. of his conduct, in the form of a letter to the Earl of Devon. This tract seems to us to prove only the exceeding badness of a cause for which such talents could do so little. acceptable where his spirit was odious, and he pounds a year; and a pension of sixty pounds It is not probable that Bacon's defence had much effect on his contemporaries. But the unfavourable impression which his conduct nad made appears to have been gradually effaced. Indeed, it must be some very peculiar cause that can make a man like him long unpopular. His talents secured him from contempt, his temper and his manners from hatred. There is scarcely any story so black that it may not be got over by a man of great abilities, whose abilities are united with caution, good-humour, patience, and affability, who pays daily sacrifice to Nemesis, who is a delightful companion, a serviceable though not an ardent friend, and a dangerous yet a placa-appointed king's council, with a fee of forty ble enemy. Waller in the next generation was an eminent instance of this. Indeed, Waller had much more than may at first sight appear in common with Bacon. To the higher intellectual qualities of the great English philosopher-to the genius which has made an immortal epoch in the history of science--Waller had indeed no pretensions. But the mind of Waller, as far as it extended, coincided with that of Bacon, and might, so to speak, have been cut out of that of Bacon. In the qualities which make a man an object of interest and veneration to posterity, there was no compari-judges-a decision the legality of which may son between them. But in the qualities by be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which which chiefly a man is known to his contem- must be acknowledged--was in a great mea poraries, there was a striking similarity. Con- sure attributed to his dexterous management. sidered as men of the world, as courtiers, as While actively engaged in the House of Compoliticians, as associates, as allies, as enemies, mons and in the courts of law, he still found they have nearly the same merits and the same leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble defects. They were not malignant. They were treatise on the "Advancement of Learning," not tyrannical. But they wanted warmth of which at a later period was expanded into the affectior and elevation of sentiment. There De Augmentis, appeared in 1605. The "Wiswere many things which they loved better than dom of the Ancients," a work which, if it had virtue, and which they feared more than guilt. proceeded from any other writer, would have Yet after they had stooped to acts of which it been considered as a masterpiece of wit and is impossible to read the account in the most learning, but which adds little to the fame of partial narratives without strong disapproba- Bacon, was printed in 1609. In the n.ean time tion and contempt, the public still continued to the Novum Organum was slowly proceeding. regard them with a feeling not easily to be dis- Several distinguished men of learning had been tinguished from esteem. The hyperbole of permitted to see sketches or detached portions Juliet seemed to be verified with respect to of that extraordinary book; and though they them. Upon their brows shame was ashamed were not generally disposed to admit the soundto sit." Everybody seemed as desirous to ness of the author's views, they spoke with the throw a veil over their misconduct as if it had greatest admiration of his genius. Sir Thomas been his own. Clarendon, who felt, and who Bodley, the founder of the most magnificent of had reason to feel, strong personal dislike to- English libraries, was among those stubborn wards Waller, speaks of him thus: "There conservatives who considered the hopes with needs no more be said to extol the excellence which Bacon looked forward to the future desand power of his wit and pleasantness of his tinies of the human race as utterly chimerical; conversation, than that it was of magnitude and who regarded with distrust and aversion enough to cover a world of very great faults--the innovating spirit of the new schismatics that is, so to cover them that they were not in philosophy. Yet even Bodley, after perusing taken notice of to his reproach-namely, a the Cogitata et Visa, one of the most precious. narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree of those scattered leaves out of which the great -an abjectness and want of courage to sup- oracular volume was afterwards made up, a Dort him in any virtuous undertaking-an in- knowledged that in "those very points, and in sinuation and servile flattery to the height the all proposals and plots in that book, Bacou vainest and most imperious nature could be showed himself a master workman;" and that contented with....... It had power to re-it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise concile him to those whom he had most offended and provoked, and continued to his age with that rare felicity, that his company was VOL. II.--33 over did abound with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and with worthy con templations of the means to procure it." la T 2 1612, a new edition of the "Essays" appeared, with additions surpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality. Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work the most arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty powers could have achieved, "the reducing and recompiling," to use his own phrase, "of the laws of England." followed the example of his brethren. But in order to convict Peacham it was necessary to find facts as well as law. Accordingly, this wretched old man was put to the rack; and, while undergoing the horrible infliction, was examined by Bacon, but in vain. No confession could be wrung out of him; and Bacon wrote to the king, complaining that Peacham had a dumb devil. At length the trial came on. A conviction was obtained: but the charges were so obviously futile that the government could not for very shame carry the sentence into execution; and Peacham was suffered to languish away the short remainder of his life in a prison. Unhappily he was at that very time employed in perverting those laws to the vilest purposes of tyranny. When Oliver St. John was brought before the Star-Chamber for maintaining that the king had no right to levy benevolences, and was for his manly and constitutional conduct sentenced to imprisonment All this frightful story Mr. Montagu relates during the royal pleasure, and to a fine of five fairly. He neither conceals nor distorts any thousand pounds, Bacon appeared as counsel material fact. But he can see nothing deserv for the prosecution. About the same time he ing of condemnation in Bacon's conduct. He was deeply engaged in a still more disgrace- tells us most truly that we ought not to try the ful transaction. An aged clergyman, of the men of one age by the standard of another; name of Peacham, was accused of treason on that Sir Matthew Hale is not to be pronounced account of some passages of a sermon which a bad man because he left a woman to be exwas found in his study. The sermon, whether ecuted for witchcraft; that posterity will not written by him or not, had never been preach- be justified in censuring judges of our time for ed. It did not appear that he had any inten- selling offices in their courts, according to the tion of preaching it. The most servile lawyers established practice, bad as that practice was, of those servile times were forced to admit and that Bacon is entitled to similar indulthat there were great difficulties, both as to the gence. "To persecute the lover of truth," facts and as to the law. Bacon was employed says Mr. Montagu, "for opposing established to remove those difficulties. He was employed customs, and to censure him in after ages for to settle the question of law by tampering with not having been more strenuous in opposition, the judges, and the question of fact by tor-are errors which will never cease until ne turing the prisoner. Three judges of the pleasure of self-elevation from the depression Court of King's Bench were tractable. But of superiority is no more." Coke was made of different stuff. Pedant, We have no dispute with Mr. Montagu about bigot, and savage as he was, he had qualities which bore a strong, though a very disagreeable resemblance to some of the highest virtues which a public man can possess. He was an exception to a maxim which we believe to be generally true, that those who trample on the helpless are disposed to cringe to the powerful. He behaved with gross rudeness to his juniors at the bar, and with execrable cruelty to prisoners on trial for their lives. But he stood up manfully against the king and the king's favourites. No man of that age appeared to so little advantage when he was opposed to an inferior, and was in the wrong. But, on the other hand, it is but fair to admit that no man of that age made so creditable a figure when he was opposed to a superior, and happened to be in the right. On such occasion, his half-suppressed insolence and his impracticable obstinacy had a respectable and interesting appearance, when compared with the abject servility of the bar and of the bench. On the present occasion he was stubborn and surly. He declared it was a new and highly improper practice in the judges to confer with a law officer of the crown about capital cases which they were afterwards to try; and for some time he resolutely kept aloof. But Bacon was equally artful and persevering. "I am not wholly out of hope," said he, in a letter to the king, "that my Lord Coke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him in doubt that he shall be left alone, will not be singular." After some time Bacon's dexterity was successful; and Coke, sullenly and reluctantly, the general proposition. We assent to every word of it. But does it apply to the present case? Is it true that in the time of James the First it was the established practice for the law-officers of the crown to hold private consultations with the judges, touching capital cases which those judges were afterwards to try? Certainly not. In the very page in which Mr. Montagu asserts that "the influenc ing a judge out of court seems at that period scarcely to have been considered as improper," he gives the very words of Sir Edward Coke on the subject. "I will not thus declare what may be my judgment by these auricular confessions of new and pernicious tendency, and not according to the customs of the realm.” İs it possible to imagine that Coke, who had himself been Attorney-General during thirteen years, who had conducted a far greater num ber of important state-prosecutions than any other lawyer named in English history, and who had passed with scarcely any interval from the Attorney-Generalship to the first seat in the first criminal court in the realm, could have been startled at an invitation to confer with the crown-lawyers, and could have pronounced the practice new, if it had really been an established usage? We well know that where property only was at stake, it was ther a common, though a most culpable practice, in the judges to listen to private solicitation. But the practice of tampering with judges in order to procure capital convictions, we believe to have been new; first, because Coke, who un derstood those matters better than any man of his time, asserted it to be new; and, secondly, in a practice which, a few years later, no because neither Bacon nor Mr. Montagu has sycophant in all the Inns of Court had the shown a single precedent. heart or the forehead to defend. How, then, stands the case? Even thus: Bacon was not conforming to a usage then generally admitted to be proper. He was not even the last lingering adherent of an old abuse. It would have been sufficiently disgraceful to such a man to be in this last situaion. Yet this last situation would have been honourable compared with that in which he stood. He was guilty of attempting to introduce into the courts of law an odious abuse for which no precedent could be found. Intellectually, he was better fitted than any man that England has ever produced for the work of improving her institutions. But, unhappily, we see that he did not scruple to exert his great powers for the purpose of introducing into those institutions new corruptions of the foulest kind. Bacon far behind his age! Bacon far be hind Sir Edward Coke! Bacon clinging to exploded abuses! Bacon withstanding the progress of improvement! Bacon struggling to push back the human mind! The words seems strange. They sound like a contradiction in terms. Yet the fact is even so: and the explanation may be readily found by any person who is not blinded by prejudice. Mr. Montagu cannot believe that so extraordinary a man as Bacon could be guilty of a bad action; as if history were not made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men; as if all the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions, had not been extraordinary men; as if nine-tenths of the calamities which had befallen the human race had any other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires. The same, or nearly the same, may be said of the torturing of Peacham. If it be true that in the time of James the First the propriety of Bacon knew this well. He has told us that torturing prisoners was generally allowed, we there are persons, "scientia tanquam angeli should admit this as an excuse, though we alati, cupiditatibus vero tanquam serpentes qui should admit it less readily in the case of such humi reptant;"* and it did not require his ada man as Bacon, than in the case of an ordina- mirable sagacity and his extensive converse ry lawyer or politician. But the fact is, that with mankind to make the discovery. Indeed, the practice of torturing prisoners was then he had only to look within. The difference generally acknowledged by lawyers to be ille- between the soaring angel, and the creeping gal, and was execrated by the public as bar- snake, was but a type of the difference between barous. More than thirty years before Peach- Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the Attorneyam's trial that practice was so loudly con- General-Bacon seeking for Truth, and Bacon demned by the voice of the nation, that Lord seeking for the Seals. Those who survey only Burleigh found it necessary to publish an one-half of his character may speak of him apology for naving occasionally resorted to with unmixed admiration or with unmixed it. But though the dangers which then contempt. But those only judge of him corthreatened the government were of a very rectly, who take in at one view Bacon in specu different kind from those which were to be ap-lation and Bacon in action. They will have prehended from any thing that Peacham could write; though the life of the queen and the dearest interests of the state were in jeopardy, though the circumstances were such that all ordinary laws might seem to be superseded by that highest law, the public safety, the apology did not satisfy the country; and the queen found it expedient to issue an order positively forbidding the torturing of state prisoners on any pretence whatever. From that time, the practice of torturing, which had always been unpopular, which had always been illegal, had also been unusual. It is well known that in 1628, only fourteen years after the time when Bacon went to the Tower to listen to the yells of Peacham, the judges decided that Felton, a criminal who neither deserved nor was likely to obtain any extraordinary indulgence, could not lawfully be put to the question. We therefore say that Bacon stands in a very different situation from that in which Mr. Montagu tries to place him. Bacon was here distinctly behind his age. He was one of the last of the tools of power who persisted in a prac-fice of integrity and honour. To be the leader tice the most barbarous and the most absurd that has ever disgraced jurisprudence-in a practice of which, in the preceding generation, Elizabeth and her ministers had been ashamed This paper is contained in the Harleian Miscellany. It is dated 1583. no difficulty in comprehending how one and of the human race in the career of improve- * De Augmentis, Tib. v. can !. the benefactors of mankind,-all this was within his reach. But all this availed him nothing while some quibbling special pleader was promoted before him to the bench; while some heavy country gentleman took precedence of him by virtue of a purchased coronet; while some pander, happy in a fair wife, could obtain a more cordial salute from Buckingham; while some buffoon, versed in all the latest scandal of the court, could draw a louder laugh from James. During a long course of years, his unworthy ambition was crowned with success. His sagacity early enabled him to perceive who was likely to become the most powerful man in the kingdom. He probably knew the king's mind before it was known to the king himself, and attached himself to Villiers, while the less discerning crowd of courtiers still continued to fawn on Somerset. The influence of the younger favourite became greater daily. The contest between the rivals might, however, have lasted long, but for that frightful crime which, in spite of all that could be effected by the research and ingenuity of historians, is still covered with so mysterious an obscurity. The descent of Somerset had been a gradual and almost imperceptible lapse. It now became a headlong fall; and Villiers, left without a competitor, rapidly rose to a height of power such as no subject since Wolsey had attained. There were many points of resemblance between the two celebrated courtiers who, at different times, extended their patronage to Bacon. It is difficult to say whether Essex or Villiers was the more eminently distinguished by those graces of person and manner which have always been rated in courts at much more than their real value. Both were constitutionally brave: and both, like most men who are constitutionally brave, were open and unreserved. Both were rash and headstrong. Both were destitute of the abilities and the information which are necessary to statesmen. Yet both, rusting to the accomplishments which had made them conspicuous in tilt-yards and ballrooms, aspired to rule the state. Both owed their elevation to the personal attachment of the sovereign; and in both cases this attachment was of so eccentric a kind, that it perplexed observers, that it still continues to perplex historians, and that it gave rise to much scandal which we are inclined to think unfounded. Each of them treated the sovereign whose favour he enjoyed, with a rudeness which approached to insolence. This petulance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as proud as his own, and accustomed, during nearly half a century, to the most respectful observance. But there was a wide difference between the haughty daughter of Henry and her successor. James was timid from the cradle. His nerves, naturally weak, had not been fortified by reflection or by habit. His life, till he came to England, had been a series of mortifications and humiliations. With all his high notions of the origin and extent of his prerogatives, he was never his own master for a day. In spite of his kingly title, in spite of his despotic theories, he was to the last a slave at heart. Villiers treated him like one; and this course, though adopted, we believe, merely from temper, succeeded as well as if it had been a system of policy formed after mature deliberation. In generosity, in sensibility, in capacity for friendship, Essex far surpassed Buckingham Indeed, Buckingham can scarcely be said to have had any friend, with the exception of the two princes, over whom successively he exer. cised so wonderful an influence. Essex was to the last adored by the people. Buckingham was always a most unpopular man; except perhaps for a very short time after his return from the childish visit to Spain. Essex fell a victim to the rigour of the government amidst the lamentations of the people. Buckingham, execrated by the people, and solemnly declared a public enemy by the representatives of the people, fell by the hand of one of the people, and was lamented by none but his master. The way in which the two favourites acted towards Bacon was highly characteristic, and may serve to illustrate the old and true saying, that a man is generally more inclined to feel kindly towards one on whom he has conferred favours, than towards one from whom he has received them. Essex loaded Bacon with benefits, and never thought that he had done enough. It never seems to have crossed the mind of the powerful and mighty noble, that the poor barrister whom he treated with such munificent kindness was not his equal. It was, we have no doubt, with perfect sincerity that he declared, that he would willingly give his sister or daughter in marriage to his friend. He was in general more than sufficiently sen sible of his own merits; but he did not seem to know that he had ever deserved well of Bacon. On that cruel day when they saw each other for the last time at the bar of the Lords, the earl taxed his perfidious friend with unkindness and insincerity, but never with ingratitude. Even in such a moment, more bitter than the bitterness of death, that noble heart was too great to vent itself in such a reproach. Villiers, on the other hand, owed much to Bacon. When their acquaintance began, Sir Francis was a man of mature age, of high station, and of established fame as a politician, an advocate, and a writer. Villiers was little more than a boy, a younger son of a house then of no great note. He was but just entering on the career of court-favour; and none but the most discerning observers could as yet perceive that he was likely to distance all his competitors. The countenance and advice of a man so highly distinguished as the AttorneyGeneral must have been an object of the highest importance to the young adventurer. But though Villiers was the obliged party, he was less warmly attached to Bacon, and far less delicate in his conduct towards him, than Essex had been. To do the new favourite justice, he eary exerted his influence in behalf of his illus trious friend. In 1616, Sir Francis was swor of the Privy Council; and in March, 1617, on the retirement of Lord Brackley, was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal. On the 7th of May, the first day term, he rode in state to Westminster Hall, with the | when his public duty demanded his interpo Lord Treasurer on his right hand, the Lord sition." Does Mr. Montagu consider patents Privy Seal on his left, a long procession of students and ushers before him, and a crowd of peers, privy-councillors, and judges following in his train. Having entered his court, he addressed the splendid auditory in a grave and dignified speech, which proves how well he understood those judicial duties which he afterwards performed so ill. Even at that moment, the proudest moment of his life in the estimation of the vulgar, and, it may be, even in his own, he cast back a look of lingering affection towards those noble pursuits from which, as it seemed, he was about to be estranged. "The depth of the three long vacations," said he, “I would reserve in some measure free from business of estate, and for studies, arts, and sciences, to which of my own nature I am most inclined." of monopoly as good things? or does he mean to say that Bacon stayed every patent of mono poly that came before him? Of all the patents in our history, the most disgraceful was that which was granted to Sir Giles Mompesson, supposed to be the original of Massinger's "Overreach," and to Sir Francis Michell, from whom "Justice Greedy" is supposed to have been drawn, for the exclusive manufacturing of gold and silver lace. The effect of this monopoly was of course that the metal employed in the manufacture was adulterated, to the great loss of the public. But this was a trifle. The patentees were armed with power as great as have ever been given to farmers of th revenue in the worst governed countries. They were authorized to search houses and to arrest interlopers; and these formidable The years during which Bacon held the powers were used for purposes viler than even great seal were among the darkest and most those for which they were given-for the shameful in English history. Every thing at wreaking of old grudges, and for the corrupthome and abroad was mismanaged. First ing of female chastity. Was not this a case came the execution of Raleigh, an act which, in which public duty demanded the interposiif done in a proper manner, might have been tion of the Lord Keeper? And did the Lord defensible, but which, under all the circum- Keeper interpose? He did. He wrote to instances, must be considered as a dastardly form the king, that he "had considered of the murder. Worse was behind-the war of Bo- fitness and conveniency of the gold and silver hemia, the successes of Tilly and Spinola, the thread business," "that it was convenient that Palatinate conquered, the king's son-in-law an it should be settled," that he "did conceive exile, the house of Austria dominant on the apparent likelihood that it would redound much continent, the Protestant religion and the li- to his majesty's profit," that, therefore, "it were berties of the Germanic body trodden under good it were settled with all convenient speed." foot. In the mean time, the wavering and The meaning of all this was, that certain of cowardly policy of England furnished matter the house of Villiers were to go shares with of ridicule to all the nations of Europe. The "Overreach” and “Greedy” in the plunder of love of peace which James professed would, the public. This was the way in which, when even when indulged to an impolitic excess, the favourite pressed for patents, lucrative to have been respectable, if it had proceeded from his relations and to his creatures, ruinous and tenderness for his people. But the truth is, vexatious to the body of the people, the chief that, while he had nothing to spare for the de- guardian of the laws interposed. Having asfence of the natural allies of England, he re- sisted the patentees to obtain this monopoly, sorted without scruple to the most illegal and Bacon assisted them also in the steps which oppressive devices for the purpose of enabling they took for the purpose of guarding it. He Buckingham and Buckingham's relations to committed several people to close confinement outshine the ancient aristocracy of the realm. for disobeying his tyrannical edict. It is needBenevolences were exacted. Patents of mono- less to say more. Our readers are now able to poly were multiplied. All the resources which judge whether, in the matter of patents, Bacon could have been employed to replenish a beg-acted conformably to his professions, or degared exchequer, at the close of a ruinous served the praise which his biographer has. war, were put in motion during this season of bestowed on him. ignominious peace. The vices of the administration must be chiefly ascribed to the weakness of the king and to the levity and violence of the favourite. But it is impossible to acquit the Lord Keeper. For those odious patents, in particular, which passed the great seal while it was in his charge, he must be held answerable. In the speech which he made on first taking his seat in his court, he had pledged himself to discharge this important part of his functions with the greatest caution and impartiality. He had declared that he “would walk in the light,” | "that men should see that no particular turn or end led him, but a general rule;" and Mr. Montagu would have us believe that Bacon acted up to these professions. He says that "the power of the favourite did not deter the Lord Keeper from staying grants and patents, In his judicial capacity his conduct was not less reprehensible. He suffered Buckingham to dictate many of his decisions. Bacon knew as well as any man, that a judge who listens to private solicitations is a disgrace to his post. He had himself, before he was raised to the woolsack, represented this strongly to Villiers, then just entering on his career. "By no means," said Sir Francis, in a letter of advice addressed to the young courtier, "by no means be you persuaded to interpose yourself,. either by word or letter, in any cause depending in any court of justice, or suffer any great man to do it where you can hinder it. If it should prevail, it perverts justice; but, if the judge be so just and of such courage, as he ought to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of suspicion behinu ft." Yet he had not been Lord Keeper a month |