Egerton. Bacon can hardly have expected to have leaped over his head into the higher office; and it was upon the vacant solicitor-generalship that he concentrated his hopes and energies. He addressed himself to Burleigh, to the lord-keeper, to the master of the rolls. At first the Cecils were not indisposed to favour him, but Essex interposing with his usual impetuosity, they turned against his nominee in order to inflict a fresh defeat on the powerful young noble. In this strait Bacon appealed directly to Elizabeth, in a letter which is not wholly wanting in manliness of tone: * "Madam," he wrote, "remembering that your Majesty has been gracious to me, both in countenancing me and conferring upon me the reversion of a good place, and perceiving that your Majesty had taken some displeasure towards me, both these were arguments to move me to offer unto your Majesty my service, to the end to have means to deserve your favour and to repair my error. Upon this ground I affected myself to no great matter, but only a place of my profession, such as I do see divers younger in proceeding to myself, and even of no great note, do without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press this matter, I do assure your Majesty my spirit is not with them. It sufficeth me that I have let your Majesty know that I am ready to do that for the service which I never would do for mine own gain. And if your Majesty like others better, I shall, with the Lacedemonian, be glad that there is such choice of abler men than myself. Your Majesty's fervour, indeed, and access to your royal person, I did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, seek and desire, and I would be very glad to be reintegrate in that. But I will not wrong mine own good mind so much as to stand upon that now, when your Majesty may conceive I do it but to make my profit of it. But my mind turneth *The Registrarship of the Star Chamber, worth about £1600 a-year; but this did not fall into his hands for some years. upon other wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that I wish your Majesty served answerable to yourself. Principio est virtus maxima nosse suos. Thus I must humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. God preserve your Majesty!" It would be wronging Bacon to suppose that he hungered after office for the sake of its emoluments. He was conscious of the ability to do good service to the State, and when he compared himself with his competitors, could not but recognise his intellectual superiority. That he thirsted after an opportunity of proving this to the world in a way honourable to himself and advantageous to his country is not to his discredit. His entreaties, however, and the recommendations of Essex, were alike ineffectual. Mr. Sergeant Fleming was appointed to the vacant office; a man whose chief distinction is that on this occasion he defeated Bacon. That Bacon keenly felt the disappointment we gather from a letter which his mother addressed to his elder brother : "3rd June, 1595. “I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God, and confer with Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with God's blessed favour, had very good health, and were well out of debt, than any office. Yet, though the Earl showed great affection, he marred all with violent courses. I pray God increase His fear in his heart, and a hatred of sin; indeed, halting before the Lord, and backsliding, are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably. God cannot like it. "I pray show your brother this letter, but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself.-Your mother, "ANNE BACON." To soften Bacon's disappointment, the queen bestowed upon him the estate of Zelwood in Somersetshire, and appointed him her counsel learned in the law. What he valued more, perhaps, was her generous gift of a reversion of the lease of Twickenham Park, a beautiful sylvan solitude to which he was exceedingly partial. Thither he retired to enjoy "the blessings of contemplation in that sweet solitariness which collecteth the mind, as shutting the eyes does the sight." He received from Essex a grant of land in the same neighbourhood, worth about £1500, as an acknowledgment of the services he had rendered. He took an admirable method of proving his fitness for the office he had coveted and lost, by publishing, or rather circulating in MS., a "recondite and accurate" treatise "Upon the Elements and Use of the Common. Law," which contains one of the earliest examples of his system of inductive reasoning. Early in 1597, he published a book more congenial to his own tastes, and certainly of greater utility to the world at large-his famous "Essays," a small but precious volume of noble thoughts and apt and pregnant images, embodied in stately language. These he counted simply as "the recreation of his other studies," flinging them out on the world right royally, as an Oriental prince lavishes the rarest gems with indifferent hand. They are remarkable for their wide range of subject, their worldly wisdom, their compactness of thought, their felicity of expression; but yet more remarkable for the power and success with which their author applies to human life and human motives that experimental analysis," which, at a later date, he was to apply with such great results to Science. It was at this time that Bacon, whose fame had steadily ripened, without any corresponding development upon other wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that I wish your Majesty served answerable to yourself. Principio est virtus maxima nosse suos. Thus I must humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. God preserve your Majesty!" It would be wronging Bacon to suppose that he hungered after office for the sake of its emoluments. He was conscious of the ability to do good service to the State, and when he compared himself with his competitors, could not but recognise his intellectual superiority. That he thirsted after an opportunity of proving this to the world in a way honourable to himself and advantageous to his country is not to his discredit. His entreaties, however, and the recommendations of Essex, were alike ineffectual. Mr. Sergeant Fleming was appointed to the vacant office; a man whose chief distinction is that on this occasion he defeated Bacon. That Bacon keenly felt the disappointment we gather from a letter which his mother addressed to his elder brother : "3rd June, 1595. "I am sorry your brother with inward secret grief hindereth his health. Everybody saith he looketh thin and pale. Let him look to God, and confer with Him in godly exercise of hearing and reading, and continue to be noted to take care. I had rather ye both, with God's blessed favour, had very good health, and were well out of debt, than any office. Yet, though the Earl showed great affection, he marred all with violent courses. I pray God increase His fear in his heart, and a hatred of sin; indeed, halting before the Lord, and backsliding, are very pernicious. I am heartily sorry to hear how he [the Earl of Essex] sweareth and gameth unreasonably. God cannot like it. "I pray show your brother this letter, but to no creature else. Remember me and yourself.-Your mother, "ANNE BACON." To soften Bacon's disappointment, the queen bestowed upon him the estate of Zelwood in Somersetshire, and appointed him her counsel learned in the law. What he valued more, perhaps, was her generous gift of a reversion of the lease of Twickenham Park, a beautiful sylvan solitude to which he was exceedingly partial. Thither he retired to enjoy "the blessings of contemplation in that sweet solitariness which collecteth the mind, as shutting the eyes does the sight." He received from Essex a grant of land in the same neighbourhood, worth about £1500, as an acknowledgment of the services he had rendered. He took an admirable method of proving his fitness for the office he had coveted and lost, by publishing, or rather circulating in MS., a "recondite and accurate treatise "Upon the Elements and Use of the Common Law," which contains one of the earliest examples of his system of inductive reasoning. Early in 1597, he published a book more congenial to his own tastes, and certainly of greater utility to the world at large-his famous "Essays," a small but precious volume of noble thoughts and apt and pregnant images, embodied in stately language. These he counted simply as "the recreation of his other studies," flinging them out on the world right royally, as an Oriental prince lavishes the rarest gems with indifferent hand. They are remarkable for their wide range of subject, their worldly wisdom, their compactness of thought, their felicity of expression; but yet more remarkable for the power and success with which their author applies to human life and human motives that " experimental analysis," which, at a later date, he was to apply with such great results to Science. It was at this time that Bacon, whose fame bad steadily ripened, without any corresponding development |