tinction of escaping it, but for the special reasons he assigns in the following letter to Cecil, soliciting that, it might be conferred upon him: "It may please your good Lordship -for this divulged and almost prostituted title of knighthood, I could, without charge, by your honor's mean, be content to have it, both because of this late disgrace,' and because I have three new knights in my mess in Gray's Inn commons, and because I have found out an Alderman's daughter, a handsome maiden, to my liking. So as if your honor will find the time, I will come to the Court from Gorhambury upon any warning." A promise being obtained, he now writes to Cecil, praying that he should be knighted privately by himself."For my knighthood I wish the manner might be such as might grace me, since the matter will not-I mean that I might be merely gregarious in a troop. The coronation is at hand." In this desire for a solitary ceremony he was disappointed, and on the 23rd of July, the day of the coronation, he was obliged to kneel down with a mob of above 300, and to receive a stroke of a sword from James, who was almost frightened to handle it, or look at it even when so used. However, he rose Sir Francis; he was as good as the other members of his mess at Gray's Inn, and the handsome and rich Miss Barnham speedily became Lady Bacon. I am afraid that this was a match of mere convenience, and not very auspicious. At the commencement of the new reign Bacon experienced some embarrassment from the part he had taken against Essex,-there being a strong manifestation of affection towards the memory of that nobleman, and in favor of the party who had supported him. The Earl of Southampton, famous as the enlightened patron and generous friend of Shakespeare, had been tried for treason, and, being convicted, had been kept close prisoner in the Tower till the death of Elizabeth. His pardon was now expected, and crowds went to visit him while he still remained in confinement. Among these Bacon did not venture to show himself, but he wrote a letter to the Earl, betraying a deep consciousness of having done what was wrong. "Yet," says he (clearly reflecting on his honored 'I do not know what this refers to. I do not find that he complained of the re-appointment of Coke and Fleming as Attorney and Solicitor General. 'July 3, 1603. mistress), "it is as true as a thing that God knoweth, that this change 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."' This meanness excited nothing but disgust, and there was such a strong expression of resentment against him, that, instead of waiting quietly till the public should be occupied with other subjects, he very imprudently published "The Apology of Sir Francis Bacon in certain Imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex," an apology which has injured him more with posterity than all the attacks upon him by his enemies. His first appearance in public, in the new reign, was as one of the counsel for the Crown on the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, arising out of the conspiracy to put Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne; but he was not permitted by Coke, the Attorney General, to address the jury, or even to examine any of the witnesses; and, in his present depressed state, he was rather pleased to escape from public observation. If he had any malignity, it must have been abundantly gratified by witnessing the manner in which his browbeating rival exposed himself on this occasion.' When James's first parliament met, in the spring of the following year, Bacon again raised his crest, and made 1 Works, v. 281. Coke, stopping Raleigh in his defense, denounced him as an atheist, saying he had an English face but a Spanish heart. Cecil, one of the commissioners, said, "Be not so impatient, Mr. Attorney; give him leave to speak." Coke. "If I may not be patiently heard, you will encourage traitors and discourage us. I am the King's sworn servant, and I must speak. If he be guilty, he is a traitor; if not, deliver him." Note. Mr. Attorney sat down in a chafe, and would speak no more until the Commissioners urged and entreated him. After much ado he went on, and made a long repetition of all the evidence for the direction of the jury; and at the repeating of some things Sir Walter Raleigh interrupted him, and said he did him wrong. 46 Coke. Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived." Raleigh. "I think you want words, indeed, for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times. Coke. Thou art an odious fellow: Thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride." Raleigh. "It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you and me, Mr. Attorney." Coke. "Well, I will now make it appear to the world that there never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou."-2 St. Tr. 26. 1 the world forget, if not forgive, his past misconduct. Being returned to the House of Commons both for St. Alban's and Ipswich, he chose to serve for the latter borough, which certainly had a most active and able representative. During this session he spoke in every debate, he sat upon twenty-nine committees, and he contrived to make himself popular by calling out for a redress of grievances, and a special favorite of the King, by supporting James's pet plan of a union with Scotland. He was appointed one of the Commissioners for negotiating this great measure, and did all he could to soften the prejudices of the English nation against it. Soon after the prorogation, as a mark of royal approbation, he was re-appointed King's Counsel, with a salary of forty pounds a year,' and a pension of sixty pounds a year was granted to him for special services rendered to the Crown by his deceased brother Anthony and himself. By the death of this brother he had recently come into possession of Gorhambury and other landed property, but he was still occasionally obliged to borrow money by pawning his valuables." In the autumn of this year Bacon paid a visit to his friend Sir Henry Saville, Provost of Eton, and on his return addressed an interesting letter to him upon the subject of education, enclosing a tract entitled " Helps to the Intellectual Powers," which strongly inculcated improved methods of study. Soon after he wrote a letter to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, with proposals to write a History of England; and he prepared a work, inscribed to the King, "Of the greatness of the Kingdom of Great Britain," with the courtly motto, "Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint." To the composition of such fugitive pieces he must have resorted as a recreation while he was elaborating his noble treatise on the "Advancement of Learning," which 1 This salary of £40 a year, with an allowance of stationery, was continued to all King's Counsel down to the reign of William IV., when it was very properly withdrawn, King's counselship becoming a grade in the profession of the law, instead of an office. But the moderate salary of the Attorney General was swept away at the same time, although he was still compelled to pay the land-tax upon it. In the Egerton Papers there is a receipt under date August 21, 1604, from a money-lender, for "a jewell of Susanna sett with diamonds and rubys," on which he had advanced Sir Francis Bacon, Knt., £50. p. 395. 3 Works, v. 293. appeared in 1605, and exceeded the high expectations which had been formed of it. His fame as a philosopher and a fine writer was now for ever established. Yet, on the meeting of parliament, in November, he plunged into business with unabated ardor. When the excitement of the Gunpowder Plot had subsided, he again brought forward a project for improving the law by abolishing "Wardship," and the other grievances of "Tenure in chivalry;" he made speeches as well as wrote pamphlets in support of the Union; and he was active as ever both in debate and in committees. But he became much soured by the reflection that he derived little reward beyond praise for all his exertions. He was so much occupied with politics while parliament was sitting, and with literature during the recess, that his private practice at the bar was extremely slender, and now in his 47th year, he could hardly bear the ill luck by which his official advancement had been so long delayed. Coke, the Attorney General, envying the fame which Bacon had acquired in the House of Commons, and by his writings, which he pretended to despise,-still did everything in his power to depress him, and they had an interchange of sarcasms from time to time, although they had not again forgot the rules of propriety so far as in their famous altercation in the time of Elizabeth. But Coke's insolence increasing, and the recurrence of such a scene seeming not improbable, Bacon wrote him the following letter of expostulation: "Mr. Attorney, "I thought best once for all to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me. You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion. What it pleaseth you, I pray, think of me: I am one that knows both mine own wants and other men's, and it may be perchance that mine mend when others stand at a stay. And surely I may not endure in public place to be wronged without repelling the same to my best advantage to right myself. You are great, and therefore have the more enviers, which would be glad to have you paid at another's cost. Since the time I missed the Solicitor's place, the rather I think by your means, I can not expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together; but either to serve with another upon your remove, or to step into some other course; so as I am more free than ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming myself to you, more than general good manners or your particular good usage shall provoke; and if you had not been shortsighted in your own fortune, as I think, you might have had more use of me. But that tide is past. I write not this to show my friends what a brave letter I have written to Mr. Attorney; I have none of those humors; but that I have written is to a good end, that is, to the more decent carriage of my Master's service, and to our particular better understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall be answered by you in deed and not in word, I suppose it will not be worse for us both; else it is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. So this being to yourself, I for my part rest. Soon after this letter was written, the bar was relieved from the tyrant who had ruled over it so long with a rod of iron, by the promotion of Sir Edward Coke to the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas on the death of Lord Chief Justice Gawdey. In contemplation of this move, Bacon had written a letter to his cousin, now Earl of Salisbury and Prime Minister, in which he says: "It is thought Mr. Attorney shall be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; in case the Solicitor rise, I would be glad now at last to be Solicitor; chiefly because I think it would increase my practice, wherein, God blessing me a few years, I may mend my state, and so after fall to my studies at ease; whereof one is requisite for my body, and the other serveth for my mind; wherein if I shall find your Lordship's favor, I shall be more happy than I have been, which may may make me also more wise. I have small store of means about the King, and to sue myself is not fit; and therefore I shall leave it to God, his Majesty, and your Lordship, for I must still be next the door. thank God in these transitory things I am well resolved.""* Notwithstanding this affected calmness, he immediately addressed another letter to Salisbury, betraying great anxiety: I "I am not ignorant how mean a thing I stand for, in 1 Works, v 297. • Ibid., v. 298. |