particulars of her relatives, the Pakingtons, which are new and highly amusing. He has exposed the pretensions of Sir John Smyth, and ascertained for the first time the public bearings of the previously incomprehensible case of Peacham. Mr. Dixon is entitled to credit for his historic researches, if we are compelled utterly to repudiate his own inferences from his materials.

203

MR. SPEDDING'S LIFE OF LORD BACON.*

THE splendid edition of the works of Lord Bacon, on which Mr. Spedding and his coadjutors have lavished so much learning and conscientious labour, is now all but completed by the very important volumes which were published some months back in the present year. Previous to these had appeared five volumes of the philosophical and two of the literary and professional works of Bacon, and now we have in these another two, forming a considerable instalment of the 'Letters and Life,' which are to complete the whole. It would appear as if there had been some departure from the original plan, but it is not one of which the reader can complain. On the con

* 'The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon,' including all his occasional works, namely, Letters, Speeches, Tracts, State Papers, Memorials, Devices, and all authentic Writings not already printed among his philosophical, literary, or professional works, newly collected and set forth in chronological order, with a Commentary, biographical and historical. By James Spedding. Vols. I. and II. Longmans, 1862.

trary, it strikes us as a happy arrangement, that instead of giving us a biography altogether separate from the historical pieces which are ascribed to Bacon's pen, Mr. Spedding has combined together all his letters, speeches, tracts, State papers, &c., and has made them tell for what they are—the most authentic portions of Bacon's history. It is certainly an admirable plan of editing the miscellaneous works in question; and, with the help of the narrative and commentary interposed by Mr. Spedding, it will probably form when complete such a record of Bacon's life as we not only have never had before in his case, but such as we cannot parallel in any other case of equal importance, if we except only the letters and speeches of Cromwell, so admirably edited by Mr. Thomas Carlyle.

As to the merits of this edition in other respects it would be now somewhat late, as well as superfluous, to express our high opinion. It is allowed, indeed, on all hands to be one of the most admirable results of careful and conscientious labour which has ever been presented to the world of letters. Mr. Spedding may comfort himself with this solace for his many years of assiduous toil—that his work is thoroughly appreciated, as thorough work generally is. If he should not succeed in bringing all the world to adopt his views in their entirety, he will also have accomplished much to the elucidation of Bacon's character. Like Mr. Dixon, though in a far less extreme sense, he aims at vindicating Bacon from some of the aspersions which have attached to his great name, and if

we still adhere to the popular estimate of Bacon's acts, it is not without a sense of the great importance to be attached to Mr. Spedding's conclusions, even where we are most disposed ourselves to question or dissent from them.

As yet Mr. Spedding has not arrived at the crucial question of Bacon's corruption as evidenced and admitted by his own confession. He has come no further than the case of Essex, though this includes all the earlier and more curious circumstances of Bacon's rise to professional prominence. In fact, Mr. Spedding's Life' commences with the earliest traces of Bacon's course, and with a pregnant estimate of the influences which moulded his character as far as we may regard it in a favourable light. The influence of his mother, learned, eloquent, and religious, full of affection and puritanic fervour, that reverence for the mysteries of statesmanship which we may assume he derived from his father; and, thirdly, the barrenness of the Aristotelian philosophy, against which the heavens themselves were at that time protesting (for "the new star in Cassiopea shone with full lustre on Bacon's freshmanship"), are all appreciated at their reasonable significance "without trespassing upon the province of the novelist," to determine Bacon's inclinations. We have thus a warranty for his interest in the three great causes of his epoch, that of the Reformed Religion, of his native country, and of the potential capacities of the human race-an explanation of those tendencies, moral and men

tal, which made the grander part of his public life, and the glorious constituents of his chequered reputation.

Mr. Spedding, as he was entitled, puts all these influ ences in the foreground, and allows them to prepossess us in favour of a character which is ordinarily censured for reasons which appear at a later date. In fact, this historic order and sequence of narration is more favourable to Bacon's fame, than the freer analysis which interprets his successive acts by the subsequent avowals in his correspondence. It may be quite true that no man will ever form a correct idea of Bacon's life, "unless he bear in mind that from very early youth his heart was divided between the three objects distinct, but not discordant,” which are specified by Mr. Spedding; and yet, to form an idea altogether adequate, he may need to remember that Bacon proved by his own words, that he was not swayed by these objects, unremittingly and exclusively. We have, ourselves, pointed out* the remarkable pertinacity with which, throughout life, he pursued the objects of meaner men, in the sense of urging his advancement to position and affluence. He was the most determined beggar for his personal ends that we know of in history, and he was not only servile in his appeals to his patrons, but what is more to his discredit, avowedly unscrupulous. We reply to Mr. Spedding, that no one will form a correct idea of him unless he bear in his mind steadily and con

* 'The Times,' April 1, 1861. Being the preceding article on Mr. Hepworth Dixon's Defence of Lord Bacon.