Northumberland in the shadow, would go much out of his way to put him forward. What he had to do therefore was merely to hold himself in readiness in case he were wanted; to recommend himself to the King by such services or advices as he could offer without impropriety; to make the most of the interval of leisure for the great purpose to which all his leisure had long been dedicated; and before all, if not above all, to clear off all remains of debt and bring his living within his income. 2. The last-mentioned object was first in importance, and was (not perhaps unfortunately) first forced upon him by an accident of which the general character may be gathered from the next letter, though none of the particulars are otherwise known. We have seen that he had been occupied since his brother's death in endeavouring to settle some of his principal debts. It seems however that he had not proceeded fast enough. For in the summer of 1603 he had to apply to Cecil for help in some scrape, similar apparently to that of 1598, when he was arrested on his way from the Tower by Sympson, the goldsmith. Something had been done to him which he conceived to be an invasion of the privilege of his office, and therefore an affront to the King's service; and it had relation to some money transaction. And this is all we know about it. The letter itself, however, which reveals the fact (and which comes from the Hatfield collection, where it was found by Murdin, who sent a copy to Birch) is unusually interesting, as showing how his private affairs stood at the time, and what he was now doing to set them straight: and also as throwing further light on his relations with Cecil; who, on this occasion at least, was giving something more substantial than words;-preferring possibly a way of obliging him which deserved his gratitude without risking his rivalry. To ROBERT, LORD CECIL.2 It may please your good Lordship, They say late thanks are ever best. But the reason was, I thought to have seen your Lordship ere this. Howsoever I shall never forget this your last favour amongst others; and it grieveth me not a little, that I find myself of no use to such an honourable and kind friend. For that matter, I think I shall desire your assistance for the 2 Letters, Speeches, etc., p. 23. 1 Vol. II. p. 106. punishment of the contempt; not that I would use the privilege in future time, but because I would not have the dignity of the King's service prejudiced in my instance. But herein I will be ruled by your Lordship. It is fit likewise, though much against my mind, that I let your Lordship know that I shall not be able to pay the money within the time by your Lordship undertaken, which was a fortnight. Nay money I find so hard to come by at this time, as I thought to have become an humble suitor to your Honour to have sustained me with your credit for the present from urgent debts, with taking up 3007. till I can put away some land. But I am so forward with some sales, as this request I hope I may forbear. For my estate (because your Honour hath care of it), it is thus: I shall be able with selling the skirts of my living in Hertfordshire to preserve the body; and to leave myself, being clearly out of debt, and having some money in my pocket, 3007. land per annum, with a fair house, and the ground well timbered. This is now my labour. For my purpose or course, I desire to meddle as little as I can in the King's causes, his Majesty now abounding in counsel; and to follow my private thrift and practice, and to marry with some convenient advancement. For as for any ambition, I do assure your Honour mine is quenched. In the Queen's, my excellent Mistress's, time the quorum was small: her service was a kind of freehold, and it was a more solemn time. All those points agreed with my nature and judgment. My ambition now I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times succeeding. Lastly, for this divulged and almost prostituted title of knighthood, I could without charge, by your Honour'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, an handsome maiden, to my liking. So as if your Honour will find the time, I will come to the court from Gorhambury upon any warning. How my sales go forward, your Lordship shall in a few days hear. Mean while, if you will not be pleased to take further day with this lewd fellow, I hope your Lordship will not suffer him to take any part of the penalty, but principal, interest, and costs. 3 July, 1603. So I remain your Lordship's most bounden, FR. BACON. Cecil's answer to this letter has not been preserved. But it may be inferred from Bacon's reply (which comes from the same collection) that it was not only friendly as regarded the particular case, but contained also some general intimation that his professional services would be wanted. To THE SAME.1 It may please your good Lordship, In answer of your last letter, your money shall be ready before your day; principal, interest, and costs of suit. So the sheriff promised, when I released errors; and a Jew takes no more. The rest cannot be forgotten; for I cannot forget your Lordship's dum memor ipse mei: and if there have been aliquid nimis, it shall be amended. And, to be plain with your Lordship, that will quicken me now, which slackened me before. Then I thought you might have had more use of me, than now I suppose you are like to have. Not but I think the impediment will be rather in my mind than in the matter or times. But to do you service, I will come out of my religion at any time. For my knighthood, I wish the manner might be such as might grace me, since the matter will not; I mean, that I might not be merely gregarious in a troop. The coronation is at hand. It may please your Lordship to let me hear from you speedily. So I continue Your Lordship's ever much bounden, From Gorhambury, this 16th of July, 1603. FR. BACON. It is probably to this time that a memorandum belongs, which I found in the State Paper Office, entitled "a Note of my debts." It has no signature, or address, or date; but is written and docketed in Bacon's hand and may very well have been addressed to Cecil on the occasion which led to this correspondence. Before the 16th of May, when he was created Baron Cecil of Essenden, 'Your Ho : Letters, Speeches, etc., p. 25. VOL. III. G nour' is the title which Bacon would naturally have given him, and which indeed (as we see by the last letters) he still continued to use occasionally; and it is clear from the foregoing letters that he had been beholden to him for procuring a loan of money. That I was beholden to your Honour for procuring For the rest, Bacon obtained his title, but not in a manner to distinguish him. He was knighted at Whitehall, on the 23rd of July;2 two days before the Coronation; but had to share the honour with 300 others. 3. After this I find no more letters for a good while; nor indeed (until the meeting of Parliament on the 29th of March, 1603-4) any further news of his proceedings. I imagine, however, that the intervening months were among the busiest and most exciting that he ever passed. For this is the time when I suppose him to have conceived the design of throwing his thoughts on philosophy and intellectual progress into a popular form, and inviting the co-operation of mankind. His old idea of finding a better method of studying the laws of Nature, having no doubt undergone in the endeavour to realise it many modifications, had at last taken the shape of a treatise in two parts. The first part was to be called Experientia Literata, and was to contain an exposition of the art of experimenting; that is, of proceeding in scientific order from one experiment to another, making the answer to one question suggest the question to be asked next. The second part was to be called Interpretatio Nature, and was to explain the method of arriving by degrees at axioms, or general prin 1 1S. P. O. Domestic, 1603. 2 Nichols's Progresses, i. 208. ciples in nature; thence by the light of those axioms proceeding to new experiments; and so finally to the discovery of all the secrets of nature's operation,-which would include the command over her forces. This great speculation he had now digested in his head into these two parts, and "proposed hereafter to propound." And being a man whose mind found relief in utterance, though it were only to a piece of paper in his cabinet, he drew up (either at, or about, or at any rate with reference to this time) a short prefatory address; which, had the work itself been then completed according to the design, would I suppose have stood as the introduction. As an exposition of the design it was superseded by completer prefaces of later date, and was therefore not included among the philosophical works selected for translation. But as bearing upon the history of his own career it has a peculiar value; revealing as it does an authentic glimpse of that large portion of his life, which though to him as real as the rest and far more profoundly interesting, scarcely shows itself among these records of his career as a man of business, and is in danger of being forgotten. And I do not know how I can better help my readers to conceive the thing and to give it its due prominence among his purposes and performances, than by inserting a translation of it in this place. Of the practicability of the enterprise and the reasonableness of the expectation, I say nothing: that question has been discussed in its proper place, and need not concern us here. What we have to understand and remember is the nature of the enterprise, and the fact that he believed it practicable. He believed that he had by accident stumbled upon a Thought, which duly followed out would in the course of generations make man the master of all natural forces. The " Interpretation of Nature" was, according to his speculation, the "Kingdom of Man."2 To plant this thought in men's minds under such conditions that it should have the best chance of growing and bearing its proper fruit in due season, was the great aspiration of his life; and though diverted, interrupted, and baffled by a hundred impediments, internal and external,-by infirmities of body and of mind, by his own business and other people's, by clients, creditors, and sheriff's officers, by the impracticability (say the wise) of the problem itself, owing to a fundamental misconception of the case, by an imperfection (as I think) in his own intellectual organisation, which placed him at a disadvantage in dealing with many parts of it,-he never 1 Adv. of Learn.: Works, Vol. III. p. 389. De Augmentis Scientiarum : lib. v. Vol. I. pp. 622-633. c. 2. 2 Indicia vera de Interpretatione Naturæ, sive de Regno Hominis. Title of the Novum Organum. |