hard-headed and implacable Coke carried off the prize, the wealthy widow of Sir Christopher Hatton.

In what was left of the ill-fated Earl's career Bacon seems to have played the part of a wise and consistent friend, barring of course the last and tragic scene, the trial for high treason, in which Bacon, as special counsel along with the Attorney-General, directed the examination, selected the evidence, and pressed the dangerous charges against his friend. There seems to be no doubt that the trial might have resulted differently but for Bacon's conduct of the case. Excuses have been offered in his behalf, but they are of little weight. It is said that he could not refuse to do the bidding of the Queen, but there have been many men who would at least have offered passive resistance in the interests of so bountiful a patron and so close a friend. After the Queen's death Bacon himself wrote an Apology for this affair, claiming the part of one who tried to reconcile his sovereign and the Earl. The exact truth will never be revealed; but a guess may be hazarded that in private Bacon served Essex to the extent of his powers both by advice and by attempts before the actual trial to mitigate the severity of the charge. The correspondence of the two shows Bacon's earlier efforts to dissuade Essex from schemes and deeds which his enemies were only too glad to forward. But in the conduct of the case the learned counsel played his part as prosecutor only too well. As in Bacon's other misfortunes, it was the public part which attracted attention and passed into history, while the underground stream remains largely a matter of surmise.

Even this sacrifice of friendship to interest failed of its full reward. He was forty-one years of age and

badly in need of funds, but only his pittance was given him. Coke was forever blocking his way, and in open court the two came to words which Bacon himself has reported. "Mr. Bacon," said the lawyer, "if you have any tooth against me pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good." Bacon "answered coldly in these very words: 'Mr. Attorney, I respect you; I fear you not; and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it.'" After further insult from Coke, Bacon "said no more but this: Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again, when it please the Queen."" It never did please the Queen; but, under James, Bacon, if only for a time, carried out his threat against Coke. He was knighted by the new King, not alone, as he wished, for the sake of the distinction, but, as he feared, "gregarious in a troop" with three hundred others.

About this time, he says, he had "found out an al-. derman's daughter, an handsome maiden, to his liking," and nearly three years later he married her in a splendid fashion described in a letter of the time. "He was clad from top to toe in purple, and hath made himself and his wife such store of raiments of cloth of silver and gold that it draws deep into her portion." These three years had been full of activity. The first of them was largely devoted to preparation for his great work" for the service of mankind." He wrote in Latin a sort of introduction to a treatise on the interpretation of nature, and describes himself in the following words:

"For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind

nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point) and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with Truth."

But this quest of truth was soon broken. As member of Parliament, Bacon contrived both to gain the confidence of the House of Commons, to direct its affairs, and at the same time to win the favor of the King, obtaining for him terms of compromise that ended a very serious dispute between the monarch and his first Parliament. It must not be forgotten that Bacon also did useful work in reforming ancient abuses. Between the Parliament of 1604 and that of 1605 he wrote and published another English book on The Advancement of Knowledge. In 1607, almost in sight of his fiftieth year, Bacon was at last appointed Solicitor-General. A year later, he wrote down a remarkable account of his present standing, his plans, and his prospects, and called it Commentarius Solutus, "A Book of Loose Notes," as Spedding interprets it. Barring those endless and often morbid journals which have lately come into fashion, such as the Journal of Amiel or of Marie Bashkirtseff, it would be hard to find such a revelation of self. It contains a detailed statement of Bacon's physique, rules for the care of his health, household matters, rules for his own conduct and speech in public, notes on persons with whom he had to deal, and, above all,

outlines of his great scheme for the reform of human thought. But unlike the journals above mentioned, it does not seem to have been meant even remotely for the public eye. Some of his ideas are surprisingly modern, and on the whole this document, on the personal and intellectual side, matches Defoe's equally wonderful anticipation of public and practical progress in his Essay on Projects. Another book now appeared on The Wisdom of the Ancients, in which Bacon interprets mythology as a series of allegories dealing with the most intricate problems of human life. It is absurd enough to us, who know that the old myths spring from the earliest and rudest stages of man's development, but in the author's time was widely read; indeed it was one of the most popular of his works."

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The death of Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, in May, 1612, removed the last restraint upon Bacon's progress, as well as upon the King's folly. Indeed the two now went hand in hand. Though baffled at first in his appeals for office, Bacon in 1613 persuaded the king to make Coke Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and give one Hobart Coke's place at the Common Pleas. This was his first victory over Coke, who wept both at the cause of his own promotion and at the consequent loss in salary. Thus in October the way was made for Bacon to gain the office of Attorney-General, which had been refused to him twenty years before.

Bacon's activity in his new post left nothing to be desired; but while he did many good and useful things, aiming at the reform of abuses and the surer and swifter course of the law, he was forced to carry out the disgraceful schemes of his masters. He wished to revise the laws, and drew up a plan to this end, but to

no purpose. With all his excellent ideas, his clear insight, and his designs for impartial administration of the law, Bacon the Attorney-General is rightly regarded by history as the tool and creature of the Duke of Buckingham. For a short time the new official tasted the sweets of revenge upon his old enemy Coke, who mainly through Bacon's agency was removed from his post as Chief Justice in 1616. He aided the King in his struggle for absolute rule; but it must be remembered that if Bacon could have had Buckingham's influence, that rule would have been just and beneficent. But this was not the case. He continued to do the bidding of the favorite, and was rewarded early in 1617 with the great post of Lord Chancellor, receiving, however, the full title not until a year later. Honors were now crowded upon him. He was made Baron Verulam in 1618 and somewhat later Viscount St. Albans. Thus at the age of sixty Bacon had reached the highest honors of his profession. More than this, he had just published, in however fragmentary shape, his great scheme for the Reform of Human Thought, the Novum Organum, a work which by general consent marks the new era in philosophy and the beginning of the modern scientific spirit.

From this height, seemingly without any warning, Bacon fell to the depths of disgrace. That he was sacrificed to popular indignation, which had been growing steadily under the pressure of misgovernment and abuse of the king's prerogative, is clear enough; but why he fell so unresistingly, so suddenly, and so far, can be explained only by that fatal weakness in his character which has been noticed before. He had been an able Lord Chancellor; but he was after all