urging, as one of the advantages of the Spanish match, that by the same conjunction there will be erected a tribunal or prætorian power to decide the controversies which may arise amongst the princes and estates of Christendom without effusion of Christian blood.

Part of the retribution visited on Bacon seems to have been a blindness to the distinction between what is great and petty as well as between what is good and bad. Among other infatuations he appears to have conceived a genuine respect, if not admiration, for James I. The King was not quite the contemptible buffoon that he has been popularly supposed to be: but he was not the Solomon that he was supposed by Bacon.1 The truth is, admiration for place and power had dazzled his intellect and confounded his judgment. His sanguine spirit tinged the new reign and his own prospects in it with the same false glow of hopefulness with which it tinged the realm of Science. James was to be a Solomon, Bacon was to be Solomon's chief counsellor and inspirer, and Villiers was the young and rising spirit, who would look up to Bacon as tʊ a father and give the shape of action to the high visions of the philosophic statesman. The impending clouds between King and Commons were to be cleared away by the breezes of wholesome war; the nation was further to be pacified and contented by improved laws and institutions without detriment to the royal prerogative. Scotland was to be colonised, Ireland to be pacified and civilised, the Low Countries to be annexed. Such was Bacon's policy; and had he not been blinded by the close brightness of the throne he might have gone some way to the attainment of it. For the peremptory royalist, who was nevertheless repeatedly selected by the Commons as their representative, and never one hour out of

1 Without flattery I think your Majesty the best of Kings, and my noble Lord of Buckingham the best of persons favoured. Life, Vol. vii. p. 78.

credit with the lower house, had advantages possessed by few for bridging the widening gulf between the Commons and the Crown.' As it was, he did nothing but harm to the royal cause by the 'new doctrine, but now broached,' in which he exaggerated the King's prerogative, and by his attempts to restrict and fetter, as far as in him lay, the independence of the judges.

2

Yet nothing at first could be less courtier-like and more sententiously parental than the tone in which Bacon lectures the young Villiers, just on the threshold of his career as favourite, upon the duties of his new life: It is now time that you should refer your actions chiefly to the good of your sovereign and your country. It is the life of an ox or beast always to eat and never to exercise; but men are born (and especially Christian men) not to cram in their fortunes, but to exercise their virtues. Above all, depend wholly (next to God) upon the King; and be ruled (as hitherto you have been) by his instructions, for that is best for yourself. But all this is mere waste paper, the romantic effusion of a dreamer, whose understanding is made by his will, and who has brought himself to this, that he can believe whatever is pleasant to believe. Compare the advice given the same year-By no means be you persuaded to interfere yourself by word or letters in any cause depending, or like to be depending, in any court of justice-with the actual practice of Buckingham and Bacon, the former continually recommending, and the latter (without one remonstrance on record) acknowledging recommendations of parties engaged in causes depending or like to be depending. It is not in the least

1 Life, Vol. vi. p. 134. But Mr. Gardiner (History of England from the Accession of James I. &c., Vol. i. p. 181) is probably nearer the truth in saying, 'If James had been other than he was, the name of Bacon would have come down to us as great in politics as it is in science.' James being what he was, nothing could be done.

surprising that Bacon failed to acquire the influence he sought over the royal favourite. The two men moved in different worlds; and Bacon was weighted, not only by his suppleness, his too easy temper, and his excessive desire to please, but also by the very force and height of his intellect. All the dreams of the study vanished when the philosopher entered the royal presence and was confronted with the practical needs of the moment, the intimidation of the judges, the disgracing of Coke, the upholding of benevolences and monopolies, and of the royal prerogative generally. Instead of Bacon's lifting up James to the heights of the philosophic world, James drew Bacon down to the royal world. But to work in that grosser atmosphere at those degenerate arts and shifts, which Bacon was wont to call fiddling, the author of the Instauratio Magna was not by nature fitted. The difference between him and Buckingham was so vast that one of two things was inevitable: either Buckingham must dictate to Bacon, or Bacon to Buckingham; for a natural consent of thought between the two was out of the question. Naturally, Bacon thought himself best qualified to dictate, and at first he did so. But when the parental tone had been bitterly resented by Buckingham and reproved by the King, it might have been supposed that Bacon's eyes would have been opened to his own insignificance and nothingness in all affairs of State, and that he might have perceived the worthlessness of office held under such conditions.

But it was not so. Mammon, it would seem, had 'been in his heart, deposed his intellect.' Beyond an occasional hint of vexation at the King's pacific policy we have no traces of irritation, no evidence that Bacon resented the King's misappreciation. The fact is, he had by this time so broken himself to the task of studying the humours of great people as the stepping-stone to

higher objects, that he had drifted into the habit of acting as though he believed that such an obsequious parody of statesmanship was a fit goal for a great man's life. We have read above, Bacon's ironical description of the ideal Statesman of Selfishness, written in the days of his earlier and purer manhood, how he is to make himself cunning rather in the humours and drifts of persons than in the nature of business and affairs. And ever rather let him take the side which is likeliest to be followed than that which is soundest and best. And this is what Bacon had brought himself to do and to do naturally. It is precisely what he deliberately sets down in his Diary above: At council table chiefly to make good my Lord of Salisbury's motions and speeches, and for the rest sometimes one, sometimes another; chiefly his that is most earnest and in affection. When a nature so sanguine, so colossal in its plans and hopes, so indifferent to details, so dispassionately careless of individual interests, and so wholly devoted to a mere intellectual object, once begins to deviate from the path of conventional morality, it is not easy to predict where the deviations will end. Bacon began, no doubt, by determining not to be influenced on the bench by any recommendations of parties engaged in cases pending, except so far as he might show them some personal attention not affecting his legal decisions. But he must have known that this was seldom possible, and even where possible, it was not what was meant by the recommender. Little by little he extends his personal attentions, till at last he ventured in one case, that of Dr. Steward, to reverse his own just decision by a subsequent unjust decision, in which to the injustice of the judgment was added irregularity of procedure.1

1 See Life, Vol. vii. p. 585 where Mr. Heath emphatically decides against Bacon. But I understand from Mr. Spedding that he demurs to this decision on the ground that 'modern Chancery lawyers know the modern rules of proceeding. . . . but I have no reason to think that they know what was

And in the same way, as regards the habit of receiving presents, there is no sufficient reason to doubt that he began by determining to receive none except from parties whose cases had been decided; but here again his indifference to detail, his habit of taking for granted the most favourable aspect of things, and perhaps his gradually increasing sense of the power of money, all combine to make him believe, against belief, in the probity of servants who were taking bribes before his eyes. To quote one example, a valuable cabinet is brought to his house. I said to him that brought it, that I came to view it, and not to receive it; and gave commandment that it should be carried back, and was offended when I heard it was not. A year and a half afterwards the cabinet is still in his possession, claimed by a creditor of the donor, and by the donor's request Bacon retains it, and is retaining it at the time when he is accused of corruption. Now, in many men such conduct would be undoubtedly and rightly considered a proof of dishonesty and it is very easy to ridicule in an epigram any attempt to maintain that what in common men would have been dishonesty was not dishonesty in Bacon. But take all Bacon's antecedents into account, and it will not seem so ridiculous that he may have been honest; add also the clumsiness of such dishonesty, if it had really been dishonest, and Bacon's honesty may seem by no means improbable consider, lastly, Bacon's utter and evident ignorance of any danger from charges about to be the practice in James I.'s time, or what were the limits of the discretionary power reserved by a Lord Chancellor for exceptional cases. It is true that Mr. Heath quotes Bacon's own rules. But if they were rules made by himself, I do not know that they were binding for better or worse. When I lay down a rule for myself in dealing with my neighbours, if I find that on some occasion a rigorous adherence to it will cause mischief, I release myself from the obligation. So it may have been with Bacon in this case for anything I know.' Many admirers of Bacon will wish they could be satisfied with this argument.