Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
to Paris, where he resided some time under the care of Sir Amyas
Paulet, the English minister at the court of France.
Here he invented an ingenious method of writing in cipher; an art which
he probably cultivated with a view to a diplomatic career.
He visited several of the provinces of France and of the towns of
Italy. Italy was then the country in which human knowledge in all its
branches was most successfully cultivated. It is related by Signor
Cancellieri that Bacon, when at Rome, presented himself as a candidate
to the Academy of the _Lincei_, and was not admitted.[5] He remained
on the continent for three years, until his father’s death, in 1580.
The melancholy event, which bereft him of his parent, at the age of
nineteen, was fatal to his prospects. His father had intended to
purchase an estate for his youngest son, as he had done for his other
sons; but he dying before this intention was realized, the money was
equally divided between all the children; so that Francis inherited
but one fifth of that fortune intended for him alone. He was the
only one of the sons that was left unprovided for. He had now “to
study to live,” instead of “living to study.” He wished, to use his
own language, “to become a true pioneer in that mine of truth which
lies so deep.” He applied to the government for a provision which his
father’s interest would easily have secured him, and by which he might
dispense with a profession. The Queen must have looked with favor
upon the son of a minister, who had served her faithfully for twenty
long years, and upon a young man whom, when he was a child, she had
caressed, she had distinguished by the appellation of her “young Lord
Keeper.” But Francis Bacon was abandoned, and perhaps opposed by the
colleague and nearest friend of his father, the brother-in-law of his
mother, his maternal uncle, Lord Burleigh, then Prime Minister, who
feared for his son the rivalry of his all-talented nephew. It is a
trick common to envy and detraction, to convert a man’s very qualities
into their concomitant defects; and because Bacon was a great thinker,
he was represented as unfit for the active duties of business, as “a
man rather of show than of depth,” as “a speculative man, indulging
himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than
to promote public business.”[6] Thus was the future ornament of his
country and of mankind sacrificed to Robert, afterwards Sir Robert
Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, of whose history fame has learned but little,
save the execution of Essex and Mary Queen of Scots, the name, and this
petty act of mean jealousy of his father! In the disposal of patronage
and place, acts and even motives of this species are not so unfrequent
as the world would appear to imagine. In all ages, it is to be feared,
many and great, as in Shakspeare’s time, are,
the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes.
It is, however, but justice to the morals of Lord Burleigh, to add that
he was insensible to literary merit; he thought a hundred pounds too
great a reward to be given to Spenser for what he termed “an old song,”
for so he denominated the _Faery Queen_.
Bacon then selected the law as his profession; and in 1580 he was
entered of Gray’s Inn;[7] he resisted the temptations of his companions
and friends, (for his company was much courted), and diligently
pursued the study he had chosen; but he did not at this time entirely
lose sight of his philosophical speculations, for he then published
his _Temporis partus maximus_, or _The Greatest Birth of Time_. This
work, notwithstanding its pompous title, was unnoticed or rather fell
stillborn from the press; the sole trace of it is found in one of his
letters to Father Fulgentio.
In 1586, he was called to the bar; his practice there appears to have
been limited, although not without success; for the Queen and the Court
are said to have gone to hear him when he was engaged in any celebrated
cause. He was, at this period of his life, frequently admitted to the
Queen’s presence and conversation. He was appointed her Majesty’s
Counsel Extraordinary,[8] but he had no salary and small fees.
In 1592, his uncle, the Lord Treasurer, procured for him the reversion
of the registrarship of the Star Chamber, worth sixteen hundred pounds
(forty thousand francs) a year; but the office did not become vacant
till twenty years after, so that, as Bacon justly observes, “it might
mend his prospects, but did not fill his barns.”
A parliament was summoned in 1593, and Bacon was returned to the House
of Commons, for the County of Middlesex; he distinguished himself
here as a speaker. “The fear of every man who heard him,” says his
contemporary, Ben Jonson, “was lest he should make an end.” He made,
however, on one occasion a speech which much displeased the Queen and
Court. Elizabeth directed the Lord Keeper to intimate to him that he
must expect neither favor nor promotion; the repentant courtier replied
in writing, that “her Majesty’s favor was dearer to him than his
life.”[9]
In the following year the situation of Solicitor-General[10] became
vacant. Bacon ardently aspired to it. He applied successively to Lord
Burleigh, his uncle, to Lord Puckering, his father’s successor, to
the Earl of Essex, their rival, and finally to the Queen herself,
accompanying his letters, as was the custom of the times, with a
present, a jewel.[11] But once more he saw mediocrity preferred, and
himself rejected. A Serjeant Fleming was appointed her Majesty’s
Solicitor-General. Bacon, overwhelmed by this disappointment, wished to
retire from public life, and to reside abroad. “I hoped,” said he in a
letter to Sir Robert Cecil, “her Majesty would not be offended that,
not able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade.”
The Earl of Essex, whose mind, says Mr. Macaulay, “naturally disposed
to admiration of all that is great and beautiful, was fascinated by
the genius and the accomplishments of Bacon,”[12] had exerted every
effort in Bacon’s behalf; to use his own language, he “spent all his
power, might, authority, and amity;” he now sought to indemnify him,
and, with royal munificence, presented him with an estate of the value
of nearly two thousand pounds, a sum worth perhaps four or five times
the amount in the money of our days. If anything could enhance the
benefaction, it was the delicacy with which it was conferred, or, as
Bacon himself expresses it, “with so kind and noble circumstances as
the manner was worth more than the matter.”
Bacon published his _Essays_ in 1597; he considered them but as the
“recreations of his other studies.” The idea of them was probably first
suggested by Montaigne’s _Essais_, but there is little resemblance
between the two works beyond the titles. The first edition contained
but ten Essays, which were shorter than they now are. The work was
reprinted in 1598, with little or no variation; again in 1606; and in
1612 there was a fourth edition, etc. However, he afterwards, he says,
“enlarged it both in number and weight;” but it did not assume its
present form until the ninth edition, in 1625, that is, twenty-eight
years after its first publication, and one year before the death of the
author. It appeared under the new title of _The Essaies or Covnsels
Civill and Morall, of Francis Lo. Vervlam,_ _Viscovnt St. Alban.
Newly enlarged._ This is not followed by the _Religious Meditations,
Places of Perswasion and Disswasion, seene and allowed_. The _Essays_
were soon translated into Italian with the title of _Saggi Morali del
Signore Francesco Bacono, Cavagliero Inglese, Gran Cancelliero d’
Inghilterra_. This translation was dedicated to Cosmo de Medici, Grand
Duke of Tuscany; and was reprinted in London in 1618. Of the three
Essays added after Bacon’s decease, two of them, _Of a King_ and _Of
Death_, are not genuine; the _Fragment of an Essay on Fame_ alone is
Bacon’s.
In this same year (1597) he again took his seat in Parliament. He soon
made ample amends for his opposition speech in the previous session;
but this time he gained the favor of the Court without forfeiting his
popularity in the House of Commons.
He now thought of strengthening his interest, or increasing his
fortune, by a matrimonial connection; and he sought the hand of a
rich widow, Lady Hatton, his second cousin; but here he was again
doomed to disappointment; a preference was given to his old rival,
the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, notwithstanding the “seven
objections to him—his six children and himself.” But although Bacon
was perhaps unaware of it, the rejection of his suit was one of the
happiest events of his life; for the eccentric manners and violent
temper of the lady rendered her a torment to all around her, and
probably most of all to her husband. In reality, as has been wittily
observed, the lady was doubly kind to him; “she rejected him, and she
accepted his enemy.”
Another mortification awaited him at this period. A relentless
creditor, a usurer, had him arrested for a debt of three hundred
pounds, and he was conveyed to a spunging-house, where he was confined
for a few days, until arrangements could be made to satisfy the claim
or the claimant.
We now arrive at a painfully sad point in the life of Bacon; a dark
foul spot, which should be hidden forever, did not history, like the
magistrate of Egypt that interrogated the dead, demand that the truth,
the whole truth, should be told.
We have seen that between Bacon and the Earl of Essex, all was
disinterested affection on the part of the latter; the Earl employed
his good offices for him, exerted heart and soul to insure his success
as Solicitor-General, and, on Bacon’s failure, conferred on him a
princely favor, a gift of no ordinary value.
When Essex’s fortunes declined, and the Earl fell into disgrace, Bacon
endeavored to mediate between the Queen and her favorite. The case
became hopeless. Essex left his command in Ireland without leave,
was ordered in confinement, and after a long imprisonment and trial
before the Privy Council, he was liberated. Irritated by the refusal
of a favor he solicited, he was betrayed into reflections on the
Queen’s age and person, which were never to be forgiven, and he engaged
in a conspiracy to seize on the Queen, and to settle a new plan of
government. On the failure of this attempt, he was arrested, committed
to the Tower, and brought to trial for high treason before the House
of Peers. During his long captivity, who does not expect to see Bacon,
his friend, a frequent visitor in his cell? Before the two tribunals,
can we fail to meet Bacon, his counsel, at his side? We trace Bacon
at Court, where, he assures us, after Elizabeth’s death, that he
endeavored to appease and reconcile the Queen; but the place was too
distant from the prison: for he never visited there his fallen friend.
At the first trial, Bacon did indeed make his appearance, but as “her
Majesty’s Counsel extraordinary,” not for the defence, but for the
prosecution of the prisoner. But he may be expected at least to have
treated him leniently? He admits he did not, on account, as he tells
us, of the “superior duty he owed to the Queen’s fame and honor in a
public proceeding.” But hitherto, the Earl’s liberty alone had been
endangered; now, his life is at stake. Do not the manifold favors, the
munificent benefactions all arise in the generous mind of Bacon? Does
he not waive all thought of interest and promotion and worldly honor
to devote himself wholly to the sacred task of saving his patron,
benefactor, and friend? Her Majesty’s Counsel extraordinary appeared
in the place of the Solicitor-General, to reply to Essex’s defence;
he compared the accused first to Cain, then to Pisistratus. The Earl