curred formally in advising him on his own account to return, would have been glad for the sake of the country that he should stay. In a man of spirit and liberality, of conscious ability, of patriotic impulses, and of moderate income, a position like this would be quite enough to explain an excess of expenditure. Nor was his case much altered in this respect, when on his return to England after Walsingham's death he was taken into the confidence of the Earl of Essex, and trusted (not as a servant, but as friend') with the management of all his political correspondence:-a very large business, which could not be properly conducted without hospitalities, liberalities, servants, and means of locomotion. To account, therefore, for his "extravagance," that is, for his spending more than his income, -it is not at all necessary to suppose him a self-indulgent voluptuary, as he has been represented of late, upon no other ground that I can hear of: a "gay" man, of easy nature and lax morals, "roving and mercurial," "fond of good wines and bright eyes," "everywhere at home," "hailfellow" with all classes, a lover of " finery, and show, and pleasure," one of "a jovial crew," "running from bad to worse," and finally sinking into a premature grave," the victim of his companion's riot and evil ways," (the companion being the Earl of Essex) imputations no way countenanced by the correspondence at Lambeth; in which, though it may be inferred from the tone of affectionate regard with which he is addressed by so many correspondents of different classes and characters that there was something about him very interesting and attractive, there is no indication of impurity or excess, or even gaiety, either in life or conversation. And indeed, if it were not for a story told by Sir Henry Wotton nearly thirty years after his death, which is difficult to deal with because it stands so completely by itself, his character would be clear of all serious imputation, except on the score of insolvency: nor was he insolvent in any other sense than this-that he had to draw upon his capital to pay his debts: for he seems always to have borrowed at interest and upon security, and there is no reason to suppose that any of his creditors were losers in the end by their dealings with him.

Now Wotton's tale, though inconsistent with the notion that he was a man of pleasure, implies (if true) that he was something very much worse: nor can his evidence be dismissed like that of an anonymous storyteller or dealer in scandal: for Wotton was personally acquainted with him, was in the Earl's service at the same.

1 Two or three years after, Lady Bacon objected to his lodging in Essex House, on the ground that having been "hitherto esteemed a worthy friend,” he would then be accounted the Earl's "follower." Birch, I. p. 278.

time, and was a well known man, of many accomplishments, of good position, and great employments. Still it carries no authority which entitles it to overrule criticism: and when it stands quite unsupported, and relates to transactions necessarily of a very secret character to which he was not himself a party, and gives no hint of the manner in which he came by the knowledge, and is difficult to reconcile with other evidence undoubtedly authentic, and was not published till all those who could have confirmed it if true, and all those who would have cared to question it if false, were equally dead, the question may fairly be raised, whether he was a man whose report must be accepted as conclusive-a man incapable of believing a thing upon insufficient grounds. And upon this point we happen to have evidence in discredit of his pretensions, quite as respectable as his own. In the correspondence between Chamberlain and Carleton, who both knew him, he is frequently mentioned, and always as a man upon whose words they set no value. "Touching all that I wrote you before of Signor Fabritio," (says Chamberlain, June 17, 1612-" Signor Fabritio" is the name under which Sir Henry Wotton is usually spoken of in these letters,-I do not know why) "I should not nor could not believe it; but that sometimes unfitness and unlikeliness makes a thing more likely." “I agree with you in opinion" (says Carleton, speaking of some impressions to his disadvantage of which Chamberlain had warned him) "that Fabritio hath lent me that charity: and if for satisfying his particular malice on other occasions the King's service did not suffer, I could easily forgive him." And again, speaking of another report about himself, "I know not out of whose shop should come this parleria, unless my good old friend Fabritio will never leave his old trade of being fabler, or, as the Devil is, father of lies." "Hither came yesterday Signor Fabritio," (says Chamberlain, writing from a great house in the country, where some new building was going on) 'and stays till to-morrow; . . . . and as he is ignorant in nothing, so he takes upon him to propound many new devices, and would fain be a director where there is no need of his help. He discourseth liberally of the matter of Savoy, and shows himself so partial,"3 etc. And again (July 5, 1617), returning some papers which Carleton had sent him, "a man shall understand more by one of them than by twenty Fabritios; who still antiquum obtinet, and cannot leave his old custom of posting things over to the next courier, which commonly proves Tom Long, the carrier: for I never knew him yet discharge any debt that way; though he promised round things to somebody else besides you; which I came to see by chance, being 1 Court and Times of James I.,' vol. i. p. 182. 2 Ib. p. 209. 3 Ib. p. 260.

...

present at the receipt: but hitherto, for ought I can hear, they neither appear round nor square, but flat farlies and idle conceits." Again (August 9), "Touching Fabritio's precious advertisement ... he [Secretary Winwood] gave me this answer-I cannot precisely say what it may come to, but as far as I can gather, never trust my judgment if it prove any matter of worth. So that this legatus peregre missus will make good his mentiendi causa as well in that as he doth in his last letters (which I saw yesterday), that the Venetians had lost more than a million and a half in merchandise upon two gallies taken by the Neapolitan fleet. I would scant change states with him or with all I know of his name, if I had but so much as there was lacking of that sum."2

Other passages might be quoted in the same tone: but these are enough to show that Wotton was not a man whose uncorroborated statement was considered conclusive by all who knew him, which is all I mean to assert. He is not the less, however, entitled to a hearing; and with this introduction by way of caution, he shall tell his story for himself.

"The Earl of Essex had accommodated Master Anthony Bacon in partition of his house, and had assigned him a noble entertainment. This was a gentleman of impotent feet, but of a nimble head; and through his hand ran all the intelligences with Scotland; who being of a provident nature (contrary to his brother the Lord Viscount St. Alban's), and well knowing the advantage of a dangerous secret, would many times cunningly let fall some words, as if he could much amend his fortunes under the Cecilians (to whom he was near of alliance, and in blood also), and who had made (as he was not unwilling should be believed) some great proffers to win him away which once or twice he pressed so far, and with such tokens and signs of apparent discontent, to my Lord Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Northampton (who was of the party, and stood himself in much umbrage with the Queen), that he flies presently to my Lord of Essex (with whom he was commonly primæ admissionis, by his bedside in the morning), and tells him that, unless that gentleman were presently satisfied with some round sum, all would be vented. This took the Earl at that time ill provided, (as indeed oftentimes his coffers were low), whereupon he was fain suddenly to give him Essex-house; which the good old Lady Walsingham did afterwards disengage out of her own store with 2500 pound and before he had distilled 1500 at another time by the same skill. So as we may rate this one secret (as it was finely carried) at 4000 pounds in present money, besides at the least 1000 pound of annual pension to a private and bedrid gentleman: What would he have gotten if he could have gone about his own business ?"3

1 'Court and Times of James I.,' vol. ii. p. 15.

2 Ib. p. 26.

Now what passed between Anthony Bacon and Lord Henry Howard on this occasion (if such an occasion ever was), or between Lord Henry and the Earl, would of course be known to very few; and therefore that no rumour of such a transaction should have got abroad for thirty years (though strange considering all the circumstances), and that Wotton should have remained the sole depository of the secret, is not conclusive against it. But when a witness is found to be ill-informed on points which lie open to observation and can be checked by other evidence, we may fairly doubt whether in matters known to few and mentioned by nobody except himself his testimony is weighty enough to override improbabilities. Now in a house so open and so well frequented as Essex House, the habits and general relations of a man of such a large and various acquaintance as Anthony Bacon, and the nature of his connexion with so popular person as the Earl, cannot have been any secret. Yet it is certain that Wotton, when he wrote this passage, had a very loose and erroneous impression regarding them. It is true that Anthony Bacon lived in Essex House from October, 1595, to March, 1600, and that much secret correspondence passed through his hands. But if he had "a noble entertainment"- that is, if he lived there at the Earl's charge-how is it that his mother had to remonstrate with him upon the amount of his bill for coals during the summer months of 1596 ? Again: if he had an annual pension of £1000, how is it that among so many letters relating to financial perplexities-letters to and from creditors pressing for payment, lenders demanding security, the brother who shared his difficulties, his liabilities, and his purse, the mother who criticised and deplored his expenses-there is not somewhere or other an allusion to so large an item as this in the reckoning of his means and expectations-being more than twice as much as all his rents came to? Yet "of this pretended pension," says Birch, "there is not the least trace in all Mr. Bacon's papers." Again if in cunning and policy he wanted to make Essex believe that the Cecils were "making great proffers to win him away," how is it that he so often and so openly complained of their unnatural neglect? Our evidence on these points is, of course, negative; for evidence in direct contradiction of charges which nobody made and suspicions which nobody was supposed to entertain, was not to be expected. But in supposing that Anthony Bacon was a man " of a provident nature" in money matters, it cannot be doubted that Wotton was utterly mistaken. Upon this point our evidence is positive and conclusive; proving that he was neither a getter nor a keeper of money, but altogether a borrower and spender. And it is ' Birch, ii. p. 371.

a mistake which can only be accounted for by supposing that Wotton knew nothing about his private affairs, and very little about his character and habits. If, therefore, we find the rest of the story hard to reconcile with what we know otherwise, we need not believe it merely because he did: seeing that in a thing where it was so much less easy to be mistaken he could so easily make a mistake. Now that if Anthony Bacon was really a man capable of extorting money from one who trusted him by threatening to betray the trust, his character could have so completely concealed itself throughout all that long and various correspondence as to leave an impression directly contrary, and that if he had been known by anybody, not an accomplice, to have abused his trust so grossly, his reputation as an attached and loyal friend to the Earl, could have remained unsullied till his death, and survived him without a shadow of suspicion for thirty years. (for the suspicions which the friends of Essex were so ready to take up against his brother never reflected upon him),—these things are to me simply incredible. And as by a slight conjectural emendation in Wotton's story the whole difficulty which it involves may be made to disappear, we can scarcely be rash in concluding that it arose out of a misreport,—a misreport credulously listened to at the time, as whispered scandal commonly is,--imperfectly recollected through the haze of thirty years, and pieced into a smooth story by a lively imagination driving a ready pen. That Essex had important secrets with which Anthony Bacon was acquainted, that he had also extensive agencies which required money to nourish them, and that the money was not always ready at hand-this we know. That in some exigency connected with one of these secret agencies a large sum of money had to be borrowed in a hurry; that Essex House was pledged to the lender by way of security; that the money passed (as it naturally would) through Anthony Bacon's hand; that nobody knew what was done with it, but that (some rumour of the transaction getting abroad) it was supposed by somebody that he had obtained it for himself this we can easily believe: and the rest followed naturally. How he obtained the money, as no man could know, except himself and the Earl and whatever confidential agent passed between them, every man was the more free to guess. The secret circumstances would easily be supplied, and a story made up, which seemed probable enough to Wotton and others who knew no more of the personal relations of the two men than he appears to have done; and which was accordingly believed at the time, and repeated long after,-probably with variations ad libitum,-as the true history of what passed. In this there would be nothing strange. But with our means of information, which are really very much more and