the +parent of modern science, his methods contributed nothing to its actual +discoveries; neither by possibility could they have done so. The great +and wonderful work which the world owes to him was in the idea, and not +in the execution. The idea was that the systematic and wide examination +of facts was the first thing to be done in science, and that till this +had been done faithfully and impartially, with all the appliances and +all the safeguards that experience and forethought could suggest, all +generalisations, all anticipations from mere reasoning, must be +adjourned and postponed; and further, that sought on these conditions, +knowledge, certain and fruitful, beyond all that men then imagined, +could be attained. His was the faith of the discoverer, the imagination +of the poet, the voice of the prophet. But his was not the warrior's +arm, the engineer's skill, the architect's creativeness. "I only sound +the clarion," he says, "but I enter not into the battle;" and with a +Greek quotation very rare with him, he compares himself to one of +Homer's peaceful heralds, [Greek: chairete kerukes, Dios angeloi ede kai +andron]. Even he knew not the full greatness of his own enterprise. He +underrated the vastness and the subtlety of nature. He overrated his own +appliances to bring it under his command. He had not that incommunicable +genius and instinct of the investigator which in such men as Faraday +close hand to hand with phenomena. His weapons and instruments wanted +precision; they were powerful up to a certain point, but they had the +clumsiness of an unpractised time. Cowley compared him to Moses on +Pisgah surveying the promised land; it was but a distant survey, and +Newton was the Joshua who began to take possession of it. + +The idea of the great enterprise, in its essential outline, and with a +full sense of its originality and importance, was early formed, and was +even sketched on paper with Bacon's characteristic self-reliance when he +was but twenty-five. Looking back, in a letter written in the last year +of his life, on the ardour and constancy with which he had clung to his +faith--"in that purpose my mind never waxed old; in that long interval +of time it never cooled"--he remarks that it was then "forty years since +he put together a youthful essay on these matters, which with vast +confidence I called by the high-sounding title, The Greatest Birth of +Time." "The Greatest Birth of Time," whatever it was, has perished, +though the name, altered to "Partus Temporis _Masculus_" has survived, +attached to some fragments of uncertain date and arrangement. But in +very truth the child was born, and, as Bacon says, for forty years grew +and developed, with many changes yet the same. Bacon was most +tenacious, not only of ideas, but even of the phrases, images, and turns +of speech in which they had once flashed on him and taken shape in his +mind. The features of his undertaking remained the same from first to +last, only expanded and enlarged as time went on and experience widened; +his conviction that the knowledge of nature, and with it the power to +command and to employ nature, were within the capacity of mankind and +might be restored to them; the certainty that of this knowledge men had +as yet acquired but the most insignificant part, and that all existing +claims to philosophical truth were as idle and precarious as the guesses +and traditions of the vulgar; his belief that no greater object could be +aimed at than to sweep away once and for ever all this sham knowledge +and all that supported it, and to lay an entirely new and clear +foundation to build on for the future; his assurance that, as it was +easy to point out with fatal and luminous certainty the rottenness and +hollowness of all existing knowledge and philosophy, so it was equally +easy to devise and practically apply new and natural methods of +investigation and construction, which should replace it by knowledge of +infallible truth and boundless fruitfulness. His object--to gain the key +to the interpretation of nature; his method--to gain it, not by the +means common to all previous schools of philosophy, by untested +reasonings and imposing and high-sounding generalisations, but by a +series and scale of rigorously verified inductions, starting from the +lowest facts of experience to discoveries which should prove and realise +themselves by leading deductively to practical results--these, in one +form or another, were the theme of his philosophical writings from the +earliest sight of them that we gain. + +He had disclosed what was in his mind in the letter to Lord Burghley, +written when he was thirty-one (1590/91), in which he announced that he +had "taken all knowledge for his province," to "purge it of 'frivolous +disputations' and 'blind experiments,' and that whatever happened to +him, he meant to be a 'true pioneer in the mine of truth.'" But the +first public step in the opening of his great design was the publication +in the autumn of 1605 of the _Advancement of Learning_, a careful and +balanced report on the existing stock and deficiencies of human +knowledge. His endeavours, as he says in the _Advancement_ itself, are +"but as an image in a cross-way, that may point out the way, but cannot +go it." But from this image of his purpose, his thoughts greatly widened +as time went on. The _Advancement_, in part at least, was probably a +hurried work. It shadowed out, but only shadowed out, the lines of his +proposed reform of philosophical thought; it showed his dissatisfaction +with much that was held to be sound and complete, and showed the +direction of his ideas and hopes. But it was many years before he took a +further step. Active life intervened. In 1620, at the height of his +prosperity, on the eve of his fall, he published the long meditated +_Novum Organum_, the avowed challenge to the old philosophies, the +engine and instrument of thought and discovery which was to put to shame +and supersede all others, containing, in part at least, the principles +of that new method of the use of experience which was to be the key to +the interpretation and command of nature, and, together with the method, +an elaborate but incomplete exemplification of its leading processes. +Here were summed up, and stated with the most solemn earnestness, the +conclusions to which long study and continual familiarity with the +matters in question had led him. And with the _Novum Organum_ was at +length disclosed, though only in outline, the whole of the vast scheme +in all its parts, object, method, materials, results, for the +"Instauration" of human knowledge, the restoration of powers lost, +disused, neglected, latent, but recoverable by honesty, patience, +courage, and industry. + + The _Instauratio_, as he planned the work, "is to be divided," says + Mr. Ellis, "into six portions, of which the _first_ is to contain a + general survey of the present state of knowledge. In the _second_, + men are to be taught how to use their understanding aright in the + investigation of nature. In the _third_, all the phenomena of the + universe are to be stored up as in a treasure-house, as the + materials on which the new method is to be employed. In the + _fourth_, examples are to be given of its operation and of the + results to which it leads. The _fifth_ is to contain what Bacon had + accomplished in natural philosophy _without_ the aid of his own + method, _ex eodem intellectus usu quem alii in inquirendo et + inveniendo adhibere consueverunt_. It is therefore less important + than the rest, and Bacon declares that he will not bind himself to + the conclusions which it contains. Moreover, its value will + altogether cease when the _sixth_ part can be completed, wherein + will be set forth the new philosophy--the results of the + application of the new method to all the phenomena of the universe. + But to complete this, the last part of the _Instauratio_, Bacon + does not hope; he speaks of it as a thing, _et supra vires et ultra + spes nostras collocata_."--_Works_, i. 71. + +The _Novum Organum_, itself imperfect, was the crown of all that he +lived to do. It was followed (1622) by the publication, intended to be +periodical, of materials for the new philosophy to work upon, particular +sections and classes of observations on phenomena--the _History of the +Winds_, the _History of Life and Death_. Others were partly prepared but +not published by him. And finally, in 1623, he brought out in Latin a +greatly enlarged recasting of the _Advancement_; the nine books of the +"_De Augmentis_." But the great scheme was not completed; portions were +left more or less finished. Much that he purposed was left undone, and +could not have been yet done at that time. + +But the works which he published represent imperfectly the labour spent +on the undertaking. Besides these there remains a vast amount of unused +or rejected work, which shows how it was thought out, rearranged, tried +first in one fashion and then in another, recast, developed. Separate +chapters, introductions, "experimental essays and discarded beginnings," +treatises with picturesque and imaginative titles, succeeded one another +in that busy work-shop; and these first drafts and tentative essays have +in them some of the freshest and most felicitous forms of his thoughts. +At one time his enterprise, connecting itself with his own life and +mission, rose before his imagination and kindled his feelings, and +embodied itself in the lofty and stately "Proem" already quoted. His +quick and brilliant imagination saw shadows and figures of his ideas in +the ancient mythology, which he worked out with curious ingenuity and +often much poetry in his _Wisdom of the Ancients_. Towards the end of +his life he began to embody his thoughts and plans in a philosophical +tale, which he did not finish--the _New Atlantis_--a charming example of +his graceful fancy and of his power of easy and natural story-telling. +Between the _Advancement_ and the _Novum Organum_ (1605-20) much +underground work had been done. "He had finally (about 1607) settled the +plan of the _Great Instauration_, and began to call it by that name." +The plan, first in three or four divisions, had been finally digested +into six. Vague outlines had become definite and clear. Distinct +portions had been worked out. Various modes of treatment had been tried, +abandoned, modified. Prefaces were written to give the sketch and +purpose of chapters not yet composed. The _Novum Organum_ had been +written and rewritten twelve times over. Bacon kept his papers, and we +can trace in the unused portion of those left behind him much of the +progress of his work, and the shapes which much of it went through. The +_Advancement_ itself is the filling-out and perfecting of what is found +in germ, meagre and rudimentary, in a _Discourse in Praise of +Knowledge_, written in the days of Elizabeth, and in some Latin chapters +of an early date, the _Cogitationes de Scientia Humana_, on the limits +and use of knowledge, and on the relation of natural history to natural +philosophy. These early essays, with much of the same characteristic +illustration, and many of the favourite images and maxims and texts and +phrases, which continue to appear in his writings to the end, contain +the thoughts of a man long accustomed to meditate and to see his way on +the new aspects of knowledge opening upon him. And before the +_Advancement_ he had already tried his hand on a work intended to be in +two books, which Mr. Ellis describes as a "great work on the +Interpretation of Nature," the "earliest type of the _Instauratio_," and +which Bacon called by the enigmatical name of _Valerius Terminus_. In +it, as in a second draft, which in its turn was superseded by the +_Advancement_, the line of thought of the Latin _Cogitationes_ +reappears, expanded and more carefully ordered; it contains also the +first sketch of his certain and infallible method for what he calls the +"freeing of the direction" in the search after Truth, and the first +indications of the four classes of "Idols" which were to be so memorable +a portion of Bacon's teaching. And between the _Advancement_ and the +_Novum Organum_ at least one unpublished treatise of great interest +intervened, the _Visa et Cogitata_, on which he was long employed, and +which he brought to a finished shape, fit to be submitted to his friends +and critics, Sir Thomas Bodley and Bishop Andrewes. It is spoken of as +a book to be "imparted _sicut videbitur_," in the review which he made +of his life and objects soon after he was made Solicitor in 1608. A +number of fragments also bear witness to the fierce scorn and wrath +which possessed him against the older and the received philosophies. He +tried his hand at declamatory onslaughts on the leaders of human wisdom, +from the early Greeks and Aristotle down to the latest "novellists;" and +he certainly succeeded in being magnificently abusive. But he thought +wisely that this was not the best way of doing what in the _Commentarius +Solutus_ he calls on himself to do--"taking a greater confidence and +authority in discourses of this nature, _tanquam sui certus et de alto +despiciens_;" and the rhetorical _Redargutio Philosophiarum_ and +writings of kindred nature were laid aside by his more serious judgment. +But all these fragments witness to the immense and unwearied labour +bestowed in the midst of a busy life on his undertaking; they suggest, +too, the suspicion that there was much waste from interruption, and the +doubt whether his work would not have been better if it could have been +more steadily continuous. But if ever a man had a great object in life, +and pursued it through good and evil report, through ardent hope and +keen disappointment, to the end, with unwearied patience and unshaken +faith, it was Bacon, when he sought the improvement of human knowledge +"for the glory of God and the relief of man's estate." It is not the +least part of the pathetic fortune of his life that his own success was +so imperfect. + +When a reader first comes from the vague, popular notions of Bacon's +work to his definite proposals the effect is startling. Every one has +heard that he contemplated a complete reform of the existing conceptions +of human knowledge, and of the methods by which knowledge was to be +sought; that rejecting them as vitiated, by the loose and untested way +in which they had been formed, he called men from verbal generalisations +and unproved assumptions to come down face to face with the realities of +experience; that he substituted for formal reasoning, from baseless +premises and unmeaning principles, a methodical system of cautious and +sifting inference from wide observation and experiment; and that he thus +opened the path which modern science thenceforth followed, with its +amazing and unexhausted discoveries, and its vast and beneficent +practical results. We credit all this to Bacon, and assuredly not +without reason. All this is what was embraced in his vision of a changed +world of thought and achievement. All this is what was meant by that +_Regnum Hominis_, which, with a play on sacred words which his age did +not shrink from, and which he especially pleased himself with, marked +the coming of that hitherto unimagined empire of man over the powers and +forces which encompassed him. But the detail of all this is multifarious +and complicated, and is not always what we expect; and when we come to +see how his work is estimated by those who, by greatest familiarity with +scientific ideas and the history of scientific inquiries, are best +fitted to judge of it, many a surprise awaits us. + +For we find that the greatest differences of opinion exist on the value +of what he did. Not only very unfavourable judgments have been passed +upon it, on general grounds--as an irreligious, or a shallow and +one-sided, or a poor and "utilitarian" philosophy, and on a definite +comparison of it with the actual methods and processes which as a matter +of history have been the real means of scientific discovery--but also +some of those who have most admired his genius, and with the deepest +love and reverence have spared no pains to do it full justice, have yet +come to the conclusion that as an instrument and real method of work +Bacon's attempt was a failure. It is not only De Maistre and Lord +Macaulay who dispute his philosophical eminence. It is not only the +depreciating opinion of a contemporary like Harvey, who was actually +doing what Bacon was writing about. It is not only that men who after +the long history of modern science have won their place among its +leaders, and are familiar by daily experience with the ways in which it +works--a chemist like Liebig, a physiologist like Claude Bernard--say +that they can find nothing to help them in Bacon's methods. It is not +only that a clear and exact critic like M. de Remusat looks at his +attempt, with its success and failure, as characteristic of English, +massive, practical good sense rather than as marked by real +philosophical depth and refinement, such as Continental thinkers point +to and are proud of in Descartes and Leibnitz. It is not even that a +competent master of the whole domain of knowledge, Whewell, filled with +the deepest sense of all that the world owes to Bacon, takes for granted +that "though Bacon's general maxims are sagacious and animating, his +particular precepts failed in his hands, and are now practically +useless;" and assuming that Bacon's method is not the right one, and not +complete as far as the progress of science up to his time could direct +it, proceeds to construct a _Novum Organum Renovatum_. But Bacon's +writings have recently undergone the closest examination by two editors, +whose care for his memory is as loyal and affectionate as their capacity +is undoubted, and their willingness to take trouble boundless. And Mr. +Ellis and Mr. Spedding, with all their interest in every detail of +Bacon's work, and admiration of the way in which he performed it, make +no secret of their conclusion that he failed in the very thing on which +he was most bent--the discovery of practical and fruitful ways of +scientific inquiry. "Bacon," says Mr. Spedding, "failed to devise a +practicable method for the discovery of the Forms of Nature, because he +misconceived the conditions of the case.... For the same reason he +failed to make any single discovery which holds its place as one of the +steps by which science has in any direction really advanced. The clew +with which he entered the labyrinth did not reach far enough; before he +had nearly attained his end he was obliged either to come back or to go +on without it." + + "His peculiar system of philosophy," says Mr. Spedding in another + preface, "that is to say, the peculiar method of investigation, the + "_organum_," the "_formula_," the "_clavis_," the "_ars ipsa + interpretandi naturam_," the "_filum Labyrinthi_," or by whatever + of its many names we choose to call that artificial process by + which alone he believed man could attain a knowledge of the laws + and a command over the powers of nature--_of this philosophy we can + make nothing_. If we have not tried it, it is because we feel + confident that it would not answer. We regard it as a curious piece + of machinery, very subtle, elaborate, and ingenious, but not worth + constructing, because all the work it could do may be done more + easily another way."--_Works_, iii. 171. + +What his method really was is itself a matter of question. Mr. Ellis +speaks of it as a matter "but imperfectly apprehended." He differs from +his fellow-labourer Mr. Spedding, in what he supposes to be its central +and characteristic innovation. Mr. Ellis finds it in an improvement and +perfection of logical machinery. Mr. Spedding finds it in the formation +of a great "natural and experimental history," a vast collection of +facts in every department of nature, which was to be a more important +part of his philosophy than the _Novum Organum_ itself. Both of them +think that as he went on, the difficulties of the work grew upon him, +and caused alterations in his plans, and we are reminded that "there is +no didactic exposition of his method in the whole of his writings," and +that "this has not been sufficiently remarked by those who have spoken +of his philosophy." + +In the first place, the kind of intellectual instrument which he +proposed to construct was a mistake. His great object was to place the +human mind "on a level with things and nature" (_ut faciamus intellectum +humanum rebus et naturae parem_), and this could only be done by a +revolution in methods. The ancients had all that genius could do for +man; but it was a matter, he said, not of the strength and fleetness of +the running, but of the rightness of the way. It was a new method, +absolutely different from anything known, which he proposed to the +world, and which should lead men to knowledge, with the certainty and +with the impartial facility of a high-road. The Induction which he +imagined to himself as the contrast to all that had yet been tried was +to have two qualities. It was to end, by no very prolonged or difficult +processes, in absolute certainty. And next, it was to leave very little +to the differences of intellectual power: it was to level minds and +capacities. It was to give all men the same sort of power which a pair +of compasses gives the hand in drawing a circle. "_Absolute certainty, +and a mechanical mode of procedure_" says Mr. Ellis, "_such that all men +should be capable of employing it, are the two great features of the +Baconian system_." This he thought possible, and this he set himself to +expound--"a method universally applicable, and in all cases infallible." +In this he saw the novelty and the vast importance of his discovery. "By +this method all the knowledge which the human mind was capable of +receiving might be attained, and attained without unnecessary labour." +It was a method of "a demonstrative character, with the power of +reducing all minds to nearly the same level." The conception, indeed, of +a "great Art of knowledge," of an "Instauration" of the sciences, of a +"Clavis" which should unlock the difficulties which had hindered +discovery, was not a new one. This attempt at a method which should be +certain, which should level capacities, which should do its work in a +short time, had a special attraction for the imagination of the wild +spirits of the South, from Raimond Lulli in the thirteenth century to +the audacious Calabrians of the sixteenth. With Bacon it was something +much more serious and reasonable and business-like. But such a claim has +never yet been verified; there is no reason to think that it ever can +be; and to have made it shows a fundamental defect in Bacon's conception +of the possibilities of the human mind and the field it has to work in. + +In the next place, though the prominence which he gave to the doctrine +of Induction was one of those novelties which are so obvious after the +event, though so strange before it, and was undoubtedly the element in +his system which gave it life and power and influence on the course of +human thought and discovery, his account of Induction was far from +complete and satisfactory. Without troubling himself about the theory of +Induction, as De Remusat has pointed out, he contented himself with +applying to its use the precepts of common-sense and a sagacious +perception of the circumstances in which it was to be employed. But even +these precepts, notable as they were, wanted distinctness, and the +qualities needed for working rules. The change is great when in fifty +years we pass from the poetical science of Bacon to the mathematical and +precise science of Newton. His own time may well have been struck by +the originality and comprehensiveness of such a discriminating +arrangement of proofs as the "Prerogative Instances" of the _Novum +Organum_, so natural and real, yet never before thus compared and +systematized. But there is a great interval between his method of +experimenting, his "_Hunt of Pan_"--the three tables of Instances, +"_Presence_," "_Absence_" and "_Degrees, or Comparisons_," leading to a +process of sifting and exclusion, and to the _First Vintage_, or +beginnings of theory--and say, for instance, Mill's four methods of +experimental inquiry: the method of _agreement_, of _differences_, of +_residues_, and of _concomitant variations_. The course which he marked +out so laboriously and so ingeniously for Induction to follow was one +which was found to be impracticable, and as barren of results as those +deductive philosophies on which he lavished his scorn. He has left +precepts and examples of what he meant by his cross-examining and +sifting processes. As admonitions to cross-examine and to sift facts and +phenomena they are valuable. Many of the observations and +classifications are subtle and instructive. But in his hands nothing +comes of them. They lead at the utmost to mere negative conclusions; +they show what a thing is not. But his attempt to elicit anything +positive out of them breaks down, or ends at best in divinations and +guesses, sometimes--as in connecting Heat and Motion--very near to later +and more carefully-grounded theories, but always unverified. He had a +radically false and mechanical conception, though in words he earnestly +disclaims it, of the way to deal with the facts of nature. He looked on +them as things which told their own story, and suggested the questions +which ought to be put to them; and with this idea half his time was +spent in collecting huge masses of indigested facts of the most various +authenticity and value, and he thought he was collecting materials +which his method had only to touch in order to bring forth from them +light and truth and power. He thought that, not in certain sciences, but +in all, one set of men could do the observing and collecting, and +another be set on the work of Induction and the discovery of "axioms." +Doubtless in the arrangement and sorting of them his versatile and +ingenious mind gave itself full play; he divides and distinguishes them +into their companies and groups, different kinds of Motion, +"Prerogative" instances, with their long tale of imaginative titles. But +we look in vain for any use that he was able to make of them, or even to +suggest. Bacon never adequately realised that no promiscuous assemblage +of even the most certain facts could ever lead to knowledge, could ever +suggest their own interpretation, without the action on them of the +living mind, without the initiative of an idea. In truth he was so +afraid of assumptions and "anticipations" and prejudices--his great +bugbear was so much the "_intellectus sibi permissus_" the mind given +liberty to guess and imagine and theorise, instead of, as it ought, +absolutely and servilely submitting itself to the control of facts--that +he missed the true place of the rational and formative element in his +account of Induction. He does tell us, indeed, that "truth emerges +sooner from error than from confusion." He indulges the mind, in the +course of its investigation of "Instances," with a first "vintage" of +provisional generalisations. But of the way in which the living mind of +the discoverer works, with its ideas and insight, and thoughts that come +no one knows whence, working hand in hand with what comes before the eye +or is tested by the instrument, he gives us no picture. Compare his +elaborate investigation of the "Form of Heat" in the _Novum Organum_, +with such a record of real inquiry as Wells's _Treatise on Dew_, or +Herschel's analysis of it in his _Introduction to Natural Philosophy_. +And of the difference of genius between a Faraday or a Newton, and the +crowd of average men who have used and finished off their work, he takes +no account. Indeed, he thinks that for the future such difference is to +disappear. + + "That his method is impracticable," says Mr. Ellis, "cannot, I + think, be denied, if we reflect not only that it never has produced + any result, but also that the process by which scientific truths + have been established cannot be so presented as even to appear to + be in accordance with it. In all cases this process involves an + element to which nothing corresponds in the Tables of 'Comparence' + and 'Exclusion,' namely, the application to the facts of + observation of a principle of arrangement, an idea, existing in the + mind of the discoverer antecedently to the act of induction. It may + be said that this idea is precisely one of the _naturae_ into which + the facts of observation ought in Bacon's system to be analysed. + And this is in one sense true; but it must be added that this + analysis, if it be thought right so to call it, is of the essence + of the discovery which results from it. In most cases the act of + induction follows as a matter of course as soon as the appropriate + idea has been introduced."--Ellis, _General Preface_, i. 38. + +Lastly, not only was Bacon's conception of philosophy so narrow as to +exclude one of its greatest domains; for, says Mr. Ellis, "it cannot be +denied that to Bacon all sound philosophy seemed to be included in what +we now call the natural sciences," and in all its parts was claimed as +the subject of his inductive method; but Bacon's scientific knowledge +and scientific conceptions were often very imperfect--more imperfect +than they ought to have been for his time. Of one large part of science, +which was just then beginning to be cultivated with high promise of +success--the knowledge of the heavens--he speaks with a coldness and +suspicion which contrasts remarkably with his eagerness about things +belonging to the sphere of the earth and within reach of the senses. He +holds, of course, the unity of the world; the laws of the whole visible +universe are one order; but the heavens, wonderful as they are to him, +are--compared with other things--out of his track of inquiry. He had his +astronomical theories; he expounded them in his "_Descriptio Globi +Intellectualis_" and his _Thema Coeli_ He was not altogether ignorant of +what was going on in days when Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were at +work. But he did not know how to deal with it, and there were men in +England, before and then, who understood much better than he the +problems and the methods of astronomy. He had one conspicuous and +strange defect for a man who undertook what he did. He was not a +mathematician: he did not see the indispensable necessity of mathematics +in the great _Instauration_ which he projected; he did not much believe +in what they could do. He cared so little about them that he takes no +notice of Napier's invention of Logarithms. He was not able to trace how +the direct information of the senses might be rightly subordinated to +the rational, but not self-evident results of geometry and arithmetic. +He was impatient of the subtleties of astronomical calculations; they +only attempted to satisfy problems about the motion of bodies in the +sky, and told us nothing of physical fact; they gave us, as Prometheus +gave to Jove, the outside skin of the offering, which was stuffed inside +with straw and rubbish. He entirely failed to see that before dealing +with physical astronomy, it must be dealt with mathematically. "It is +well to remark," as Mr. Ellis says, "that none of Newton's astronomical +discoveries could have been made if astronomers had not continued to +render themselves liable to Bacon's censure." Bacon little thought that +in navigation the compass itself would become a subordinate instrument +compared with the helps given by mathematical astronomy. In this, and in +other ways, Bacon rose above his time in his conceptions of what _might +be_, but not of what _was_; the list is a long one, as given by Mr. +Spedding (iii. 511), of the instances which show that he was +ill-informed about the advances of knowledge in his own time. And his +mind was often not clear when he came to deal with complex phenomena. +Thus, though he constructed a table of specific gravities--"the only +collection," says Mr. Ellis, "of quantitative experiments that we find +in his works," and "wonderfully accurate considering the manner in which +they were obtained;" yet he failed to understand the real nature of the +famous experiment of Archimedes. And so with the larger features of his +teaching it is impossible not to feel how imperfectly he had emancipated +himself from the power of words and of common prepossessions; how for +one reason or another he had failed to call himself to account in the +terms he employed, and the assumptions on which he argued. The caution +does not seem to have occurred to him that the statement of a fact may, +in nine cases out of ten, involve a theory. His whole doctrine of +"Forms" and "Simple natures," which is so prominent in his method of +investigation, is an example of loose and slovenly use of unexamined and +untested ideas. He allowed himself to think that it would be possible to +arrive at an alphabet of nature, which, once attained, would suffice to +spell out and constitute all its infinite combinations. He accepted, +without thinking it worth a doubt, the doctrine of appetites and +passions and inclinations and dislikes and horrors in inorganic nature. +His whole physiology of life and death depends on a doctrine of animal +spirits, of which he traces the operations and qualities as if they were +as certain as the nerves or the blood, and of which he gives this +account--"that in every tangible body there is a spirit covered and +enveloped in the grosser body;" "not a virtue, not an energy, not an +actuality, nor any such idle matter, but a body thin and invisible, and +yet having place and dimension, and real." ... "a middle nature between +flame, which is momentary, and air which is permanent." Yet these are +the very things for which he holds up Aristotle and the Scholastics and +the Italian speculators to reprobation and scorn. The clearness of his +thinking was often overlaid by the immense profusion of decorative +material which his meditation brought along with it. The defect was +greater than that which even his ablest defenders admit. It was more +than that in that "greatest and radical difference, which he himself +observes" between minds, the difference between minds which were apt to +note _distinctions_, and those which were apt to note _likenesses_, he +was, without knowing it, defective in the first. It was that in many +instances he exemplified in his own work the very faults which he +charged on the older philosophies: haste, carelessness, precipitancy, +using words without thinking them out, assuming to know when he ought to +have perceived his real ignorance. + +What, then, with all these mistakes and failures, not always creditable +or pardonable, has given Bacon his preeminent place in the history of +science? + +1. The answer is that with all his mistakes and failures, the principles +on which his mode of attaining a knowledge of nature was based were the +only true ones; and they had never before been propounded so +systematically, so fully, and so earnestly. His was not the first mind +on whom these principles had broken. Men were, and had been for some +time, pursuing their inquiries into various departments of nature +precisely on the general plan of careful and honest observation of real +things which he enjoined. They had seen, as he saw, the futility of all +attempts at natural philosophy by mere thinking and arguing, without +coming into contact with the contradictions or corrections or +verifications of experience. In Italy, in Germany, in England there were +laborious and successful workers, who had long felt that to be in touch +with nature was the only way to know. But no one had yet come before the +world to proclaim this on the house-tops, as the key of the only certain +path to the secrets of nature, the watchword of a revolution in the +methods of interpreting her; and this Bacon did with an imposing +authority and power which enforced attention. He spoke the thoughts of +patient toilers like Harvey with a largeness and richness which they +could not command, and which they perhaps smiled at. He disentangled and +spoke the vague thoughts of his age, which other men had not the courage +and clearness of mind to formulate. What Bacon _did_, indeed, and what +he _meant_, are separate matters. He _meant_ an infallible method by +which man should be fully equipped for a struggle with nature; he meant +an irresistible and immediate conquest, within a definite and not +distant time. It was too much. He himself saw no more of what he _meant_ +than Columbus did of America. But what he _did_ was to persuade men for +the future that the intelligent, patient, persevering cross-examination +of things, and the thoughts about them, was the only, and was the +successful road to know. No one had yet done this, and he did it. His +writings were a public recognition of real science, in its humblest +tasks about the commonplace facts before our feet, as well as in its +loftiest achievements. "The man who is growing great and happy by +electrifying a bottle," says Dr. Johnson, "wonders to see the world +engaged in the prattle about peace and war," and the world was ready to +smile at the simplicity or the impertinence of his enthusiasm. Bacon +impressed upon the world for good, with every resource of subtle +observation and forcible statement, that "the man who is growing great +by electrifying a bottle" is as important a person in the world's +affairs as the arbiter of peace and war. + +2. Yet this is not all. An inferior man might have made himself the +mouthpiece of the hopes and aspirations of his generation after a larger +science. But to Bacon these aspirations embodied themselves in the form +of a great and absorbing idea; an idea which took possession of the +whole man, kindling in him a faith which nothing could quench, and a +passion which nothing could dull; an idea which, for forty years, was +his daily companion, his daily delight, his daily business; an idea +which he was never tired of placing in ever fresh and more attractive +lights, from which no trouble could wean him, about which no disaster +could make him despair; an idea round which the instincts and intuitions +and obstinate convictions of genius gathered, which kindled his rich +imagination and was invested by it with a splendour and magnificence +like the dreams of fable. It is this idea which finds its fitting +expression in the grand and stately aphorisms of the _Novum Organum_, in +the varied fields of interest in the _De Augmentis_, in the romance of +the _New Atlantis_. It is this idea, this certainty of a new unexplored +Kingdom of Knowledge within the reach and grasp of man, if he will be +humble enough and patient enough and truthful enough to occupy it--this +announcement not only of a new system of thought, but of a change in the +condition of the world--a prize and possession such as man had not yet +imagined; this belief in the fortunes of the human race and its issue, +"such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition of things and +men's minds cannot easily be conceived or imagined," yet more than +verified in the wonders which our eyes have seen--it is this which gives +its prerogative to Bacon's work. That he bungled about the processes of +Induction, that he talked about an unintelligible doctrine of _Forms_, +did not affect the weight and solemnity of his call to learn, so full of +wisdom and good-sense, so sober and so solid, yet so audaciously +confident. There had been nothing like it in its ardour of hope, in the +glory which it threw around the investigation of nature. It was the +presence and the power of a great idea--long become a commonplace to us, +but strange and perplexing at first to his own generation, which +probably shared Coke's opinion that it qualified its champion for a +place in the company of the "Ship of Fools," which expressed its opinion +of the man who wrote the _Novum Organum_, in the sentiment that "a fool +_could_ not have written it, and a wise man _would_ not"--it is this +which has placed Bacon among the great discoverers of the human race. + +It is this imaginative yet serious assertion of the vast range and +possibilities of human knowledge which, as M. de Remusat remarks--the +keenest and fairest of Bacon's judges--gives Bacon his claim to the +undefinable but very real character of greatness. Two men stand out, +"the masters of those who know," without equals up to their time, among +men--the Greek Aristotle and the Englishman Bacon. They agree in the +universality and comprehensiveness of their conception of human +knowledge; and they were absolutely alone in their serious practical +ambition to work out this conception. In the separate departments of +thought, of investigation, of art, each is left far behind by numbers of +men, who in these separate departments have gone far deeper than they, +have soared higher, have been more successful in what they attempted. +But Aristotle first, and for his time more successfully, and Bacon after +him, ventured on the daring enterprise of "taking all knowledge for +their province;" and in this they stood alone. This present scene of +man's existence, this that we call nature, the stage on which mortal +life begins and goes on and ends, the faculties with which man is +equipped to act, to enjoy, to create, to hold his way amid or against +the circumstances and forces round him--this is what each wants to know, +as thoroughly and really as can be. It is not to reduce things to a +theory or a system that they look around them on the place where they +find themselves with life and thought and power; that were easily done, +and has been done over and over again, only to prove its futility. It is +to know, as to the whole and its parts, as men understand _knowing_ in +some one subject of successful handling, whether art or science or +practical craft. This idea, this effort, distinguishes these two men. +The Greeks--predecessors, contemporaries, successors of Aristotle--were +speculators, full of clever and ingenious guesses, in which the amount +of clear and certain fact was in lamentable disproportion to the schemes +blown up from it; or they devoted themselves more profitably to some one +or two subjects of inquiry, moral or purely intellectual, with absolute +indifference to what might be asked, or what might be known, of the real +conditions under which they were passing their existence. Some of the +Romans, Cicero and Pliny, had encyclopaedic minds; but the Roman mind +was the slave of precedent, and was more than satisfied with partially +understanding and neatly arranging what the Greeks had left. The +Arabians looked more widely about them; but the Arabians were +essentially sceptics, and resigned subjects to the inevitable and the +inexplicable; there was an irony, open or covert, in their philosophy, +their terminology, their transcendental mysticism, which showed how +little they believed that they really knew. The vast and mighty +intellects of the schoolmen never came into a real grapple with the +immensity of the facts of the natural or even of the moral world; within +the world of abstract thought, the world of language, with its infinite +growths and consequences, they have never had their match for keenness, +for patience, for courage, for inexhaustible toil; but they were as much +disconnected from the natural world, which was their stage of life, as +if they had been disembodied spirits. The Renaissance brought with it +not only the desire to know, but to know comprehensively and in all +possible directions; it brought with it temptations to the awakened +Italian genius, renewed, enlarged, refined, if not strengthened by its +passage through the Middle Ages, to make thought deal with the real, and +to understand the scene in which men were doing such strange and +wonderful things; but Giordano Bruno, Telesio, Campanella, and their +fellows, were not men capable of more than short flights, though they +might be daring and eager ones. It required more thoroughness, more +humble-minded industry, to match the magnitude of the task. And there +have been men of universal minds and comprehensive knowledge since +Bacon, Leibnitz, Goethe, Humboldt, men whose thoughts were at home +everywhere, where there was something to be known. But even for them the +world of knowledge has grown too large. We shall never again see an +Aristotle or a Bacon, because the conditions of knowledge have altered. +Bacon, like Aristotle, belonged to an age of adventure, which went to +sea little knowing whither it went, and ill furnished with knowledge and +instruments. He entered with a vast and vague scheme of discovery on +these unknown seas and new worlds which to us are familiar, and daily +traversed in every direction. This new world of knowledge has turned out +in many ways very different from what Aristotle or Bacon supposed, and +has been conquered by implements and weapons very different in precision +and power from what they purposed to rely on. But the combination of +patient and careful industry, with the courage and divination of genius, +in doing what none had done before, makes it equally stupid and idle to +impeach their greatness. + +3. Bacon has been charged with bringing philosophy down from the +heights, not as of old to make men know themselves, and to be the +teacher of the highest form of truth, but to be the purveyor of material +utility. It contemplates only, it is said, the "_commoda vitae_;" about +the deeper and more elevating problems of thought it does not trouble +itself. It concerns itself only about external and sensible nature, +about what is "of the earth, earthy." But when it comes to the questions +which have attracted the keenest and hardiest thinkers, the question, +what it is that thinks and wills--what is the origin and guarantee of +the faculties by which men know anything at all and form rational and +true conceptions about nature and themselves, whence it is that reason +draws its powers and materials and rules--what is the meaning of words +which all use but few can explain--Time and Space, and Being and Cause, +and consciousness and choice, and the moral law--Bacon is content with a +loose and superficial treatment of them. Bacon certainly was not a +metaphysician, nor an exact and lucid reasoner. With wonderful flashes +of sure intuition or happy anticipation, his mind was deficient in the +powers which deal with the deeper problems of thought, just as it was +deficient in the mathematical faculty. The subtlety, the intuition, the +penetration, the severe precision, even the force of imagination, which +make a man a great thinker on any abstract subject were not his; the +interest of questions which had interested metaphysicians had no +interest for him: he distrusted and undervalued them. When he touches +the "ultimities" of knowledge he is as obscure and hard to be understood +as any of those restless Southern Italians of his own age, who shared +with him the ambition of reconstructing science. Certainly the science +which most interested Bacon, the science which he found, as he thought, +in so desperate a condition, and to which he gave so great an impulse, +was physical science. But physical science may be looked at and pursued +in different ways, in different tempers, with different objects. It may +be followed in the spirit of Newton, of Boyle, of Herschel, of Faraday; +or with a confined and low horizon it may be dwarfed and shrivelled into +a mean utilitarianism. But Bacon's horizon was not a narrow one. He +believed in God and immortality and the Christian creed and hope. To him +the restoration of the Reign of Man was a noble enterprise, because man +was so great and belonged to so great an order of things, because the +things which he was bid to search into with honesty and truthfulness +were the works and laws of God, because it was so shameful and so +miserable that from an ignorance which industry and good-sense could +remedy, the tribes of mankind passed their days in self-imposed darkness +and helplessness. It was God's appointment that men should go through +this earthly stage of their being. Each stage of man's mysterious +existence had to be dealt with, not according to his own fancies, but +according to the conditions imposed on it; and it was one of man's first +duties to arrange for his stay on earth according to the real laws which +he could find out if he only sought for them. Doubtless it was one of +Bacon's highest hopes that from the growth of true knowledge would +follow in surprising ways the relief of man's estate; this, as an end, +runs through all his yearning after a fuller and surer method of +interpreting nature. The desire to be a great benefactor, the spirit of +sympathy and pity for mankind, reign through this portion of his +work--pity for confidence so greatly abused by the teachers of man, pity +for ignorance which might be dispelled, pity for pain and misery which +might be relieved. In the quaint but beautiful picture of courtesy, +kindness, and wisdom, which he imagines in the _New Atlantis_, the +representative of true philosophy, the "Father of Solomon's House," is +introduced as one who "had an aspect as if he pitied men." But unless it +is utilitarianism to be keenly alive to the needs and pains of life, and +to be eager and busy to lighten and assuage them, Bacon's philosophy was +not utilitarian. It may deserve many reproaches, but not this one. Such +a passage as the following--in which are combined the highest motives +and graces and passions of the soul, love of truth, humility of mind, +purity of purpose, reverence for God, sympathy for man, compassion for +the sorrows of the world and longing to heal them, depth of conviction +and faith--fairly represents the spirit which runs through his works. +After urging the mistaken use of imagination and authority in science, +he goes on-- + + "There is not and never will be an end or limit to this; one + catches at one thing, another at another; each has his favourite + fancy; pure and open light there is none; every one philosophises + out of the cells of his own imagination, as out of Plato's cave; + the higher wits with more acuteness and felicity, the duller, less + happily, but with equal pertinacity. And now of late, by the + regulation of some learned and (as things now are) excellent men + (the former license having, I suppose, become wearisome), the + sciences are confined to certain and prescribed authors, and thus + restrained are imposed upon the old and instilled into the young; + so that now (to use the sarcasm of Cicero concerning Caesar's year) + the constellation of Lyra rises by edict, and authority is taken + for truth, not truth for authority. Which kind of institution and + discipline is excellent for present use, but precludes all prospect + of improvement. For we copy the sin of our first parents while we + suffer for it. They wished to be like God, but their posterity wish + to be even greater. For we create worlds, we direct and domineer + over nature, we will have it that all things _are_ as in our folly + we think they should be, not as seems fittest to the Divine wisdom, + or as they are found to be in fact; and I know not whether we more + distort the facts of nature or of our own wits; but we clearly + impress the stamp of our own image on the creatures and works of + God, instead of carefully examining and recognising in them the + stamp of the Creator himself. Wherefore our dominion over creatures + is a second time forfeited, not undeservedly; and whereas after the + fall of man some power over the resistance of creatures was still + left to him--the power of subduing and managing them by true and + solid arts--yet this too through our insolence, and because we + desire to be like God and to follow the dictates of our own reason, + we in great part lose. If, therefore, there be any humility towards + the Creator, any reverence for or disposition to magnify His works, + any charity for man and anxiety to relieve his sorrows and + necessities, any love of truth in nature, any hatred of darkness, + any desire for the purification of the understanding, we must + entreat men again and again to discard, or at least set apart for a + while, these volatile and preposterous philosophies which have + preferred theses to hypotheses, led experience captive, and + triumphed over the works of God; and to approach with humility and + veneration to unroll the volume of Creation, to linger and meditate + therein, and with minds washed clean from opinions to study it in + purity and integrity. For this is that sound and language which + "went forth into all lands," and did not incur the confusion of + Babel; this should men study to be perfect in, and becoming again + as little children condescend to take the alphabet of it into their + hands, and spare no pains to search and unravel the interpretation + thereof, but pursue it strenuously and persevere even unto + death."--Preface to _Historia Naturalis_: translated, _Works_, v. + 132-3. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +BACON AS A WRITER. + + +Bacon's name belongs to letters as well as to philosophy. In his own +day, whatever his contemporaries thought of his _Instauration of +Knowledge_, he was in the first rank as a speaker and a writer. Sir +Walter Raleigh, contrasting him with Salisbury, who could speak but not +write, and Northampton, who could write but not speak, thought Bacon +eminent both as a speaker and a writer. Ben Jonson, passing in review +the more famous names of his own and the preceding age, from Sir Thomas +More to Sir Philip Sidney, Hooker, Essex, and Raleigh, places Bacon +without a rival at the head of the company as the man who had "fulfilled +all numbers," and "stood as the mark and [Greek: akme] of our language." +And he also records Bacon's power as a speaker. "No man," he says, "ever +spoke more neatly, more pressly, or suffered less emptiness, less +idleness, in what he uttered."..."His hearers could not cough or look +aside from him without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his +judges angry and pleased at his devotion ... the fear of every man that +heard him was that he should make an end." He notices one feature for +which we are less prepared, though we know that the edge of Bacon's +sarcastic tongue was felt and resented in James's Court. "His speech," +says Ben Jonson, "was nobly censorious when he could _spare and pass by +a jest_." The unpopularity which certainly seems to have gathered round +his name may have had something to do with this reputation. + +Yet as an English writer Bacon did not expect to be remembered, and he +hardly cared to be. He wrote much in Latin, and his first care was to +have his books put into a Latin dress. "For these modern languages," he +wrote to Toby Matthews towards the close of his life, "will at one time +or another play the bank-rowte with books, and since I have lost much +time with this age, I would be glad if God would give me leave to +recover it with posterity." He wanted to be read by the learned out of +England, who were supposed to appreciate his philosophical ideas better +than his own countrymen, and the only way to this was to have his books +translated into the "general language." He sends Prince Charles the +_Advancement_ in its new Latin dress. "It is a book," he says, "that +will live, and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not." And +he fitted it for continental reading by carefully weeding it of all +passages that might give offence to the censors at Rome or Paris. "I +have been," he writes to the King, "mine own _Index Expurgatorius_, that +it may be read in all places. For since my end of putting it in Latin +was to have it read everywhere, it had been an absurd contradiction to +free it in the language and to pen it up in the matter." Even the +_Essays_ and the _History of Henry VII._ he had put into Latin "by some +good pens that do not forsake me." Among these translators are said to +have been George Herbert and Hobbes, and on more doubtful authority, Ben +Jonson and Selden. The _Essays_ were also translated into Latin and +Italian with Bacon's sanction. + +Bacon's contemptuous and hopeless estimate of "these modern languages," +forty years after Spenser had proclaimed and justified his faith in his +own language, is only one of the proofs of the short-sightedness of the +wisest and the limitations of the largest-minded. Perhaps we ought not +to wonder at his silence about Shakespeare. It was the fashion, except +among a set of clever but not always very reputable people, to think the +stage, as it was, below the notice of scholars and statesmen; and +Shakespeare took no trouble to save his works from neglect. Yet it is a +curious defect in Bacon that he should not have been more alive to the +powers and future of his own language. He early and all along was +profoundly impressed with the contrast, which the scholarship of the age +so abundantly presented, of words to things. He dwells in the +_Advancement_ on that "first distemper of learning, when men study words +and not matter." He illustrates it at large from the reaction of the new +learning and of the popular teaching of the Reformation against the +utilitarian and unclassical terminology of the schoolmen; a reaction +which soon grew to excess, and made men "hunt more after choiceness of +the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the +sweet falling of the clauses," than after worth of subject, soundness of +argument, "life of invention or depth of judgment." "I have represented +this," he says, "in an example of late times, but it hath been and will +be _secundum majus et minus_ in all times;" and he likens this "vanity" +to "Pygmalion's frenzy"--"for to fall in love with words which are but +the images of matter, is all one as to fall in love with a picture." He +was dissatisfied with the first attempt at translation into Latin of the +_Advancement_ by Dr. Playfer of Cambridge, because he "desired not so +much neat and polite, as clear, masculine, and apt expression." Yet, +with this hatred of circumlocution and prettiness, of the cloudy +amplifications, and pompous flourishings, and "the flowing and watery +vein," which the scholars of his time affected, it is strange that he +should not have seen that the new ideas and widening thoughts of which +he was the herald would want a much more elastic and more freely-working +instrument than Latin could ever become. It is wonderful indeed what can +be done with Latin. It was long after his day to be the language of the +exact sciences. In his _History of the Winds_, which is full of his +irrepressible fancy and picturesqueness, Bacon describes in clear and +intelligible Latin the details of the rigging of a modern man-of-war, +and the mode of sailing her. But such tasks impose a yoke, sometimes a +rough one, on a language which has "taken its ply" in very different +conditions, and of which the genius is that of indirect and circuitous +expression, "full of majesty and circumstance." But it never, even in +those days of scholarship, could lend itself to the frankness, the +straightforwardness, the fulness and shades of suggestion and +association, with which, in handling ideas of subtlety and difficulty, a +writer would wish to speak to his reader, and which he could find only +in his mother tongue. It might have been thought that with Bacon's +contempt of form and ceremony in these matters, his consciousness of the +powers of English in his hands might have led him to anticipate that a +flexible and rich and strong language might create a literature, and +that a literature, if worth studying, would be studied in its own +language. But so great a change was beyond even his daring thoughts. To +him, as to his age, the only safe language was the Latin. For familiar +use English was well enough. But it could not be trusted; "it would play +the bankrupt with books." And yet Galileo was writing in Italian as well +as in Latin; only within twenty-five years later, Descartes was writing +_De la Methode_, and Pascal was writing in the same French in which he +wrote the _Provincial Letters_, his _Nouvelles Experiences touchant le +Vide_, and the controversial pamphlets which followed it; showing how in +that interval of five-and-twenty years an instrument had been fashioned +out of a modern language such as for lucid expression and clear +reasoning, Bacon had not yet dreamed of. From Bacon to Pascal is the +change from the old scientific way of writing to the modern; from a +modern language, as learned and used in the 16th century, to one learned +in the 17th. + +But the language of the age of Elizabeth was a rich and noble one, and +it reached a high point in the hands of Bacon. In his hands it lent +itself to many uses, and assumed many forms, and he valued it, not +because he thought highly of its qualities as a language, but because it +enabled him with least trouble "to speak as he would," in throwing off +the abundant thoughts that rose within his mind, and in going through +the variety of business which could not be done in Latin. But in all his +writing it is the matter, the real thing that he wanted to say, which +was uppermost. He cared how it was said, not for the sake of form or +ornament, but because the force and clearness of what was said depended +so much on how it was said. Of course, what he wanted to say varied +indefinitely with the various occasions of his life. His business may +merely be to write "a device" or panegyric for a pageant in the Queen's +honour, or for the revels of Gray's Inn. But even these trifles are the +result of real thought, and are full of ideas--ideas about the hopes of +knowledge or about the policy of the State; and though, of course, they +have plenty of the flourishes and quaint absurdities indispensable on +such occasions, yet the "rhetorical affectation" is in the thing itself, +and not in the way it is handled; he had an opportunity of saying some +of the things which were to him of deep and perpetual interest, and he +used it to say them, as forcibly, as strikingly, as attractively as he +could. His manner of writing depends, not on a style, or a studied or +acquired habit, but on the nature of the task which he has in hand. +Everywhere his matter is close to his words, and governs, animates, +informs his words. No one in England before had so much as he had the +power to say what he wanted to say, and exactly as he wanted to say it. +No one was so little at the mercy of conventional language or customary +rhetoric, except when he persuaded himself that he had to submit to +those necessities of flattery, which cost him at last so dear. + +The book by which English readers, from his own time to ours, have known +him best, better than by the originality and the eloquence of the +_Advancement_, or than by the political weight and historical +imagination of the _History of Henry VII._, is the first book which he +published, the volume of _Essays_. It is an instance of his self-willed +but most skilful use of the freedom and ease which the "modern +language," which he despised, gave him. It is obvious that he might have +expanded these "Counsels, moral and political," to the size which such +essays used to swell to after his time. Many people would have thanked +him for doing so; and some have thought it a good book on which to hang +their own reflections and illustrations. But he saw how much could be +done by leaving the beaten track of set treatise and discourse, and +setting down unceremoniously the observations which he had made, and the +real rules which he had felt to be true, on various practical matters +which come home to men's "business and bosoms." He was very fond of +these moral and political generalisations, both of his own collecting +and as found in writers who, he thought, had the right to make them, +like the Latins of the Empire and the Italians and Spaniards of the +Renaissance. But a mere string of maxims and quotations would have been +a poor thing and not new; and he cast what he had to say into connected +wholes. But nothing can be more loose than the structure of the essays. +There is no art, no style, almost, except in a few--the political +ones--no order: thoughts are put down and left unsupported, unproved, +undeveloped. In the first form of the ten, which composed the first +edition of 1597, they are more like notes of analysis or tables of +contents; they are austere even to meagreness. But the general character +continues in the enlarged and expanded ones of Bacon's later years. They +are like chapters in Aristotle's Ethics and Rhetoric on virtues and +characters; only Bacon's takes Aristotle's broad marking lines as drawn, +and proceeds with the subtler and more refined observations of a much +longer and wider experience. But these short papers say what they have +to say without preface, and in literary undress, without a superfluous +word, without the joints and bands of structure; they say it in brief, +rapid sentences, which come down, sentence after sentence, like the +strokes of a great hammer. No wonder that in their disdainful brevity +they seem rugged and abrupt, "and do not seem to end, but fall." But +with their truth and piercingness and delicacy of observation, their +roughness gives a kind of flavour which no elaboration could give. It is +none the less that their wisdom is of a somewhat cynical kind, fully +alive to the slipperiness and self-deceits and faithlessness which are +in the world and rather inclined to be amused at them. In some we can +see distinct records of the writer's own experience: one contains the +substance of a charge delivered to Judge Hutton on his appointment; +another of them is a sketch drawn from life of a character which had +crossed Bacon's path, and in the essay on _Seeming Wise_ we can trace +from the impatient notes put down in his _Commentarius Solutus_, the +picture of the man who stood in his way, the Attorney-General Hobart. +Some of them are memorable oracular utterances not inadequate to the +subject, on _Truth_ or _Death_ or _Unity_. Others reveal an utter +incapacity to come near a subject, except as a strange external +phenomena, like the essay on _Love_. There is a distinct tendency in +them to the Italian school of political and moral wisdom, the wisdom of +distrust and of reliance on indirect and roundabout ways. There is a +group of them, "of _Delays_," "of _Cunning_," "of _Wisdom for a Man's +Self_," "of _Despatch_," which show how vigilantly and to what purpose +he had watched the treasurers and secretaries and intriguers of +Elizabeth's and James's Courts; and there are curious self-revelations, +as in the essay on _Friendship_. But there are also currents of better +and larger feeling, such as those which show his own ideal of "_Great +Place_," and what he felt of its dangers and duties. And mixed with the +fantastic taste and conceits of the time, there is evidence in them of +Bacon's keen delight in nature, in the beauty and scents of flowers, in +the charm of open-air life, as in the essay on _Gardens_, "The purest of +human pleasures, the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man." + +But he had another manner of writing for what he held to be his more +serious work. In the philosophical and historical works there is no want +of attention to the flow and order and ornament of composition. When we +come to the _Advancement of Learning_, we come to a book which is one of +the landmarks of what high thought and rich imagination have made of +the English language. It is the first great book in English prose of +secular interest; the first book which can claim a place beside the +_Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_. As regards its subject-matter, it has +been partly thrown into the shade by the greatly enlarged and elaborate +form in which it ultimately appeared, in a Latin dress, as the first +portion of the scheme of the _Instauratio_, the _De Augmentis +Scientiarum_. Bacon looked on it as a first effort, a kind of call-bell +to awaken and attract the interest of others in the thoughts and hopes +which so interested himself. But it contains some of his finest writing. +In the _Essays_ he writes as a looker-on at the game of human affairs, +who, according to his frequent illustration, sees more of it than the +gamesters themselves, and is able to give wiser and faithful counsel, +not without a touch of kindly irony at the mistakes which he observes. +In the _Advancement_ he is the enthusiast for a great cause and a great +hope, and all that he has of passion and power is enlisted in the effort +to advance it. The _Advancement_ is far from being a perfect book. As a +survey of the actual state of knowledge in his day, of its deficiencies, +and what was wanted to supply them, it is not even up to the materials +of the time. Even the improved _De Augmentis_ is inadequate; and there +is reason to think the _Advancement_ was a hurried book, at least in the +later part, and it is defective in arrangement and proportion of parts. +Two of the great divisions of knowledge--history and poetry--are +despatched in comparatively short chapters; while in the division on +"Civil Knowledge," human knowledge as it respects society, he inserts a +long essay, obviously complete in itself and clumsily thrust in here, on +the ways of getting on in the world, the means by which a man may be +"_Faber fortunae suae_"--the architect of his own success; too lively a +picture to be pleasant of the arts with which he had become acquainted +in the process of rising. The book, too, has the blemishes of its own +time; its want of simplicity, its inevitable though very often amusing +and curious pedantries. But the _Advancement_ was the first of a long +line of books which have attempted to teach English readers how to think +of knowledge; to make it really and intelligently the interest, not of +the school or the study or the laboratory only, but of society at large. +It was a book with a purpose, new then, but of which we have seen the +fulfilment. He wanted to impress on his generation, as a very practical +matter, all that knowledge might do in wise hands, all that knowledge +had lost by the faults and errors of men and the misfortunes of time, +all that knowledge might be pushed to in all directions by faithful and +patient industry and well-planned methods for the elevation and benefit +of man in his highest capacities as well as in his humblest. And he +further sought to teach them _how_ to know; to make them understand that +difficult achievement of self-knowledge, to know _what it is_ to know; +to give the first attempted chart to guide them among the shallows and +rocks and whirlpools which beset the course and action of thought and +inquiry; to reveal to them the "idols" which unconsciously haunt the +minds of the strongest as well as the weakest, and interpose their +delusions when we are least aware--"the fallacies and false appearances +inseparable from our nature and our condition of life." To induce men to +believe not only that there was much to know that was not yet dreamed +of, but that the way of knowing needed real and thorough improvement; +that the knowing mind bore along with it all kinds of snares and +disqualifications of which it is unconscious; and that it needed +training quite as much as materials to work on, was the object of the +_Advancement_. It was but a sketch; but it was a sketch so truly and +forcibly drawn, that it made an impression which has never been +weakened. To us its use and almost its interest is passed. But it is a +book which we can never open without coming on some noble interpretation +of the realities of nature or the mind; some unexpected discovery of +that quick and keen eye which arrests us by its truth; some felicitous +and unthought-of illustration, yet so natural as almost to be doomed to +become a commonplace; some bright touch of his incorrigible +imaginativeness, ever ready to force itself in amid the driest details +of his argument. + +The _Advancement_ was only one shape out of many into which he cast his +thoughts. Bacon was not easily satisfied with his work; even when he +published he did so, not because he had brought his work to the desired +point, but lest anything should happen to him and it should "perish." +Easy and unstudied as his writing seems, it was, as we have seen, the +result of unintermitted trouble and varied modes of working. He was +quite as much a talker as a writer, and beat out his thoughts into shape +in talking. In the essay on _Friendship_ he describes the process with a +vividness which tells of his own experience-- + + "But before you come to that [the faithful counsel that a man + receiveth from his friend], certain it is that whosoever hath his + mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do + clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with + another. He tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them + more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into + words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an + hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by + Themistocles to the King of Persia, 'That speech was like cloth of + arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in + figure; whereas in thought they lie in packs.' Neither is this + second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, + restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel. + (They are, indeed, best.) But even without that, a man learneth of + himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his + wits against a stone which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were + better relate himself to a _statua_ or a picture, than to suffer + his thoughts to pass in smother." + +Bacon, as has been said, was a great maker of notes and note-books: he +was careful not of the thought only, but of the very words in which it +presented itself; everything was collected that might turn out useful in +his writing or speaking, down to alternative modes of beginning or +connecting or ending a sentence. He watched over his intellectual +appliances and resources much more strictly than over his money +concerns. He never threw away and never forgot what could be turned to +account. He was never afraid of repeating himself, if he thought he had +something apt to say. He was never tired of recasting and rewriting, +from a mere fragment or preface to a finished paper. He has favourite +images, favourite maxims, favourite texts, which he cannot do without. +"_Da Fidei quae sunt Fidei_" comes in from his first book to his last. +The illustrations which he gets from the myth of Scylla, from Atalanta's +ball, from Borgia's saying about the French marking their lodgings with +chalk, the saying that God takes delight, like the "innocent play of +children," "to hide his works in order to have them found out," and to +have kings as "his playfellows in that game," these, with many others, +reappear, however varied the context, from the first to the last of his +compositions. An edition of Bacon, with marginal references and parallel +passages, would show a more persistent recurrence of characteristic +illustrations and sentences than perhaps any other writer. + +The _Advancement_ was followed by attempts to give serious effect to its +lesson. This was nearly all done in Latin. He did so, because in these +works he spoke to a larger and, as he thought, more interested audience; +the use of Latin marked the gravity of his subject as one that touched +all mankind; and the majesty of Latin suited his taste and his thoughts. +Bacon spoke, indeed, impressively on the necessity of entering into the +realm of knowledge in the spirit of a little child. He dwelt on the +paramount importance of beginning from the very bottom of the scale of +fact, of understanding the commonplace things at our feet, so full of +wonder and mystery and instruction, before venturing on theories. The +sun is not polluted by shining on a dunghill, and no facts were too +ignoble to be beneath the notice of the true student of nature. But his +own genius was for the grandeur and pomp of general views. The practical +details of experimental science were, except in partial instances, yet a +great way off; and what there was, he either did not care about or +really understand, and had no aptitude for handling. He knew enough to +give reality to his argument; he knew, and insisted on it, that the +labour of observation and experiment would have to be very heavy and +quite indispensable. But his own business was with great principles and +new truths; these were what had the real attraction for him; it was the +magnificent thoughts and boundless hopes of the approaching "kingdom of +man" which kindled his imagination and fired his ambition. "He writes +philosophy," said Harvey, who had come to his own great discovery +through patient and obscure experiments on frogs and monkeys--"he writes +philosophy like a Lord Chancellor." And for this part of the work, the +stateliness and dignity of the Latin corresponded to the proud claims +which he made for his conception of the knowledge which was to be. +English seemed to him too homely to express the hopes of the world, too +unstable to be trusted with them. Latin was the language of command and +law. His Latin, without enslaving itself to Ciceronian types, and with a +free infusion of barbarous but most convenient words from the vast and +ingenious terminology of the schoolmen, is singularly forcible and +expressive. It is almost always easy and clear; it can be vague and +general, and it can be very precise where precision is wanted. It can, +on occasion, be magnificent, and its gravity is continually enlivened by +the play upon it, as upon a background, of his picturesque and +unexpected fancies. The exposition of his philosophical principles was +attempted in two forms. He began in English. He began, in the shape of a +personal account, a statement of a series of conclusions to which his +thinking had brought him, which he called the "Clue of the Labyrinth," +_Filum Labyrinthi_. But he laid this aside unfinished, and rewrote and +completed it in Latin, with the title _Cogitata et Visa_. It gains by +being in Latin; as Mr. Spedding says, "it must certainly be reckoned +among the most perfect of Bacon's productions." The personal form with +each paragraph begins and ends. "_Franciscus Bacon sic cogitavit_ ... +_itaque visum est ei_" gives to it a special tone of serious conviction, +and brings the interest of the subject more keenly to the reader. It has +the same kind of personal interest, only more solemn and commanding, +which there is in Descartes's _Discours de la Methode_. In this form +Bacon meant at first to publish. He sent it to his usual critics, Sir +Thomas Bodley, Toby Matthews, and Bishop Andrewes. And he meant to +follow it up with a practical exemplification of his method. But he +changed his plan. He had more than once expressed his preference for +the form of _aphorisms_ over the argumentative and didactic continuity +of a set discourse. He had, indeed, already twice begun a series of +aphorisms on the true methods of interpreting nature, and directing the +mind in the true path of knowledge, and had begun them with the same +famous aphorism with which the _Novum Organum_ opens. He now reverted to +the form of the aphorism, and resolved to throw the materials of the +_Cogitata et Visa_ into this shape. The result is the _Novum Organum_. +It contains, with large additions, the substance of the treatise, but +broken up and rearranged in the new form of separate impersonal +generalised observations. The points and assertions and issues which, in +a continuous discourse, careful readers mark and careless ones miss, are +one by one picked out and brought separately to the light. It begins +with brief, oracular, unproved maxims and propositions, and goes on +gradually into larger developments and explanations. The aphorisms are +meant to strike, to awaken questions, to disturb prejudices, to let in +light into a nest of unsuspected intellectual confusions and +self-misunderstandings, to be the mottoes and watchwords of many a +laborious and difficult inquiry. They form a connected and ordered +chain, though the ties between each link are not given. In this way +Bacon put forth his proclamation of war on all that then called itself +science; his announcement that the whole work of solid knowledge must be +begun afresh, and by a new, and, as he thought, infallible method. On +this work Bacon concentrated all his care. It was twelve years in hand, +and twelve times underwent his revision. "In the first book especially," +says Mr. Ellis, "every word seems to have been carefully weighed; and it +would be hard to omit or change anything without injuring the meaning +which Bacon intended to convey." Severe as it is, it is instinct with +enthusiasm, sometimes with passion. The Latin in which it is written +answers to it; it has the conciseness, the breadth, the lordliness of a +great piece of philosophical legislation. + +The world has agreed to date from Bacon the systematic reform of natural +philosophy, the beginning of an intelligent attempt, which has been +crowned by such signal success, to place the investigation of nature on +a solid foundation. On purely scientific grounds his title to this great +honour may require considerable qualification. What one thing, it is +asked, would not have been discovered in the age of Galileo and Harvey, +if Bacon had never written? What one scientific discovery can be traced +to him, or to the observance of his peculiar rules? It was something, +indeed, to have conceived, as clearly as he conceived it, the large and +comprehensive idea of what natural knowledge must be, and must rest +upon, even if he were not able to realise his idea, and were mistaken in +his practical methods of reform. But great ideas and great principles +need their adequate interpreter, their _vates sacer_, if they are to +influence the history of mankind. This was what Bacon was to science, to +that great change in the thoughts and activity of men in relation to the +world of nature around them: and this is his title to the great place +assigned to him. He not only understood and felt what science might be, +but he was able to make others--and it was no easy task beforehand, +while the wonders of discovery were yet in the future--understand and +feel it too. And he was able to do this because he was one of the most +wonderful of thinkers and one of the greatest of writers. The +disclosure, the interpretation, the development of that great +intellectual revolution which was in the air, and which was practically +carried forward in obscurity, day by day, by the fathers of modern +astronomy and chemistry and physiology, had fallen to the task of a +genius, second only to Shakespeare. He had the power to tell the story +of what they were doing and were to do with a force of imaginative +reason of which they were utterly incapable. He was able to justify +their attempts and their hopes as they themselves could not. He was able +to interest the world in the great prospects opening on it, but of which +none but a few students had the key. The calculations of the astronomer, +the investigations of the physician, were more or less a subject of +talk, as curious or possibly useful employments. But that which bound +them together in the unity of science, which gave them their meaning +beyond themselves, which raised them to a higher level and gave them +their real dignity among the pursuits of men, which forced all thinking +men to see what new and unsuspected possibilities in the knowledge and +in the condition of mankind were opened before them, was not Bacon's own +attempts at science, not even his collections of facts and his rules of +method, but that great idea of the reality and boundless worth of +knowledge which Bacon's penetrating and sure intuition had discerned, +and which had taken possession of his whole nature. The impulse which he +gave to the progress of science came from his magnificent and varied +exposition of this idea; from his series of grand and memorable +generalisations on the habits and faults of the human mind--on the +difficult and yet so obvious and so natural precautions necessary to +guide it in the true and hopeful track. It came from the attractiveness, +the enthusiasm, and the persuasiveness of the pleading; from the clear +and forcible statements, the sustained eloquence, the generous hopes, +the deep and earnest purpose of the _Advancement_ and the _De +Augmentis_; from the nobleness, the originality, the picturesqueness, +the impressive and irresistible truth of the great aphorisms of the +_Novum Organum_. + + THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bacon, by Richard William Church + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACON *** + +***** This file should be named 13888.txt or 13888.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/8/8/13888/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Michael Punch and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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