his thirtieth year was sworn queen's counsel learned extraordinary, (a) an honor which until that time, had never been conferred upon any member of the profession. ease in coming within bars, and not any extraordinary or singular note of favour. And for that your lordship may otherwise have heard of me, it shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself; indeed I find in my simple observation, that they which live as it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever they behave themselves, yet laborant invidia; I find also that such persons as are of nature bashful (as myself is), whereby they want that plausible familiarity which others have, are often mistaken for proud. But once I know well, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to believe, that arrogancy and overweening is so far from my nature, as if I think well of myself in any thing it is in this, that I am free from that vice. And I hope upon this your lordship's speech, I have entered into those considerations, as my behaviour shall no more deliver me for other than I am. And so wishing unto your lordship all honour, and to myself continuance of your good opinion, with mind and means to deserve it, I humbly take my leave. Your Lordship's most bounden Nephew, Grey's Inn, this 6th of May, 1586. FR. BACON. (a) Rawley, in his life, says, he was after a while, sworn to the queen's counsel learned extraordinary; a grace, if I err not, scarce known before. "He was counsel learned extraordinary to his Majesty, as he had been to Queen Elizabeth." Extract from Biographia Britannica, vol. I. page 373. -He distinguished himself no less in his practice, which was very considerable, and after discharging the office of reader at Grays Inn, which he did, in 1588, when in the twenty-sixth year of his age, he was become so considerable, that the queen who never over valued any man's abilities, thought fit to call him to her service in a way which did him very great honour, by appointing him her council learned in the law extraordinary : by which, though she contributed abundantly to his reputation, yet she added but very little to his fortune, as indeed in this respect he was never much indebted to her majesty, how much soever he might be in all others. He, in his apology respecting Lord Essex, says, "They sent for us of the learned council." XXV CHAPTER III. FROM HIS ENTRANCE INTO ACTIVE LIFE TILL HIS DISAPPOINTMENT AS SOLICITOR, 1590 To 1596. 1596. Æt. 30. He thus entered on public life, submitting, as a lawyer and 1590 to a statesman, to worldly occupations and the pursuit of worldly honours, that, sooner or later, he might escape into the calm regions of philosophy. At this period the court was divided into two parties: at the head of the one were the two Cecils; of the other, the Earl of Leicester, and afterwards, his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex. To the Cecils Bacon was allied. He was the nephew of Lord Burleigh, and first cousin to Sir Robert Cecil, the principal secretary of state; but, connected as he was to the Cecils by blood, his affections were with Essex. Generous, ardent, and highly cultivated, with all the romantic enthusiasm of chivalry, and all the graces and accomplishments of a court, Essex was formed to gain partizans, and attach friends. Attracted by his mind and character, Bacon could have but little sympathy with Burleigh, who thought £100. an extravagant gratuity to the author of the Fairy Queen, which he was pleased to term an "old song," (b) and, probably deemed the listeners to such songs little better than idle dreamers. There was much grave learning and much pedantry at court, but literature of the lighter sort was regarded with coldness, and philosophy (b) See note X at the end. 1591. with suspicion: instead, therefore, of uniting himself to the party in power, he not only formed an early friendship himself with Essex, but attached to his service his brother Anthony, who had returned from abroad, with a great reputation for ability and a knowledge of foreign affairs. (c) This intimacy could not fail to excite the jealousy of Et. 31. Lord Burleigh; and, in after life, Bacon was himself sensible that he had acted unwisely, and that his noble kinsmen had some right to complain of the readiness with which he and his brother had embraced the views of their powerful rival. (d) But, attached as he was to Essex, Bacon was not so imprudent as to neglect an application to them whenever opportunity offered to forward his interests. In a letter written in the year 1591 to Lord Burleigh, in which he says that "thirty-one years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass,” he made another effort to extricate himself from the slavery of the law, by endeavouring to procure some appointment at court; that, "not being a man born under Sol that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter that loveth business, but wholly carried away by the contemplative planet," he might by that mean become a true pioneer in the deep mines of truth. (d) To these applications, the Cecils were not entirely inattentive; for, although not influenced by any sympathy for genius, "for a speculative man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business," as he was represented by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, (ƒ) they procured for him the reversion of the Registership of the Star Chamber, worth about £1600. a year, for which, modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance of his father's virtues, he immediately acknowledged his obligation to the queen. This reversion, however, was not of (c) See note Y at the end. any immediate value; for, not falling into possession till after the lapse of twenty years, he said that "it was like another man's ground buttailing upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barns.” (a) In the parliament which met on February 19, 1592, and which was chiefly called for consultation and preparation against the ambitious designs of the King of Spain, (b) Bacon sat as one of the knights for Middlesex. (c) On the 25th of February, 1592, he, in his first speech, earnestly recommended the improvement of the law, an improvement which through life he availed himself of every opportunity to encourage (d) not only by his speeches, but by his works; in which he admonishes lawyers, that although they have a tendency to resist the progress of legal improvement, and are not the best improvers of law, it is their duty to visit and strengthen the roots and foundation of their science, productive of such blessings to themselves and to the community; and he submitted to the king that the most sacred trust to sovereign power consisted in the establishing good laws for the regulation of the kingdom, and as an example to the world. To assist in the improvement which he recommended, he, in after life, prepared a plan for a digest and amendment of the whole law, and particularly of the penal law of England, and a tract upon Universal Justice; the one like a fruitful shower, profitable and good for the latitude of ground on which it falls, the other like the benefits of heaven, permanent and universal. (e) In another debate on the 7th of March, Bacon forcibly represented, as reasons for deferring for six years the payment of the subsidies to which the house had consented, (a) See note ZZ at the end. (b) See note 2 Z at the end. (e) See note CC at the end. 1592. Æt. 32. the distresses of the people, the danger of raising public discontent, and the evil of making so bad a precedent against themselves and posterity. (a) With this speech the queen was much displeased, and caused her displeasure to be communicated to Bacon both by the Lord Treasurer and by the Lord Keeper. He heard them with the calmness of a philosopher, saying, that "he spoke in discharge of his conscience and duty to God, to the queen, and to his country; that he well knew the common beaten road to favour, and the impossibility that he who had selected a course of life 'estimate only by the few,' should be approved by the many." (b) He said this, not in anger, but in the consciousness of the dignity of his pursuits, and with the full knowledge of the doctrine and consequences both of concealment and revelation of opinion: of the time to speak and the time to be silent. (c) If, after this admonition, he was more cautious in the expression of his sentiments, he did not relax in his parliamentary exertions, or sacrifice the interests of the public at the foot of the throne. He spoke often, and always with such force and eloquence as to insure the attention of the house; and, though he spoke generally on the side of the court, he was regarded as the advocate of the people: a powerful advocate, according to his friend, Ben Jonson, who thus speaks of his parliamentary eloquence: "There happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking: his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered: no member of his speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss: he commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry and (b) See note EE at the end. (a) See note DD at the end. (c) See note F F at the end. |