to open yourself to me in those things wherein you may be unsatisfied. For though this work-as by position and principle-doth disclaim to be tried by anything but by experience and the resultats of experience in a true way; yet the sharpness and profoundness of your Majesty's judgment ought to be an exception to this general rule, and your questions, observations, and admonishments, may do infinite good. "This comfortable beginning makes me hope further that your Majesty will be aiding to me in setting men on work for the collecting of a Natural and Experimental History, which is basis totius negotii; a thing which, I assure myself, will be from time to time an excellent recreation unto you-I say to that admirable spirit of yours that delighteth in light: and I hope well that even in your times many noble inventions may be discovered for man's use. For who can tell-now this Mine of Truth is once opened how the veins go, and what lieth higher and what lieth lower?" In these philosophic hopes of royal assistance Bacon was doomed to be disappointed. The high place which he declared he had coveted from the first principally because of the command which it would give "of other men's wits," procured neither from others nor from the King the support he had anticipated. Nor did James ever go beyond the very moderate praises he had bestowed in his letter; indeed, at other times and to other ears he is said to have expressed his opinion much more epigrammatically, and less favourably, about this new and unintelligible book: "It was like the peace of God," he said, "which passeth all understanding." § 39 THE LORD CHANCELLOR IN PERIL The climax of Bacon's favour and greatness had now been reached, and there was no warning of decline. In the same month in which he published the Novum Organum he welcomed with unfeigned delight the King's expressed intention to summon a Parliament. He did not in the least perceive what a storm of opposition he had been rousing up by his persistent straining of 1 i.e. results: the word is elsewhere used by Bacon (Spedding, viii. 172), “the resultate of their counsels." 2 When we consider how thoroughly Bacon was in earnest in all matters relating to philosophy, we shall be disposed to think this, perhaps, the most flattering compliment he ever paid to James. It reminds one a little of the preacher, in the royal presence, who, after incautiously committing himself to the general statement, "Nous mourrons, nous mourrons tous," qualified it as he bowed to the royal pew-" presque tous." the King's Prerogative; for he had been sincere, or thought he had been sincere, in pursuing that policy, and "he was never able to understand what a gulf there was between his own principles and those of the representatives of the people." 1 From some Monopoly Patents he anticipates a little trouble with the new Parliament; but it never occurs to him that he personally has anything to fear. Of all the suitors that had appeared before him, only one or two had as yet publicly complained; and their complaints, when referred to the Council, had been pronounced baseless. Everything at this time seemed to point towards an uninterrupted career of public and private splendour. Near the fish-ponds of Gorhambury he had built himself a delightful and ingeniously constructed house for recreation and study, to which perhaps he now hoped to be able to devote an ampler leisure. On 22 Jan. 1621, he kept his sixtieth birthday in the house of his birth, amid a goodly assemblage of guests, of whom Ben Jonson was one. The poet has recorded in glowing lines the "smile" that lit up York House, "the fire, the wine, the men ;' and as if he had been in the secrets of Destiny, he sings of "England's High Chancellor, the destin'd heir, In his soft cradle, to his father's chair; Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full در Five days afterwards (27 Jan. 1621) he was created Viscount St. Alban "with all the ceremonies of robes and coronet," says Chamberlain. This was his eighth promotion, "a diapason in music," as he himself calls it in a letter to the King; and then he adds an unconscious prophecy almost too dramatically ironical, “a good number and accord for the close." Yet, amidst all these deceitful flatteries and caresses of fortune, one obscure voice, whose sound has come down to our times, seems to have raised a note of warning which, by the passionate sincerity of its remonstrance, might well have caused the Lord Chancellor to feel some apprehensions. Thomas Peyton, author of the Glass of Time (1620), appears (like the unfortunate 1 Gardiner, History, ii. 198. nephew of Dr. Steward, see p. 269) to have obtained a decree from the Lord Chancellor which was afterwards annulled or not acted on, owing to the superior interest of his powerful adversaries; and he vents his indignation in a poem, almost as remarkable for the emphasis with which he acquits the Chancellor of avarice or self-prompted injustice, as for the boldness with which he hints, or more than hints, at his subservience to higher evil influences. "Most honourable 1 Lord, within whose reverend face "Great Verulam, my soul hath much admired "Thrice noble Lord, how dost thou prize of gold, "Ah, dearest Lord, hold but the scales upright, And thy just worth shall o'er the world be blown." A Lord Chancellor less sanguine and less self-complacent than Bacon might also have apprehended with some personal misgivings the action of the Parliament touching Monopolies, with which he had had a great deal to do of late. A Patent, or Monopoly Patent, was, in theory, a licence or a restriction given 1 I think "honourable" must have been abbreviated in pronunciation. 2 A play on "Verulam" and " verum. by the Crown for the encouragement of invention, or to remedy a glut, or to improve or stimulate manufacture; and it must be pronounced good in law by the Judges as well as certified to be "convenient" by the King's advisers. For example, one Patent gave a monopoly of the manufacture of glass, because the patentees offered to use coal instead of wood, so as to spare the timber of the country; another Patent gave a monopoly of gold and silver lace, because the patentees promised to use imported bullion, thereby (according to the political economy of those days) adding to the wealth of the nation. In theory, therefore, a Monopoly Patent ought to be "good and beneficial to the commonwealth." But Bacon, against his better judgment, to oblige Buckingham, had certified as "convenient," and enforced most oppressively, Patents in which the Favourite's brothers had a pecuniary interest, and which he himself can hardly have regarded as generally beneficial; except so far as he was able to persuade himself that almost anything was beneficial, if, for the time, it was his interest to do or sanction the thing in question. How bitter a discontent had been aroused by these Patents and by the general action of the Council over which Bacon presided, may be inferred from a letter written by Chamberlain in the preceding summer (8 July, 1620): "Indeed the world is now much terrified with the Star Chamber, there being not so little an offence against any Proclamation but is liable and subject to the censure of that Court; and, for Proclamations and Patents, they are become so ordinary that there is no end, every day bringing forth some new project or other. In truth the world doth even groan under the burthen of these perpetual Patents; which are become so frequent that whereas, at the King's coming in, there were complaints of some eight or nine Monopolies then in being, they are now said to be multiplied by so many scores.' 1 2 1 In 1601 Francis Bacon spoke as follows in the House of Commons defending the Queen's right to grant Monopolies: "If any man out of his own wit, industry, or endeavour, find out any thing beneficial to the Commonwealth, or bring any new invention which every subject of this kingdom may use; yet, in regard of his pains and travel therein, her Majesty perhaps is pleased to grant him a privilege to use the same only, by himself or his deputies, for a certain time. This is one kind of Monopoly. Sometimes there is a glut of things, when they be in excessive quantity, as perhaps of corn; and perhaps her Majesty gives licence of transportation to one man. This is another kind of Monopoly. Sometimes there is a scarcity or a small quantity; and the like is granted also."-Spedding, iii. 27. Gardiner, History, iv. 1. That Bacon had been guilty of a certain degree of corruption in this matter sacrificing the interests of the people to the interests of his patron or his patron's brother-appears pretty clearly from the tone in which he himself and his fellow-councillors speak of the Monopolies, and from the language used by the House of Commons and even by the King. We have seen above (p. 267) that in the enlarged edition of Bacon's Advice to Buckingham, written (1619 or 1620) after some years of experience of the Favourite's habits, the Lord Chancellor had inserted a warning against interference with cases pending in Courts of Law. It is no less noteworthy that in the same edition he also inserted a special clause against Monopolies, not condemning such as are injurious, but including all in a sweeping condemnation :- "But especially care must be taken, that Monopolies, (which are the canker of all trades), be by [no] means admitted under the pretence or the specious colour of the public good.” 1 The small committee over which the Lord Chancellor presided, to which was intrusted (7 Oct. 1620) the duty of "perusing of the former grievances and of things of like nature which have comen in since," reports (29 Nov.) that, as regards Patents of Monopolies, they have chosen out only those "that are most in speech, and do most tend either to the vexation of the common people, or the discontenting of the gentlemen and Justices. . . . There be many more, of like nature but not of like weight, nor so much rumoured; which to take away now in a blaze, will give more scandal that such things were granted, than cause thanks that they be now revoked." Writing to Buckingham on the same day, the Lord Chancellor uses language that can hardly be mistaken. "Your Lordship may find that in the number of Patents which we have represented to his Majesty as like to be stirred in by the Lower House of Parliament, we have set down three which may concern some of your Lordship's special friends, which I account as mine own friends; and so showed myself when they were in suit.” What can this mean except that the Lord Chancellor, when the Favourite's friends sued for Patents of an injurious, or, at least, 1 Spedding, vi. 49. |