and so wide and great was his reputation for learning and eloquence that Elizabeth, in order to secure the benefit of his advice, created for him the office of Counsel Extraordinary. But it was fame and social consideration, rather than any substantial position or solid advantage, the brilliant lawyer had as yet acquired. Sir Robert Cecil's powerful influence worked against him; and he was represented as no real lawyer, but as a speculative and painful theorist, who indulged himself in philosophical reveries, and was far more likely to perplex than promote public business.*

It is not improbable that his slow advancement may in part have been due to the courage with which he had presented himself in the House of Commons as a reformer. He did not speak with bated breath or whispering humbleness, but strongly protested, in language as clear as it was forcible, against the abuses which clogged the wheels of administration. This was not a line of action calculated to recommend him to the Cecils or to their sovereign.

We gather from his correspondence, that Bacon, like Shakespeare, felt cribbed, cabined, and confined, by the profession he had chosen. His large mind was above "the ordinary practice of the law," and he longed for the means and the leisure to pursue the lofty speculations in which he loved to indulge. Writing to Lord Burleigh, he says:

"I wax now somewhat ancient; one-and-thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed, and I do not fear that action shall impair it; because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I confess that

* Basil Montagu, "Bacon's Works, with a New Life" (edit. 1825-34).

I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends, for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of errors-whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities; the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils-I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries."

But he was sore beset by his straitened circumstances:

"If your Lordship," he continues, "if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation into voluntary poverty; but this I will do-I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain, that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which lies so deep."

With the lofty assurance of genius-that self-knowledge and self-reliance which breathe in Horace's "Exegi opus perennius," and Milton's "Which the world will not willingly let die "-he felt that high achievements were within his reach, and that from the mine of truth he had the strength and will to bring up inestimable treasures to the light of day. Nor did this belief ever desert him. In his last will he wrote: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen after some time be over." Time, as the elder Disraeli remarks, seemed always personified in the imagination of our philosopher; and with Time he wrestled in the full consciousness of triumph.

In the parliament that assembled on the 19th of February, 1593, Bacon took his seat as knight of the shire for Middlesex. He at once plunged into the

debates in his capacity of reformer, attacking the excessive expenditure, and protesting against the subsidy demanded by the queen's ministers. He asked, in reference to it, that three questions might be answered:

"The first, impossibility or difficulty; the second, danger and discontentment; and thirdly, a better manner of supply. For impossibility, the poor man's rent is such as they are not able to yield it. The gentlemen must sell their plate, and farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid: and as for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, and not to skin them over. We shall breed discontentment in paying these subsidies, and endanger Her Majesty's safety, which must consist more in the love of her people than in their wealth. This being granted, other princes hereafter will look for the like, so that we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves and our posterity."

This language now-a-days would not disturb the most jealous courtier; but Elizabeth had been unaccustomed to opposition, and her ministers and adulators broke out into indignant reproof of this audacious, plain-speaking lawyer. Elizabeth keenly resisted his presumption,

and caused the offender to understand that he must expect from her neither favour nor promotion. Yet Bacon's fault had surely been venial; he had not refused to vote supplies for the public service, but had simply condemned the unconstitutional manner in which the queen's ministers proposed to levy them. Bacon sued humbly for pardon, and promised to abandon all further resistance to the policy of the Court. The incident furnishes a clue to the complexities of his character, to its strange combination of strength and weakness, of intellectual strength and moral weakness. At the same time, we must not condemn the inconsistency of his conduct as we should condemn a similar inconsistency in

the statesmen of a later age. The men of Elizabeth's generation entertained for her a reverence which was so excessive that we are scarcely able to understand it, and therefore feel disposed to stigmatise it as adulation. But, then, they knew what she was and what she represented; how in her had centred- all England's hopes of religious freedom, and national independence, and manly growth. It was natural they should shrink from wounding or offending her.

was powerful.

With Bacon, moreover, another motive His strong and active mind teemed with great social and political ideas-" the reform and codification of the law, the civilisation of Ireland, the purification of the Church," the diffusion of knowledge, the improvement of the social condition of the people; and these, in the Elizabethan period, could be realised only by the initiative of the Crown. Hence he supported without hesitation the privileges and prerogatives claimed by the Throne; and while eloquently enlarging on the necessity of redressing many grievances, he remained the servant of the Crown and the defender of the Queen.

It was about this time that the restless jealousy of the Cecils brought Bacon into a close connection with their brilliant opponent, the Earl of Essex, then rising like a star of the first magnitude on the political horizon. Young, daring, and gay, the bright young nobleman won hearts without thought or trouble. He was in high favour with the queen, who, as he was her cousin's grandson, claimed the privileges of kinship. Between him and Bacon a warm and cordial intimacy arose. The young Earl was drawn towards Bacon by his genius, learning, and acquirements; Bacon towards him by his splendour and refinement, and, probably, by a secret hope

of rising through the influence of his young and powerful patron.

Early in 1594, Egerton, the attorney-general, was made master of the rolls. To the vacant attorneyship Essex endeavoured to secure the promotion of Bacon, and it is recorded that on this subject the following conversation took place between himself and Sir Robert Cecil :

"Cecil. My Lord, the queen has determined to appoint an attorney-general without more delay. I pray, my lord, let me know whom you will favour.'

"Essex. 'I wonder at your question. You cannot but know that resolutely against all the world I stand for your cousin, Francis Bacon.'

"Cecil. I wonder your lordship should spend your strength on so unlikely a matter. Can you name one precedent of so raw a youth promoted to so great a place?'

"Essex. "I have made no search for precedents of young men who have filled the office of attorney-general; but I could name to you, Sir Robert, a man younger than Francis, less learned, and equally inexperienced, who is suing and striving with all his might for an office of far greater weight.'

"Cecil. I hope my abilities, such as they are, may be equal to the place of secretary, and my father's long services may deserve such a mark of gratitude from the queen. That although Her Majesty can hardly stomach one so inexperienced being made her attorney, if he would be contented with the solicitor's place, it might be of easier digestion to her.'

"Essex. Digest me no digestions. The attorneyship for Francis is that I must have, and in that I will spend all my power, might, authority, and amity, and with tooth and nail procure the same for him against whomsoever.'"*

Sir Edward Coke, the solicitor-general, succeeded

* Dr. Nares, "Life of Lord Burleigh," iii. 436. There is an apocryphal air about this conversation.