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in the fact that it contains, as any body of such numerical proportions must contain, certain "undesirables," and that other members, though perfectly desirable in all other respects, do not take any active interest in political or public affairs; yet both undesirables and absentees can vote, and by their votes might decide some question of the greatest importance. This defect, though probably more apparent than real, should be abated. It would relieve the House of a source of weakness and the House would undoubtedly derive an element of strength in an extended creation of life peerages, in larger representation of the King's dominions beyond the seas, and in the introduction of representatives of religious bodies other than the Established Church.

But into proposals for reform I do not desire to enter here. My views are embodied in a Bill introduced in the House of Lords in 1888: and Lord The Nineteenth Century and After.

Newton has, I am happy to see, expressed his intention of introducing a Bill this session. The pity is that the matter was not officially taken in hand during the long continuance in power of the Unionist party.

Such is the irony of fate that the House of Lords is not unlikely to find itself suffering under the same grievance against which the House of Commons so clamorously protests, but aggravated to this extent that the latter body has access to a Court of Appeal and the former has not. Nothing can be done save by consent of both Houses. Mending the House of Lords implies of necessity strengthening it. The object of its Radical critics is to weaken or abolish it. Under these circumstances it seems probable that, if the House of Lords passes a wise and moderate measure of reform, the House of Commons will throw out the Bill.

Dunraven.

FRANCIS BACON AT THE BAR OF HISTORY.

The more careful study of history in recent years has caused a mitigation of the verdicts passed on many of our greatest men. Pope, expressing the conventional view of his contemporaries, denounced Bacon as the meanest of mankind, and in the same breath condemned Cromwell to everlasting infamy. Those who condemn the public acts of Cromwell will admit that his reputation stands to-day on a very different level from that to which it was relegated by Pope. In the case of Bacon the result is more doubtful. Basil Montagu's attempt to rehabilitate him was smothered as soon as it was born by Macaulay's review. But a few years later Bacon found a new advocate in the most conscientious, most indefatigable, most capable of biogra

phers. Nearly a generation has passed away since Mr. Spedding's great work appeared. It was hailed with enthusiasm by scholars in every quarter, and for the first time the case for Bacon received a fair and impartial hearing. Nobody doubts that we have heard the last word for the defence, and after this interval of time it may be interesting to look round and inquire to what extent Mr. Spedding's conclusions are likely to be permanently adopted.

"I believed myself born for the service of mankind." In these words we have the keynote to Bacon's life. From a very early age the sense of a mission for which he was specially ordained, which he alone could fulfill had been growing up in his mind. He

tells how, when only fifteen, he wrote a scientific treatise which, "with great confidence and a magnificent title," he named "The Greatest Birth of Time." The character of his mission he defines in the preface to his "Interpretation of Nature," written in 1603:

When I searched I found no work so meritorious as the discovery and development of the arts and inventions that tend to civilize the life of man. . . . Above all, if any man could succeednot in merely bringing to light one particular invention, however useful-but in kindling in nature a luminary which would, at its first rising, shed some light on the present limits and borders of human discoveries, and which afterwards, as it rose still higher, would reveal and bring into clear view every nook and cranny of darkness-it seemed to me that such a discoverer would deserve to be called the true Extender of the Kingdom of man over the Universe.

After reviewing his qualifications for such a task, he adds, with an almost sublime self-sufficiency, "For all these reasons I considered that my nature and disposition had, as it were, a kind of kinship and connection with truth. Such were Bacon's real aims; such to the end they remained. A year before his death he can still say, "The ardor and constancy of my mind ... in this pursuit has not grown old nor cooled." Looking back on a long life spent in quite different occupations, it seems to him that he has been "borne by some destiny against the inclination of my genius."

Bacon, then, begins with the conviction that he is designed for a life of contemplation and research. Wealth and honors do not attract him. He is shy and brusque in manner; like others who are "of nature bashful," he is "mistaken for proud." He is not apt to flatter; his friend Essex makes ex

1 Spedding's "Edition of Bacon's Works," iii. 519.

cuses for his "natural freedom and plainness of speech," and he has to cure himself of a habit of "speaking with panting, and labor of breath and voice." He writes to his uncle Burghley that he has "as vast contemplative ends as he has moderate civil ends."

It is easy to censure Bacon for forsaking his true destiny, but in the first instance he was forced by poverty to seek some kind of employment. While drudging at the Bar he had no leisure for philosophy, and he was continually harassed by petty pecuniary worries. He therefore applied to Burghley to help him to obtain some modest position about the Court. For some reason, neither Burghley nor the Queen was willing to promote him. Bacon believed that Burghley deliberately kept him back for fear that his interests might clash with those of Robert Cecil. Why the Queen disliked or distrusted him we have no means of knowing. But it is certain that all his appeals after the death of his father, in 1579, failed to bring him the moderate assistance he needed.

Nine years later, in an unlucky hour, he made the acquaintance of Essex. Essex, then not quite twenty-one, was at the beginning of his meteorlike career. His rise had been so sudden and so brilliant that it seemed for the moment that he must carry everything before him. He attached himself to Bacon with a romantic ardor unparalleled in the whole history of literary patronage; to quote Mr. Spedding, "a good opinion more confident, an interest more earnest and unmistakably sincere," than Essex expresses in his letters, "could not be conveyed in Eng

In his letter to Burghley (January 1592) he says: "If . . . I do seek or affect any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your lordship shall be concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest man."

3 We find Essex pleading Bacon's claims as early as 1588. See Dr. Abbott's "Introduction to Bacon's Essays," p. 10.

lish." The injustice with which Bacon was treated roused his keenest sympathy, and he engaged to "spend his uttermost credit, friendship and authority against whomsoever" to secure Bacon's preferment. Nobody-not Mr. Spedding, certainly not Bacon himself-has ever denied that he kept his word. To Bacon, depressed by nine years' unsuccessful supplication, this unexpected support must have given new life, and not the least of his obligations to Essex lay in this, that he believed in him when, among persons of influence at any rate, no one else did. It was perhaps due to the fresh hopes thus excited that Bacon's "civil ends" gradually became less moderate. With the support of his powerful and enthusiastic patron, the highest offices in the State might not be beyond his reach. Power to Bacon would mean power to do good; no one saw, as he thought he saw, the real needs and dangers of the country. And Science would share in his advancement. It was impossible for a private individual to work out schemes so vast as his; and he reflects that "good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act, and that cannot be without power and place."

In 1594 the Attorney-Generalship became vacant, and Essex undertook to secure it for Bacon. The attempt was most unfair to the Solicitor-General, Coke, who had clearly a prior claim; but minor points like this Essex, in his headlong zeal, would not stop to consider. He was opposed by Burghley, who represented that Bacon was too inexperienced for the post. The Queen chose to be guided by Burghley; Coke was appointed, and became thenceforth Bacon's bitter enemy.

Essex then tried to get Bacon appointed Solicitor-General. He showed in Bacon's interests a degree of conEssay, "Of Great Place."

stancy hardly to be expected of his impulsive nature. For a year and a half he urged Bacon's claims, in season

and, more often, out of season-till the Queen and the whole Court were weary of Bacon's very name. Mr. Spedding conjectures that Essex's injudicious vehemence spoiled Bacon's chance; but Burghley told Bacon that the real difficulty lay in the offence which the Queen had taken at a speech he had made in Parliament. It is to Bacon's credit that, believing himself to be in the right in the matter of this speech, he neither apologized for nor retracted it. At last the Queen decided against Bacon, and in that hour of cruel discouragement he half resolved to give up public life and returu to philosophy. Essex was almost equally upset. He generously took upon himself the whole blame of the failure; "you fare ill," he said, "because you have chosen me for your mean and dependence," and he presented Bacon with "a piece of land" worth in our money about £6000. When telling the story in after years, Bacon paused to pay a tribute to the grace with which Essex bestowed his gift: "such kind and noble circumstances as the manner was worth as much as the matter."

In estimating the extent of Bacon's obligations to Essex, Mr. Spedding reminds us that "during the last five or six years Bacon and his brother had been performing for Essex a kind of service for which £1000 a year would not nowadays be thought very high pay, and for which he had as yet received in money or money's worth nothing whatever. Such services were in those days paid by great men, not

5" Sir Francis Bacon, his apology in certain imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex."

Anthony Bacon, who was Essex's private secretary. He was invaluable to Essex in the way of supplying him with foreign intelli

gence.

in salaries, but in patronage.
Bacon lost the Solicitorship because
Essex urged his claims so intemper-
ately. In such a case what more natu-
ral than to feel that he owed him some-
thing?" That Essex may have spoilt
Bacon's chance is quite arguable,
though Burghley, who was in a posi-
tion to know, took a different view.
However that may be, it is safe to as-
sert that any patron but Essex would
have thought Bacon's services more
than repaid by his unparalleled ex-
ertions on his behalf. Mr. Sidney Lee
finds Essex "quixotic" in giving Bacon
anything. In fact the interest Essex
had shown, the affectionate enthusiasm,
the "manner worth as much as the
matter," were such as cannot be valued
in money or services. Macaulay says
finely of Essex that "unlike the vul-
gar herd of benefactors, he desired
to inspire not gratitude, but affec-
tion."

8

..

Bacon asserted that when he accepted Essex's gift he stipulated that "it must be with the ancient savings"-that is, of duty to the Queen and country;" and in a letter to Essex of this period he makes the curious reservation, "I reckon myself to be a common. and so much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so much your Lordship shall be sure to have." The sentiment is in every way appropriate to one who, born for mankind, could not be expected to narrow his mind to the condition of a vulgar partisan; but it cannot be supposed that Bacon meant thus to release himself from the ordinary obligations which every honest man owes to those who have befriended him.

Not many years later Bacon found himself called upon to reconcile the claims of Essex with those of the Queen and country, and also of man7" Evenings with a Reviewer," i. 106. "Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century" (p. 221).

9 Bacon's "Apology."

LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXV. 1822

kind, in so far as they were bound up with his own prospects. When Essex returned from Ireland Bacon honestly did what he could to bring about his restoration to favor. The Queen seems to have been in the habit of consulting Bacon at this time, though she still failed to promote him; and it is clear that for the first six months of the year 1600 Bacon was faithfully devoted to his patron's interests. When Essex was summoned to answer for his mismanagement in Ireland, Bacon wrote offering to appear as one of the prosecuting counsel; but he explains that he did so with a view to serving Essex more effectually afterwards. Then Essex passed into open treason, after which no one could have blamed Bacon for holding aloof. Unfortunately, he did not hold aloof. When Essex was put on trial for his life Bacon again appeared against him. In the "Apology" Bacon protests that he did not on this occasion offer his services; the work "was merely laid upon me with the rest of my fellows." The fact is that he was, occasionally and irregularly, employed as counsel for the crown; he was not one of the ordinary counsel, and was not always called to appear at State trials. Unless it can be shown not only that Essex's conviction was necessary to the safety of the State, but that without Bacon's help there was no reasonable chance of securing it, it seems obvious that common good feeling should have prompted him to stay away; and nothing could be more cold-blooded than the manner in which he turned and addressed his attack to Essex personally. Professor Gardiner, while admitting that Bacon's conduct indicated "poverty of moral feeling," points out that "our sentiment of the precedence of personal over political ties is based upon our increased sense of political security, and is hardly applicable" to a period when "a government without an

armed force was liable to be overturned by a man who, like Essex, was the darling of the military class."' 10 Mr. Spedding justifies Bacon on the plea that public duty must supersede all others; among later writers there is much divergence of opinion.11

common

Nothing is more certain than that Bacon believed himself to have acted rightly. "There is nothing in my lifetime," he wrote afterwards, "which comes to my mind with more clearness and less check of conscience." Το understand his point of view it would perhaps be necessary to be transported to the sixteenth century; yet he admits that even in his own day his conduct widely censured "in speech." 12 After the execution of Essex, Bacon was employed to draw up the official "Declaration" of his "treasous attempted and committed." this, and his services at the trial, he received a grant of £1200; "the Queen hath done somewhat for me," he wrote, "but not in the proportion I had hoped." One wishes that he had refused it. Brutus might think it his duty to stab

was

For

10" Dictionary of National Biography"; art Bacon.

11 Mr. Sidney Lee considers that Bacon "sacrificed all ordinary considerations of honor in his treatment of Essex." ("Great Englishmen," p. 223.) Dean Church takes the same view ("English Men of Letters: Bacon"). Mr. Goldwin Smith says: "Bacon's impeachment of his friend and benefactor is a repulsive relic of the servility which, in the Court of Henry VIII., laid nature and friendship, as well as truth and justice, at the despot's feet." ("The United Kingdom," i. 402.) Dr. Abbott regards it as "a sin, but not a sin of weakness, or pusillanimity, or inconsistency," and as showing "how morally dangerous it is to be so imbued and penetrated with the notion that one is born for the service of mankind as to be rendered absolutely blind to all the claims of commonplace morality." ("Introduction to Bacon's Essays," p. 45.) Professor Fowler ("English Philosophers") and Mr. Aldis Wright ("Introduction to the Advancement of Learning") follow Mr. Spedding. Professor Nichol considers that Essex's guilt was of a kind "from the consequences of which past favors could not release him." ("Philosophical Classics: Bacon," i. 67.) 12 Bacon's "Apology."

Cæsar, but would have scorned to take a pecuniary recompense.

ence.

This grant was the only reward Bacon received. He had not advanced a fraction in the confidence of the Queen or Cecil. But the reign of Elizabeth was drawing to a close, and all men's eyes were turning towards her successor. On the accession of James, Bacon was naturally anxious to secure a good reception; he therefore strove to ingratiate himself with every one who seemed likely to have any influHe desires Cecil's agent to "let him know that he is the person in the State that I love most." The Earl of Northumberland was thought to be coming to the front, and Bacon discovers, what apparently no one had suspected, that there had "long lain in his mind a seed of affection and zeal towards his lordship." He even importunes the friends of Essex; he assures Southampton, newly released from the Tower, "I can now safely be to your Lordship what I truly was before"; and to the Earl of Devonshire he dedicates his "Apology," excusing and exΤο plaining his conduct to Essex. modern ideas all this is undignified; it would hardly appear so to Bacon's contemporaries. In when those days, everything went by influence, men habitually addressed one another in the In language of exorbitant adulation. his letters, in his essays, in his private notes, Bacon frankly avows his belief that the way to greatness lay through the favor of great men. being naturally a courtier, he set himself with the utmost deliberation to study and profit by their weaknesses. Of this "morigeration," as Bacon calls it, Mr. Spedding says," "I do not myself recommend it for imitation, and if it be true that no man can be known to do such a thing in these days without

Not

18 Robert Cecil succeeded his father as chief minister in 1598.

14 Letters and Life," iv. 34.

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