a matter that we cannot ascribe to the skill or temper of our own carriage, but to the guiding and conducting of God's holy providence and will, the true author of all unity and agreement; neither did we, where the business required, rest so upon our own senses and opinions, but we did also aid and assist ourselves as well with the reverend opinion of Judges and persons of great science and authority in the laws, and also with the wisdom and experience of merchants, and men expert in commerce. In all which our proceedings notwithstanding, we are so far from pretending or aiming at any prejudication, either of his royal Majesty's sovereign and high wisdom, which we do most dutifully acknowledge to be able to pierce and penetrate far beyond the reach of our capacities, or of the solid and profound judgment of the high Courts of Parliament of both realms, as we do in all humbleness submit our judgments and doings to his sacred Majesty and to the Parliaments, protesting our sincerity, and craving gracious and benign construction and acceptation of our travails.

We therefore with one mind and consent have agreed and concluded that there be propounded and presented to his Majesty and the Parliament of both realms, these articles and propositions following.

If this introduction had been adopted it would have required in one place, and I suppose in one place only, a slight correction.

The "unanimity and uniformity of consent" with which all the resolutions are said to have passed, must of course be understood as referring to the conclusion of the whole business: not that there were no differences of opinion among the Commissioners, but that they all agreed in what was ultimately recommended to be done. And such was no doubt the result which Bacon anticipated from the tenour of the deliberations. The anticipation was not however destined to be strictly fulfilled. One of the English Commissioners, Sir Edward Hoby,-for some reason which he declined publicly to explain, refused at the last to subscribe his name to the Instrument. The solitary exception however rather illustrates than throws doubt upon the substantial accuracy of the report: which, after all due correction has been made, remains a notable record of a piece of business very effectually and prosperously despatched,

1 C. J. 27 Nov. 1606, p. 1005.

The history of its progress through Parliament will be a very different one, but belongs to a later time. Parliament was to have met in February, and the consideration of the measures recommended by the Commissioners was expected to be its principal business. Apprehensions of a return of the Plague, of which some premonitory symptoms showed themselves in many parts of the country before Christmas, induced a further prorogation till the autumn: at which time the Gunpowder Plot came in the way and supplied business enough for the succeeding session: so that it was not till the winter of 1606 that the Instrument of the Union came under consideration. The prorogation till autumn left Bacon with the best part of a year comparatively free from business, and available for the prosecution of the great literary work which I suppose him to have been so anxious at this time not only to go on with but to bring before the world as soon as possible: and of which the progress must have been much interrupted, if not completely suspended, by the heavy business which the last Parliament threw upon him. For the next ten months we have very little news of him. What there is shall begin a new chapter.

1 Proclamation for the proroguing of Parliament, 24 Dec. 1604.

247

CHAPTER VII.

A.D. 1605-6. ÆTAT. 45.

1.

THE importance of the part which had fallen to Bacon in the business of the last session-and that not through official patronage or private favour, but merely from experience of his ability and the necessities of the time calling for help-followed as it was by such happy success in his latest service-might have seemed to promise a speedy rise in his fortunes, had no opportunity occurred of making the promise good. But it so happened that on the 28th of October 1601 (the day after the first meeting of the Commissioners for the Union) the Solicitor General was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer, thereby vacating the very place to which a man in Bacon's position would naturally and reasonably aspire. It was given however on the same day to Sergeant Doderidge; a lawyer of good reputation, but no further conspicuous than as holding the office of Serjeant to the Prince of Wales. And the neglect of so fair an opportunity to raise Bacon looked almost like an intention to leave him below. I do not find traces however either of any application from him at the time for the place, or any complaint of having been passed over. And the truth perhaps is that (as he had formerly said that "he could not expect that Coke and himself should ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together "2) he really felt the relation which subsisted between them to be a valid objection to his appointment, and would not himself have asked for or recommended it.

2.

However that may be, the experience of the past year proved that, whether the King or Cecil or Coke wanted his help or not,

Unless the following expression in a letter to the Lord Chancellor two years after, be taken to include an allusion to this appointment: "Otherwise for mine own private comfort it were better that. . . I should turn my course to endeavour to serve in some other kind, than for me to stand thus at a stop; and to have that little reputation which by my industry I gather to be scattered and taken away by continual disgraces, every new man coming above me."

2 See above, p. 4.

his country had work for him to do; and that he must not reckon upon having his time to himself, but if he meant to reform philo sophy, must make the most of all intervals of leisure. The present interval-the longest and least interrupted which he was destined to enjoy for many years-came very seasonably to enable him to finish the Advancement of Learning: which with due allowance made for time consumed in the duties of courtship and the other business which a treaty of marriage with an alderman's daughter would naturally involve, supplied work enough for nine or ten months.

The "two books of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, divine and human" were published in a single volume. But an examination of the signatures of the sheets shows that the first book must have been printed off before the second was sent to the press: from which I infer that some considerable interval occurred in the composition of them. And it seems very probable, as I have already intimated, that the first book, which, though less important in its argument than the other, is very full and elaborate in composition, was written in 1603, when he expected an abundance of leisure for such work; and that the second, which has many marks of haste both in the writing and the printing, and is in several parts professedly unfinished, was hurried through in 1605; when he foresaw that his times of leisure were not likely to come often or last long. I speak of course only of the composition,-the arrangement of the matter, the wording, and the putting into shape:-for the matter itself was the accumulation of his life, and many portions of it had been already digested, no doubt, in notes and essays.

This great work excepted, I find only one piece among the extant writings of Bacon which appears to have been composed between January and October, 1605; and that was probably suggested in the progress of the work itself-being in fact a leaf taken out of it for immediate use.

Near the beginning of the second book of the Advancement of Learning, in speaking of the deficiencies of literature in the matter of Civil History, he had pointed out the want of a better history of England. And this being a thing which might, by the help of men in authority, be put in course at once, and which through the perishing of records and corruption of traditions would become more difficult with every year's delay, it occurred to him to bring the subject immediately under the consideration of the government. With this view he wrote, in April 1605, a letter to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere; the original of which-a beautiful specimen of his fairest handwriting-is still to be seen among the manuscripts at Bridgwater House.

It was first printed by Rawley in the Resuscitatio (p. 28),—I presume from a copy preserved by Bacon himself in his Register-Book of letters; and shortly afterwards in Sir Toby Matthew's collection, probably from an independent copy of his own. But both these are evidently taken from the first draft; in which Bacon made, as he wrote it fair, many alterations-as his manner was; without taking the trouble to have them copied into the draft which he kept. The letter which was actually sent was first printed by Mr. Payne Collier in his bibliographical catalogue of the Bridgwater library: and a comparison of the two, which may be made here by the help of the foot-notes, will illustrate and confirm my conjecture (vol. ii. p. 94) as to the true history of the differences between the letters as given in the Cabala and in the Resuscitatio, in certain cases.

A LETTER TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, TOUCHING THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN.1

It may please your good Lordship,

Some late act of his Majesty, referred to some former speech which I have heard from your Lordship, bred in me a great desire, and by strength of desire a boldness to make an humble proposition to your Lordship, such as in me can be no better than a wish: but if your Lordship should apprehend it, may take some good and worthy effect. The act I speak of, is the order given by his Majesty, as I understand, for the erection of a tomb or monument for our late sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth: wherein I may note much, but this at this time; That as her Majesty did always right to his Highness' hopes, so his Majesty doth in all things right to her memory; a very just and princely retribution. But from this occasion, by a very easy ascent, I passed furder, being put in mind, by this Representative of her person, of the more true and more firm Representative1o, which is of her life and government. For as Statuaes and Pictures are dumb histories, so histories are speaking Pic

8

1 The text is taken from the original. The collations are with the copy in the British Museum (Additional MSS. 5503. 25.b., which I call A.), and that in the Resuscitatio, which I call R.

3 it may: A, R.

6" His M. hath commanded two stately tombs to be begun at Westminster, one for the Queen Elizabeth, and the other for his Majesty's mother."-Edmund Lascelles to the E. of Shrewsbury: April 11, 1605.

7 only this: R.

8

Majesty's, A, R.

10 representation: R.

Lodge, iii. 145.

9

perfect, A; vive, R.