That, as ’twas said, he scarce received

For gospel what the church believed,”

had a superstition of his own. The great Iconoclast was himself an

idolater. The great _Avvocato del Diavolo_, while he disputed, with no

small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athanasius to a place in the

Calendar, was himself composing a lying legend in honour of St. Tully.

He was holding up as a model of every virtue a man whose talents and

acquirements, indeed, can never be too highly extolled, and who was by

no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was under

the dominion of a girlish vanity and a craven fear. Actions for which

Cicero himself, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could

contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he

mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as

wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolution

which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the

character of every public man, is {341}elaborately misrepresented, in

order to make out something which may look like a defence of one most

eloquent and accomplished trimmer.

The volume before us reminds us now and then of the Life of Cicero. But

there is this marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy

consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and therefore resorted

to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and

suppression of facts. Mr. Montagu’s faith is sincere and implicit. He

practises no trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the facts before us

in the full confidence that they will produce on our minds the effect

which they have produced on his own. It is not till he comes to reason

from facts to motives that his partiality shows itself; and then he

leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work proceeds on the assumption

that Bacon was an eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu

judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many actions which, if

any man but Bacon had committed them, nobody would have dreamed of

defending, actions which are readily and completely explained by

supposing Bacon to have been a man whose principles were not strict, and

whose spirit was not high, actions which can be explained in no other

way without resorting to some grotesque hypothesis for which there

is not a tittle of evidence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu’s

opinion, more probable than that his hero should ever have done any

thing very wrong.

This mode of defending Bacon seems to us by no means Baconian. To take

a man’s character for granted, and then from his character to infer the

moral quality of all his actions, is surely a process the very reverse

of that which is recommended in the _Novum {342}Organum_. Nothing, we

are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu to depart so far from his master’s

precepts, except zeal for his master’s honour. We shall follow a

different course. We shall attempt, with the valuable assistance which

Mr. Montagu has afforded us, to frame such an account of Bacon’s life as

may enable our readers correctly to estimate his character.

It is hardly necessary to say that Francis Bacon was the son of Sir

Nicholas Bacon, who held the great seal of England during the first

twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. The fame of the father has been

thrown into shade by that of the son. But Sir Nicholas was no ordinary

man. He belonged to a set of men whom it is easier to describe

collectively than separately, whose minds were formed by one system of

discipline, who belonged to one rank in society, to one university, to

one party, to one sect, to one administration, and who resembled each

other so much in talents, in opinions, in habits, in fortunes, that one

character, we had almost said one life, may, to a considerable extent,

serve for them all.

They were the first generation of statesmen by profession that England

produced. Before their time the division of labour had, in this respect,

been very imperfect. Those who had directed public affairs had been,

with few exceptions, warriors or priests; warriors whose rule courage

was neither guided by science nor softened by humanity, priests whose

learning and abilities were habitually devoted to the defence of

tyranny and imposture. The Hotspurs, the Nevilles, the Cliffords, rough,

illiterate, and unreflecting, brought to the council-board the fierce

and imperious disposition which they had acquired amidst the tumult

of predatory war, or in the gloomy repose of the garrisoned and moated

{343}castle. On the other side was the calm and subtle prelate, versed

in all that was then considered as learning, trained in the Schools

to manage words, and in the confessional to manage hearts, seldom

superstitious, but skilful in practising on the superstition of others,

false, as it was natural that a man should be whose profession imposed

on all who were not saints the necessity of being hypocrites, selfish,

as it was natural that a man should be who could form no domestic ties

and cherish no hope of legitimate posterity, more attached to his order

than to his country, and guiding the politics of England with a constant

side-glance at Rome.

But the increase of wealth, the progress of knowledge, and the

reformation of religion produced a great change. The nobles ceased to

be military chieftains; the priests ceased to possess a monopoly of

learning; and a new and remarkable species of politicians appeared.

These men came from neither of the classes which had, till then, almost

exclusively furnished ministers of state. They were all laymen; yet they

were all men of learning; and they were all men of peace. They were not

members of the aristocracy. They inherited no titles, no large domains,

no armies of retainers, no fortified castles. Yet they were not low men,

such as those whom princes, jealous of the power of a nobility, have

sometimes raised from forges and cobblers’ stalls to the highest

situations. They were all gentlemen by birth. They had all received a

liberal education. It is a remarkable fact that they were all members of

the same university. The two great national seats of learning had even

then acquired the characters which they still retain. In intellectual

activity, and in readiness to admit improvements, the superiority

was then, as it has ever since been, on the side of the less ancient

{344}and splendid institution. Cambridge had the honour of educating

those celebrated Protestant Bishops whom Oxford had the honour of

burning; and at Cambridge were formed the minds of all those statesmen

to whom chiefly is to be attributed the secure establishment of the

reformed religion in the north of Europe.

The statesmen of whom we speak passed their youth surrounded by the

incessant din of theological controversy. Opinions were still in a state

of chaotic anarchy, intermingling, separating, advancing, receding.

Sometimes the stubborn bigotry of the Conservatives seemed likely to

prevail. Then the impetuous onset of the Reformers for a moment carried

all before it. Then again the resisting mass made a desperate stand,

arrested the movement, and forced it slowly back. The vacillation which

at that time appeared in English legislation, and which it has been

the fashion to attribute to the caprice and to the power of one or two

individuals, was truly a national vacillation. It was not only in the

mind of Henry that the new theology obtained the ascendant one day, and

that the lessons of the nurse and of the priest regained their influence

on the morrow. It was not only in the House of Tudor that the husband

was exasperated by the opposition of the wife, that the son dissented

from the opinions of the father, that the brother persecuted the sister,

that one faster persecuted another. The principles of Conservation

and Reform carried on their warfare in every part of society, in every

congregation, in every school of learning, round the hearth of every

private family, in the recesses of every reflecting mind.

It was in the midst of this ferment that the minds of the persons

whom we are describing were developed. They were born Reformers. They

belonged by nature {345}to that order of men who always form the front

ranks in the great intellectual progress. They were, therefore, one

and all, Protestants. In religious matters, however, though there is no

reason to doubt that they were sincere, they were by no means zealous.

None of them chose to run the smallest personal risk during the reign

of Mary. None of them favoured the unhappy attempt of Northumberland

in favour of his daughter-in-law. None of them shared in the desperate

councils of Wyatt. They contrived to have business on the Continent;

or, if they staid in England, they heard mass and kept Lent with great

decorum. When those dark and perilous years had gone by, and when

the crown had descended to a new sovereign, they took the lead in the

reformation of the Church. But they proceeded, not with the impetuosity

of theologians, but with the calm determination of statesmen. They

acted, not like men who considered the Romish worship as a system too

offensive to God, and too destructive of souls to be tolerated for an

hour, but like men who regarded the points in dispute among Christians

as in themselves unimportant, and who were not restrained by any

scruple of conscience from professing, as they had before professed, the

Catholic faith of Mary, the Protestant faith of Edward, or any of the

numerous intermediate combinations which the caprice of Henry and the

servile policy of Cranmer had formed out of the doctrines of both the

hostile parties. They took a deliberate view of the state of their

own country and of the Continent: they satisfied themselves as to the

leaning of the public mind; and they chose their side. They placed

themselves at the head of the Protestants of Europe, and staked all

their fame and fortunes on the success of their party. {346}It is

needless to relate how dexterously, how resolutely, how gloriously

they directed the polities of England during the eventful years which

followed, how they succeeded in uniting their friends and separating

their enemies, how they humbled the pride of Philip, how they backed the

unconquerable spirit of Coligni, how they rescued Holland from tyranny,

how they, founded the maritime greatness of their country, how they

outwitted the artful politicians of Italy, and tamed the ferocious

chieftains of Scotland. It is impossible to deny that they committed

many acts which would justly bring on a statesman of our time censures

of the most serious kind. But, when we consider the state of morality

in their age, and the unscrupulous character of the adversaries against

whom they had to contend, we are forced to admit that it is not

without reason that their names are still held in veneration by their

countrymen.

There were, doubtless, many diversities in their intellectual and moral

character. But there was a strong family likeness. The constitution of

their minds was remarkably sound. No particular faculty was preeminently

developed; but manly health and vigour were equally diffused through

the whole. They were men of letters. Their minds were by nature and

by exercise well fashioned for speculative pursuits. It was by

circumstances, rather than by any strong bias of inclination, that

they were led to take a prominent part in active life. In active life,

however, no men could be more perfectly free from the faults of mere

theorists and pedants. No men observed more accurately the signs of the

times. No men had a greater practical acquaintance with human nature.

Their policy was generally characterized {347}rather by vigilance, by

moderation, and by firmness, than by invention, or by the spirit of

enterprise.

They spoke and wrote in a manner worthy of their excellent sense. Their

eloquence was less copious and less ingenious, but far purer and more

manly than that of the succeeding generation. It was the eloquence of

men who had lived with the first translators of the Bible, and with the

authors of the Book of Common Prayer. It was luminous, dignified, solid,

and very slightly tainted with that affectation which deformed the

style of the ablest men of the next age. If, as sometimes chanced, these

politicians were under the necessity of taking a part in the theological

controversies on which the dearest interests of kingdoms were then

staked, they acquitted themselves as if their whole lives had been

passed in the Schools and the Convocation.

There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured

them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the court and of the

multitude. No intrigue, no combination of rivals, could deprive them

of the confidence of their Sovereign. No parliament attacked their

influence. No mob coupled their names with any odious grievance. Their

power ended only with their lives. In this respect, their fate presents

a most remarkable contrast to that of the enterprising and brilliant

politicians of the preceding and of the succeeding generation. Burleigh

was minister during forty years. Sir Nicholas Bacon held the great

seal more than twenty years. Sir Walter Mildmay was Chancellor of the

Exchequer twenty-three years. Sir Thomas Smith was Secretary of State

eighteen years; Sir Francis Walsingham about as long. They all died in

office, and in the enjoyment of public respect {348}and royal favour.

Far different had been the fate of Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk, Somerset,

and Northumberland. Far different also was the fate of Essex, of

Raleigh, and of the still more illustrious man whose life we propose to

consider.

The explanation of this circumstance is perhaps contained in the motto

which Sir Nicholas Bacon inscribed over the entrance of his hall at

Gorhambury, _Mediocria firma._

This maxim was constantly borne in mind by himself and his colleagues.

They were more solicitous to lay the foundations of their power deep

than to raise the structure to a conspicuous but insecure height. None

of them aspired to be sole Minister. None of them provoked envy by an

ostentatious display of wealth and influence. None of them affected to

outshine the ancient aristocracy of the kingdom. They were free

from that childish love of titles which characterized the successful

courtiers of the generation which preceded them, and of that which

followed them. Only one of those whom we have named was made a peer; and

he was content with the lowest degree of the peerage. As to money, none

of them could, in that age, justly be considered as rapacious. Some

of them would, even in our time, deserve the praise of eminent

disinterestedness. Their fidelity to the State was incorruptible. Their

private morals were without stain. Their households were sober and

well-governed.

Among these statesmen Sir Nicholas Bacon was generally considered as

ranking next to Burleigh. He was called by Camden “Saeris conciliis

alterum columen,” and by George Buchanan,

“diu Britannici

Regni secundum columen.”

{349}The second wife of Sir Nicholas and mother of Francis Bacon was

Anne, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, a man of distinguished

learning who had been tutor to Edward the Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid

considerable attention to the education of his daughters, and lived

to see them all splendidly and happily married. Their classical

acquirements made them conspicuous even among the women of fashion of

that age. Katherine, who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin Hexameters

and Pentameters which would appear with credit in the _Musae Etonenses_.

Mildred, the wife of Lord Burleigh, was described by Roger Ascham as

the best Greek scholar among the young women of England, Lady Jane Grey

always excepted. Anne, the mother of Francis Bacon, was distinguished

both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with

Bishop Jewel, and translated his _Apologia_ from the Latin, so correctly

that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration.

She also translated a series of sermons on fate and freewill from the

Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. This fact is the more curious, because

Ochino was one of that small and audacious band of Italian reformers,

anathematized alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by Rome,

from which the Socinian sect deduces its origin.

Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly cultivated mind after the

fashion of her age. But we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded into

the belief that she and her sisters were more accomplished women than

many who are now living. On this subject there is, we think, much

misapprehension. We have often heard men who wish, as almost all men of

sense wish, that women should be highly educated, speak with rapture of

{350}the English ladies of the sixteenth century, and lament that they

can find no modern damsel resembling those fair pupils of Ascham and

Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, the styles of Isocrates and

Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding and the dogs in full cry,

sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes rivetted to that immortal page which

tells how meekly and bravely the first great martyr of intellectual

liberty took the cup from his weeping gaoler. But surely these

complaints have very little foundation. We would by no means disparage

the ladies of the sixteenth century or their pursuits. But we conceive

that those who extol them at the expense of the women of our time forget

one very obvious and very important circumstance. In the time of Henry

the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Greek and

Latin could read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was the

only modern language which possessed any thing that could be called a

literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular

dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. England

did not yet possess Shakspeare’s plays and the Fairy Queen, nor

France Montaigne’s Essays, nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking round a

well-furnished library, how many English or French books can we find

which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth received their

education? Chaucer, Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete

the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be

uneducated or classically educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one

of the ancient languages no person could then have any clear notion of

what was passing in the political, the literary, or the religious world.

The Latin was in the sixteenth century all {351}and more than all that

the French was in the eighteenth. It was the language of courts as well

as of the schools. It was the language of diplomacy; it was the language

of theological and political controversy. Being a fixed language,

while the living languages were in a state of fluctuation, and being

universally known to the learned and the polite, it was employed by

almost every writer who aspired to a wide and durable reputation. A

person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all acquaintance,

not merely with Cicero and Virgil, not merely with heavy treatises on

canon-law and school-divinity, but with the most interesting memoirs,

state papers, and pamphlets of his own time, nay even with the most

admired poetry and the most popular squibs which appeared on the

fleeting topics of the day, with Buchanan’s complimentary verses, with

Erasmus’s dialogues, with Hutten’s epistles.

This is no longer the case. All political and religious controversy is

now conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only

in comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian

and Roman genius are indeed still what they were. But though their

positive value is unchanged, their relative value, when compared

with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been

constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors.

They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could Lady Jane

Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient

dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift

without Odipus and Medea, while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. If he

knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil,

and Bessus, and Pistol, and {352}Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the

delicious irony of Plato, he may find some compensation in that of

Pascal. If he is shut out from Nephelococcygia, he may take refuge in

Lilliput. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards those great

nations to which the human race owes art, science, taste, civil and

intellectual freedom, when we say, that the stock bequeathed by them

to us has been so carefully improved that the accumulated interest now

exceeds the principal. We believe that the books which have been written

in the languages of western Europe, during the last two hundred

and fifty years,--translations from the ancient languages of course

included,--are of greater value than all the books which at the

beginning of that period were extant in the world. With the modern

languages of Europe English women are at least as well acquainted as

English men. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane

Grey with those of an accomplished young woman of our own time, we have

no hesitation in awarding the superiority to the latter. We hope that

our readers will pardon this digression. It is long; but it can hardly

be called unseasonable, if it tends to convince them that they are

mistaken in thinking that the great-great-grandmothers of their

great-great-grandmothers were superior women to their sisters and their

wives.

Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas, was born at York House,

his father’s residence in the Strand, on the twenty-second of January,

1561. The health of Francis was very delicate; and to this circumstance

may be partly attributed that gravity of carriage, and that love of

sedentary pursuits, which distinguished him from other boys. Every

body knows {353}how much his premature readiness of wit and sobriety of

deportment amused the Queen, and how she used to call him her young Lord

Keeper. We are told that, while still a mere child, he stole away from

his playfellows to a vault in St. James’s Fields, for the purpose of

investigating the cause of a singular echo which he had observed

there. It is certain that, at only twelve, he busied himself with very

ingenious speculations on the art of legerdemain; a subject which, as

Professor Dugald Stewart has most justly observed, merits much more

attention from philosophers than it has ever received. These are

trifles. But the eminence which Bacon afterwards attained makes them

interesting.

In the thirteenth year of his age he was entered at Trinity College,

Cambridge. That celebrated school of learning enjoyed the peculiar

favour of the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Keeper, and acknowledged the

advantages which it derived from their patronage in a public letter

which bears date just a month after the admission of Francis Bacon.

The master was Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, a

narrowminded, mean, and tyrannical priest, who gained power by servility

and adulation, and employed it in persecuting both those who agreed

with Calvin about Church Government, and those who differed from Calvin

touching the doctrine of Reprobation. He was now in a chrysalis

state, putting off the worm and putting on the dragon-fly, a kind of

intermediate grub between sycophant and oppressor. He was indemnifying

himself for the court which he found it expedient to pay to the

Ministers by exercising much petty tyranny within his own college. It

would be unjust, however, to deny him the praise of having rendered

about this time one important service to letters. He stood up manfully

{354}against those who wished to make Trinity College a mere appendage

to Westminster School; and by this act, the only good act, as far as

we remember, of his long public life, he saved the noblest place of

education in England from the degrading fate of King’s College and New

College.

It has often been said that Bacon, while still at College, planned

that great intellectual revolution with which his name is inseparably

connected. The evidence on this subject, however, is hardly sufficient

to prove what is in itself so improbable as that any definite scheme

of that kind should have been so early formed, even by so powerful and

active a mind. But it is certain that, after a residence of three years

at Cambridge, Bacon departed, carrying with him a profound contempt for

the course of study pursued there, a fixed conviction that the system

of academic education in England was radically vicious, a just scorn for

the trifles on which the followers of Aristotle had wasted their powers,

and no great reverence for Aristotle himself.

In his sixteenth year he visited Paris, and resided there for some time,

under the care of Sir Amias Paulet, Elizabeth’s minister at the French

court, and one of the ablest and most upright of the many valuable

servants whom she employed. France was at that time in a deplorable

state of agitation. The Huguenots and the Catholics were mustering

all their force for the fiercest and most protracted of their many

struggles; while the Prince, whose duty it was to protect and to

restrain both, had by his vices and follies, degraded himself so deeply

that he had no authority over either. Bacon, however, made a tour

through several provinces, and appears to have passed some time at

{355}Poitiers. We have abundant proof that during his stay on the

Continent he did not neglect literary and scientific pursuits. But

his attention seems to have been chiefly directed to statistics and

diplomacy. It was at this time that he wrote those Notes on the State of

Europe which are printed in his works. He studied the principles of

the art of deciphering with great interest, and invented one cipher so

ingenious that, many years later, he thought it deserving of a place in

the _De Augmentis_. In February, 1580, while engaged in these pursuits,

he received intelligence of the almost sudden death of his father, and

instantly returned to England.

His prospects were greatly overcast by this event. He was most desirous

to obtain a provision which might enable him to devote himself to

literature and politics. He applied to the Government; and it seems

strange that he should have applied in vain. His wishes were moderate.

His hereditary claims on the administration were great. He had himself

been favourably noticed by the Queen. His uncle was Prime Minister. His

own talents were such as any minister might have been eager to enlist in

the public service. But his solicitations were unsuccessful. The truth

is that the Cecils disliked him, and did all that they could decently

do to keep him down. It has never been alleged that Bacon had done any

thing to merit this dislike; nor is it at all probable that a man whose

temper was naturally mild, whose manners were courteous, who, through

life, nursed his fortunes with the utmost care, and who was fearful even

to a fault of offending the powerful, would have given any just cause

of displeasure to a kinsman who had the means of rendering him essential

service and of doing him irreparable injury. The real explanation,

{356}we believe, is this. Robert Cecil, the Treasurer’s second son, was

younger by a few months than Bacon. He had been educated with the

utmost care, had been initiated while still a boy, in the mysteries

of diplomacy and court-intrigue, and was just at this time about to be

produced on the stage of public life. The wish nearest to Burleigh’s

heart was that his own greatness might descend to this favourite child.

But even Burleigh’s fatherly partiality could hardly prevent him from

perceiving that Robert, with all his abilities and acquirements, was

no match for his cousin Francis. This seems to us the only rational

explanation of the Treasurer’s conduct. Mr. Montagu is more charitable.

He supposes that Burleigh was influenced merely by affection for his

nephew, and was “little deposed to encourage him to rely on others

rather than on himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics,

instead of the certain profession of the law.” If such were Burleigh’s

feelings, it seems strange that he should have suffered his son to

venture on those quicksands from which he so carefully preserved his

nephew. But the truth is that, if Burleigh had been so disposed, he

might easily have secured to Bacon a comfortable provision which should

have been exposed to no risk. And it is certain that he showed as little

disposition to enable his nephew to live by a profession as to enable

him to live without a profession. That Bacon himself attributed the

conduct of his relatives to jealousy of his superior talents, we

have not the smallest doubt. In a letter written many years later

to Villiers, he expresses himself thus: “Countenance, encourage, and

advance able men in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the time

of the Cecils, the father and the son, able men were by design and of

purpose suppressed.” {357}Whatever Burleigh’s motives might be, his

purpose was unalterable. The supplications which Francis addressed to

his uncle and aunt were earnest, humble, and almost servile. He was the

most promising and accomplished young man of his time. His father had

been the brother-in-law, the most useful colleague, the nearest friend

of the Minister. But all this availed poor Francis nothing. He was

forced, much against his will, to betake himself to the study of the

law. He was admitted at Gray’s Inn; and, during some years he laboured

there in obscurity.

What the extent of his legal attainments may have been it is difficult

to say. It was not hard for a man of his powers to acquire that very

moderate portion of technical knowledge which, when joined to quickness,

tact, wit, ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge of the world, is

sufficient to raise an advocate to the highest professional eminence.

The general opinion appears to have been that which was on one occasion

expressed by Elizabeth. “Bacon,” said she, “hath a great wit and much

learning; but in law showeth to the uttermost of his knowledge, and is

not deep.” The Cecils, we suspect, did their best to spread this opinion

by whispers and insinuations. Coke openly proclaimed it with that

rancorous insolence which was habitual to him. No reports are more

readily believed than those which disparage genius, and soothe the envy

of conscious mediocrity. It must have been inexpressibly consoling to

a stupid sergeant, the forerunner of him who, a hundred and fifty

years later, “shook his head at Murray as a wit,” to know that the most

profound thinker and the most accomplished orator of the age was very

imperfectly acquainted with the law touching _bastardeigne_ and _mulier

puisné_, and confounded {358}the right of free fishery with that of

common of piscary.

It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed during the century

and a half which followed, was better acquainted than Bacon with the

philosophy of law. His technical knowledge was quite sufficient, with

the help of his admirable talents and of his insinuating address,

to procure clients. He rose very rapidly into business, and soon

entertained hopes of being called within the bar. He applied to Lord

Burleigh for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. Of the grounds

of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon’s answer, which

is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose temper age and

gout had by no means altered for the better, and who loved to mark his

dislike of the showy, quick-witted young men of the rising generation,

took this opportunity to read Francis a very sharp lecture on his vanity

and want of respect for his betters. Francis returned a most submissive

reply, thanked the Treasurer for the admonition, and promised to profit

by it. Strangers meanwhile were less unjust to the young barrister

than his nearest kinsman had been. In his twenty-sixth year he became a

bencher of his Inn; and two years later he was appointed Lent reader. At

length in 1500, he obtained for the first time some show of favour from

the Court. He was sworn in Queen’s Counsel extraordinary. But this mark

of honour was not accompanied by any pecuniary emolument. He continued,

therefore, to solicit his powerful relatives for some provision which

might enable him to live without drudging at his profession. He bore,

with a patience and serenity which, we fear, bordered on meanness, the

morose humours of his uncle, and the sneering reflections which {359}his

cousin cast on speculative men, lost in philosophical dreams, and too

wise to be capable of transacting public business. At length the

Cecils were generous enough to procure for him the reversion of the

Registrarship of the Star Chamber. This was a lucrative place; but, as

many years elapsed before it fell in, he was still under the necessity

of labouring for his daily bread.

In the Parliament which was called in 1593 he sat as member for the

county of Middlesex, and soon attained eminence as a debater. It is

easy to perceive from the scanty remains of his oratory that the same

compactness of expression and richness of fancy which appear in his

writings characterized his speeches; and that his extensive acquaintance

with literature and history enabled him to entertain his audience with

a vast variety of illustrations and allusions which were generally happy

and apposite, but which were probably not least pleasing to the taste

of that age when they were such as would now be thought childish or

pedantic. It is evident also that he was, as indeed might have been

expected, perfectly free from those faults which are generally found in

an advocate who, after having risen to eminence at the bar, enters

the House of Commons; that it was his habit to deal with every great

question, not in small detached portions, but as a whole; that he

refined little, and that his reasonings were those of a capacious

rather than a subtle mind. Ben Jonson, a most unexceptionable judge, has

described Bacon’s eloquence in words, which, though often quoted, will

bear to be quoted again. “There happened in my time one noble speaker

who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could

spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more

neatly, {360}more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness,

less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted

of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him

without loss, he commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and

pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power.

The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.”

From the mention which is made of judges, it would seem that Jonson had

heard Bacon only at the Bar. Indeed we imagine that the House of Commons

was then almost inaccessible to strangers. It is not probable that a

man of Bacon’s nice observation would speak in Parliament exactly as

he spoke in the Court of Queen’s Bench. But the graces of manner and

language must, to a great extent, have been common between the Queen’s

Counsel and the Knight of the Shire.

Bacon tried to play a very difficult game in politics. He wished to be

at once a favourite at Court and popular with the multitude. If any

man could have succeeded in this attempt, a man of talents so rare,

of judgment so prematurely ripe, of temper so calm, and of manners so

plausible, might have been expected to succeed. Nor indeed did he wholly

fail. Once, however, he indulged in a burst of patriotism which cost him

a long and bitter remorse, and which he never ventured to repeat. The

Court asked for large subsidies and for speedy payment. The remains

of Bacon’s speech breathe all the spirit of the Long Parliament. “The

gentlemen,” said he, “must sell their plate, and the fanners their

brass pots, ere this will be paid; and for us, we are here to search

the wounds of the realm, and not to skim them over. The dangers {361}are

these. First, we shall breed discontent and endanger her Majesty’s

safety, which must consist more in the love of the people than their

wealth. Secondly, this being granted in this sort, other princes

hereafter will look for the like; so that we shall put an evil precedent

on ourselves and our posterity; and in histories, it is to be observed,

of all nations the English are not to be subject, base, or taxable.” The

Queen and her ministers resented this outbreak of public spirit in the

highest manner. Indeed, many an honest member of the House of Commons

had, for a much smaller matter, been sent to the Tower by the proud

and hot-blooded Tudors. 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.

He was now satisfied that he had little to hope from the patronage of

those powerful kinsmen whom he had solicited during twelve years with

such meek pertinacity; and he began to look towards a different quarter.

Among the courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared a new favourite,

young, noble, wealthy, accomplished, eloquent, brave, generous,

aspiring; a favourite who had obtained from the grey-headed Queen such

marks of regard as she had scarce vouchsafed to Leicester in the season

of the passions; who was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol

of the city; who was the common patron of men of letters and of men of

the sword; who was the common {362}refuge of the persecuted Catholic and

of the persecuted Puritan. The calm prudence which had enabled Burleigh

to shape his course through so many dangers, and the vast experience

which he had acquired in dealing with two generations of colleagues

and rivals, seemed scarcely sufficient to support him in this new

competition; and Robert Cecil sickened with fear and envy as he

contemplated the rising fame and influence of Essex.

The history of the factions which, towards the close of the reign of

Elizabeth, divided her court and her council, though pregnant with

instruction, is by no means interesting or pleasing. Both parties

employed the means which are familiar to unscrupulous statesmen; and

neither had, or even pretended to have, any important end in view. The

public mind was then reposing from one great effort, and collecting

strength for another. That impetuous and appalling rush with which the

human intellect had moved forward in the career of truth and liberty,

during the fifty years which followed the separation of Luther from

the communion of the Church of Rome, was now over. The boundary between

Protestantism and Popery had been fixed very nearly where it still

remains. England, Scotland, the Northern kingdoms were on one side;

Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, on the other. The line of demarcation

ran, as it still runs, through the midst of the Netherlands, of Germany,

and of Switzerland, dividing province from province, electorate from

electorate, and canton from canton. France might be considered as a

debatable land, in which the contest was still undecided. Since that

time, the two religions have done little more than maintain their

ground. A few occasional incursions have been made. But the general

frontier remains {363}the same. During two hundred and fifty years no

great society has risen up like one man, and emancipated itself by one

mighty effort from the superstition of ages. This spectacle was common

in the sixteenth century. Why has it ceased to be so? Why has so violent

a movement been followed by so long a repose? The doctrines of the

Reformers are not less agreeable to reason or to revelation now than

formerly. The public mind is assuredly not less enlightened now than

formerly. Why is it that Protestantism, after carrying every thing

before it in a time of comparatively little knowledge and little

freedom, should make no perceptible progress in a reasoning and tolerant

age; that the Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes, the Zwingles, should

have left no successors; that during two centuries and a half fewer

converts should have been brought over from the Church of Rome than at

the time of the Reformation were sometimes gained in a year? This has

always appeared to us one of the most curious and interesting problems

in history. On some future occasion we may perhaps attempt to solve it.

At present it is enough to say that, at the close of Elizabeth’s reign,

the Protestant party, to borrow the language of the Apocalypse, had left

its first love and had ceased to do its first works.

The great straggle of the sixteenth century was over. The great struggle

of the seventeenth century had not commenced. The confessors of Mary’s

reign were dead. The members of the Long Parliament were still in their

cradles. The Papists had been deprived of all power in the state. The

Puritans had not yet attained any formidable extent of power. True it is

that a student, well acquainted with the history of the next generation,

can easily discern in the proceedings {364}of the last Parliaments of

Elizabeth the germ of great and ever memorable events. But to the eye of

a contemporary nothing of this appeared. The two sections of ambitious

men who were struggling for power differed from each other on no

important public question. Both belonged to the Established Church. Both

professed boundless loyalty to the Queen. Both approved the war with

Spain. There is not, so far as we are aware, any reason to believe that

they entertained different views concerning the succession of the Crown.

Certainly neither faction had any great measure of reform in view.

Neither attempted to redress any public grievance. The most odious and

pernicious grievance under which the nation then suffered was a source

of profit to both, and was defended by both with equal zeal. Raleigh

held a monopoly of cards, Essex a monopoly of sweet wines. In fact, the

only ground of quarrel between the parties was that they could not agree

as to their respective shares of power and patronage.

Nothing in the political conduct of Essex entitles him to esteem; and

the pity with which we regard his early and terrible end is diminished

by the consideration, that he put to hazard the lives and fortunes of

his most attached friends, and endeavoured to throw the whole country

into confusion, for objects purely personal. Still, it is impossible not

to be deeply interested for a man so brave, high-spirited, and generous;

for a man who, while he conducted himself towards his sovereign with a

boldness such as was then found in no other subject, conducted himself

towards his dependents with a delicacy such as has rarely been found in

any other patron. Unlike the vulgar herd of benefactors, he desired to

inspire, not gratitude, but affection. He {365}tried to make those whom

he befriended feel towards him as towards an equal. His mind, ardent,

susceptible, naturally disposed to admiration of all that is great and

beautiful, was fascinated by the genius and accomplishments of Bacon. A

close friendship was soon formed between them, a friendship destined to

have a dark, a mournful, a shameful end.

In 1504 the office of Attorney-General became vacant, and Bacon hoped

to obtain it. Essex made his friend’s cause his own, sued, expostulated,

promised, threatened, but all in vain. It is probable that the dislike

felt by the Cecils for Bacon had been increased by the connection which

he had lately formed with the Earl. Robert was then on the point of

being made Secretary of State. He happened one day to be in the same

coach with Essex, and a remarkable conversation took place between them.

“My Lord,” said Sir Robert, “the Queen has determined to appoint an

Attorney-General without more delay. I pray your Lordship to let me know

whom you will favour.”

“I wonder at your question,” replied the Earl. “You cannot but know

that resolutely, against all the world, I stand for your cousin, Francis

Bacon.”

“Good Lord!” cried Cecil, unable to bridle his temper, “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?”

This objection came with a singularly bad grace from a man who, though

younger than Bacon, was in daily expectation of being made Secretary

of State. The blot was too obvious to be missed by Essex, who seldom

forbore to speak his mind. “I have made no search,” said he, “for

precedents of young men who have filled the office of Attorney-General.

But I could name to you, {366}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.” Sir Robert had

nothing to say but that he thought his own abilities equal to the place

which he hoped to obtain, and that his father’s long services deserved

such a mark of gratitude from the Queen; as if his abilities were

comparable to his cousin’s, or as if Sir Nicholas Bacon had done

no service to the State. Cecil then hinted that, if Bacon would be

satisfied with the Solicitorship, that might be of easier digestion to

the Queen. “Digest me no digestions,” said the generous and ardent Earl.

“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; and whosoever getteth this

office out of my hands for any other, before he have it, it shall cost

him the coming by. And this be you assured of, Sir Robert, for now I

fully declare myself; and for my own part, Sir Robert, I think strange

both of my Lord Treasurer and you, that can have the mind to seek the

preference of a stranger before so near a kinsman; for if you weigh in

a balance the parts every way of his competitor and him, only excepting

five poor years of admitting to a house of court before Francis, you

shall find in all other respects whatsoever no comparison between them.”

When the office of Attorney-General was filled up the Earl pressed the

Queen to make Bacon Solicitor-General, and, on this occasion, the

old Lord Treasurer professed himself not unfavourable to his nephew’s

pretensions. But, after a contest which lasted more than a year and

a half, and in which Essex, to use his own {367}words, “spent all his

power, might, authority, and amity,” the place was given to another.

Essex felt this disappointment keenly, but found consolation in the most

munificent and delicate liberality. He presented Bacon with an estate

worth near two thousand pounds, situated at Twickenham; and this, as

Bacon owned many years after, “with so kind and noble circumstances as

the manner was worth more than the matter.”

It was soon after these events that Bacon first appeared before the

public as a writer. Early in 1597 he published a small volume of Essays,

which was afterwards enlarged by successive additions to many times

its original bulk. This little work was, as it well deserved to be,

exceedingly popular. It was reprinted in a few months; it was

translated into Latin, French, and Italian; and it seems to have at once

established the literary reputation of its author. But, though Bacon’s

reputation rose, his fortunes were still depressed. He was in great

pecuniary difficulties; and on one occasion, was arrested in the street

at the suit of a goldsmith for a debt of three hundred pounds, and was

carried to a spunging-house in Coleman Street.

The kindness of Essex was in the mean time indefatigable. In 1596 he

sailed on his memorable expedition to the coast of Spain. At the

very moment of his embarkation, he wrote to several of his friends,

commending to them, during his own absence, the interests of Bacon. He

returned, after performing the most brilliant military exploit that was

achieved on the Continent by English arms during the long interval

which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim. His

valour, his talents, his humane and generous disposition, had made

him the idol of his {368}countrymen, and had extorted praise from

the enemies whom he had conquered. (1) He had always been proud and

headstrong; and his splendid success seems to have rendered his faults

more offensive than ever. But to his friend Francis he was still the

same. Bacon had some thoughts of making his fortune by marriage, and

had begun to pay court to a widow of the name of Hatton. The eccentric

manners and violent temper of this woman made her a disgrace and a

torment to her connections. But Bacon was not aware of her faults, or

was disposed to overlook them for the sake of her ample fortune. Essex

pleaded his friend’s cause with his usual ardour. The letters which the

Earl addressed to Lady Hatton and to her mother are still extant, and

are highly honourable to him. “If,” he wrote, “she were my sister or my

daughter, I protest I would as confidently resolve to further it as I

now persuade you;” and again, “if my faith be any thing, I protest, if

I had one as near me as she is to you, I had rather match her with him,

than with men of far greater titles.” The suit, happily for Bacon, was

unsuccessful. The lady indeed was kind to him in more ways than one.

She rejected him; and she accepted his enemy. She married that

narrow-minded, bad-hearted pedant, Sir Edward Coke, and did her best to

make him as miserable as he deserved to be.

The fortunes of Essex had now reached their height, and began to

decline. He possessed indeed all the qualities which raise men to

greatness rapidly. But he had neither the virtues or the vices which

enable men to retain greatness long. His frankness, his keen sensibility

to insult and injustice were by no means

(1) See Cervantes’s _Novela de la Espanola Inglesa_.

{369}agreeable to a sovereign natural impatient of opposition, and

accustomed, during forty years, to the most extravagant flattery and the

most abject submission. The daring and contemptuous manner in which

he bade defiance to his enemies excited their deadly hatred. His

administration in Ireland was unfortunate, and in many respects highly

blamable. Though his brilliant courage and his impetuous activity fitted

him admirably for such enterprises as that of Cadiz, he did not possess

the caution, patience, and resolution necessary for the conduct of a

protracted war, in which difficulties were to be gradually surmounted,

in which much discomfort was to be endured, and in which few splendid

exploits could be achieved. For the civil duties of his high place he

was still less qualified. Though eloquent and accomplished, he was in no

sense a statesman. The multitude indeed still continued to regard even

his faults with fondness. But the Court had ceased to give him credit,

even for the merit which he really possessed. The person on whom, during

the decline of his influence, he chiefly depended, to whom he confided

his perplexities, whose advice he solicited, whose intercession he

employed, was his friend Bacon. The lamentable truth must be told. This

friend, so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part in mining the Earl’s

fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening his memory.

But let us be just to Bacon. We believe that, to the last, he had no

wish to injure Essex. Nay, we believe that he sincerely exerted himself

to serve Essex, as long as he thought he could serve Essex without

injuring himself. The advice which he gave to his noble benefactor was

generally most judicious. He did all in his power to dissuade the Earl

from accepting the Government of Ireland. “For,” says he, {370}“I did as

plainly see his overthrow chained as it were by destiny to that

journey, as it is possible for a man to ground a judgment upon future

contingents.” The prediction was accomplished. Essex returned in

disgrace. Bacon attempted to mediate between his friend and the Queen;

and, we believe, honestly employed all his address for that purpose.

But the task which he had undertaken was too difficult, delicate, and

perilous, even for so wary and dexterous an agent. He had to manage two

spirits equally proud, resentful, and ungovernable. At Essex House, he

had to calm the rage of a young hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and

humiliations, and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of soothing

the peevishness of a sovereign, whose temper, never very gentle, had

been rendered morbidly irritable by age, by declining health, and by the

long habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit obedience.

It is hard to serve two masters. Situated as Bacon was, it was scarcely

possible for him to shape his course so as not to give one or both of

his employers reason to complain. For a time he acted as fairly as, in

circumstances so embarrassing, could reasonably be expected. At length

he found that, while he was trying to prop the fortunes of another, he

was in danger of shaking his own. He had disobliged both the parties

whom he wished to reconcile. Essex thought him wanting in zeal as a

friend: Elizabeth thought him wanting in duty as a subject. The Earl

looked on him as a spy of the Queen; the Queen as a creature of the

Earl. The reconciliation which he had laboured to effect appeared

utterly hopeless. A thousand signs, legible to eyes far less keen than

his, announced that the fall of his patron was at hand. He shaped his

course accordingly. When Essex was {371}brought before the council

to answer for his conduct in Ireland, Bacon, after a faint attempt to

excuse himself from taking part against his friend, submitted himself’

to the Queen’s pleasure, and appeared at the bar in support of the

charges. But a darker scene was behind. The unhappy young nobleman, made

reckless by despair, ventured on a rash and criminal enterprise, which

rendered him liable to the highest penalties of the law. What course was

Bacon to take? This was one of those conjunctures which show what men

are. To a high-minded man, wealth, power, court-favor, even personal

safety, would have appeared of no account, when opposed to friendship,

gratitude, and honour. Such a man would have stood by the side of Essex

at the trial, would have “spent all his power, might, authority, and

amity” in soliciting a mitigation of the sentence, would have been a

daily visitor at the cell, would have received the last injunctions and

the last embrace on the scaffold, would have employed all the powers

of his intellect to guard from insult the fame of his generous though

erring friend. An ordinary man would neither have incurred the danger of

succouring Essex, nor the disgrace of assailing him. Bacon did not even

preserve neutrality. He appeared as counsel for the prosecution. In

that situation he did not confine himself to what would have been amply

sufficient to procure a verdict. He employed all his wit, his rhetoric,

and his learning, not to insure a conviction,--for the circumstances

were such that a conviction was inevitable,--but to deprive the unhappy

prisoner of all those excuses which, though legally of no value, yet

tended to diminish the moral guilt of the crime, and which, therefore,

though they could not justify the peers in pronouncing an acquittal,

might {372}incline the Queen to grant a pardon. The Earl urged as a

palliation of his frantic acts that he was surrounded by powerful and

inveterate enemies, that they had ruined his fortunes, that they sought

his life, and that their persecutions had driven him to despair. This

was true; and Bacon well knew it to be true. But he affected to treat it

as an idle pretence. He compared Essex to Pisistratus who, by

pretending to be in imminent danger of assassination, and by exhibiting

self-inflicted wounds, succeeded in establishing tyranny at Athens. This

was too much for the prisoner to bear. He interrupted his ungrateful

friend by calling on him to quit the part of an advocate, to come

forward as a witness, and to tell the Lords whether, in old times, he

Francis Bacon, had not under his own hand, repeatedly asserted the truth

of what he now represented as idle pretexts. It is painful to go on with

this lamentable story. Bacon returned a shuffling answer to the Earl’s

question, and, as if the allusion to Pisistratus were not sufficiently

offensive, made another allusion still more unjustifiable. He compared

Essex to Henry Duke of Guise, and the rash attempt in the city to the

day of the barricades at Paris. Why Bacon had recourse to such a topic

it is difficult to say. It was quite unnecessary for the purpose of

obtaining a verdict. It was certain to produce a strong impression

on the mind of the haughty and jealous princess on whose pleasure the

Earl’s fate depended. The faintest allusion to the degrading tutelage

in which the last Valois had been held by the House of Lorraine was

sufficient to harden her heart against a man who in rank, in military

reputation, in popularity among the citizens of the capital, bore some

resemblance to the Captain of the League.

{373}Essex was convicted. Bacon made no effort to save him, though the

Queen’s feelings were such that he might have pleaded his benefactor’s

cause, possibly with success, certainly without any serious danger to

himself. The unhappy nobleman was executed. His fate excited strong,

perhaps unreasonable feelings of compassion and indignation. The Queen

was received by the citizens of London with gloomy looks and faint

acclamations. She thought it expedient to publish a vindication of her

late proceedings. The faithless friend who had assisted in taking the

Earl’s life was now employed to murder the Earl’s fame. The Queen had

seen some of Bacon’s writings, and had been pleased with them. He

was accordingly selected to write “A Declaration of the Practices and

Treasons attempted and committed by Robert Earl of Essex,” which was

printed by authority. In the succeeding reign, Bacon had not a word

to say in defence of this performance, a performance abounding in

expressions which no generous enemy would have employed respecting a man

who had so dearly expiated his offences. His only excuse 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 was to

treat every part of the subject, and that, in fact, he had furnished

only the arrangement and the style.

We regret to say that the whole conduct of Bacon through the course

of these transactions appears to Mr. Montagu not merely excusable, but

deserving of high admiration. The integrity and benevolence of this

gentleman are so well known that our readers will probably be at a loss

to conceive by what steps he can have arrived at so extraordinary

a conclusion: and we are half afraid that they will suspect us of

practising {374}some artifice upon them when we report the principal

arguments which he employs.

In order to get rid of the charge of ingratitude, Mr. Montagu attempts

to show that Bacon lay under greater obligations to the Queen than

to Essex. What these obligations were it is not easy to discover.

The situation of Queen’s Counsel, and a remote reversion, were surely

favours very far below Bacon’s personal and hereditary claims. They were

favours which had not cost the Queen a groat, nor had they put a groat

into Bacon’s purse. It was necessary to rest Elizabeth’s claims to

gratitude on some other ground; and this Mr. Montagu felt. “What perhaps

was her greatest kindness,” says he, “instead of having hastily advanced

Bacon, she had, with a continuance of her friendship, made him bear the

yoke in his youth. Such were his obligations to Elizabeth.” Such

indeed they were. Being the son of one of her oldest and most faithful

ministers, being himself the ablest and most accomplished young man of

his time, he had been condemned by her to drudgery, to obscurity, to

poverty. She had depreciated his acquirements. She had checked him in

the most imperious manner, when in Parliament he ventured to act an

independent part. She had refused to him the professional advancement to

which he had a just claim. To her it was owing that, while younger men,

not superior to him in extraction, and far inferior to him in every kind

of personal merit, were filling the highest offices of the state,

adding manor to manor, rearing palace after palace, he was lying at a

spunging-house for a debt of three hundred pounds. Assuredly if Bacon

owed gratitude to Elizabeth, he owed none to Essex. If the Queen really

was his best friend, the Earl was his worst enemy. {375}We wonder that

Mr. Montagu did not press this argument a little further. He might have

maintained that Bacon was excusable in revenging himself on a man who

had attempted to rescue his youth from the salutary yoke imposed on it

by the Queen, who had wished to advance him hastily, who, not content

with attempting to inflict the Attorney-Generalship upon him, had been

so cruel as to present him with a landed estate.

Again, we can hardly think Mr. Montagu serious when he tells us that

Bacon was bound for the sake of the public not to destroy his own hopes

of advancement, and that he took part against Essex from a wish to

obtain power which might enable him to be useful to his country. We

really do not know how to refute such arguments except by stating them.

Nothing is impossible which does not involve a contradiction. It is

barely possible that Bacon’s motives for acting as he did on this

occasion may have been gratitude to the Queen for keeping him poor, and

a desire to benefit his fellow-creatures in some high situation. And

there is a possibility that Bonner may have been a good Protestant who,

being convinced that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,

heroically went through all the drudgery and infamy of persecution,

in order that he might inspire the English people with an intense and

lasting hatred of Popery. There is a possibility that Jeffreys may have

been an ardent lover of liberty, and that he may have beheaded Algernon

Sydney, and burned Elizabeth Gaunt, only in order to produce a reaction

which might lead to the limitation of the prerogative. There is a

possibility that Thurtell may have killed Weare only in order to give

the youth of England an impressive warning against gaming and {376}bad

company. There is a possibility that Fauntleroy may have forged powers

of attorney, only in order that his fate might turn the attention of

the public to the defects of the penal law. These things, we say, are

possible. But they are so extravagantly improbable that a man who should

act on such suppositions would be fit only for Saint Luke’s. And we do

not see why suppositions on which no rational man would act in ordinary

life should be admitted into history.

Mr. Montagu’s notion that Bacon desired power only in order to do good

to mankind appears somewhat strange to us, when we consider how Bacon

afterwards used power, and how he lost it. Surely the service which he

rendered to mankind by taking Lady Wharton’s broad pieces and Sir John

Kennedy’s cabinet was not of such vast importance as to sanctify all the

means which might conduce to that end. If the case were fairly stated,

it would, we much fear, stand thus: Bacon was a servile advocate, that

he might be a corrupt judge.

Mr. Montagu maintains that none but the ignorant and unreflecting can

think Bacon censurable for any thing that he did as counsel for the

Crown, and that no advocate can justifiably use any discretion as to the

party for whom he appears. We will not at present inquire whether the

doctrine which is held on this subject by English lawyers be or be not

agreeable to reason and morality; whether it be right that a man should,

with a wig on his head, and a band round his neck, do for a guinea what,

without those appendages, he would think it wicked and infamous to

do for an empire; whether it be right that, not merely believing but

knowing a statement to be true, he should do all that can be done

by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn {377}asseveration, by indignant

exclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by terrifying one honest

witness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury to think that statement

false. It is not necessary on the present occasion to decide these

questions. The professional rules, be they good or bad, are rules

to which many wise and virtuous men have conformed, and are daily

conforming. If, therefore, Bacon did no more than these rules required

of him, we shall readily admit that he was blameless, or, at least,

excusable. But we conceive that his con duct was not justifiable

according to any professional rules that now exist, or that ever existed

in England. It has always been held that, in criminal cases in which

the prisoner was denied the help of counsel, and, above all, in capital

cases, advocates were both entitled and bound to exercise a discretion.

It is true that, after the Revolution, when the Parliament began to

make inquisition for the innocent blood which had been shed by the last

Stuarts, a feeble attempt was made to defend the lawyers who had been

accomplices in the murder of Sir Thomas Armstrong, on the ground that

they had only acted professionally. The wretched sophism was silenced

by the execrations of the House of Commons. “Things will never be well

done,” said Mr. Foley, “till some of that profession be made examples.”

“We have a new sort of monsters in the world,” said the younger Hampden,

“haranguing a man to death. These I call bloodhounds. Sawyer is very

criminal and guilty of this murder.”

“I speak to discharge my conscience,” said Mr. Garroway. “I will not

have the blood of this man at my door. Sawyer demanded judgment against

him and execution. I believe him guilty of the death {378}of this man.

Do what you will with him.”

“If the profession of the law,” said the elder Hampden, “gives a man

authority to murder at this rate, it is the interest of all men to rise

and exterminate that profession.” Nor was this language held only by

unlearned country gentlemen. Sir William Williams, one of the ablest and

most unscrupulous lawyers of the age, took the same view of the case.

He had not hesitated, he said, to take part in the prosecution of the

Bishops, because they were allowed counsel. But he maintained that,

where the prisoner was not allowed counsel, the Counsel for the Crown

was bound to exercise a discretion, and that every lawyer who neglected

this distinction was a betrayer of the law. But it is unnecessary to

cite authority. It is known to every body who has ever looked into

a court of quarter-sessions that lawyers do exercise a discretion in

criminal cases; and it is plain to every man of common sense that, if

they did not exercise such a discretion, they would be a more hateful

body of men than those bravoes who used to hire out their stilettoes in

Italy.

Bacon appeared against a man who was indeed guilty of a great offence,

but who had been his benefactor and friend. He did more than this.

Nay, he did more than a person who had never seen Essex would have been

justified in doing. He employed all the art of an advocate in order to

make the prisoner’s conduct appear more inexcusable and more dangerous

to the state than it really had been. All that professional duty could,

in any case, have required of him would have been to conduct the cause

so as to insure a conviction. But from the nature of the circumstances

there could not be the smallest doubt that the Earl would be found

guilty. The character of the {379}crime was unequivocal. It had been

committed recently, in broad daylight, in the streets of the capital,

in the presence of thousands. If ever there was an occasion on which

an advocate had no temptation to resort to extraneous topics, for

the purpose of blinding the judgment and inflaming the passions of a

tribunal, this was that occasion. Why then resort to arguments which,

while they could add nothing to the strength of the case, considered in

a legal point of view, tended to aggravate the moral guilt of the fatal

enterprise, and to excite fear and resentment in that quarter from which

alone the Earl could now expect mercy? Why remind the audience of the

arts of the ancient tyrants? Why deny, what every body knew to be the

truth, that a powerful faction at court had long sought to effect the

ruin of the prisoner? Why, above all, institute a parallel between the

unhappy culprit and the most wicked and most successful rebel of the

age? Was it absolutely impossible to do all that professional duty

required without reminding a jealous sovereign of the League, of the

barricades, and of all the humiliations which a too powerful subject had

heaped on Henry the Third?

But if we admit the plea which Mr. Montagu urges in defence of what

Bacon did as an advocate, what shall we say of the “Declaration of the

Treasons of Robert Earl of Essex?” Here at least there was no pretence

of professional obligation. Even those who may think it the duty of

a lawyer to hang, draw, and quarter his benefactors, for a proper

consideration, will hardly say that it is his duty to write abusive

pamphlets against them, after they are in their graves. Bacon excused

himself by saying that he was not answerable for the matter of the book,

and that he furnished only {380}the language. But why did lie endow such

purposes with words? Could no hack writer, without virtue or shame, be

found to exaggerate the errors, already so dearly expiated, of a gentle

and noble spirit? Every age produces those links between the man and the

baboon. Every age is fertile of Oldmixons, of Kenricks, and of Antony

Pasquins. But was it for Bacon so to prostitute his intellect? Could he

not feel that, while he rounded and pointed some period dictated by the

envy of Cecil, or gave a plausible form to some slander invented by the

dastardly malignity of Cobliam, he was not sinning merely against his

friend’s honour and his own? Could he not feel that letters, eloquence,

philosophy, were all degraded in his degradation?

The real explanation of all this is perfectly obvious; and nothing but

a partiality amounting to a ruling passion could cause any body to miss

it. The moral qualities of Bacon were not of a high order. We do not say

that he was a bad man. He was not inhuman or tyrannical. He bore with

meekness his high civil honours, and the far higher honours gained by

his intellect. He was very seldom, if ever, provoked into treating any

person with malignity and insolence. Ko man more readily held up the

left cheek to those who had smitten the right. No man was more expert at

the soft answer which turneth away wrath. He was never charged, by any

accuser entitled to the smallest credit, with licentious habits. His

even temper, his flowing courtesy, the general respectability of

his demeanour, made a favourable impression on those who saw him in

situations which do not severely try the principles. His faults were--we

write it with pain--coldness of heart, and meanness of spirit. He seems

to have been incapable of feeling strong affection, of {381}facing great

dangers, of making great sacrifices. His desires were set on things

below. Wealth, precedence, titles, patronage, the mace, the seals, the

coronet, large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, massive services of

plate, gay hangings, curious cabinets, had as great attractions for him

as for any of the courtiers who dropped on their knees in the dirt when

Elizabeth passed by, and then hastened home to write to the King of

Scots that her Grace seemed to be breaking fast. For these objects he

had stooped to every thing and endured every thing. For these he

had sued in the humblest manner, and, when unjustly and ungraciously

repulsed, had thanked those who had repulsed him, and had begun to sue

again. For these objects, as soon as he found that the smallest show

of independence in Parliament was offensive to the Queen, he had abased

himself to the dust before her, and implored forgiveness in terms better

suited to a convicted thief than to a knight of the shire. For these he

joined, and for these he forsook, Lord Essex. He continued to plead his

patron’s cause with the Queen as long as he thought that by pleading

that cause he might serve himself. Nay, he went further; for his

feelings, though not warm, were kind; he pleaded that cause as long as

he thought that he could plead it without injury to himself. But when it

became evident that Essex was going headlong to his ruin, Bacon began to

tremble for his own fortunes. What he had to fear would not indeed have

been very alarming to a man of lofty character. It was not death. It was

not imprisonment. It was the loss of court favour. It was the being left

behind by others in the career of ambition. It was the having leisure

to finish the _Instauratio Magna_. The Queen looked coldly on him. The

courtiers began to consider him as a marked {382}man. He determined to

change his line of conduct, and to proceed in a new course with so much

vigour as to make up for lost time. When once he had determined to act

against his friend, knowing himself to be suspected, he acted with

more zeal than would have been necessary or justifiable if he had been

employed against a stranger. He exerted his professional talents to shed

the Earl’s blood, and his literary talents to blacken the Earl’s memory.

It is certain that his conduct excited at the time great and general

disapprobation. While Elizabeth lived, indeed, this disapprobation,

though deeply felt, was not loudly expressed. But a great change was at

hand. The health of the Queen had long been decaying; and the operation

of age and disease was now assisted by acute mental suffering. The

pitiable melancholy of her last days has generally been ascribed to her

fond regret for Essex. But we are disposed to attribute her dejection

partly to physical causes, and partly to the conduct of her courtiers

and ministers. They did all in their power to conceal from her the

intrigues which they were carrying on at the Court of Scotland. But her

keen sagacity was not to be so deceived. She did not know the whole. But

she knew that she was surrounded by men who were impatient for that new

world which was to begin at her death, who had never been attached to

her by affection, and who were now but very slightly attached to her by

interest. Prostration and flattery could not conceal from her the cruel

truth, that those whom she had trusted and promoted had never loved her,

and were fast ceasing to fear her. Unable to avenge herself, and too

proud to complain, she suffered sorrow and resentment to prey on her

heart, till, after a {383}long career of power, prosperity, and glory,

she died sick and weary of the world.

James mounted the throne: and Bacon employed all his address to obtain

for himself a share of the favour of his new master. This was no

difficult task. The faults of James, both as a man and as a prince, were

numerous; but insensibility to the claims of genius and learning was

not among them. He was indeed made up of two men, a witty, well-read

scholar, who wrote, disputed and harangued, and a nervous, drivelling;

idiot, who acted. If he had been a Canon of Christ Church, or a

Prebendary of Westminster, it is not improbable that he would have left

a highly respectable name to posterity; that he would have distinguished

himself among the translators of the Bible, and among the Divines who

attended the Synod of Dort; and that he would have been regarded by the

literary world as no contemptible rival of Vossius and Casanbon. But

fortune placed him in a situation in which his weaknesses covered him

with disgrace, and in which his accomplishments brought him no honour.

In a college, much eccentricity and childishness would have been readily

pardoned in so learned a man. But all that learning; could do for him on

the throne was to make people think him a pedant as well as a fool.

Bacon was favourably received at Court; and soon found that his chance

of promotion was not diminished by the death of the Queen. He was

solicitous to be knighted, for two reasons which are somewhat amusing.

The King had already dubbed half London, and Bacon found himself the

only untitled person in his mess at Gray’s Inn. This was not very

agreeable to him. He had also, to quote his own words, “found an

Alderman’s daughter, a handsome maiden, to his {384}liking.” On both

these grounds, he begged his cousin Robert Cecil, “if it might please

his good Lordship,” to use his interest in his behalf. The application

was successful. Bacon was one of three hundred gentlemen who, on the

coronation-day, received the honour, if it is to be so called, of

knighthood. The handsome maiden, a daughter of Alderman Barnham, soon

after consented to become Sir Francis’s lady.

The death of Elizabeth, though on the whole it improved Bacon’s

prospects, was in one respect an unfortunate event for him. The new King

had always felt kindly towards Lord Essex, and, as soon as he came to

the throne, began to show favour to the house of Devereux, and to those

who had stood by that house in its adversity. Everybody was now at

liberty to speak out respecting those lamentable events in which Bacon

had borne so large a share. Elizabeth was scarcely cold when the public

feeling began to manifest itself by marks of respect towards Lord

Southampton. That accomplished nobleman, who will be remembered to the

latest ages as the generous and discerning patron of Shakspeare, was

held in honour by his contemporaries chiefly on account of the devoted

affection which he had borne to Essex. He had been tried and convicted

together with his friend; but the Queen had spared his life, and, at the

time of her death, he was still a prisoner. A crowd of visitors hastened

to the Tower to congratulate him on his approaching deliverance. With

that crowd Bacon could not venture to mingle. The multitude loudly

condemned him; and his conscience told him that the multitude had but

too much reason. He excused himself to Southampton by letter, in terms

which, if he had, as Mr. Montagu conceives, done only what as a

subject and an advocate he was bound to do, {385}must be considered

as shamefully servile. He owns his fear that his attendance would give

offence, and that his professions of regard would obtain no credit.

“Yet,” says he, “it is as true as a thing that God knoweth, that this

great chancre hath wrought in me no other change towards your Lordship

than this, that I may safely be that to you now which I was truly

before.”

How Southampton received these apologies we are not informed. But it

is certain that the general opinion was pronounced against Bacon in a

manner not to be misunderstood. Soon after his marriage he put forth a

defence of his conduct, in the form of a letter to the Earl of Devon.

This tract seems to us to prove only the exceeding badness of a cause

for which such talents could do so little.

It is not probable that Bacon’s Defence had much effect on his

contemporaries. But the unfavourable impression which his conduct had

made appears to have been gradually effaced. Indeed it must be some very

peculiar cause that can make a man like him long unpopular. His talents

secured him from contempt, his temper and his manners from hatred. There

is scarcely any story so black that it may not be got over by a man of

great abilities, whose abilities are united with caution, good-humour,

patience, and affability, who pays daily sacrifice to Nemesis, who is a

delightful companion, a serviceable though not an ardent friend, and

a dangerous yet a placable enemy. Waller in the next generation was an

eminent instance of this. Indeed Waller had much more than may at first

sight appear in common with Bacon. To the higher intellectual qualities

of the great English philosopher, to the genius which has made an

immortal epoch in the history of {386}science, Waller had indeed no

pretensions. But the mind of Waller, as far as it extended, coincided

with that of Bacon, and might, so to speak, have been cut out of that

of Bacon. In the qualities which make a man an object of interest and

veneration to posterity, they cannot be compared together. But in the

qualities by which chiefly a man is known to his contemporaries there

was a striking similarity between them. Considered as men of the world,

as courtiers, as politicians, as associates, as allies, as enemies,

they had nearly the same merits, and the same defects. They were not

malignant. They were not tyrannical. But they wanted warmth of affection

and elevation of sentiment. There were many things which they loved

better than virtue, and which they feared more than guilt. Yet, even

after they had stooped to acts of which it is impossible to read the

account in the most partial narratives without strong disapprobation and

contempt, the public still continued to regard them with a feeling not

easily to be distinguished from esteem. The hyperbole of Juliet seemed

to be verified with respect to them. “Upon their brows shame was

ashamed to sit.” Everybody seemed as desirous to throw’ a veil over

their misconduct as if it had been his own. Clarendon, who felt, and who

had reason to feel, strong personal dislike towards Y aller, speaks of

him thus: “There needs no more to be said to extol the excellence and

power of his wit and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was

of magnitude enough to cover a world of very great faults, that is, so

to cover them that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, viz. a

narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree, an abjectness and want of

courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking, an insinuation

and servile flattery to the height {387}the vainest and most imperious

nature could be contented with.... It had power to reconcile him to

those whom he had most offended and provoked, and continued to his

age with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable where

his spirit was odious, and he was at least pitied where he was most

detested.” Much of this, with some softening, might, we fear, be

applied to Bacon. The influence of Waller’s talents, manners, and

accomplishments, died with him; and the world has pronounced an

unbiassed sentence on his character. A few flowing lines are not bribe

sufficient to pervert the judgment of posterity. But the influence

of Bacon is felt and will long be felt over the whole civilised world.

Leniently as he was treated by his contemporaries, posterity has treated

him more leniently still. Turn where we may, the trophies of that mighty

intellect are full in view. We are judging Manlius in sight of the

Capitol.

Under the reign of James, Bacon grew rapidly in fortune and favour. In

1604 he was appointed King’s Counsel, with a fee of forty pounds a year;

and a pension of sixty pounds a year was settled upon him. In 1607 he

became Solicitor-General, in 1612 Attorney-General. He continued to

distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by his exertions in

favour of one excellent measure on which the King’s heart was set,

the union of England and Scotland. It was not difficult for such an

intellect to discover many irresistible arguments in favour of such a

scheme. He conducted the great case of the _Post Nati_ in the Exchequer

Chamber; and the decision of the judges, a decision the legality of

which may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which must

be acknowledged, was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous

management. {388}While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in

the courts of law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy.

The noble treatise on the “Advancement of Learning,” which at a later

period was expanded into the _De Augmentis_, appeared in 1605. The

“Wisdom of the Ancients,” a work which, if it had proceeded from any

other writer, would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit and

learning, but which adds little to the fame of Bacon, was printed

in 1609. In the mean time the _Novum Organum_ was slowly proceeding.

Several distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see sketches

or detached portions of that extraordinary book; and, though they were

not generally disposed to admit the soundness of the author’s views,

they spoke with the greatest admiration of his genius. Sir Thomas

Bodley, the founder of one of the most magnificent of English libraries,

was among those stubborn Conservatives who considered the hopes with

which Bacon looked forward to the future destinies of the human race

as utterly chimerical, and who regarded with distrust and aversion the

innovating spirit of the new schismatics in philosophy. Yet even Bodley,

after perusing the _Cogitata et Visa_, one of the most precious of those

scattered leaves out of which the great oracular volume was afterwards

made up, acknowledged that in “those very points, and in all proposals

and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master-workman;” and

that “it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over did abound

with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and with worthy

contemplations of the means to procure it.” In 1612, a new edition of

the “Essays” appeared, with additions surpassing the original collection

both in bulk and quality. Nor did {389}these pursuits distract Bacon’s

attention from a work the most arduous, the most glorious, and the most

useful that even his mighty powers could have achieved, “the reducing

and recompiling,” to use his own phrase, “of the laws of England.”

Unhappily he was at that very time employed in perverting those laws to

the vilest purposes of tyranny. When Oliver St. John was brought before

the Star Chamber for maintaining that the King had no right to levy

Benevolences, and was for his manly and constitutional conduct sentenced

to imprisonment during the royal pleasure and to a fine of five thousand

pounds, Bacon appeared as counsel for the prosecution. About the same

time he was deeply engaged in a still more disgraceful transaction.

An aged clergyman, of the name of Peacham, was accused of treason on

account of some passages of a sermon which was found in his study. The

sermon, whether written by him or not, had never been preached. It did

not appear that he had any intention of preaching it. The most servile

lawyers of those servile times were forced to admit that there were

great difficulties both as to the facts and as to the law. Bacon was

employed to remove those difficulties. He was employed to settle the

question of law by tampering with the judges, and the question of fact

by torturing the prisoner.

Three judges of the Court of King’s Bench were tractable. But Coke was

made of different stuff. Pedant, bigot, and brute as he was, he had

qualities which bore a strong, though a very disagreeable resemblance

to some of the highest virtues which a public man can possess. He was an

exception to a maxim which we believe to be generally true, that those

who trample on the helpless are disposed to cringe to the powerful.

{390}He behaved with gross rudeness to his juniors at the bar, and with

execrable cruelty to prisoners on trial for their lives. But he stood up

manfully against the King and the King’s favourites. No man of that age

appeared to so little advantage when he was opposed to an inferior, and

was in the wrong. But, on the other hand, it is but fair to admit that

no man of that age made so creditable a figure when he was opposed to

a superior, and happened to be in the right. On such occasions,

his half-suppressed insolence and his impracticable obstinacy had a

respectable and interesting appearance, when compared with the abject

servility of the bar and of the bench. On the present occasion he was

stubborn and surly. He declared that it was a new and a highly improper

practice in the judges to confer with a law-officer of the crown about

capital cases which they were afterwards to try; and for some time he

resolutely kept aloof. But Bacon was equally artful and persevering. “I

am not wholly out of hope,” said he in a letter to the King, “that my

Lord Coke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him in doubt that

he shall be left alone, will not be singular.” After some time Bacon’s

dexterity was successful; and Coke, sullenly and reluctantly, followed

the example of his brethren. But in order to convict Peacham it was

necessary to find facts as well as law. Accordingly, this wretched old

man was put to the rack, and, while undergoing the horrible infliction,

was examined by Bacon, but in vain. No confession could be wrung out of

him; and Bacon wrote to the King, complaining that Peacham had a dumb

devil. At length the trial came on. A conviction was obtained; but the

charges were so obviously futile, that the government could not, for

very shame, carry the sentence into execution; and {391}Peacham was

suffered to languish away the short remainder of his life in a prison.

All this frightful story Mr. Montagu relates fairly. He neither conceals

nor distorts any material fact. But he can see nothing deserving of

condemnation in Bacon’s conduct. He tells us most truly that we ought

not to try the men of one age by the standard of another; that Sir

Matthew Hale is not to be pronounced a bad man because he left a woman

to be executed for witchcraft; that posterity will not be justified

in censuring judges of our time, for selling offices in their courts,

according to the established practice, bad as that practice was; and

that Bacon is entitled to similar indulgence. “To persecute the lover

of truth,” says Mr. Montagu, “for opposing established customs, and

to censure him in after ages for not having been more strenuous in

opposition, are errors which will never cease until the pleasure of

self-elevation from the depression of superiority is no more.”

We have no dispute with Mr. Montagu about the general proposition. We

assent to every word of it. But does it apply to the present case? Is it

true that in the time of James the First it was the established practice

for the law-officers of the Crown, to hold private consultations with

the judges, touching capital cases which those judges were afterwards to

try? Certainly not. In the very page in which Mr. Montagu asserts that

“the influencing a judge out of court seems at that period scarcely to

have been considered as improper,” he gives the very words of Sir Edward

Coke on the subject. “I will not thus declare what may be my judgment by

these auricular confessions of _new_ and pernicious tendency, and _not

according to the customs of the realm_.” Is it possible to imagine that

Coke, who {392}had himself been Attorney-General during thirteen years,

who had conducted a far greater number of important state-prosecutions

than any other lawyer named in English history, and who had passed with

scarcely any interval from the Attorney-Generalship to the first scat

in the first criminal court in the realm, could have been startled at an

invitation to confer with the crown-lawyers, and could have pronounced

the practice new, if it had really been an established usage? We well

know that, where property only was at stake, it was then a common,

though a most culpable practice, in the judges, to listen to private

solicitations. But the practice ot tampering with judges in order to

procure capital convictions we believe to have been new, first, because

Coke, who understood those matters better than any man of his time,

asserted it to be new; and secondly, because neither Bacon nor Mr.

Montagu has shown a single precedent.

How then stands the case? Even thus: Bacon was not conforming to an

usage then generally admitted to be proper. He was not even the last

lingering adherent of an old abuse. It would have been sufficiently

disgraceful to such a man to be in this last situation. Yet this last

situation would have been honourable compared with that in which he

stood. He was guilty of attempting to introduce into the courts of law

an odious abuse for which no precedent could be found. Intellectually,

he was better fitted than any man that England has ever produced for the

work of improving her institutions. But, unhappily, we see that he did

not scruple to exert his great powers for the purpose of introducing

into those institutions new corruptions of the foulest kind.

The same, or nearly the same, may be said of the {393}torturing of

Peacham. If it be true that in the time of James the First the propriety

of torturing prisoners was generally allowed, we should admit this as an

excuse, though we should admit it less readily in the case of such a man

as Bacon than in the case of an ordinary lawyer or politician. But the

fact is, that the practice of torturing prisoners was then generally

acknowledged by lawyers to be illegal, and was execrated by the public

as barbarous. More than thirty years before Peacham’s trial, that

practice was so loudly condemned by the voice of the nation that

Lord Burleigh found it necessary to publish an apology for having

occasionally resorted to it. But though the dangers which then

threatened the government were of a very different kind from those which

were to be apprehended from any thing that Peacham could write, though

the life of the Queen and the dearest interests of the state were in

jeopardy, though the circumstances were such that all ordinary laws

might seem to be superseded by that highest law, the public safety, the

apology did not satisfy the country: and the Queen found it expedient to

issue an order positively forbidding the torturing of state-prisoners on

any pretence whatever. From that time, the practice of torturing, which

had always been unpopular, which had always been illegal, had also been

unusual. It is well known that in 1628, only fourteen years after the

time when Bacon went to the Tower to listen to the yells of Peacham,

the judges decided that Felton, a criminal who neither deserved nor was

likely to obtain any extraordinary indulgence, could not lawfully be put

to the question. We therefore say that Bacon stands in a very different

situation from that in which Mr. Montagu tries to place him. Bacon was

here distinctly behind his {394}age. He was one of the last of the tools

of power who persisted in a practice the most barbarous and the most

absurd that has ever disgraced jurisprudence, in a practice of which, in

the preceding generation, Elizabeth and her ministers had been ashamed,

in a practice which, a few years later, no sycophant in all the Inns of

Court had the heart or the forehead to defend. (1)

Bacon far behind his age! Bacon far behind Sir Edward Coke! Bacon

clinging to exploded abuses! Bacon withstanding the progress of

improvement! Bacon struggling to push back the human mind! The words

seem strange. They sound like a contradiction in terms. Yet the fact is

even so: and the explanation may be readily found by any person who

is not blinded by prejudice. Mr. Montagu cannot believe that so

extraordinary a man as Bacon could be guilty of a bad action; as if

history were not made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men, as

if all the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the

founders of arbitrary governments and false religions, had not been

extraordinary men, as if nine tenths of the calamities which have

befallen the human race had any other origin than the union of high

intelligence with low desires.