Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.”
In the intervals of rest which Bacon’s political and judicial functions
afforded, he was in the habit of retiring to Gorhambury. At that place
his business was literature, and his favourite amusement gardening,
which in one of his most interesting Essays he calls “the purest of
human pleasures.” In his magnificent grounds, he erected, at a cost of
ten thousand pounds, a retreat to which he repaired when he wished
to avoid all visitors, and to devote himself wholly to study. On such
occasions, a few young men of distinguished talents were sometimes
the companions of his retirement; and among them his quick eye soon
discerned the superior abilities of Thomas Hobbes. It is not probable
however, that he fully appreciated the powers of his disciple, or
foresaw the vast influence, both for good and for evil, which that most
vigorous and acute of human intellects was destined to exercise on the
two succeeding generations.
In January, 1621, Bacon had reached the zenith of his fortunes. He had
just published the _Novum Organum_; and that extraordinary book had
drawn forth the warmest expressions of admiration from the ablest men in
Europe. He had obtained honours of a widely different kind, but perhaps
not less valued by him. He had been created Baron Verulam. He had
subsequently been raised to the higher dignity of Viscount St. Albans.
His patent was drawn in the most flattering terms, and the Prince of
Wales signed it as a witness. The ceremony of investiture was performed
with great state at Theobalds, and Buckingham condescended to be one
of the chief actors. Posterity has felt that the greatest of English
philosophers could derive {410}no accession of dignity from any title
which James could bestow, and, in defiance of the royal letters patent,
has obstinately refused to degrade Francis Bacon into Viscount St.
Albans.
In a few weeks was signally brought to the test the value of those
objects for which Bacon had sullied his integrity, had resigned his
independence, had violated the most sacred obligations of friendship and
gratitude, had flattered the worthless, had persecuted the innocent, had
tampered with judges, had tortured prisoners, had plundered suitors,
had wasted on paltry intrigues, all the powers of the most exquisitely
constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any of the children
of men. A sudden and terrible reverse was at hand. A Parliament had been
summoned. After six years of silence the voice of the nation was attain
to be heard. Only three days after the pageant which was performed at
Theobalds in honour of Bacon, the Houses met.
Want of money had, as usual, induced the King to convoke his Parliament.
It may be doubted, however, whether, if he or his ministers had been at
all aware of the state of public feeling, they would not have tried any
expedient, or borne with any inconvenience, rather than have ventured
to face the deputies of a justly exasperated nation. But they did not
discern those times. Indeed almost all the political blunders of James,
and of his more unfortunate son, arose from one great error. During the
fifty years which preceded the Long Parliament, a great and progressive
change was taking place in the public mind. The nature and extent of
this change was not in the least understood by either of the first two
Kings of the House of Stuart, or by any of their advisers. That the
nation became more and more discontented every year, that every House of
{411}Commons was more unmanageable than that which had preceded it, were
facts which it was impossible not to perceive. But the Court could not
understand why these things were so. The Court could not see that the
English people and the English Government, though they might once have
been well suited to each other, were suited to each other no longer;
that the nation had outgrown its old institutions, was every day more
uneasy under them, was pressing against them, and would soon burst
through them. The alarming phænomena, the existence of which no
sycophant could deny, were ascribed to every cause except the true one.
“In my first Parliament,” said James, “I was a novice. In my next, there
was a kind of beasts called undertakers,” and so forth. In the third
Parliament he could hardly be called a novice, and those beasts, the
undertakers, did not exist. Yet his third Parliament gave him more
trouble than either the first or the second.
The Parliament had no sooner met than the House of Commons proceeded, in
a temperate and respectful, but most determined manner, to discuss
the public grievances. Their first attacks were directed against those
odious patents, under cover of which Buckingham and his creatures
had pillaged and oppressed the nation. The vigour with which these
proceedings were conducted spread dismay through the Court. Buckingham
thought himself in danger, and, in his alarm, had recourse to an adviser
who had lately acquired considerable influence over him, Williams,
Dean of Westminster. This person had already been of great use to the
favourite in a very delicate matter. Buckingham had set his heart on
marrying Lady Catherine Manners, daughter and heiress of the Earl of
Rutland. But the difficulties were great. The Earl {412}was haughty and
impracticable, and the young lady was a Catholic. Williams soothed the
pride of the father, and found arguments which, for a time at least,
quieted the conscience of the daughter. For these services he had been
rewarded with considerable preferment in the Church; and he was now
rapidly rising to the same place in the regard of Buckingham which had
formerly been occupied by Bacon.
Williams was one of those who are wiser for others than for themselves.
His own public life was unfortunate, and was made unfortunate by
his strange want of judgment and self-command at several important
conjunctures. But the counsel which he gave on this occasion showed no
want of worldly wisdom. He advised the favourite to abandon all thoughts
of defending the monopolies, to find some foreign embassy for his
brother Sir Edward, who was deeply implicated in the villanies
of Mompesson, and to leave the other offenders to the justice of
Parliament. Buckingham received this advice with the warmest expressions
of gratitude, and declared that a load had been lifted from his heart.
He then repaired with Williams to the royal presence. They found the
King engaged in earnest consultation with Prince Charles. The plan of
operations proposed by the Dean was fully discussed, and approved in all
its parts.
The first victims whom the Court abandoned to the vengeance of the
Commons were Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell. It was some
time before Bacon began to entertain any apprehensions. His talents and
his address gave him great influence in the house of which he had lately
become a member, as indeed they must have in any assembly. In the House
of Commons he had many personal friends and many {413}warm admirers. But
at length, about six weeks after the meeting of Parliament, the storm
burst.
A committee of the lower House had been appointed to inquire into the
state of the Courts of Justice. On the fifteenth of March the chairman
of that committee, Sir Robert Philips, member for Bath, reported that
great abuses had been discovered. “The person,” said he, “against whom
these things are alleged is no less than the Lord Chancellor, a man so
endued with all parts, both of nature and art, as that I will say no
more of him, being not able to say enough.” Sir Robert then proceeded to
state, in the most temperate manner, the nature of the charges. A person
of the name of Aubrey had a case depending in Chancery. He had been
almost ruined by law-expenses, and his patience had been exhausted by
the delays of the court. He received a hint from some of the hangers-on
of the Chancellor that a present of one hundred pounds would expedite
matters. The poor man had not the sum required. However, having found
out an usurer who accommodated him with it at high interest, he carried
it to York House. The Chancellor took the money, and his dependents
assured the suitor that all would go right. Aubrey was, however,
disappointed; for, after considerable delay, “a killing decree” was
pronounced against him. Another suitor of the name of Egerton complained
that he had been induced by two of the Chancellor’s jackals to make his
Lordship a present of four hundred pounds, and that, nevertheless, he
had not been able to obtain a decree in his favour. The evidence to
these facts was overwhelming. Bacon’s friends could only entreat the
House to suspend its judgment, and to send up the case to the Lords,
in a form less offensive than an impeachment. {414}On the nineteenth
of March the King; sent a message to the Commons, expressing his deep
regret that so eminent a person as the Chancellor should be suspected
of misconduct. His Majesty declared that he had no wish to screen the
guilty from justice, and proposed to appoint a new kind of tribunal,
consisting of eighteen commissioners, who might be chosen from among the
members of the two Houses, to investigate the matter. The Commons were
not disposed to depart from their regular course of proceeding. On the
same day they held a conference with the Lords, and delivered in the
heads of the accusation against the Chancellor. At this conference Bacon
was not present. Overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and abandoned by
all those in whom he had weakly put his trust, he had shut himself up in
his chamber from the eyes of men. The dejection of his mind soon
disordered his body. Buckingham, who visited him by the King’s order,
“found his Lordship very sick and heavy.” It appears from a pathetic
letter which the unhappy man addressed to the Peers on the day of the
conference, that he neither expected nor wished to survive his disgrace.
During several days he remained in his bed, refusing to see any human
being. He passionately told his attendants to leave him, to forget him,
never again to name his name, never to remember that there had been such
a man in the world. In the mean time, fresh instances of corruption were
every day brought to the knowledge of his accusers. The number of
charges rapidly increased from two to twenty-three. The Lords entered on
the investigation of the case with laudable alacrity. Some witnesses
were examined at the bar of the House. A select committee was appointed
to take the depositions {415}of others; and the inquiry was rapidly
proceeding, when, on the twenty-sixth of March, the King adjourned the
Parliament for three weeks.
This measure revived Bacon’s hopes. He made the most of his short
respite. He attempted to work on the feeble mind of the King. He
appealed to all the strongest feelings of James, to his fears, to his
vanity, to his high notions of prerogative. Would the Solomon of the
age commit so gross an error as to encourage the encroaching spirit of
Parliaments? Would God’s anointed, accountable to God alone, pay homage
to the clamorous multitude? “Those,” exclaimed Bacon, “who now strike at
the Chancellor will soon strike at the Crown. I am the first sacrifice.
I wish I may be the last.” But all his eloquence and address were
employed in vain. Indeed, whatever Mr. Montagu may say, we are firmly
convinced that it was not in the King’s power to save Bacon, without
having recourse to measures which would have convulsed the realm. The
Crown had not sufficient influence over the Parliament to procure an
acquittal in so clear a case of guilt. And to dissolve a Parliament
which is universally allowed to have been one of the best Parliaments
that ever sat, which had acted liberally and respectfully towards the
Sovereign, and which enjoyed in the highest degree the favour of the
people, only in order to stop a grave, temperate, and constitutional
inquiry into the personal integrity of the first judge in the kingdom,
would have been a measure more scandalous and absurd than any of those
which were the ruin of the House of Stuart. Such a measure, while it
would have been as fatal to the Chancellor’s honour as a conviction,
would have endangered the very existence of the monarchy. The {416}King,
acting by the advice of Williams, very properly refused to engage in a
dangerous struggle with his people, for the purpose of saving from legal
condemnation a minister whom it was impossible to save from dishonour.
He advised Bacon to plead guilty, and promised to do all in his power to
mitigate the punishment. Mr. Montagu is exceedingly angry with James
on this account. But though we are, in general, very little inclined to
admire that Prince’s conduct, we really think that his advice was, under
all the circumstances, the best advice that could have been given.
On the seventeenth of April the Houses reassembled, and the Lords
resumed their inquiries into the abuses of the Court of Chancery. On the
twenty-second, Bacon addressed to the Peers a letter, which the
Prince of Wales condescended to deliver. In this artful and pathetic
composition, the Chancellor acknowledged his guilt in guarded and
general texans, and, while acknowledging, endeavoured to palliate it.
This, however, was not thought sufficient by his judges. They required
a more particular confession, and sent him a copy of the charges. On
the thirtieth, he delivered a paper in which he admitted, with few and
unimportant reservations, the truth of the accusations brought against
him, and threw himself entirely on the mercy of his peers. “Upon
advised consideration of the charges,” said he, “descending into my own
conscience, and calling my memory to account so far as I am able, I do
plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do
renounce all defence.”
The Lords came to a resolution that the Chancellor’s confession appeared
to be full and ingenuous, and sent a committee to inquire of him whether
it was {417}really subscribed by himself. The deputies, among whom was
Southampton, the common friend, many years before, of Bacon and Essex,
performed their duty with great delicacy. Indeed the agonies of such
a mind and the degradation of such a name might well have softened the
most obdurate natures. “My Lords,” said Bacon, “it is my act, my hand,
my heart. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.”
They withdrew; and he again retired to his chamber in the deepest
dejection. The next day, the sergeant-at-arms and the usher of the House
of Lords came to conduct him to Westminster Hall, where sentence was to
be pronounced. But they found him so unwell that he could not leave his
bed; and this excuse for his absence was readily accepted. In no
quarter does there appear to have been the smallest desire to add to his
humiliation.
The sentence was, however, severe, the more severe, no doubt, because
the Lords knew that it would not be executed, and that they had an
excellent opportunity of exhibiting, at small cost, the inflexibility of
their justice, and their abhorrence of corruption. Bacon was condemned
to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and to be imprisoned in the
Tower during the King’s pleasure. He was declared incapable of holding
any office in the State or of sitting in Parliament; and he was banished
for life from the verge of the court. In such misery and shame ended
that long career of worldly wisdom and worldly prosperity.
Even at this pass Mr. Montagu does not desert his hero. He seems indeed
to think that the attachment of an editor ought to be as devoted as that
of Mr. Moore’s lovers; and cannot conceive what biography {418}was made
for,
“if ’tis not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame.”
He assures us that Bacon was innocent, that, he had the means of making
a perfectly satisfactory defence, that when he “plainly and ingenuously
confessed that he was guilty of corruption,” and when he afterwards
solemnly affirmed that his confession was “his act, his hand, his
heart,” he was telling a great lie, and that he refrained from bringing
forward proofs of his innocence, because he durst not disobey the King
and the favourite, who, for his own selfish objects, pressed him to
plead guilty.
Now, in the first place, there is not the smallest reason to believe
that, if James and Buckingham had thought that Bacon had a good defence,
they would have prevented him from making it. What conceivable motive
had they for doing so? Mr. Montagu perpetually repeats that it was their
interest to sacrifice Bacon. But he overlooks an obvious distinction. It
was their interest to sacrifice Bacon on the supposition of his guilt;
but not on the supposition of his innocence. James was very properly
unwilling to run the risk of protecting his Chancellor against the
Parliament. But if the Chancellor had been able, by force of argument,
to obtain an acquittal from the Parliament, we have no doubt that both
the King and Villiers would have heartily rejoiced. They would have
rejoiced, not merely on account of their friendship for Bacon, which
seems, however, to have been as sincere as most friendships of that
sort, but on selfish grounds. Nothing could have strengthened the
government more than such a victory. The King and the favourite
abandoned the Chancellor because they were unable to avert his disgrace,
and unwilling to share it. Mr. Montagu mistakes effect for cause.
{419}He thinks that Bacon did not prove his innocence, because he was
not supported by the Court. The truth evidently is that the Court did
not venture to support Bacon, because he could not prove his innocence.
Again, it seems strange that Mr. Montagu should not perceive that, while
attempting to vindicate Bacon’s reputation, he is really casting on
it the foulest of all aspersions. He imputes to his idol a degree of
meanness and depravity more loathsome than judicial corruption itself.
A corrupt judge may have many good qualities. But a man who, to please a
powerful patron, solemnly declares himself guilty of corruption when
he knows himself to be innocent, must be a monster of servility and
impudence. Bacon was, to say nothing of his highest claims to respect,
a gentleman, a nobleman, a scholar, a statesman, a man of the first
consideration in society, a man far advanced in years. Is it possible to
believe that such a man would, to gratify any human being, irreparably
ruin his own character by his own act? Imagine a grey-headed judge,
frill of years and honours, owning with tears, with pathetic assurances
of his penitence and of his sincerity, that he has been guilty of
shameful mal-practices, repeatedly asseverating the truth of his
confession, subscribing it with his own band, submitting to conviction,
receiving a humiliating sentence and acknowledging its justice, and
all this when he has it in his power to show that his conduct has been
irreproachable! The thing is incredible. But if we admit it to be true,
what must we think of such a man, if indeed be deserves the name of man,
who thinks any thing that kings and minions can bestow more precious
than honour, or any thing that they can inflict more terrible than
infamy? {420}Of this most disgraceful imputation we fully acquit Bacon.
He had no defence; and Mr. Montagu’s affectionate attempt to make a
defence for him has altogether failed.
The grounds on which Mr. Montagu rests the case are two; the first, that
the taking of presents was usual, and, what he seems to consider as the
same thing, not discreditable; the second, that these presents were not
taken as bribes.
Mr. Montagu brings forward many facts in support of his first
proposition. He is not content with showing that many English judges
formerly received gifts from suitors, but collects similar instances
from foreign nations and ancient times. He goes back to the
commonwealths of Greece, and attempts to press into his service a line
of Homer and a sentence of Plutarch, which, we fear, will hardly serve
his turn. The gold of which Homer speaks was not intended to fee the
judges, but was paid into court for the benefit of the successful
litigant; and the gratuities which Pericles, as Plutarch states,
distributed among the members of the Athenian tribunals, were legal
wages paid out of the public revenue. We can supply Mr. Montagu with
passages much more in point. Hesiod, who like poor Aubrey, had a
“killing decree” made against him in the Chancery of Ascra, forgot
decorum so far that he ventured to designate the learned persons who
presided in that court, as [Greek] Plutarch and Diodorus have handed
down to the latest ages the respectable name of Anytus, the son of
Anthemion, the first defendant who, eluding all the safeguards which
the ingenuity of Solon could devise, succeeded in corrupting a bench of
Athenian judges. We are indeed so far from grudging Mr. Montagu the
aid of Greece, that we will {421}give him Rome into the bargain. We
acknowledge that the honourable senators who tried Verres received
presents which were worth more than the fee-simple of York House and
Gorhambury together, and that the no less honorable senators and knights
who professed to believe in the _alibi_ of Clodius obtained marks still
more extraordinary of the esteem and gratitude of the defendant. In
short, we are ready to admit that, before Bacon’s time, and in Bacon’s
time, judges were in the habit of receiving gifts from suitors.
But is this a defence? We think not. The robberies of Cacus and Barabbas
are no apology for those of Turpin. The conduct of the two men of Belial
who swore away the life of Naboth has never been cited as an excuse for
the perjuries of Oates and Dangerfield. Mr. Montagu has confounded two
things which it is necessary carefully to distinguish from each other,
if we wish to form a correct judgment of the characters of men of other
countries and other times. That an immoral action is, in a particular
society, generally considered as innocent, is a good plea for an
individual who, being one of that society, and having adopted the
notions which prevail among his neighbors, commits that action. But the
circumstance that a great many people are in the habit of committing
immoral actions is no plea at all. We should think it unjust to call St.
Louis a wicked man, because in an age in which toleration was generally
regarded as a sin, he persecuted heretics. We should think it unjust to
call Cowper’s friend, John Newton, a hypocrite and monster, because at
a time when the slave-trade was commonly considered by the most
respectable people as an innocent and beneficial traffic, he went,
largely provided with hymn-books and handcuffs on a Guinea {422}voyage.
But the circumstance that there are twenty thousand thieves in London,
is no excuse for a fellow who is caught breaking into a shop. No man is
to be blamed for not making discoveries in morality, for not finding
out that something which everybody else thinks to be good is really bad.
But, if a man does that which he and all around him know to be bad, it
is no excuse for him that many others have done the same. We should be
ashamed of spending so much time in pointing out so clear a distinction,
but that Mr. Montagu seems altogether to overlook it.
Now to apply these principles to the case before us; let Mr. Montagu
prove that, in Bacon’s age, the practices for which Bacon was punished
were generally considered as innocent; and we admit that he has made out
his point. But this we defy him to do. That these practices were common
we admit. But they were common just as all wickedness to which there is
strong temptation always was and always will be common. They were common
just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery have always been common. They
were common, not because people did not know what was right, but because
people liked to do what was wrong. They were common, though prohibited
by law. They were common, though condemned by public opinion. They
were common, because in that age law and public opinion united had not
sufficient force to restrain the greediness of powerful and unprincipled
magistrates. They were common, as every crime will be common when the
gain to which it leads is great, and the chance of punishment small.
But, though common, they were universally allowed to be altogether
unjustifiable; they were in the highest degree odious; and, though many
were guilty of them, none had the audacity publicly to avow and defend
them. {423}We could give a thousand proofs that the opinion then
entertained concerning these practices was such as we have described.
But we will content ourselves with calling; a single witness, honest
Hugh Latimer. His sermons, preached more than seventy years before
the inquiry into Bacon’s conduct, abound with the sharpest invectives
against those very practices of which Bacon was guilty, and which, as
Mr. Montagu seems to think, nobody ever considered as blamable till
Bacon was punished for them. We could easily fill twenty pages with the
homely, but just and forcible rhetoric of the brave old bishop. We shall
select a few passages as fair specimens, and no more than fair specimens
of the rest. “_Omnes diligunt munera_. They all love bribes. Bribery is
a princely kind of thieving. They will be waged by the rich, either to
give sentence against the poor, or to put off the poor man’s cause. This
is the noble theft of princes and magistrates. They are bribe-takers.
Nowadays they call them gentle rewards. Let them leave their colouring,
and call them by their Christian name--bribes.” And again; “Cambyses
was a great emperor, such another as our master is. He had many lord
deputies, lord presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is a great
while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under him in one
of his dominions a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men; he
followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding, a handmaker in
his office to make his son a great man, as the old saying is: Happy is
the child whose father goeth to the devil. The cry of the poor widow
came to the emperor’s ear, and caused him to flay the judge quick, and
laid his skin in the chair of judgment, that all judges that should give
judgment afterward should sit in the same skin. Surely it was {424}a
goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge’s skin. I pray God
we may once see the skin in England.”
“I am sure,” says he in another sermon, “this is _scala inferni_, the
right way to hell, to be covetous, to take bribes, and pervert justice.
If a judge should ask me the way to hell, I would show him this way.
First, let him be a covetous man; let his heart be poisoned with
covetousness. Then let him go a little further and take bribes; and,
lastly, pervert judgment. Lo, here is the mother, and the daughter,
and the daughter’s daughter. Avarice is the mother: she brings forth
bribe-taking, and bribe-taking perverting of judgment. There lacks
a fourth thing to make up the mess, which, so help me God, if I were
judge, should be _hanyum tuum_, a Tyburn tippet to take with him; an it
were the judge of the King’s Bench, my Lord Chief Judge of England,
yea, an it were my Lord Chancellor himself, to Tyburn with him.” We will
quote but one more passage. “He that took the silver basin and ewer for
a bribe, thinketh that it will never come out. But he may now know that
I know it, and I know it not alone; there be more beside me that know
it. Oh, briber and bribery! He was never a good man that will so take
bribes. Nor can I believe that he that is a briber will be a good
justice. It will never be merry in England till we have the skins of
such. For what needeth bribing where men do their things uprightly?”
This was not the language of a great philosopher who had made new
discoveries in moral and political science. It was the plain talk of
a plain man, who sprang from the body of the people, who sympathised
strongly with their wants and their feelings, and who boldly uttered
their opinions. It was on account of the {425}fearless way in which
stout-hearted old Hugh exposed the misdeeds of men in ermine tippets
and gold collars, that the Londoners cheered him, as he walked down the
Strand to preach at Whitehall, struggled for a touch of his gown, and
bawled “Have at them, Father Latimer.” It is plain, from the passages
which we have quoted, and from fifty others winch we might quote, that,
long before Bacon was born, the accepting of presents by a judge was
known to be a wicked and shameful act, that the fine words under which
it was the fashion to veil such corrupt practices were even then seen
through by the common people, that the distinction on which Mr. Montagu
insists between compliments and bribes was even then laughed at as
a mere colouring. There may be some oratorical exaggeration in what
Latimer says about the Tyburn tippet and the sign of the judge’s
skin; but the fact that he ventured to use such expressions is amply
sufficient to prove that the gift-taking judges, the receivers of silver
basins and ewers, were regarded as such pests of the commonwealth that
a venerable divine might, without any breach of Christian charity,
publicly pray to God for their detection and their condign punishment.
Mr. Montagu tells us, most justly, that we ought not to transfer the
opinions of our age to a former age. But he has himself committed a
greater error than that against which he has cautioned his readers.
Without any evidence, nay, in the face of the strongest evidence, he
ascribes to the people of a former age a set of opinions which no people
ever held. But any hypothesis is in his view more probable than that
Bacon should have been a dishonest man. We firmly believe that, if
papers were to be discovered which should irresistibly prove that Bacon
was concerned in the poisoning of {426}Sir Thomas Overbury, Mr. Montagu
would tell us that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it
was not thought improper in a man to put arsenic into the broth of his
friends, and that we ought to blame, not Bacon, but the age in which he
lived.
But why should we have recourse to any other evidence, when the
proceeding against Lord Bacon is itself the best evidence on the
subject? When Mr. Montagu tells us that we ought not to transfer the
opinions of our age to Bacon’s age, he appears altogether to forget
that it was by men of Bacon’s own age that Bacon was prosecuted, tried,
convicted, and sentenced. Did not they know what their own opinions
were? Did not they know whether they thought the taking of gifts by
a judge a crime or not? Mr. Montagu complains bitterly that Bacon
was induced to abstain from making a defence. But, if Bacon’s defence
resembled that which is made for him in the volume before us, it would
have been unnecessary to trouble the Houses with it. The Lords and
Commons did not want Bacon to tell them the thoughts of their own
hearts, to inform them that they did not consider such practices as
those in which they had detected him as at all culpable. Mr. Montagu’s
proposition may indeed be fairly stated thus:--It was very hard that
Bacon’s contemporaries should think it wrong in him to do what thev
did not think it wrong in him to do. Third indeed; and withal somewhat
improbable. Will any person say that the Commons who impeached Bacon for
taking presents, and the Lords who sentenced him to fine, imprisonment,
and degradation for taking presents, did not know that the taking of
presents was a crime? Or, will any person say that Bacon did not know
what the whole House of Commons and the {427}whole House of Lords knew?
Nobody who is not prepared to maintain one of these absurd propositions
can deny that Bacon committed what he knew to be a crime.
It cannot be pretended that the Houses were seeking occasion to ruin
Bacon, and that they therefore brought him to punishment on charges
which they themselves knew to be frivolous. In no quarter was there the
faintest indication of a disposition to treat him harshly. Through
the whole proceeding there was no symptom of personal animosity or of
factious violence in either House. Indeed, we will venture to say that
no State-Trial in our history is more creditable to all who took part
in it, either as prosecutors or judges. The decency, the gravity, the
public spirit, the justice moderated but not unnerved by compassion,
which appeared in every part of the transaction, would do honour to the
most respectable public men in our own times. The accusers, while they
discharged their duty to their constituents by bringing the misdeeds
of the Chancellor to light, spoke with admiration of his many eminent
qualities. The Lords, while condemning him, complimented him on the
ingenuousness of his confession, and spared him the humiliation of a
public appearance at their bar. So strong was the contagion of good
feeling that even Sir Edward Coke, for the first time in his life,
behaved like a gentleman. No criminal ever had more temperate
prosecutors than Bacon. No criminal ever had more favourable judges. If
he was convicted, it was because it was impossible to acquit him without
offering the grossest outrage to justice and common sense.
Mr. Montagu’s other argument, namely, that Bacon, though he took
gifts, did not take bribes, seems to us as futile as that which we have
considered. Indeed, {428}we might be content to leave it to be answered
by the plainest man among our readers. Demosthenes noticed it with
contempt more than two thousand years ago. Latimer, we have seen,
treated this sophistry with similar disdain. “Leave colouring,” said
he, “and call these things by their Christian name, bribes.” Mr. Montagu
attempts, somewhat unfairly, we must say, to represent the presents
which Bacon received as similar to the perquisites which suitors paid
to the members of the Parliaments of France. The French magistrate had a
legal right to his fee: and the amount of the fee was regulated by law.
Whether this be a good mode of remunerating judges is not the question.
But what analogy is there between payments of this sort and the presents
which Bacon received, presents which were not sanctioned by the law,
which were not made under the public eye, and of which the amount was
regulated only by private bargain between the magistrate and the suitor?
Again, it is mere trifling to say that Bacon could not have meant to
act corruptly because he employed the agency of men of rank, of bishops,
privy councillors, and members of Parliament; as if the whole history of
that generation was not full of the low actions of high people; as if it
was not notorious that men, as exalted in rank as any of the decoys that
Bacon employed, had pimped for Somerset and poisoned Overbury.
But, says Mr. Montagu, these presents “were made openly and with the
greatest publicity.” This would indeed be a strong argument in favour of
Bacon. But we deny the fact. In one, and one only, of the cases in which
Bacon was accused of corruptly receiving gifts, does he appear to have
received a gift publicly. This was in a matter depending between the
Company {429}of Apothecaries and the Company of Grocers. Bacon, in his
Confession, insisted strongly on the circumstance that he had on this
occasion taken a present publicly, as a proof that he had not taken it
corruptly. Is it not clear that, if he had taken the presents mentioned
in the other charges in the same public manner, he would have dwelt on
this point in his answer to those charges? The fact that he insists
so strongly on the publicity of one particular present is of itself
sufficient to prove that the other presents were not publicly taken. Why
he took this present publicly and the rest secretly, is evident. He on
that occasion acted openly, because he was acting honestly. He was
not on that occasion sitting judicially. He was called in to effect an
amicable arrangement between two parties. Both were satisfied with his
decision. Both joined in making him a present in return for his trouble.
Whether it was quite delicate in a man of his rank to accept a present
under such circumstances, may be questioned. But there is no ground in
this case for accusing him of corruption.
Unhappily, the very circumstances which prove him to have been innocent
in this case prove him to have been guilty on the other charges. Once,
and once only, he alleges that he received a present publicly. The
natural inference is that in all the other cases mentioned in the
articles against him he received presents secretly. When we examine the
single case in which he alleges that he received a present publicly,
we find that it is also the single case in which there was no gross
impropriety in his receiving a present. Is it then possible to doubt
that his reason for not receiving other presents in as public a manner
was that he knew that it was wrong to receive them?
One argument still remains, plausible in appearance. {430}but admitting
of easy and complete refutation. The two chief complainants, Aubrey and
Egerton, had both made presents to the Chancellor. But he had decided
against them both. Therefore, he had not received those presents as
bribes. “The complaints of his accusers were,” says Mr. Montagu, “not
that the gratuities had, but that they had not influenced Bacon’s
judgment, as he had decided against them.”
The truth is, that it is precisely in this way that an extensive system
of corruption is generally detected. A person who, by a bribe, has
procured a decree in his favour, is by no means likely to come forward
of his own accord as an accuser. He is content. He has his quid pro
quo. He is not impelled either by interested or by vindictive motives to
bring the transaction before the public. On the contrary, he has almost
as strong motives for holding his tongue as the judge himself can have.’
But when a judge practises corruption, as we fear that Bacon practised
it, on a large scale, and has many agents looking out in different
quarters for prey, it will sometimes happen that he will be bribed on
both sides. It will sometimes happen that he will receive money from
suitors who are so obviously in the wrong that he cannot with decency
do any thing to serve them. Thus lie will now and then be forced to
pronounce against a person from whom he has received a present; and he
makes that person a deadly enemy. The hundreds who have got what they
paid for remain quiet. It is the two or three who have paid, and have
nothing to show for their money, who are noisy.
The memorable case of the Goëzmans is an example of this. Beaumarchais
had an important suit depending before the Parliament of Paris. M.
Goëzman was the judge on whom chiefly the decision depended. It {431}was
hinted to Beaumarchais that Madame Goëzman might be propitiated by
a present. He accordingly offered a purse of gold to the lady, who
received it graciously. There can be no doubt that, if the decision of
the court had been favourable to him, these things would never have been
known to the world.
But he lost his cause. Almost the whole sum which he had expended in
bribery was immediately refunded; and those who had disappointed him
probably thought that he would not, for the mere gratification of
his malevolence, make public a transaction which was discreditable to
himself as well as to them. They knew little of him. He soon taught
them to curse the day in which they had dared to trifle with a man of so
revengeful and turbulent a spirit, of such dauntless effrontery, and
of such eminent talents for controversy and satire. He compelled the
Parliament to put a degrading stigma on M. Goëzman. He drove
Madame Goëzman to a convent. Till it was too late, his excited
passions did not suffer him to remember that he could effect their ruin
only by disclosures ruinous to himself. We could give other instances.
But it is needless. No person well acquainted with human nature can fail
to perceive that, if the doctrine for which Mr. Montagu contends were
admitted, society would be deprived of almost the only chance which it
has of detecting the corrupt practices of judges.
We return to our narrative. The sentence of Bacon had scarcely been
pronounced when it was mitigated. He was indeed sent to the Tower. But
this was merely a form. In two days he was set at liberty, and soon
after he retired to Gorhambury. His fine was speedily released by the
Crown. He was next suffered to present himself at Court; and at length,
in 1624, the {432}rest of his punishment was remitted. He was now at
liberty to resume his seat in the House of Lords, and he was actually
summoned to the next Parliament. But age, infirmity, and perhaps shame,
prevented him from attending. The Government allowed him a pension of
twelve hundred pounds a year; and his whole annual income is estimated
by Mr. Montagu at two thousand five hundred pounds, a sum which was
probably above the average income of a nobleman of that generation,
and which was certainly sufficient for comfort and even for splendour.
Unhappily, Bacon was fond of display, and unused to pay minute attention
to domestic affairs. He was not easily persuaded to give up any part
of the magnificence to which he had been accustomed in the time of his
power and prosperity. No pressure of distress could induce him to part
with the woods of Gorhambury. “I will not,” he said, “be stripped of
my feathers.” He travelled with so splendid an equipage and so large
a retinue that Prince Charles, who once fell in with him on the road,
exclaimed with surprise, “Well; do what we can, this man scorns to
go out in snuff.” This carelessness and ostentation reduced Bacon to
frequent distress. He was under the necessity of parting with York
House, and of taking up his residence, during his visits to London, at
his old chambers in Gray’s Inn. He had other vexations, the exact nature
of which is unknown. It is evident from his will that some part of his
wife’s conduct had greatly disturbed and irritated him.
But, whatever might be his pecuniary difficulties or his conjugal
discomforts, the powers of his intellect still remained undiminished.
Those noble studies for which he had found leisure in the midst of
professional drudgery and of courtly intrigues gave to this last sad
stage of {433}his life a dignity beyond what power or titles could
bestow. Impeached, convicted, sentenced, driven with ignominy from the
presence of his Sovereign, shut out from the deliberations of his fellow
nobles, loaded with debt, branded with dishonour, sinking under the
weight of years, sorrows, and diseases, Bacon was Bacon still. “My
conceit of his person,” says Ben Jonson very finely, “was never
increased towards him by his place or honours; but I have and do
reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself; in
that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men and most
worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I
ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not
want.”
The services which Bacon rendered to letters during the last five years
of his life, amidst ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase
the regret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted, to
use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, “on such study as was not worthy of
such a student.” He commenced a Digest of the Laws of England, a History
of England under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of Natural
History, a Philosophical Romance. He made extensive and valuable
additions to his Essays. He published the inestimable Treatise _De
Augmentis Scientiarum_. The very trifles with which he amused himself in
hours of pain and languor bore the mark of his mind. The best collection
of jests in the world is that which he dictated from memory, without
referring to any book, on a day on which illness had rendered him
incapable of serious study.
The great apostle of experimental philosophy was {434}destined to be its
martyr. It had occurred to him that snow might be used with advantage
for the purpose of preventing animal substances from putrefying. On a
very cold day, early in the spring of the year 1626, he alighted from
his coach near Highgate, in order to try the experiment. He went into
a cottage, bought a fowl, and with his own hands stuffed it with
snow. While thus engaged he felt a sudden chill, and was soon so much
indisposed that it was impossible for him to return to Gray’s Inn.
The Earl of Arundel, with whom he was well acquainted, had a house at
Highgate. To that house Bacon was carried. The Earl was absent; but
the servants who were in charge of the place showed great respect and
attention to the illustrious guest. Here, after an illness of about
a week, he expired early on the morning of Easter-day, 1626. His mind
appears to have retained its strength and liveliness to the end. He did
not forget the fowl which had caused his death. In the last letter that
he ever wrote, with fingers which, as he said, could not steadily hold
a pen, he did not omit to mention that the experiment of the snow had
succeeded “excellently well.”
Our opinion of the moral character of this great man has already been
sufficiently explained. Had his life been passed in literary retirement,
he would, in all probability, have deserved to be considered, not only
as a great philosopher, but as a worthy and good-natured member of
society. But neither his principles nor his spirit were such as could
be trusted, when strong temptations were to be resisted, and serious
dangers to be braved.
In his will he expressed with singular brevity, energy, dignity, and
pathos, a mournful consciousness {435}that his actions had not been such
as to entitle him to the esteem of those under whose observation his
life had been passed, and, at the same time, a proud confidence that
his writings had secured for him a high and permanent place among the
benefactors of mankind. So at least we understand those striking words
which have been often quoted, but which we must quote once more; “For my
name and memory, I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign
nations, and to the next age.”
His confidence was just. From the day of his death his fame has been
constantly and steadily progressive; and we have no doubt that his name
will be named with reverence to the latest ages, and to the remotest
ends of the civilised world.
The chief peculiarity of Bacon’s philosophy seems to us to have been
this, that it aimed at things altogether different from those which
his predecessors had proposed to themselves. This was his own opinion.
“Finis scientiarum,” says he, “a nemine adhuc bene positus est.” (1)
And again, “Omnium gravissimus error in deviatione ab ultimo doctrinarum
fine con-sistit.” (2) “Nec ipsa meta,” says he elsewhere, “adhuc ulli,
quod sciam, mortalium posita est et defixa.” (3) The more carefully his
works are examined, the more clearly, we think, it will appear that this
is the real clue to his whole system, and that he used means different
from those used by other philosophers, because he wished to arrive at an
end altogether different from theirs.
What then was the end which Bacon proposed to himself? It was, to use
his own emphatic expression,
(1) Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 81.
(2) De Augmentis, Lib. 1.
(3) Cogitata et visa.
{436}“fruit.” It was the multiplying of human enjoyments and the
mitigating of human sufferings. It was “the relief of man’s estate.” (1)
It was “commodis humanis inservire.” (2) It was “efficaciter operari
ad sublevanda vitæ humanæ incommoda.” (3) It was “dotare vitam immanam
novis inventis et copiis.” (4) It was “genus humanum novis operibus
et potestatibus continno dotare.” (5) This was the object of all his
speculations in every department of science, in natural philosophy, in
legislation, in politics, in morals.
Two words form the key of the Baconian doctrine, Utility and Progress.
The ancient philosophy disdained to be useful, and was content to be
stationary. It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection, which were
so sublime that they never could be more than theories; in attempts
to solve insoluble enigmas; in exhortations to the attainment of
unattainable frames of mind. It could not condescend to the humble
office of ministering to the comfort of human beings. All the schools
contemned that office as degrading; some censured it as immoral. Once
indeed Posidonius, a distinguished writer of the age of Cicero and
Cæsar, so far forgot himself as to enumerate, among the hum-bier
blessings which mankind owed to philosophy, the discovery of the
principle of the arch, and the introduction of the use of metals.
This eulogy was considered as an affront, and was taken up with proper
spirit. Seneca vehemently disclaims these insulting compliments.6
Philosophy, according to him, has nothing to do with teaching men to
rear arched roofs over their heads. The true philosopher does not care