with brilliant fish and paved with pebbles of various hues. On the bank of one of these lakelets he had built Verulam House, a tiny but enchanted palace, one front leaning on the water, the other glancing under oak and elm, up the long, leafy arcade to his mother's house. This place was furnished and complete. The larders and kitchens were underground; through the centre of the block ran a staircase, delicately carved; on the rests and landings a series of figures-a bishop, a friar, a king, and the like-not one repeated either in idea or execution; on the floor of the upper story statues of Jupiter, Apollo, and the round of gods. Beauty and luxury combined chimney-pieces prettily wrought, rooms lofty and wainscoted, baths, oratories, divans. Shafts from the chimney ran round the rooms, with cushions on these shafts so as to garner heat. The roof, which was flat, and leaded in the Eastern manner, commanded views of wood and water, plain and upland, with the square, plain, Saxon tower of St. Alban's Abbey high above all. In the centre pond rose a Roman temple or banqueting-room, paved with black and white marble. One of the doors had a device of mirrors, so that a stranger fancied he was looking into the gardens when the door was closed." York House, in London.-Here Bacon was born, and here he resided during his political career. Here also he gave his banquets and dinners. On the occasion of one of these banquets, given on his sixtieth birthday, Ben Jonson furnished the following poem to be recited:

"Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile!

How comes it all things so about thee smile?
The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst
Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou did'st!
Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day

For whose returns, and many, all these pray;
And so do I. This is the sixtieth year
Since Bacon, and thy lord, was born and here;
Son to the grave, wise Keeper of the Seal-
Fame and foundation of the English weal.
What then his father was, that since is he,
Now with a little more to the degree.

England's high Chancellor: the destined heir,
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair;

Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."

Gray's Inn, London.-This was Bacon's house of Politics and Law. During his last years Bacon's financial troubles obliged him to sell York House, and his subsequent sojourns in London were passed at Gray's Inn.

Twickenham Park.—[The Queen had granted this estate to Edward Bacon in 1514, on lease, after the expiration of which, in 1595, she made it over to Sir Francis.]

That lovely seat which blooms by the Thames, close under Richmond Bridge, fronting the old palace, and some of the elms which stand, venerable and green, in the days of Victoria, had belonged to the Bacons for many years. . . . It had all the points of a good country-house: a green landscape, wood and water, pure air, a dry soil, vicinity to the court and to the town. From his windows he could peer into the Queen's alleys; in an hour he could trot up to Whitehall or Gray's Inn. Every plant that thrives, every flower that blows in the south of England, loves the Twickenham soil. There were cedars in the great park, swans on the river, singing-birds in the copse, every sight to engage the eye, every sound to please the ear. He loved the house, and lived in it when he could steal away from Gray's Inn.-W. HEPWORth Dixon.

Cheltenham and Charlton Kings.-This rectory and chapel were royal gifts to Bacon, but he probably never resided much there.

BACON'S FRIENDS.

The Earl of Essex, Ben Jonson, the learned Selden, Sir Walter Raleigh, the poet George Herbert, Sir Henry Savile, and Sir Robert Cotton are numbered among Bacon's friends, but he does not seem to have had a close and lasting intimacy with any man.

Conduct towards Essex.-After Bacon's return to England, in 1579, he contracted a warm and close friendship

with the young and brilliant Earl of Essex, his uncle Burleigh's rival and the favorite of the Queen. Essex furnished Bacon with large sums of money, and struggled to advance his fortunes, but his recklessness and arrogance rendered him a dangerous friend, and on perceiving this, Bacon took care to lessen their intimacy. In 1601 Essex was tried for high-treason and condemned to death, and Bacon, being one of the Queen's counsel, was officially employed in the prosecution and trial. His conduct in the affair was condemned by many contemporaries for its severity and ingratitude, and has been variously criticised by later historians and biographers. Some regard it as an indelible blot on his moral character, while recent writers seem to show that it was perfectly justifiable. Of all judg. ments passed on this matter, that of Macaulay is most severe. "He continued to plead his patron's cause with the Queen," says that critic, "as long as he thought that by pleading that cause he might serve himself. Nay, he went further, for his feelings, though not warm, were kind -he pleaded that cause as long as he thought he could plead it without injury to himself. But when it became evident that Essex was going headlong to his ruin, Bacon began to tremble for his own fortunes. What he had to fear would not, indeed, have been very alarming to a man of lofty character. It was not death. It was not imprisonment. It was the loss of court favor. It was the being left behind by others in the career of ambition. It was the having leisure to finish the 'Instauratio Magna.' The Queen looked coldly on him. The courtiers began to consider him as a marked man. He determined to change his line of conduct, and to proceed in a new course with so much rigor as to make up for lost time. When once he had determined to act against his friend, knowing himself to be suspected, he acted with more zeal than would have been necessary or justifiable if he had been employed against a stranger. He exerted his professional talents to shed the earl's blood, and his literary talents to blacken the earl's memory." On the other hand, James Spedding,

the latest and most scholarly biographer of Bacon, writes: "I may say for myself that I have no fault to find with Bacon for any part of his conduct towards Essex, and I think many people will agree with me when they see the case fairly stated."

PERSONAL CHARACTER OF LORD BACON.

In the unusually full record of Bacon's life there are many questionable actions upon which very diverse criticisms have been made. The diarist D'Ewes, who was leagued with Bacon's enemies, seems to have started the calumnies on which Pope based his brilliant line, and on which all the critics from Pope to Campbell have based their adverse criticisms. They have regarded him as haughty, ungrateful towards Essex, avaricious, and a corrupt judge. Hume is more fair in his characterization of Bacon, Hallam less so; Rowley, Mallet, and Campbell are unfavorable, Lingard is hateful, and Knight severe, while Macaulay eclipses all in harshness. But those of his contemporaries who knew Bacon the best - Ben Jonson, Aubrey, and Hobbes-upheld him in his conduct, and these have been sustained by Montagu, Dixon, and Spedding. The opinion of James Spedding is particularly valuable, as he has devoted much time to scholarly research. The following characterizations of Bacon are quoted to illustrate the diversity of opinion which has been entertained respecting him:

My conceit of his person was never increased towards 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 works 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.-BEN JONSON.

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.-ALEXANDER POPE.

Bacon was cradled in politics; to be Lord Keeper was the boundary of the horizon drawn by his parents. He lived in an age when a young mind would be dazzled and a young heart engaged by the gorgeous and chivalric style which pervaded all things, and which a romantic queen loved and encouraged. Life seemed a succession of splendid dramatic scenes, and the gravest business a well-acted court masque; the mercenary place-hunter knelt to beg a favor with the devoted air of a knight-errant, and even sober citizens put on a clumsy disguise of gallantry and compared their royal mistress to Venus and Diana. There was nothing to revolt a young and ingenuous mind; the road to power was no doubt then as it is now; but covered with tapestry and strewed with flowers, it could not be suspected that it was either dirty or crooked. He had also that common failing of genius and ardent youth which led him to be confident of his strength rather than suspicious of his weakness. Into active life he entered, and carried into it his powerful mind and the principles of his philosophy. As a philosopher, he was sincere in his love of science, intrepid and indefatigable in the pursuit and improvement of it. As a lawyer, he looked with microscopic eye into its subtleties, and soon made great proficience in the science. He was active in the discharge of his professional duties, and published various works upon different parts of the law. In his offices of solicitor and attorney-general, "when he was called, as he was of the king's council learned, to charge any offenders either in criminals or capitals, he was never of an insulting and domineering nature over them, but always tender-hearted, and carrying himself decently towards the parties, though it was his duty to charge them home, but yet as one that looked upon the example with the eye of severity, but upon the person with the eye of pity and compassion." As a judge, it has never been pretended that any decree made by him was ever reversed as unjust. As a patron of preferment, his favorite maxim was, "Detur digniori, qui beneficium digno dat omnes obligat." As a statesman, he