From this letter it appears that the chancellor was at first by no means aware of the irretrievable nature of his disgrace,-the whole depth of his fall. He seems to have believed that it was entirely in the king's power, and might perhaps be in his intention, to save him from the ignominy of a sentence, and probably to restore him to office. But gradually the full extent of his calamity opened upon him:-his release from the Tower,-his interview with the king, even the wish expressed by his majesty on one occasion to hear his advice as to the conduct to be pursued by him respecting grievances,-led to no return of power or favor; and it is lamentable to find him, in his letters to the king, sinking at last to the abjectness of a supplication like the following:

Help me, dear sovereign lord and master, and pity me so far as I that have borne a bag be not now in my age forced, in effect, to bear a wallet; nor I that desire to live to study, may not be driven to study to live." Even this piteous entreaty seems to have produced no relief: he had, as we have before stated, a large nominal pension; but the embarrassed state of the treasury,-the gradual forgetfulness into which he sunk at court,—his own profuse habits, and the weight of debt under which he labored, conspired to keep him necessitous. There is considerable doubt as to the state of actual indigence to which some have affirmed that this great man was reduced: but it may safely be affirmed that he lived in constant difficulties and died insolvent.

Yet

Yet in some respects the five years that Bacon survived his fall, were the most glorious of his whole life: retired from the temptations and the distractions of public life, his active intellect expatiated at will through the regions of contemplation, and gathered there the fruits of immortality. Even in his addresses to the king some glimpses of a noble mind appear.

One of the first inducements which it occurred to him to offer to his majesty for treating him with lenity and generosity, was, that he should then be able to promise him two great works,—a good history of England, and a better digest of the laws. The first of these promises he fulfilled in part by his valuable history of Henry VII.; the second he had begun to perform, but was obliged to desist by the want of necessary assistance and encouragement. "I hope," says he, in one of his petitionary letters, my courses shall be such, for this little end of my thread which remaineth, as your majesty, in doing me good, may do good to many both that live now and shall be born hereafter."

66

....

In his memorial of things to be spoken to his majesty, on being permitted to come to his presence, at the latter end of the year 1622, occurs the following imperfect memorandum: My story is proud; I may thank your majesty; for I heard him note of Tasso, that he could know which poem he made when he was in good condition, and which when he was a beggar. I doubt he could make no such observation of me." This portion of his story

might indeed be proud: the completion of his great work on philosophy; a new and much enlarged edition of his invaluable essays; besides thehistory of Henry VII. and many detached pieces on a variety of subjects, were the noble products of his years of disgrace and sorrow.

Jonson, his eulogist, not his flatterer, in prosperity, wrote of him thus nobly in his adversity:

My conceit of his person was never encreased toward him by his place or honors: but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed,, that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest "."

a

Bacon appears to have fallen a victim to a rash exposure of himself to cold in the performance of a philosophical experiment. He expired in April 1626 at the house of the earl of Arundel at Highgate. "For my name and memory," he beautifully writes. in his last will, "I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages b."

a Discoveries.

See for this part of the life of Bacon the letters and memorials chronologically arranged in the collection of his works.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER XXI.

1621.

Disaffection of the parliament.-Usher appointed to preach before the commons,—his conference with James.-Conduct of Laud.-King's speech against monopolies.-Case of attorney Yelverton.—King's speech respecting the affairs of the Palatine.-Supplies delayed.-Parliament adjourned. -Opposition lords-earls of Essex and Oxford,-earl of Southampton-his imprisonment.-Lord Say and Sele,earl of Warwick,-lord Spencer.-Insulting conduct of the earl of Arundel; his office of earl-marshal.-Competitors for the post of chancellor.-Sir Lionel Cranfield.-Dean Williams keeper of the seals.-Liberation of the earl of Northumberland,—of the earl and countess of Somerset. -Williams made bishop of Lincoln.-Circumstances of Laud's appointment to the see of St. David's.-Archbishop Abbot kills a man by chance,-proceedings respecting him. -Account of bishop Andrews,-Latin elegy on his death by Milton.

DURING the suspension of the use of parliaments in which James had for so many years persisted, the monarch, from a vain conceit of the reverence entertained for his wisdom and regal virtues, the favorite, from insolence and inexperience, and the courtiers, from habitual insensibility to the effects of abuses by which they profited, had all deceived themselves as to the sentiments entertained of their conduct by the nation at large; but the time

was

was now come when they were to be rudely awakened from their dream of self-complacency.

The proclamation against speaking of public affairs, was the more disregarded the oftener and the more urgently it was reiterated. Swarms of political libels flew abroad, in despite of the fetter of an imprimatur which then rested upon the press, and one of the sharpest of these, called "Tom Telltruth," was written under the guise of obedience to that clause of the royal proclamation which com-, manded all good subjects to give information of discourse held against the measures of government. Gondomar, whose extraordinary power over the mind of the king, and "more than parliament protections" of priests and jesuits, as they are called by Tom Tell-truth, had justly provoked the people, was violently insulted in the streets of London; and the house of commons began to take measures for the protection of the protestant religion. It was matter of notoriety, that several concealed catholics had gained admittance by court favor into the house itself; and for the purpose of reducing such members to a distressing dilemma, it was moved by the country party—the designation which now first began to be appropriated to the opponents of the court,—that the commons should go in a body and publicly receive the sacrament at St. Margaret's church. The resolution was the more displeasing to the king, as it was one which he could not decently oppose; and no other resource remained than to send for the preacher nominated by the house, and

VOL. II.