the writings of certain authors; from which, if These warnings seem to have been disregardany man happens to differ, he is presently repre-ed, and the art of governing, not a ship, which hended as a disturber and innovator."1 Whether the intellectual gladiatorship by which students in the universities of England are now stimulated, then prevailed, does not appear, but his dislike of this motive he early and always avowed. “It is,” he says, “an unavoidable decree with us ever to retain our native candour and simplicity, and not attempt a passage to truth under the conduct of vanity; for, seeking real nature with all her fruits about her, we should think it a betraying of our trust to infect such a subject either with an ambitious, an ignorant, or any other faulty manner of treating it."2 Some years after Bacon had quitted Cambridge, he published his opinions upon the defects of universities; in which, after having warned the community that, as colleges are established for the communication of the knowledge of our predecessors, there should be a college appropriated to the discovery of new truths, a living spring to mix with the stagnant waters. "Let it," he says, "be remembered that there is not any collegiate education of statesmen, and that this has not only a malign influence upon the growth of sciences, but is prejudicial to states and governments, and is the reason why princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state."3 1 Ax. 90. lib. i. See the chapter on Vanity, in the admirable work, "Search's Light of Nature:" where the distinction between the love of excelling and the love of excellence, as a motive for acquiring knowledge, is fully explained. Bacon says, First, therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges in Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large. And this I take to be a great cause, that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not any thing you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that must work it. Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations and dotations to professory learning, hath not only had a malign aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it proceedeth that princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes of state, because there is no education collegiate which is free, where such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like enablements unto service of state. This truth, confirmed by daily experience, was, fifty years after his death, repeated by Milton, who indignantly says, "when young men quit the university for the trade of law, they ground their purposes, not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees: and if they quit it for state affairs, they betake themselves to this trust with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery, and court-shifts, and tyrannous aphorisms appear to them the highest points of wisdom. After having prescribed the proper order of education, he adds, The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies; that they inay not in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state. After this they are to drive into the grounds of law and legal justice, delivered first, and with best warrant to Moses, and as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solon, &c. and thence to would not be attempted without a knowledge of navigation, but the ship of the state, is intrusted, not to a knowledge of the principles of human nature, but to the knowledge of Latin and Greek and verbal criticisms upon the dead languages."4 And what has been the result? During the last two centuries one class of statesmen has resisted all improvement, and their opponents have been hurried into intemperate alterations: whilst philosophy, lamenting these contentions, has, instead of advancing the science of government, been occupied in counteracting laws founded upon erroneous principles; erroneous commercial laws; erroneous laws against civil and religious liberty; and erroneous criminal laws. So deeply was Bacon impressed with the magnitude of this evil, that by his will he endowed two lectures in either of the universities, by "a lecturer, whether stranger or English, provided he is not professed in divinity, law, or physic." The subject of universities, and the importance to the community and to the advancement of science, that the spring should not be poisoned or polluted, was ever present to his mind,—and, in the decline of his life, he prepared the plan of a college for the knowledge of the works and creations of God, "from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall;" but the plan was framed upon a model so vast, that, without the purse of a prince and the assistance of a people, all attempts to realize it must be vain and hopeless. Some conception of his gorgeous mind in the formation of this college, may appear even at the entrance. "We have (he says) two very long and fair galleries: and in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies; also the inventor of ships; your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder; the inventor of music; the inventor of letters; the inventor of printing; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor of Works in metal; the inventor of glass; the inventor of silk of the worm; the inventor of wine; the inventor of corn and bread; the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Upon every invention of value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch all the Roman edicts and tables with their Justinian; and so to the Saxon laws of England. Milton, Education, vol. i. p. 270. "Such," says Milton, "are the errors, such the fruits of mispending our prime youth at schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned." See his Tract on Educa tion Such is the splendour of the portico, or anteroom. Passing beyond it, every thing is to be found which imagination can conceive or reason suggest. 1 This entrance to Bacon's college always forces itself on my mind when I visit the University Library of Cambridge; in which I see the portrait of Mr. Thomas Nicholson, known by the name of Maps, the proprietor of a circulating library, a laborious pioneer in literature. Under his feet are some relics from classic ground, more valuable, perhaps, for their antiquity than for their beauty. Delightful as is the love of antiquity, this artificial retrospective extension of our existence, (see Shakspeare's Sonnet, 123,) might it not be adorned, in the present times, by casts from the Elgin marbles, of which the cost does not exceed 2001. By one of the universities (I think it is of Dublin) these casts have been procured. Let any parent of the mind, who considers the various modes by which the heart of a nation is formed, (which is beautifully described in Ramsden's sermon on the Cessation of Hostilities,) look in Boydell's Shakspeare, at Barry's Cordelia, to be found, most probably, in the Fitzwilliam collection: and let him compare it with the magnificent affecting fainting female in the Elgin marbles, and he will see the benefit which would result from the university comaining these valuable relics. 2 We have large and deep caves of several depths: the deepest are sunk six hundred fathom, and some of them are digged and made under great hills and mountains: so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep; these caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of new artificial metals, by compositions and materials. We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and some of them likewise set upon high mountains, so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the upper region. We use these towers, according to their several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, conservation, and for the view of divers meteors, as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the fiery meteors. We have great lakes, both salt and fresh; whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for buri als of some natural bodies: for we find a difference in things buried in earth, or in air below the earth; and things After having enumerated all the instruments of knowledge, "such," he says, "is a relation of the true state of Solomon's house, the end of which foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible." In these glorious inventions of one rich mind, may be traced much of what has been effected in science and mechanics, since Bacon's death, and more that will be effected during the next two centuries. After three years' residence in the university, his father sent him, at the age of sixteen, to Paris, under the care of Sir Amias Paulett, the English ambassador at that court: by whom, soon after his arrival, he was intrusted with a mission to the queen, requiring both secrecy and despatch: which he executed with such ability as to gain the approbation of the queen, and justify Sir Amias in the choice of his youthful messenger. From the confidence thus reposed in him, and from the impression made upon all with whom he conversed; upon men of letters, with whom he contracted lasting friendships; upon grave statesmen and learned philosophers, it was manifest that the promise in his infancy of excellence, whe ther for active or for contemplative life, seemed beyond the most sanguine expectation to be realized.3 After the appointment of Sir Amias Paulett's successor, Bacon travelled into the French provinces, and spent some time at Poictiers. He prepared a work upon Ciphers, which he after 4 buried in water. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea; and some bays upon the shore for some works, where-likewise for dissections and trials, that thereby we may in is required the air and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions: and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going divers motions. We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. We have also particular pools where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use, such as are with you your silk worms and bees. We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty and unknown; crystals and glasses of divers kinds. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds; and likewise new mixtures and We have also great and spacious houses, where we imitate and demonstrate meteors, as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies, and not of water, thunders, light-compositions of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water nings. and unquenchable; also fireworks of all variety, both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas; also We have also certain chambers, which we call chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the cure of divers diseases, and preservation of health. We have also fair and large baths of several mix-swimming girdles and supporters. tures, for the cure of diseases. We have also sound houses, where we practise and deWe have also large and various orchards and gardens; monstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harwherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of monies which you have not, of quarter sounds, and lesser ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs: and slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music, likewise to some very spacious, where trees and berries are set, where-you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; with of we make divers kinds of drink, besides the vineyards. bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. In these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting and We have also a mathematical house, where are all instruinoculating, as well of wild trees as fruit trees, which pro-ments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. duceth many effects. We have also houses of deceits of the senses, &c. &c. We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of heats, fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist, and the like. But above all we have heats, in imitation of the sun's and heavenly bodies, heats that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we may produce admirable effects. We procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven, and remote places; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as near, making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses. 3 It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that an eminent artist, to whom, when in Paris, he sat for his portrait, was so conscious of his inability to do justice to his extraordinary intellectual endowments, that he has written on the side of his picture: Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem. In the Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. vi. speaking of ciphers, he says, Ut verò suspicio omnis absit, aliud inventum subjiciemus, quod certè cùm adolescentuli essemus Parisiis excogitavimus, nec etiam adhuc visa nobis reg digna est quæ pereat. Watts's English translation of this part is as follows: But that jealousies may be taken away, we will annex another invention, which, in truth, we de thing vised in our youth, when we were at Paris: and is a and birds; which we use not only for view or rareness, but that yet seemeth to us not worthy to be lost. It containeth We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts xxii wards published, with an outline of the state of Europe, but the laws of sound and of imagination continued to occupy his thoughts.1 Whilst he was engaged in these meditations his father died suddenly, on the 20th February, 1579. He instantly returned to England. CHAPTER II. Law and politics were the two roads open before him; in both his family had attained opulence and honour. Law, the dry and thorny study of law, had but little attraction for his discursive and imaginative mind. With the hope, therefore, that, under the protection of his political friends, and the queen's remembrance of his father, and notice of him when a child, he might escape from the mental slavery of delving in this laborious profession, he made a great effort to secure some small competence, by applying to Lord Burleigh to re FROM THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER TILL HE ENGAGED Commend him to the queen, and interceding with IN ACTIVE LIFE. 1580 to 1590. DISCOVERING, upon his arrival in England, that, by the sudden death of his father, he was left without a sufficient provision to justify him in devoting his life to contemplation, it became necessary for him to select some pursuit for his support," to think how to live, instead of living only to think. "3 the highest degree of cipher, which is to signify omnia per omnia, yet so, as the writing infolding, may bear a quintuple proportion to the writing infolded; no other condition or restriction whatsoever is required. 1 His meditations were both upon natural science and human sciences, as will appear from the following facts. In his History of Life and Death, speaking of the differences between youth and old age, and having enumerated many of them, he proceeds thus: When I was a young man at Poictiers in France, I familiarly conversed with a young gentleman of that country, who was extremely ingenious, but somewhat talkative; he afterwards became a person of great eminence. This gentleman used to inveigh against the manners of old people, and would say, that if one could see their minds as well as their bodies, their minds would appear as deformed as their bodies; and indulging his own humour, he pretended, that the defects of old men's minds, in some measure corresponded to the defects of their bodies. Thus, dryness of the skin, he said, was answered by impudence; hardness of the viscera, by relentlessness; blear-eyes, by envy; and an evil eye, their down look, and incurvation of the body, by atheism, as no longer, says he, looking up to heaven; the trembling and shaking of the limbs, by unsteadiness and inconstancy; the bending of their fingers as to lay hold of something, by rapacity and avarice; the weakness of their knees, by fearfulness; their wrinkles, by indirect dealings and cunning, &c. And again, for echoes upon echoes, there is a rare instance thereof in a place which I will now exactly describe. It is some three or four miles from Paris, near a town called Pont-Charenton; and some bird-bolt shot or more from the river of Sein. The room is a chapel or small church. The walls all standing, both at the sides and at the ends. Speaking at the one end, I did hear it return the voice thirteen several times. (Sylva, art. 219.) There are certain letters that an echo will hardly express; as S for one, especially being principal in a word. I remember well, that when I went to the echo at Pont-Charenton, there was an old Parisian, that took it to be the work of spirits, and of good spirits. For, said he, call "Satan," and the echo will not deliver back the devil's name; but will say, "va t'en;" which is as much in French as "apage," or avoid. And thereby I did hap to find, that an echo would not return an S, being but a hissing and an interior sound. (Art. 750.) | Lady Burleigh to urge his suit with his uncle.* But his application was unsuccessful; the queen and the lord treasurer, distinguished as they were for penetration into character, being little disposed My singular good lord, My humble duty remembered, and my humble thanks pre- To Lady Burghley, to speak for him to her lord. I was as ready to shew myself mindful of my duty, by waiting on your ladyship, at your being in town, as now by writing, had I not feared lest your ladyship's short stay, and quick return might well spare me, that came of no earnest errand. I am not yet greatly perfect in ceremonies of court, whereof, I know, your ladyship knoweth both the right use, and true value. My thankful and serviceable mind shall be always like itself, howsoever it vary from the common discern from what mind every action proceedeth, and to esteem of it accordingly. This is all the message which my letter hath at this time to deliver, unless it please your ladyship further to give me leave to make this request unto you, that it would please your good ladyship, in your letters, wherewith you visit my good lord, to vouchsafe the mention and recommendation of my suit; wherein your ladyship shall bind me more unto you than I can look ever to be able suthciently to acknowledge. Thus, in humble manner, I take my leave of your ladyship, committing you, as daily in my prayers, so, likewise, at this present, to the merciful providence of the Almighty. So too the nature of imagination continued to interest him. In the Sylva, art. 986, he says, the relations touch-guising. Your ladyship is wise, and of good nature to dising the force of imagination and the secret instincts of nature are so uncertain, as they require a great deal of examination ere we conclude upon them. I would have it first thoroughly inquired, whether there be any secret passages of sympathy between persons of near blood; as parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, husbands, wives, &c. There be many reports in history, that upon the death of persons of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, that being in Paris, and my father dying in London, two or three days before my father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, that my father's house in the country was plastered all over with black mortar. 2 Rawley Biog. Brit. This is an expression of his own, I forget where. Your ladyship's most dutiful and bounden nephew, to encourage him to rely upon others rather than ] upon himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics, instead of the certain profession of the law, in which the queen had, when he was a child, predicted that he would one day be her "lord keeper." To law, therefore, he was reluctantly obliged to devote himself, and as it seems, in the year 1580, he was admitted a student of Gray's Inn, of which society his father had for many years been an illustrious member.1 His agreeable occupations, and extensive views of science, during his residence in Gray's Inn, did not check his professional exertions. In the year 1586, he applied to the lord treasurer to be called within the bar; and in his thirtieth year was sworn queen's counsel learned extraordinary,5 an honour which, until that time, had never been conferred upon any member of the profession. CHAPTER III. DISAPPOINTMENT AS SOLICITOR. Having engaged in this profession, he, as was to be expected, encountered and subdued the difficulties and obscurities of the science in which he was doomed to labour, and in which he after- FROM HIS ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE TILL HIS wards was eminently distinguished, not only by his professional exertions and honours, but by his valuable works upon different practical parts of the law, and upon the improvement of the science, by exploring the principles of universal jus tice the laws of law. 1590 to 1596. He thus entered on public life, submitting, as a lawyer and a statesman, to worldly occupations (being then but twenty-eight years of age) the honourable society of Gray's Inn chose him for their lent reader. Orig. p. 295. In the time of Lord Bacon there was a distinction between it will appear that he applied to the lord treasurer that he outer and inner barristers. By the following letter in 1586, might be called within bars. To the right honourable the lord treasurer.* I take it as an undoubted sign of your lordship's favour unto me that, being hardly informed of me, you took occasion rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if your lordship had grounded only upon the said information of theirs, I might and would truly have upholden that few of the matters were justly objected; as the very circumdid misaffect me, and, besides, were to give colour to their stances do induce, in that they were delivered by men that own doings. But because your lordship did mingle therewith both a late motion of mine own, and somewhat which Extensive as were his legal researches, and great as was his legal knowledge, law was, however, but an accessory, not a principal study. It was not to be expected that his mind should confine its researches within the narrow and perplexed study of precedents and authorities. He contracted his sight, when necessary, to the study of the law, but he dilated it to the whole circle of science, and continued his meditations upon his immortal work, which he had projected when in the university. This course of legal and philosophical research was accompanied with such sweetness and affability of deportment, that he gained the affections of the whole society, and the kindness he experienced was not lost upon him. He assisted in their festivities; he beautified their spacious garden, and raised an elegant structure, known for many years after his death, as "The Lord Bacon's Lodg-find in my simple observation, that they which live as it were ings," in which at intervals he resided till his death. When he was only twenty-six years of age, he was promoted to the bench; in his twenty-eighth year he was elected lent reader;3 and the 42d of Elizabeth he was appointed double reader. you had otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand affected) rather to prove your lordship's admonition effectual in my doings hereafter, than causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your lordship's pardon humbly set forth that said motion in such sort as it might breed no asked) it may please you to remember, that I did endeavour to harder effect than a denial. And I protest simply before God, that I sought therein an ease in coming within bars, and not any extraordinary or singular note of favour. And for that your lordship may otherwise have heard of me it shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself; indeed I in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet laborant invidia; I find also that such persons as are of nature bashful, (as myself is,) whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. But once I know well, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to believe, that arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as if I think well of myself in any thing it And I hope upon 1 The admission book at Gray's Inn begins in the year 1580; is in this, that I am free from that vice. but the first four pages have been torn out. Bacon's name, this your lordship's speech, I have entered into those consihowever, appears in the list of members of the society, in the derations, as my behaviour shall no more deliver me for other year 1581: the book abounds with Lord Bacon's autographs. than I am. And so wishing unto your lordship all honour, ? Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of any and to myself continuance of your good opinion, with mind thirst, but of that after knowledge, How fresh and exalted and means to deserve it, I humbly take my leave. a pleasure did David find from his meditation in the divine Your lordship's most bounden nephew, law all the day long it was the theme of his thoughts. The Grey's Inn, affairs of state, the government of his kingdom, might indeed this 6th of May, 1586. employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind. How Rawley, in his life, says, he was, after a while, sworn to short of this are the delights of the epicure! how vastly dis- the queen's counsel learned extraordinary; a grace, if I err proportionate are the pleasures of the eating and of the think-not, scarce known before. "He was counsel learned extraing man! indeed as different as the silence of an Archimedes ordinary to his majesty, as he had been to Queen Elizabeth." in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a sow at her Extract from Biographia Britannica, vol. i. page 373.-He wash.-South. distinguished himself no less in his practice, which was very considerable; and after discharging the office of reader at Gray's Inn, which he did, in 1588, when in the twenty-sixth year of his age, he was become so considerable, that the queen, who never over valued any man's abilities, thought fit to call him to her service in a way which did him very great honour, by appointing him her counsel learned in the law extraordinary: by which, though she contributed abundantly to his reputation, yet she added but very little to his fortune, as indeed in this respect he was never much indebted to her majesty, how much soever he might be in all others. He, in his apology respecting Lord Essex, says, "They sent for us of the learned council." Being returned from travel he applied himself to the study of the common law, which he took upon him to be his profession. Notwithstanding that he professed the law for his livelihood and subsistence. yet his heart and affection was more carried after the affairs and places of state; for which, if the majesty royal then had been pleased, he was most fit. The narrowness of his circumstances obliged him to think of some profession for a subsistence; and he applied himself, more through necessity than choice, to the study of the common law, in which he obtained to great excellence, though he made that (as himself said) but as an accessory, and not his principal study.-Rawley. Dugdale, in his account of Bacon, says, in 30th Elizabeth, Lands. MS. li. art. 5. Orig. FR. BACON. and the pursuit of worldly honours, that, sooner | modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance or later, he might escape into the calm regions of philosophy. At this period the court was divided into two parties at the head of the one were the two Cecils; of the other, the Earl of Leicester, and afterwards his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex. of his father's virtues, he immediately acknowledged his obligation to the queen. This reversion, however, was not of any immediate value; for, not falling into possession till after the lapse of twenty years, he said that "it was like another man's ground buttailing upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barns." To the Cecils Bacon was allied. He was the nephew of Lord Burleigh, and first cousin to Sir Robert Cecil, the principal secretary of state; but, In the parliament which met on February 19, connected as he was to the Cecils by blood, his 1592, and which was chiefly called for consultaaffections were with Essex. Generous, ardent, tion and preparation against the ambitious designs and highly cultivated, with all the romantic en- of the King of Spain, Bacon sat as one of the thusiasm of chivalry, and all the graces and accom-knights for Middlesex. On the 25th of February, plishments of a court, Essex was formed to gain partisans, and attach friends. Attracted by his mind and character, Bacon could have but little sympathy with Burleigh, who thought £100 an extravagant gratuity to the author of the Fairy Queen, which he was pleased to term "an old song," and, probably, deemed the listeners to such songs little better than idle dreamers. There was much grave learning and much pedantry at court, but literature of the lighter sort was regarded with coldness, and philosophy with suspicion: instead, therefore, of uniting himself to the party in power, he not only formed an early friendship himself with Essex, but attached to his service his brother Anthony, who had returned from abroad, with a great reputation for ability and a knowledge of foreign affairs. 1592, he, in his first speech, earnestly recommended the improvement of the law, an improvement which through life he availed himself of every opportunity to encourage, not only by his speeches, but by his works; in which he admonishes lawyers, that although they have a tendency to resist the progress of legal improvement, and are not the best improvers of law, it is their duty to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of their science, productive of such blessings to themselves and to the community; and he submitted to the king that the most sacred trust to sovereign power consisted in the establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world. To assist in the improvement which he recommended, he, in after life, prepared a plan for a This intimacy could not fail to excite the jea-digest and amendment of the whole law, and partilousy of Lord Burleigh; and, in after life, Bacon cularly of the penal law of England, and a tract was himself sensible that he had acted unwisely, upon Universal Justice; the one like a fruitful and that his noble kinsmen had some right to com- shower, profitable and good for the latitude of plain of the readiness with which he and his bro-ground on which it falls, the other like the benether had embraced the views of their powerful fits of heaven, permanent and universal. rival. But, attached as he was to Essex, Bacon In another debate on the 7th of March, Bacon was not so imprudent as to neglect an application forcibly represented, as reasons for deferring for to them whenever opportunity offered to forward six years the payment of the subsidies to which his interests. In a letter written in the year 1591 the house had consented, the distresses of the to Lord Burleigh, in which he says that "thirty-people, the danger of raising public discontent, one years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass,' and the evil of making so bad a precedent against he made another effort to extricate himself from themselves and posterity. With this speech the the slavery of the law, by endeavouring to procure queen was much displeased, and caused her dissome appointment at court; that, "not being a pleasure to be communicated to Bacon both by man born under Sol that loveth honour, nor under the lord treasurer and by the lord keeper. He Jupiter that loveth business, but wholly carried heard them with the calmness of a philosopher, away by the contemplative planet," he might by saying, that "he spoke in discharge of his conthat mean become a true pioneer in the deep mines science and duty to God, to the queen, and to his of truth. To these applications, the Cecils were country; that he well knew the common beaten not entirely inattentive; for, although not influ- road to favour, and the impossibility that he enced by any sympathy for genius, for a specu- who selected a course of life estimate only by lative man indulging himself in philosophical the few,' should be approved by the many." He reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to said this, not in anger, but in the consciousness promote public business," as he was represented of the dignity of his pursuits, and with the full by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, they procured knowledge of the doctrine and consequences both for him the reversion of the Registership of the of concealment and revelation of opinion: of the Star Chamber, worth about £1600 a year, for which, time to speak and the time to be silent. 6 If, after this admonition, he was more cautious in the expression of his sentiments, he did not |