A. D. 1626.

Æt. 66.

In the spring of 1626 his strength and spirits revived, and he returned to his favourite seclusion in Gray's Inn, Cause of from whence, on the 2nd of April, either in his way to his death. Gorhambury, or when making an excursion into the country, with Dr. Witherborne, the King's physician, it occurred to him, as he approached Highgate, the snow lying on the ground, that it might be deserving consideration, whether flesh might not be preserved as well in snow as in salt; and he resolved immediately to try the experiment. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and stuffed the body with snow, and my lord did help to do it himself. The snow chilled him, and he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to Gray's Inn, but was taken to the Earl of Arundel's house, at Highgate, where he was put into a warm bed, but it was damp, and had not been slept in for a year before. (a)

His last

letter.

Whether Sir Thomas Meautys or Dr. Rawley could be found does not appear; but a messenger was immediately sent to his relation, the Master of the Rolls, the charitable Sir Julius Cæsar, then grown so old, that he was said to be kept alive beyond nature's course, by the prayers of the many poor whom he daily relieved. (b) He instantly attended his friend, who, confined to his bed, and so enfeebled that he was unable to hold a pen, could still exercise his lively fancy. He thus wrote to Lord Arundel:

"I was likely to have had the fortune of Cajus Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of the Mountain Vesuvius. For I was also

(a) Aubrey.

(b) See Wotton's Remains.

desirous to try an experiment or two, touching the conservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and Highgate I was taken with such a fit of casting, as I knew not whether it were the stone, or some surfeit, or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your lordship's house, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For indeed your lordship's house was happy to me; and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it.

"I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship with any other hand than my own; but by my troth, my fingers are so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I cannot steadily hold a pen."

This was his last letter. He died in the arms of Sir Julius Cæsar, early on the morning of Easter Sunday, the 9th of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. (a)

his will.

On opening his will, his wish to be buried at St. Albans Opening thus appears: "For my burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's church, near St. Albans: there was my mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansionhouse of Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam."

(a) He died on the ninth day of April, in the year 1626, in the early morning of the day then celebrated for our Saviour's resurrection, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, at the Earl of Arundel's house in Highgate, near London, to which place he casually repaired about a week before, God so ordaining that he should die there of a gentle fever, accidentally accompanied with a great cold, whereby the defluxion of rheum fell so plentifully upon his breast, that he died of suffocation.-Rawley.

Funeral.

Monu

ment.

Of his funeral no account can be found, nor is there any trace of the scite of the house where he died. (a)

He is buried in the same grave with his mother in St. Michael's church.

On his monument he is represented sitting in contemplation, his hand supporting his head. (b)

FRANCISCUS BACON. BARO DE VERULA. STI: ALBNI: VICMS:
SEU NOTIORIBUS TITULIS.

SCIENTIARUM LUMEN. FACUNDIE LEX.

SIC SEDEBAT:

QUI POSTQUAM OMNIA NATURALIS SAPIENTIÆ

ET CIVILIS ARCANA EVOLVISSET

NATURE DECRETUM EXPLEVIT

COMPOSITA SOLVANTUR.

ANO DNI MDCCVI

ETATS LXVI

Meautys.

TANTI VIRI

MEM.

THOMAS MEAUTYS

SUPERSTITIS CULTOR

DEFUNCTI ADMIRATOR

HP

This monument, erected by his faithful secretary, has transmitted to posterity the image of his person; and, though no statue could represent his mind, his attitude of deep and tranquil thought cannot be seen without emotion.

No sculptured form gives the lineaments of Sir Thomas Meautys. A plain stone records the fact, that he lies at his master's feet. Much time will not pass away before

(a) I have sought, but sought in vain, for the scite of the house where he died. See the Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1828.

(b) With an inscription composed by that accomplished gentleman and rare wit, Sir Henry Wotton.-Rawley.

The statue is of white marble, which is very finely executed of the size of life, by an Italian artist.

grave

the few letters which may now be seen upon his will be effaced. His monument will be found in the veneration of after times, in the remembrance of his grateful adherence to the fallen fortunes of his master, "that he loved and admired him in life, and honoured him when dead." (a)

(a) In page 104 of the edition by the learned and pious John Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, of Burnet's Lives, is the following note: "Such, and yet more striking, was Lord Bacon's inflexible adherent, Thomas Meautys : who transmitted to posterity the monumental image of his person, in an attitude of deep, yet tranquil thought; while he himself lies, unsculptured, but not forgotten, at his master's feet. Few and faint are the inscriptive characters which can now be traced of the modest secretary's name; but it is deeply engraven on many a kind and congenial heart. He who now guides the pen once visited the church of Saint Michael, within the precincts of Old Verulam. He trusts he did so with no irreverent emotion; and, while he read the thrilling sic sedebat, he thought upon the faithful servant, who never viewed him so seated but with affectionate veneration."

The following is an extract from my Journal :-Thursday, Oct. 8, 1829. On Sunday morning last we left London for St. Albans. We went to St. Michael's Church, and sat by the altar, near to the monument. After church we walked to Gorhambury: explored the ruins of Sir Nicholas Bacon's old mansion, where Lord Bacon lived when a child, and where when he was a child Queen Elizabeth first noticed him. A few of the ruins remain. All is still and quiet. On Monday morning we took the clerk of St. Michael's, and went to the church: we took a wet sponge, to enable me to ascertain whether my opinion as to the grave of Sir Thomas Meawtys was right or erroneous. After our washings we found the inscription as follows:

I am satisfied that, upon removing the pew, which is now upon part of the stone, there will appear, in the first line, HERE LIE, and in the second line, THOMAS, SO that the inscription will be plain :

HERE LIETH THE BODY OF SR

THOMAS MEAWTYS KT.

I directed the clerk to ascertain what will be the expense of raising the pew; and, if necessary, I will apply to Lord Verulam and to the Rector.

His tem

perament.

His person.

CONCLUSION.

In his analysis of human nature, Bacon considers first the general properties of man, and then the peculiar properties of his body and of his mind. (a) This mode may be adopted in reviewing his life.

He was of a temperament of the most delicate sensibility: so excitable, as to be affected by the slightest alterations in the atmosphere. (b) It is probable that the temperament of genius may much depend upon such pressibility, (c) and that to this cause the excellencies and failures of Bacon may frequently be traced. His health was always delicate, and, to use his own expression, he was all his life puddering with physic. (e)

He was of a middle stature, and well proportioned; his features were handsome and expressive, and his countenance, until it was injured by politics and worldly warfare, singularly placid. There is a portrait of him when he was only eighteen now extant, on which the artist has recorded his despair of doing justice to his subject, by the inscription "Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem. (f) His portraits differ beyond what may be

(a) See p. 135. (b) See note G at the end, and note (a), next page. (c) See Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, where he considers this sensibility to be the foundation of the temperament of genius; that, rightly directed, it leads to all that is great and good; wrongly directed, to all that is bad and vicious; and that in the twilight between both, there lies sentimentality more injurious perhaps than open vice.-To the same effect Lord Bacon says: "In the law of the leprosy it is said, "If the whiteness overspread the flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean: but if there be any whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean.' One of the rabbins noteth a principle of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that are half good and half evil." (e) See his letter to Sir Humphry May, vol. xii. p. 407.

(f) See note (a), p. 17. The original is in the possession of Adam Hawkins, Esq. who kindly permitted me to take a copy, from which the slight engraving in this edition is taken.