so that it creeps circumspectly along the path of thought, and runs no risk of flickering, ignis fatuus like, in all directions but the right. Then many a day will be spent in teaching you that one, two, three, is necessary for that which formerly you hit off at a blow as easily as eating and drinking. It is with the fabric of thought as with a weaver's masterpiece, where one treadle moves a thousand threads, the shuttles shoot backwards and forwards, the threads flow unseen; ties by thousands are struck off at a blow. Your philosopher-he steps in and proves to you it must have been so; the first would be so, the second so, and therefore the third and fourth so; and if the first and second were not, the third and fourth would never be. The students of all countries put a high value on this, but none have turned weavers. He who wishes to know and describe anything living seeks first to drive the spirit out of it; he has then the parts in his hand, only unluckily the spiritual bond is wanting. Chemistry terms it encheiresis naturæ, and mocks herself without knowing it. Student, I cannot quite comprehend you.Mephist., You will soon improve in that respect, if you learn to reduce and classify all things properly.-Student, I am so confounded by all this, I feel as if a mill-wheel was turning round in my head.-Mephist., In the next place, before anything else, you must set to at metaphysics. There, see that you conceive profoundly what is not made for human brains. A fine word will stand you in stead for what enters and what does not enter there. Generally speaking, stick to words; you will then pass by the safe gate into the temple of certainty.Student, But there must be some meaning connected with the word.-Mephist., Right; only we must not be too anxious about that; for it is precisely where meaning fails that a word comes in most opportunely.-Goethe's Faust.

A GOOD WIFE.-May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, not always prattling nonsense! May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so! A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune; neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an even, cheerful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and from their infancy train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you are engaged in you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, her voice will soothe you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will waste with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful. Such was doubtless the wife of Orpheus; for who would have undergone what he did to have recovered a foolish bride? Such was the daughter of Ovid, who was his rival in poetry. Such was Tullia, as she is celebrated by the most learned and most fond of fathers. And such was the mother of the two Gracchi, who is no less famous for having been their instructor than their parent.-Sir Thomas More.

Poetry.

FIRST GRIEF.

THEY tell me, first and early love
Outlives all after dreams;

But the memory of a first great grief
To me more lasting seems:

The grief that marks our dawning youth

To memory ever clings,

And o'er the path of future years
A lengthened shadow flings.

Oh! oft my mind recalls the hour
When to my father's home
Death came, an uninvited guest,
From his dwelling in the tomb!
I had not seen his face before,
I shudder'd at the sight,
And I shudder still to think upon
The anguish of that night!

A youthful brow and ruddy cheek
Became all cold and wan:

An eye grew dim in which the light
Of radiant fancy shone:
Cold was the cheek, and cold the brow,
The eye was fixed and dim;
And one there mourn'd a brother dead
Who would have died for him.

I know not if 'twas summer then,
I know not if 'twas spring;
But, if the birds sang on the trees,
I did not hear them sing:
If flowers came forth to deck the earth,
Their bloom I did not see;

I looked upon one wither'd flower,
And none else bloom'd for me.

A sad and silent time it was
Within that house of wo,

All eyes were dull and overcast,

And every voice was low;
And from each cheek, at intervals,
The blood appear'd to start,
As if recall'd, in sudden haste,
To aid the sinking heart!

Softly we trode, as if afraid

To mar the sleeper's sleep,
And stole last looks of his pale face
For memory to keep.
With him the agony was o'er,

And now the pain was ours,
As thoughts of his sweet childhood rose,
Like odours from dead flowers!

And when, at last, he was borne afar

From the world's weary strife,
How oft, in thought, did we again
Live o'er his little life?
His every look, his every word,
His very voice's tone,

Came back to us, like things whose worth
Is only prized when gone!

The grief has passed with years away,
And joy has been my lot,
But the one is oft remember'd,
And the other soon forgot:
The gayest hours trip lightest by,
And leave the faintest trace;
But the deep, deep track that sorrow wears,
No time can e'er efface.

Printed by THOMAS MURRAY, of No. 2 Arniston Place, and WILLIAM GIBB, of No. 26 Royal Crescent, at the Printing Office of MURRAY and GIBB, North-East Thistle Street Lane; and Published at No, 58 Princes Street, by WILLIAM AITCHISON SUTHERLAND, of No. 1 Windsor Street, and JAMES KNOX, of No. 7 Henderson Row; all in the City and County of Edinburgh,

Edinburgh: SUTHERLAND & KNOX, 58 Princes Street; and sold by HOULSTON & STONEMAN, Paternoster Row, London; W. BLACKWOOD and J. M'LEOD, Glasgow; L. SMITH, Aberdeen; RoBERT WALKER, Dundee; JOHN ROBERTSON, Dublin; and may be had by order of every Bookseller in the United Kingdom.

Edinburgh, Saturday, May 23, 1846.

WERE an unsophisticated native of a remote island to be suddenly transported to Great Britain, there is nothing, we are persuaded, which would strike him with greater astonishment than the fact, that the people here continue to die in the very face, and, as it would seem, in utter contempt of the many "universal" medicines and panaceas forced upon their notice on every side. It would lessen his wonder if ignorance of the existence of such nostrums could, with any propriety, be assigned as a reason for this singular result. But seeing that the proprietors of life-bestowing compounds make dead walls live placard-bearers, almanacks, poetry, paragraphs, and advertisements innumerable, all assist in promulgating the virtues of what they have to dispense, ignorance can, on no account, be pleaded. The mystery would be further increased were the ingenious visitant to discover that those who use these wonderful compounds die like other people, and if any difference, rather quicker, whilst, notwithstanding, the manufacture of elixirs still increases, and the quantity consumed augments in due proportion. Whatever be the conduct of others, we plead guilty to the Vandalism of never having tasted a elixir or swallowed a box of pills, not from any lack of knowledge, certainly, as to their existence, but in a great measure from positive perplexity. With the best intention to learn, we have never been able rightly to understand how each successive novelty in this department is declared to be superior in its infallibility to all that have preceded it. Indeed, but for these repeated announcements, we should have remained in ignorance of the fact, that there are degrees in infallibility. But as what is every where repeated, like what every body says, must be true, we are content to read and wonder. The "universal" idea was a perfeet master-stroke of policy-it was so much out of the beaten track, that its very daring took people by surprise, and the inventor was too good a tactician to permit the opportunity to pass unimproved. It is a pity, but nevertheless" to this complexion we must come at last," that men of such ingenuity and boldness should be stigmatised as quacks; but an unfeeling few have so decreed it, and it is not for

us to repine or wax melancholy on the subject. Quackery, however, in spite of its name, is a moneymaking business, and it is astonishing to remark how respectable a profession suddenly becomes when it is considered to be lucrative. From being absolutely looked down upon, it first becomes tolerated, and ultimately coveted. In no period of our history has this quackery been in such a flourishing state as at present, and it is prosecuted with all the advantages which large capital and skill can command.

But to be serious our early quacks were remarkable for their modesty; their highest flight was a simple announcement that their medicines had been patronised by "divers people of quality," or persons of fashion;" but those of the present day do not hesitate to make a parade of great names, and the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Aldborough are every where announced as the patrons of a certain inestimable" pill, which is nevertheless valued at the low price of "1s. 1d. per box, stamp included." So frequently have we seen the last mentioned nobleman's name in connexion with these pills, that we cannot help entertaining a vague idea, that in his own person he has tested their value as a cure for every disease that can afflict humanity, "from a corn up to a consumption," as Mr Mathews was wont to phrase it. Another striking difference between the quacks of the former and those of the present time is this;-formerly they called pills, simply pills, and a draught, a draught. If they wanted a specific name for their nostrum, they used their own in connexion with it; but now-a-days the names of the most eminent physicians are unblushingly used in connexion with "patent" medicines, of the very existence of which, it may be, they are in utter ignorance, and the quacks escape with impunity, very possibly for the same reason that nobody likes to come to blows with a chimney sweep. It is a fearful persecution to which men of talent are thus exposed, and it is in the highest degree culpable on the part of government to allow itself to be made a party to giving currency to these villanous frauds. Not content with robbing physicians of their good name, the quacks have drawn liberally on their invention for fine-sounding designations to their mixtures; and balms, cordials and balsams, of every colour

and clime, from Gilead to Buekia, have flourished and passed away, only to give place to a fresh succession, destined to run a similar course.

We thought puffing had been brought to perfection during those good old times, when slaters were blown from the tops of houses, for the sole purpose of alighting at the door of "Bish's lucky Lottery Office, where 10 prizes of L.5000 each were sold," &c. &c., but we have lived to see our error, and confess it. Since the days of the Lottery, Blacking has employed the mighty power of puff to no trifling extent; but it was reserved for quacks to develope what, for the present, we must call its full energies. Not that we would now for a moment think of say ing, that puffery is at its zenith; for we believe that, like steam, it is yet destined to accomplish much at present undreamed of,-puffing may be said to be the literary steam, and he would be a bold inan who would attempt to assign limits for the achievements of either. It is the fashion, at present, for almost every tailor to qualify himself for saying, "We keeps a poet," but there is a sad want of variety in this branch of puffing. All that these artists strive to persuade the public is, that they can put a man into "a good fit"-but the quacks will undertake to bring him out of any sort of fit-good, bad, or indifferent. Utterly unscrupulous as regards truth, untrammelled either by possibilities or probabilities, the quack has a wide field for his operations, and the more he finds people willing to believe his inventions, the more liberally he brings them forward. For the great majority, whose faith is unbounded, he attempts no concealment-but reiterates his statements boldly and roundly. For example, in an Edinburgh newspaper of the present month, we notice an advertisement of a "Life Pill," which has been extensively puffed of late, as "the popular remedy," "the wonder of the age," and a list is given of a few of the diseases which have been cured by it, as, of course, can be attested by thousands of witnesses." The list is arranged alphabetically, and it appears as if the writer had selected it at random from a medical dictionary. These pills, we are informed, are equally efficacious for the cure of "barrenness and burns-cholera morbus and hoarseness-low spirits and mortifications-measles and paralysis." An enumeration, we should think, which would try the faith of the most veteran pilldevourer.

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As, however, the quack is desirous of acquiring an influence as universal as the pretended power of his medicines, he condescends occasionally to cloak his puffs, for the purpose of hooking, if possible, those wary fish who look on his professions with suspicion. It is here that his delicate tact is seen. He does his spiriting so very gently, in many instances, that it is only a practised eye that can discover the hook. Thus, we meet with an attractive paragraph in a newspaper, quoted apparently from a book of travels, where an interesting savage is represented as having greatly endangered his life in an heroic attempt to rescue an unfortunate traveller from destruction. The interest is wrought up to the highest pitch, and death is apparently about to close the scene when, in the very nick of time, a box of ointment, hitherto overlooked, is brought on the stage, and a cure is effected with a rapidity which seems akin to magic. There is no wire-drawing after this point is arrived at-no dwelling on the value of such a medicine-no" see advertisement". the simple and chance-like announcement is left to do its work. Again, we meet with a paragraph entitled, "The late Lord Spencer," which,

like a scrap from a biography, mentions one or two of his lordship's peculiarities, names a few of the good works which he did accomplish, and hints at some which he would have done but for the incessant attacks of some disease to which he was subject, and from which he only gained relief by the use of a certain pill, which is named at full length, and, as in the former instance, without further note or comment. If we mistake not, we have seen a variety of this paragraph, attributing his lordship's premature decease to ignorance of this infallible remedy. Very many read these as ordinary paragraphs, which a careful editor has gleaned for their edification; and the information which they are meant to convey, although it may produce no immediate effect, settles down in the memory, to be brought up when occasion calls for it. Another variety of puffing, more decided than that which we have just mentioned, but nevertheless a tolerably successful style, is the offering rewards of many hundreds, or even thousands, of pounds for the discovery of parties who, it is made to appear, have daringly swindled the public with a spurious "elixir"-a species of refined villany which all right-minded men are called upon to assist in suppressing. If these advertisements are to be believed, forgery and imposition must have come to a fearful pass amongst us, and that they are believed their frequent appearance is a sufficient evidence. Forgers would seem, to a man, to have abandoned their practice on bank notes, and taken to the manufacture of spurious labels for patent medicines and hair oils, for which kindred impostors afford them a ready market. Although we have paid considerable attention to this matter, we regret to say, that history does not record a single instance where any of these magnificent rewards have been claimed, proving that-it is almost treason to whisper it-no such forgeries exist, or that there is in reality a wonderful amount of "honour among thieves."

We have said, that the quack neglects no opportunity, or rather he creates opportunities for bringing his medicines favourably under the notice of the public, but he finds his most valuable ally in the newspaper press, which, with some honourable exceptions, will give circulation to any statement, no matter how extravagant, for the sake of a few advertisements. In very many cases, in England and Ireland, the proprietors of newspapers are also dealers in patent medicines; hence, besides the profit of the advertisements, these "best possible instructors" have a direct interest in forwarding the sale of those commodities for which they are appointed agents, and on which there is generally a very liberal per centage. That they are not without a touch of shanie, on account of thus acting the part of traitors to their trusting friends, the public, is apparent from the care with which they insert "see advertisement,” in all instances where they dare, or refer to a pretended authority, under the guise of "London paper" -a wonderful precision which, after all, deceives very few. The modern quack casts the ancient necromancers entirely into the shade. With a dash of his pen he converts his own private residence into a "College of Health," and by the same potent instrumentality transmutes into "professors" all the old women throughout the country who act as his agents; at this very moment we have a "professor" who comprises an entire college in his single person. The quack seldom tries oral puffing, and fails signally when he does; he is no match for the mountebanks of former times, in this particular. We had the privilege, on one occasion, of listening to a lecture in favour of certain vegetable pills, delivered by their

compounder, in a Hibernian brogue, of great volume | and richness. He began by giving his auditors some information in mythology, and after attacking every system of medicine and its practitioners, he reached his own unequalled and never-to-be-paralleled specific, on which he dilated at considerable length, giving the particulars of many striking cures which he had effected, with minute references to the names and addresses of his patients. We have often regretted that we did not attempt to take notes of this characteristic oration, but unfortunately the idea did not occur to us until too late. A few stray fragments, however, clung firmly to memory, and these we shall give, and the more especially that they furnish specimens rather superior to the average of quack intellect :

"Some of yees will be wondering at the word Hygeian, and guessing what it manes; now I'll tell you. You see this Hygeia was the sister of Esculapius, and she thravelled all the way from Mixico to the Black Say, gatherin' harbs, which she made into pills, very like them that I'm now tellin' yees about. And what did the government do then, d'ye think? Why, they pursecuted her for doin' good, in the same way as they are doin' to me, as I'll show yees by and by. Now Hygeia understood what was right better nor them carcase butchers they call docthors, who know no more of disease nor a cat does of

jography. I solemnly tell yees, and mind what I say, the sate of all disease is in the blood. The blood's the life of a man, and if ye take away the blood you take away the sowl. There's Sir Astley Kuper-by my faith it's Sir Astley Carver they should call him-he's a perfect know-nothin'; he'll blood and he'll blister, he'll cut and he'll carve as if he were diggin' out the disease; sure if he got ped only for them he cures, the bottom of his purse would soon be as blue moulded as a rotten cheese. Now them pills of mine will cure a man in half the time that a docthor will take in makin' up his mind what way he will kill him. There's a man over there in Tradeston, they call him John M'Fadden, he's a waver, and very likely some of yees will know him, he lives in Dobbie's Land anyway; well that man come to me, after he had been give up by the docthors; he was all constipated, in a terrible state to be sure. Well, what d'ye think I done? Why, I tould him to take two boxes of "pill No. 1," and come to me the next day. Well he come to me not a bit better-the disease was still in his blood, you see what d'ye think I done then? Did I bleed him, think ye? No! I just tould him to take two boxes of "pill No. 2," and the man is now a comfort to his family, that but for me would have been in the gravedigger's granary, with a docthor's sartificate, months ago." After occupying the attention of his audience for upwards of an hour, he concluded by saying "I'm not ped for givin' my advice, and I don't want nothin'-there's a plate at the door, but whatever you choose to put into it will be given to the poor-in pills!"

It has been sometimes said, by way of lessening the moral guilt of quackery, that the pills, &c., the "universal" virtues of which are so much lauded, are, in general, perfectly innocuous things that can do neither good nor harm. But this is by no means always the case; but, granting that it were so, and apart from the swindling of the system, even on this very point quackery has much to answer for. However harmless a composition may be under ordinary circumstances, it ceases to be so when people are induced to neglect all other remedial measures for the recovery of their health, and place implicit re

liance upon it alone. The unfortunate dupes learn, when it is too late to be of service to them, that these medicines possess an "universality" modestly omitted by the proprietors in their advertisements, namely, that of reducing both purse and person to a state of perfect emaciation.

When speaking of the jackal part which certain newspapers play to the lion-quack, we omitted to express our hearty reprobation of those who, in addition, make themselves the medium of circulating advertisements redolent of the stews. We marvel that any class of newspapers, for a trifling gain, can lend themselves to aid in the dissemination of such filthy notices, but more so that publications calling themselves "family newspapers" should be guilty of a like fault. Verily these people must have strange notions respecting what forms a "family" recommendation. The remedy, however, lies with families; and were the heads thereof to decline taking in such prints, quack gentry would require to create newspapers for themselves. Actors do not pretend to such purity of conduct as newspaper editors, and yet we know that Mathews frequently refused large bribes offered him by quacks to introduce their nostrums into his public entertainments.

LORD BACON.

THERE are few names in philosophy that rank higher than that of Bacon. In intellect he will bear a comparison with the greatest sages of antiquity, and his writings brought about a complete reform in modern philosophy. Yet there are few whose lives have exhibited such human frailties, or whose actions have been less in accordance with his wise and noble precepts. In this respect, he forms to the biographer a subject of painful investigation-an intellectual and moral paradox, passing into such extremes as aptly to be designated

"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." Like other great geniuses that have filled and occupied the public mind, Bacon has had his eulogists and detractors;--the former regarding him as an intellectual character, in which he is calculated to excite the highest admiration; the latter looking to his moral and political actions, which harmonise so ill with his other great qualities. Perhaps the fullest and most impartial view of this extraordinary man is that recently given in a most elaborate memoir by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors.

Francis Bacon was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth, by Ann Cooke, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor to King Edward VI. He was born at York House, in the Strand, on the 22d January 1561. Like many other men of talent, he appears to have inherited his genius from his mother; at all events, he was greatly indebted to her for the early culture of his mind, and for that love of reading which accompanied him through life. In early youth he was of a delicate constitution, and little able to join in the rough sports of boyhood. His father was too much engrossed in business to attend to him farther than to kiss him, and hear him recite occasionally any little piece which he had learned in his retentive memory. But his tender mother, who was a woman of a highly cultivated mind, devoted her assiduous attention to this, her youngest and most promising child. Lady Bacon had received a classical education, and in after life kept up her familiarity with the poets, historians, and philosophers of antiquity. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewit, trans

lated one of his theological works from the Latin, as also a volume of sermons on free will by an Italian author. Under his mother's care, assisted by a domestic tutor, young Bacon continued till his thirteenth year, and made great proficiency in his various studies; and even at this early age his active and original mind began to develope itself. While still a child, he stole away from his playmates to a vault in St James's Fields, to investigate the cause of a singular echo which he had discovered there; and when a little older, he amused himself with some ingenious speculations on the art of legerdemain. From his father's high station, he had ample opportunities of mingling with the best society, and here he displayed both an early precocity, and an extraordinary gravity of deportment. He was frequently caressed by Queen Elizabeth, who used to call him her young Lord Keeper; and on one occasion he greatly pleased her by his answer to the common question-how old he was? to which he replied, Exactly two years younger than your majesty's happy reign." In his thirteenth year, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he resided three years. There are rather vague accounts of his studies during that period. It is said that he ran through the whole circle of the liberal arts, as they were then taught, and planned that great intellectual revolution which he accomplished in after life. It is certain that he carried away with him a great contempt of the mode of study at that time pursued in those halls of learning, and characterised the Cambridge residents of his day "as men of sharp and strong wits, and small variety of reading, their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and who, knowing little history, either of nature or time, did spin cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit." He left the university without taking a degree. He spent the subsequent three years in France, under the protection of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador, where he had ample opportunities of observation and instruction, and where he wrote his first literary production, his "Notes on the State of Europe.'

On the sudden death of his father he returned to England, and had the mortification to find that, instead of a competency, which he had calculated on, he was left with a patrimony so slender as to be wholly inadequate for his support without a profession, or some appointment. He had now "to think how to live instead of living only to think." His father had amply provided for his other children, and had appropriated a sum of money to buy an estate for Francis, but had been suddenly carried off without accomplishing his purpose. This was a grievous disappointment to the young philosopher, and perhaps had a considerable influence on his future life. After in vain attempting to procure, through the interest of his influential relations, some public appointment, he was at last compelled, contrary to his inclinations, to commence the study of law. In his twentieth year, he entered a student of Gray's Inn, of which society his father had been long a member. His chambers, which still remain in the same state as when he occupied them, are No. 1, Gray's Inn, and are frequently visited by those who cherish his fame and genius. Here he set resolutely to the study of his profession, which neither his other tastes, nor the charms of society, for which he was admirably fitted, could divert him from, till he had acquired not only a general, but

profound knowledge of all its intricacies. In due time he was called to the bar, and so great a favourite was he in his society, that two years afterwards he was made Lent reader, an office of much dignity, which gave him an opportunity of publicly exhibiting his learning, acuteness, and eloquence. His reputation was now such that the queen appointed him her "counsel extraordinary," and frequently admitted him to her presence, and conversed with him not only about matters of law, but on points of general learning. Yet he made little progress in his advancement, though he sued earnestly for preferment. This arose chiefly from the jealousy of his kinsmen, the Cecils,-his cousin, Sir Robert, impressing the queen with the idea that he was speculative man, indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business."

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a

On the meeting of the Parliament of 1593, Francis Bacon took his seat as representative for the county of Middlesex, and in a few days after made his first speech, which was on law reform. From the testimony of his cotemporaries, his eloquence was of a superior order. According to Ben Jonson, "no man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered." Elated by the success of his first speech, he took an early opportunity of again addressing the house. It was against the vote of subsidy to the crown, and so strong was his opposition that he ran great risk of being brought before the Star Chamber for his presumption. The courtiers were thrown into a state of horror. The queen in the present temper of the house, and with news of the approach of the Spanish armada, deemed it prudent to take no public notice of this outrage; but she was deeply incensed, and desired it to be intimated to the delinquent that he must never more look to her for favour or promotion. Bacon soon had reason to repent this fit of patriotic independence; he endeavoured to make the humblest apologies, and plainly intimated that he should never repeat the offence. In this he kept his word; for in all his course he was most obsequious to power, and never took any part which was apparently adverse to his personal advancement.

The following year, on a vacancy occurring, we find him a candidate for the office of solicitor-general; but notwithstanding all his efforts, he failed in obtaining it. On this occasion, he sought the interest of the reigning favourite, the Earl of Essex, who did all he could for his client; and perceiving his extreme chagrin at his disappointment, generously presented him with a piece of land at Twickenham, which he afterwards sold for L.1800. To show that he was not the shallow lawyer which his enemies wished to represent him, he wrote at this time a treatise on the "Elements and Use of the Common Law." In 1597, he also gave to the world his "Essays," one of his most popular works. In this year, too, he was again returned to parliament, and on the Chancellor of the Exchequer moving for a supply, he took care, by a speech in warm support of the measure, to efface the impression which his unlucky patriotic speech on a former occasion had produced.

Bacon was now in favour at court, a popular speaker in the House of Commons, and had obtained considerable reputation by his writings; but his practice at the bar was small, and he was very poor. He, at this period, attempted to better his fortunes by marriage with a rich widow, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cecil, and relict of Sir William Hatton, who,