were being subjected, at the same time that he apologises for the digression and declares that he is not personally addicted to their opinions :

"For Preachers, because thereon grows a great question, I am provoked to lay at your Highness's feet my opinion touching the preciser sort; first protesting to God Almighty and your sacred Majesty that I am not given over, nor so much as addicted, to their preciseness; therefore, till I think that you think otherwise, I am bold to think that the Bishops, in this dangerous time, take a very evil and unadvised course in driving them from their cures."

Such persecution, he says, spreads abroad an impression of disunion in England; and besides, the Preachers are effectually helping the State, and ought not to be discouraged : “their careful catechising and diligent preaching bring forth that fruit" which is desired, "the lessening and diminution of the Papistical number."

"And therefore in this time your gracious Majesty hath especial cause to use and employ them, if it were but as Frederick II., that excellent Emperor, did use and employ Saracen soldiers against the Pope, because he was well assured and certainly knew that they only would not spare his sanctity.

"And for those objections what they would do when they got once a full and entire authority in the Church, methinks they are inter remota et incerta mala, and therefore vicina et certa to be first considered."

One advantage of the appointment of Schoolmasters will be that, by making the parents of each shire send their children to such fit and convenient places as may be at her devotion, the Queen may, "under colour of education, have them as hostages of all the parents' fidelity that have any power in England." As for the punishment of death, it is useless as a means for lessening their numbers; their vice of obstinacy seems to the people a divine constancy; and, as with Hydra, when one head is cut off, seven grow up.

A third means for keeping down the Papists will be to disqualify all who will not "pray and communicate according to the doctrine received generally in this realm" from all office, "from the highest counsellor to the lowest constable." Fourthly, Popish landlords are not to be allowed to evict or unreasonably molest any tenants who "pay as others do:"

"And although thereby may grow some wrong that the tenants, upon that confidence, may offer unto their landlords; yet those wrongs are very easily, even with one wink of yours, redressed, and are nothing comparable to the danger of having so many thousands depend upon the adverse party."

In order to enfeeble the Papists for military enterprises, no one is to be "trained up in the musters except his parishioners would answer for him that he orderly and duly received the Communion;" and no one is "to have in his house so much as a halbert without the same condition."

Above all, let her Majesty, in her dealings with the Papists avoid "that evil shamefacedness which the Greeks call Svowπíα, which is, not to seem to doubt them who give just occasion for doubt." By modifying the Oath of Allegiance, and by enfeebling the Papists, the Queen will never need to execute any but those whom all will acknowledge to be traitors; and while she will be dispensed from the necessity of seeming to trust them, they will be obliged, for their own sakes, to be faithful to her.

In foreign policy Bacon here avows himself, as throughout his life, the enemy of Spain. France ought to be made a friend; Scotland to be distracted by supporting those noblemen whom the young King suspected, and by giving him "daily cause to look to his own succession;" but against Spain help might be sought from Florence, Ferrara, and especially Venice. The alliance of the Dutch and northern princes, "being in effect of your Majesty's religion," ought not to be contemned; Spain should be weakened by attacks both upon his Indies and Low Countries; or, if war is not to be provoked, such help is to be offered the Low Countries as can be given without provoking actual war with Spain.

The whole paper is remarkable, not only for the lofty tone adopted by a young barrister of three-and-twenty in addressing the Sovereign, but also for the cool directness with which the writer advances straight towards his political object, keeping his eye much more upon the end than upon the means.

Here, as throughout the whole of Bacon's political writings, the influence of Machiavelli is manifest. Perhaps there is even some affectation of Machiavellianism in his eulogy of Frederick II., (" that excellent Emperor who did use and employ

Saracen soldiers against the Pope; ") and in his recommendation to the Queen to use the Puritans in the same way as her mere instruments. Bearing in mind that about this very time (soon after Christmas, 1584) Bacon's mother was expostulating with Burghley upon the unfair treatment of the Puritans by the Bishops, and that the Queen was, at this crisis, placing herself in opposition to the feeling of the Commons by the persecuting policy for which she had just appointed Whitgift to the primacy, we can easily understand the reasons for Bacon's protestation that he was "not addicted to the preciser sort," and appreciate the extreme delicacy of touch with which he handled the question of the dispossession of the Preachers. This transparent veil does not however conceal his real sympathy with the " careful and diligent" Puritans, and his feeling that the Queen was making a mistake in attempting to crush them-an expression not obscurely expressed in his condemnation of the " and unadvised course taken by the Bishops.'

very evil

Herein Bacon shows the insight of a Statesman, no less than in his proposed modification of the Oath of Allegiance. But the reader must not omit to note the qualifying words with which the young barrister "lays at Her Highness's feet" his unacceptable condemnation of her policy. "I am bold to think it," he says, " till I think that you think otherwise." From a very young man the phrase is excusable and natural, perhaps almost commendable. But it betokened more than a young man's excess of modesty. There was in Bacon an invariable pliancy in the presence of great persons which disqualified him for the task of giving wise and effectual counsel. In part, this obsequiousness arose from his mental and moral constitution; in part, it was a habit deliberately adopted as one among many means by which a man may make his way in the world. In a little treatise entitled The Architect of Fortune, published in the De Augmentis (1623), he lays it down as a precept for the man who wishes to succeed, that he must "avoid repulse:

"A second precept is, to beware being carried by an excess of magnanimity and confidence to things beyond our strength, and not to row against the stream. . . . We ought to look round and observe where things lie open to us and where they are closed and obstructed, where they are difficult and where easy, that we may not waste our time on things to which convenient

access is forbidden. For in that way we shall avoid repulse, not occupy ourselves too much about one matter, earn a character for moderation, offend fewer persons, and get the credit of continual success, whilst things which would perhaps have happened of themselves will be attributed to our industry."

Here then we have one secret of Bacon's failure as a counsellor. He had no political backbone, no power of adhering to his convictions and pressing them on unwilling ears. Young or old, from twenty to sixty, he was always the same in this excessive obsequiousness; if he strove against authority, if he forced himself to utter a possibly unacceptable "Yes" or "No," it was always "like Ovid's mistress, as one that was willing to be overcome." 2 This pliability he avowed so frankly that every one took him at his word; and from the beginning to the end of his career his wiser counsels were neglected, and he was little better than an instrument in the hands of the unwise.

At the same time we must remember the circumstances in which a counsellor of those days offered counsel. Personal government was a necessity. There is no reason to think that Bacon considered it an undesirable necessity; the great persons whom he sought to persuade seemed to him more fit to govern, and perhaps more open to his persuasion, than a House of Commons; the Queen and her Council had more means of information, more traditions of continuous policy, more responsibility, and far more power, than could be wielded by a mere representative and changeable assembly without organised parties. Desirable, or undesirable, it was a necessity. What counsels Bacon addressed to the House of Commons could not be heard outside the House, and might be ineffective within it; the modern press and public meetings were non-existent. If, therefore, anything was to be done it must be done through the Queen; and if his counsel was distasteful to her, it was impracticable and useless. How necessary, therefore, to show all possible

1 De Aug. viii. 2, Spedding, Works, v. 73.

2 See Bacon's opinion about the objectionable Patents in December 1602 (Spedding, vii. 151), "The King, by my Lord Treasurer's signification, did wisely put it upon a consult, whether the Patents which we mentioned in our joint letter were at this time to be removed by Act of Parliament. I opined (but yet somewhat like Ovid's mistress, that strove, but yet as one that would be overcomen) that Yes."

tact in avoiding unpleasant advice, and to be ready to exchange the counsel that was best, but unpleasing, for that which was less good but more welcome to her ears!

§ 4 "THE CONTROVERSIES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND "1

In the next Parliament (29 October, 1586) Bacon sat for Taunton, and, with other members of both houses, presented a petition for the execution of Mary Stuart. In this year he became a Bencher of Gray's Inn. The quarrel between the Puritans and High Churchmen, suspended during the general terror of Spain, broke out again after the destruction of the Armada in 1588, and the Marprelate controversy was at its height in the summer of 1589. Between the two contending parties, Bacon, in his Controversies of the Church of England (1589), arbitrates with stately impartiality, censuring both for their bigotry, but inclining towards the Puritans.2

4

One party, he says, is seeking truth in the conventicles of heretics, the other in the external representation of the Church, and both are in error. The remedy is charity; the controversy being, as all confess, about things not of the highest nature, men must not forget the league of Christians penned by our Saviour, "He that is not against us is with us." St. Paul says, "One faith, one baptism," not "one ceremony, one policy:" and in such light matters, men should say with St. Paul, "I and not the Lord." The causes of controversy are four, 1st, imperfections in the "conversation" and government of the Bishops and Governors of the Church; 2nd, the ambition of certain persons which love the salutation of "Rabbi, master" the true successors of Diotrephes, the lover of preeminence, of which disease the Universities [here he aims at Cartwright, the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge] are the seat and continent; 3rd, an excessive detestation of some former corruptions, which leads men to think that opposition to the Church of Rome is the best touchstone to try what is good, and that the Church

1 Spedding, i. 74-95.

This treatise should be studied in connection with the Essay Of Unity in Religion.

3

Essays, iii. 28.

4 lb. 65-80.

5 Ib. 50.