at College was to roughly sketch some new scheme of philosophical study because of his contempt for the prevailing one. In his sixteenth year he went to Paris, and resided there under the charge of the English Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. While there he made the best of his time and opportunities and gathered a vast quantity of facts useful to an English statesman, which soon appeared in his tract upon the State of Europe, published before his nineteenth year.

The almost sudden death of his father in February, 1580, interrupted these studies and occasioned his return to England. Sir Nicholas left but a scanty fortune, so his son Francis, the youngest of a large family, found himself obliged in his twentieth year to earn his own livelihood. Thinking he might obtain some office under Government which would enable him to unite in some measure literary study and political activity, he applied for an appointment. The application proved unsuccessful, for though his claims were great, his uncle, the Prime Minister, was opposed to his wishes; the probable reason for such opposition being that "he had sons of his own to whom an accomplished cousin might have proved a dangerous rival." Bacon now turned himself to the study of the law, was admitted at Gray's Inn, where he spent several years in the study of his profession, and soon became one of the most successful lawyers of his time.

In 1590, he received the first mark of Court favour, being appointed Queen's Counsel extraordinary, a preferment, however, which brought him rather honour than profit. In 1593 he sat as M.P. for the county of Middlesex, and soon became distinguished for his judg ment and eloquence. Ben Jonson says of him, “No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered, no mention of his speech but what consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his devotion.

The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." It is very distressing to find that before long he became as distinguished for his moral weakness and servility as he had been for his judgment and eloquence. He delivered an address in

which he "resisted with exceeding boldness as well as force of reason the immediate levying of an unpopular subsidy to which the House had already consented." "The Queen and her minister," says Macaulay, "resented this outbreak of public spirit in the highest manner. The young patriot condescended to make the most abject apologies. He adjured the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to his poor servant and ally. He bemoaned himself to the Lord Keeper in a letter which may keep in countenance the most unmanly of the epistles which Cicero wrote during his banishment. The lesson was not thrown away. Bacon never offended in the same manner again."

In 1594, the office of Attorney General having become vacant, Bacon sought to obtain it. The Earl of Essex, to whose party Bacon had attached himself, and who had become Bacon's staunch friend, seconded his endeavours, and to use his own words, "spent all his power, might, authority, and amity to secure the office for him." Their efforts proved fruitless, as also their subsequent endeavours to secure the Solicitor Generalship. Essex consoled both himself and Bacon by the gift of an estate near Twickenham, worth in our money some £12,000. The gift was bestowed as Bacon owned many years after "with so kind and noble circumstances as the manner was worth more than the matter." It would appear that the gift was most opportune, for Bacon was already involved in those pecuniary embarrassments from which he was never afterwards completely able to extricate himself."

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In 1597 a small volume of his Essays appeared, which became exceedingly popular.

In 1598, he proposed marriage to Lady Hatton, the wealthy widow of Sir W. Hatton. Though Essex pleaded his friend's cause with much warmth, "the suit," says Macaulay, "happily for Bacon was unsuccessful. The lady indeed was kind to him in more ways than one. She rejected him and accepted his enemy. married that narrow-minded bad-hearted pedant, Sir Edward Coke, and did her best to make him as miserable as he deserved to be."

She

Meanwhile the fortunes of the Earl of Essex having reached their zenith, began now to decline. Bacon showed his friendship for the Earl by doing all in his

power to dissuade him from the career of opposition which at last brought him to the block, and when failure and disgrace overtook him, attempted to mediate between his friend and the Queen. When, however, Bacon

found that while he was trying to prop the fortunes of another he was in danger of shaking his own, "that he must side either with the Queen against the Earl, or with the Earl against the Queen, which latter course would be the almost certain ruin of his worldly prospects, he chose the former alternative, and not only left the Earl to his fate, but even appeared as counsel for the prosecution. And more than this the conviction and execution of Essex made the Queen unpopular, and a vindication of the royal policy was deemed expedient. "The faithless friend," says Macaulay, "who had assisted in taking the Earl's life, was now employed to murder the Earl's fame." Accordingly, a declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, Earl of Essex, appeared printed by authority. This declaration "abounds in expressions which no generous enemy would have employed respecting a man who had so dearly expiated his offences." Bacon's only excuse for this performance was "that he wrote it by command, that he considered himself as a mere secretary, that he had particular instructions as to the way in which he must treat every part of his subject, and that in fact he had furnished only the arrangement and the style."

Upon the accession of James, Bacon's prospects began to improve. He was desirous of being knighted, and that for two reasons. He found himself the only untitled person in his mess at Gray's Inn, and "he was disconcerted by the titles of his companions beside whom he sat untitled." At the same time he had, in his own words, "found out an Alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden to his liking." Accordingly he wrote to his cousin Cecil to use his interest in his behalf; the request was granted, and on the day of the coronation Bacon was one of those who received the empty honour. Soon afterwards, being forty-two years of age, he was married to the handsome maiden, a daughter of Alderman Barnham, who brought him a considerable fortune, but seems, in the latter part of his life at all events, to have contributed little to his domestic happiness.

In 1604, Bacon was made King's Counsel, with a salary of £40 a year, and a pension of £60 a year was settled upon him.

In 1605, his treatise on the Advancement of Learning appeared, which raised him much in the Royal favour. In 1607 he was appointed Solicitor General, and in 1612 he became Attorney General. As Attorney General his conduct in the noted trial of the Earl and Countess of Somerset and their accomplices for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury gained him great and deserved credit. In 1616, he was called to the Privy Council, and in the Spring of 1617, became Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In January, 1618, the goal of his ambition was reached. He was made Lord High Chancellor of England. In July of the same year, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam.' His higher title of Viscount Saint Albans was not conferred on him till 1621.

Bacon was now to all most enviable of mortals. dignity at York House. him as one

outward appearance one of the In London he lived with great Ben Jonson had just sung of

"Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool!"

and the publication in October, 1620, of his great work the "Novum Organum," had gained for him a fame throughout the whole of Europe. In the midst of all this prosperity came the sudden and terrible reverse. "The years," says a historian, "during which Bacon held the Chancellorship were the most disgraceful years of a disgraceful reign. They saw the execution of Raleigh, the sacrifice of the Palatinate, the exaction of benevolences, the multiplication of monopolies, and the supremacy of Buckingham. Against none of the acts of folly and wickedness which distinguished James's government did Bacon do more than protest; in some of the worst, and above all in the attempt to coerce the judges into prostrating law at the King's feet he took a personal part." But even his remonstrances were too much for Buckingham, who resolved to avert from himself the storm which was gathering by sacrificing his meaner dependants. Accordingly, we find that one of the first acts of the Great Parliament of 1620, which met after a silence of six disgraceful years, was to charge Bacon

with corruption in the exercise of his office. To this charge he pleaded guilty. "I do plainly and ingenuously confess," he wrote "that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence," and, he added, "I beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." Most keenly did he feel his position. "His remorse and dejection of mind were dreadful. During several days he remained in his bed, refusing to see any human being. He passionately told his attendants to leave him-to forget him-never again to mention his namenever to remember that there had been such a man in the world." He was sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was declared incapable of holding any office in the State, or of sitting in Parliament, and prohibited from coming within the verge of the Court. The sentence was not carried into execution. Though committed to the Tower, at the close of the second day he was released. Before the year was out, the Crown remitted the fine. He was soon permitted to present himself at Court, and in 1624 the remainder of his sentence was remitted. Though now at liberty to resume his seat in the House of Lords, and actually summoned to the next Parliament, his age, infirmity, and perhaps shame prevented him from again attending.

Retiring to his paternal estate at Gorhambury, near St. Albans, he devoted the remainder of his days to literature. His intellectual powers still continued unimpaired. "Impeached, convicted, sentenced, driven with ignominy from the presence of his Sovereign, shut out from the deliberations of his fellow nobles, loaded with debt, branded with dishonour, sinking under the weight of years, sorrows and diseases, Bacon was Bacon still. 'My conceipt of his person," says Ben Jonson, never increased towards him by his place or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to be ever by his work one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want."

was

During the last five years of his life, he commenced a "Digest of the Laws of England," a History of England under the Princes of the House of Tudor," a