small sentence of despair; but either I deceive myself, or she was resolved to take it; and the conclusion was very kind and gracious. Sure as I will one hundred pounds to fifty pounds that you shall be her solicitor, and my friend; in which mind, and for which mind I commend you to God. From the court this Monday in haste, your true friend to be commanded by you,

FOULKE GREVILL.

We cannot tell whether she come to " or stay here. I am much absent for want of lodging; wherein my own man hath only been to blame. Indorsed-17th of June, 1594.

SS. Life, p. xxxii.

See an interesting discussion upon this subject, in Hazlitt's essay on this regal character, in his Political Essays.

TT. Life, p. xxxiii.

In a letter to Lord Burleigh, he says, When my father was appointed Attorney of the Duchy, and that he had discharged his duties with great sufficiency : And if her majesty thinketh that she shall make an adventure in using one that is rather a man of study than of practice and experience, surely I may remember to have heard that my father, an example, I confess, rather ready than like, was made solicitor of the Augmentation, a court of much business, when he had never practised, and was but twenty-seven years old; and Mr. Brograve was now in my time called attorney of the duchy, when he had practised little or nothing, and yet hath discharged his place with great sufficiency.

VV. Life, p. xxxiii.

To Foulk Grevil.

Sir,-My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said, Requiesce, anima mea but I now am otherwise put to my psalter; Nolite confidere. I dare go no farther. Her majesty had, by set speech, more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her service; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to. And now, whether invidus homo hoc fecit; or whether my matter must be an appendix to my lord of Essex suit; or whether her majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take advantage of some errors, which like enough, at one time or other, I may commit; or what it is; but her majesty is not ready to dispatch it. And what though the master of the Rolls, and my lord of Essex, and yourself and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condition to stand so, that whatsoever service I do to her majesty, it shall be thought but to be servitium viscatum, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature; which will, I fear, much hurt her majesty's service in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if her majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which, when he is nearest flieth away, and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum; I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends: of whom, nevertheless, I hope in one course or other gratefully to deserve.

W W. Life; p. xxxiv.

From Bacon's Letter to the Earl of Devonshire.

And on the other side, I must and will ever acknowledge my lord's love, trust, and favour towards me, last of all his liberality, having infeofed me of land which I sold for eighteen hundred pounds to Master Reynold Nicholas, and I think was more worth, and that at such a time, and with so kind and noble circumstances, as the manner was as much as the matter; which though

it be but an idle digression, yet because I am not willing to be short in commemoration of his benefits, I will presume to trouble your lordship with the relating to you the manner of it. After the Queen had denied me the solicitor's place, for the which his lordship had been a long and earnest suitor on my behalf, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond to Twicknam Park, and brake with me, and said, Mr. Bacon, the Queen hath denied me the place for you, and hath placed another; I know you are the least part of your own matter, but you fare ill, because you have chosen me for your mean and dependance: you have spent your time and thoughts in my matters; I die (these were his very words) if I do not somewhat towards your fortune; you shall not deny to accept a piece of land, which I will bestow upon you. My answer, I remember was, that for my fortune it was no great matter; but that his lordship's offer made me call to mind what was wont to be said, when I was in France, of the Duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his estate into obligations; meaning that he had left himself nothing, but only had bound numbers of persons to him. Now, my lord, (said I) I would not have you imitate his course, nor turn your state thus by great gifts into obligations, for you will find many bad debtors. He bad me take no care for that, and pressed it: whereupon I said, My lord, I see I must be your homager, and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with a saying of his faith to the king and his other lords, and therefore, my lord, (said I) I can be no more yours than I was, and it may be with the ancient savings; and if I grow to be a rich man, you will give me leave to give it back to some of your unrewarded followers.

XX. Life, p. xxxiv.

In a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, he says: Casting the worst of my fortune with an honourable friend, that had long used me privately, I told his lordship of this purpose of mine to travel, accompanying it with these very words, that upon her majesty's rejecting me with such circumstance, though my heart might be good, yet mine eyes would be sore, that I should take no pleasure to look upon my friends; for that I was not an impudent man, that could face out a disgrace; and that I hoped her majesty would not be offended, that, not able to endure the sun, I fled into the shade.

Mr. Francis Bacon to the Earl of Essex.*

My Lord,—I thank your lordship very much for your kind and comfortable letter, which I hope will be followed at hand with another of more assurance. And I must confess this very delay hath gone so near me, as it hath almost overthrown my health; for when I revolved the good memory of my father, the near degree of alliance I stand in to my Lord Treasurer, your lordship's so signalled and declared favour, the honourable testimony of so many counsellors, the commendations unlaboured, and in sort offered by my lords the Judges and the Master of the Rolls elect; that I was voiced with great expectation, and, though I say it myself, with the wishes of most men, to the higher place; that I am a man that the Queen hath already done for; and that princes, especially her majesty, love to make an end where they begin; and then add hereunto the obscureness and many exceptions to my competitors: when I say I revolve all this, I cannot but conclude with myself, that no man ever read a more exquisite disgrace; and therefore truly, my lord, I was determined, if her majesty reject me, this to do. My nature can take no evil ply; but I will, by God's assistance, with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet with that comfort of the good opinion of so many honourable and worthy persons, retire myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life in my studies and con

* Among the

Library.

papers of Antony Bacon, Esq. vol. iii. fol. 62, in the Lambeth

+ Sir Thomas Egerton.

That of Attorney General.

templations without looking back. I humbly pray your lordship to pardon me for troubling you with my melancholy. For the matter itself, I commend it to your love; only I pray you communicate afresh this day with my Lord Treasurer and Sir Robert Cecil; and if you esteem my fortune, remember the point of precedency. The objections to my competitors your lordship knoweth partly. I pray spare them not, not over the Queen, but to the great ones, to show your confidence, and to work their distrust. Thus longing exceedingly to exchange troubling your lordship with serving you, I rest your Lordship's, in most intire and faithful service, FRANCIS BACON.-March 30, 1594.

I humbly pray your lordship I may hear from you some time this day.

YY. Life, p. xxxiv.

In the postscript to Bushel's Abridgment, page 1, he says, Reader, if thou hast perused the foregoing treatise of the Isle of Bensalem, wherein the philosophical father of Solomon's house doth perfectly demonstrate my heroick master (the Lord Chancellor Bacon's) design for the benefit of mankind; then give me leave to tell thee, how far that illustrious lord proceeding the practical part of such his philososhical notions, and when and where they had their first rise, as well as their first eclipse; their first rise (as I have heard him say) was from the noble nature of the Earle of Essex's affection, and so they were clouded by his fall, although he bequeathed to that lord [upon his representing him with a secret curiosity of nature, whereby to know the season of every hour of the year by a philosophical glass, placed (with a small proportion of water) in his chamber,] Twitnam Parke, and its garden of Paradise, to study in. But the sudden change of his royal mistress's countenance acting so tragical a part upon his only friend, and her once dearest favourite, he likewise yielded his law studies as lost, despairing of any preferment from the present state, as by many of his letters in his book of Remains appears, so that he retired to his philosophy for some few months, from whence he presented the then rising sun (Prince Henry) with an experiment of his second collections, to know the heart of man by a sympathizing stone, made of several mixtures, and ushered in the conceit with this ensuing discourse: Most royal Sir, Since you are by birth the prince of our country, and your virtues the happy pledge to our posterity; and that the seigniority of greatness is ever attended more with flatterers than faithful friends and loyal subjects; and therefore needeth more helps to discern and pry into the hearts of the people than private persous. Give me leave, noble sir, as small rivulets run to the vast ocean, to pay their tribute; so let me have the honour to shew your highness the operative quality of these triangular stones (as the first fruits of my philosophy), to imitate the pathetical motion of the loadstone and iron, although made by the compounds of meteors (as star shot jelly) and other like magical ingredients, with the reflected beams of the sun, on purpose that the warmth distilled unto them through the moist heat of the hand, might discover the affection of the heart, by a visible sign of their attraction and appetite to each other, like the hand of a watch, within ten minutes after they are laid upon a marble table, or the theatre of a large looking glass. I write not this as a feigned story, but as a real truth; for I was never quiet in mind till I had procured those jewels of my lord's philosophy from Mr. Achry Primrose, the prince's page.

His love of philosophy thus appears in all his times of adversity. So true is his observation, in his History of Arts:-As a man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations of art.

Of this invention Archbishop Tennison, in his Baconiana, page 18, thus speaks: His second invention was a secret curiosity of nature, whereby to know the season of every hour of the year, by a philosophical glass placed (with a small proportion of water) in a chamber. This invention I describe in the words of him, from whom I had the notice of it, Mr. Thomas Bushel, one of his lordship's menial servants; a man skilful in discovering and opening of

mines, and famous for his curious water-works, in Oxfordshire, by which he imitated rain, hail, the rainbow, thunder and lightning. This secret cannot be that instrument which we call vitrum calendare, or the weather-glass, the Lord Bacon in his writings, speaking of that as a thing in ordinary use, and commending, not water, but rectified spirit of wine in the use of it. Nor (being an instrument made with water) is it likely to have shewed changes of the air with so much exactness as the latter baroscope made with mercury. And yet, it should seem to be a secret of high value, by the reward it is said to have procured. For the Earl of Essex (as he in his Extract, page 17, reporteth) when Mr. Bacon had made a present of it to him, was pleased to be very bountiful in his thanks, and bestow upon him Twicknam Park, and its garden of paradise, as a place for his studies. I confess I have not faith enough to believe the whole of this relation. And yet I believe the Earl of Essex was extremely liberal, and free even to profuseness; that he was a great lover of learned men, being, in some sort, one of them himself; and that with singular patronage he cherished the hopeful parts of Mr. Bacon, who also studied his fortunes and service. Yet Mr. Bacon himself, where he professeth his unwillingness to be short, in the commemoration of the favours of that earl, is, in this great one, perfectly silent.

Of his practical inventive powers, more fit for the hand of a mechanic than of a philosopher, Tennison, in his Baconiana thus speaks :--I doubt not but his mechanical inventions were many. But I can call to mind but three at this time, and of them I can give but a very broken account; and, for his instruments and ways in recovering deserted mines, I can give no account at all; though certainly, without new tools and peculiar inventions, he would never have undertaken that new and hazardous work. Of the three inventions which come now to my memory, the first was an engine representing the motion of the planets. Of this I can say no more than what I find, in his own words, in one of his miscellany papers in manuscript. The words are these: "I did once cause to be represented to me, by wires, the motion of some planets, in fact as it is, without theories of orbs, &c. And it seemed a strange and extravagant motion. One while they moved in spires forwards; another while they did unwind themselves in spires backwards: one while they made larger circles, and higher; another while smaller circles, and lower: one while they moved to the north, in their spires, another while to the south," &c.

But there is, in his Apologie, another story, which may seem to have given to Mr. Bushel the occasion of his mistake. "After the Queen had denied to Mr. Bacon the Solicitor's place, for the which the Earl of Essex had been a long and earnest suitor on his behalf, it pleased that earl to come to him from Richmond to Twicknam Park, and thus to break with him: Mr. Bacon, the Queen hath denied me the place for you. You fare ill, because you have chosen me for your mean and dependance: you have spent your thoughts and time in my matters; I die if I do not do somewhat towards your fortune. You shall not deny to accept a piece of land which I will bestow upon you." And it was, it seems, so large a piece, that he undersold it for no less than eighteen hundred pounds.

Of this I find nothing, either in his lordship's experiments touching Emission, or Immateriate Virtues, from the Minds and Spirits of Men; or in those concerning the secret virtue of Sympathy and Antipathy. Wherefore I forbear to speak further in an argument about which I am so much in the dark.

I proceed to subjects upon which I can speak with much more assurance, his inimitable writings.

Note. The late Lord Stanhope invented an instrument of this nature to discover the insensible perspiration. It consisted of a small crystal cylinder, very convex at one end, and less convex at the other, and when the large convexity was pressed upon the skin it was immediately beaded with perspiration as with dew, which was perceptible by looking through the great convexity. I once had the instrument in my possession. I have seen other inventions of the same nature, as small fish made of a thin horny substance, which, with the heating of the hand, became apparently animated.-B. M.

ZZ. Life, p. xxxiv.

Mr. Francis Bacon to the Queen.

Most gracious and admirable Sovereign,-As I do acknowledge a providence of God towards me, that findeth it expedient for me tolerare jugum in juventute meâ ; so this present arrest of mine, by his divine majesty, from your majesty's service, is not the least affliction, that I have proved; and I hope your majesty doth conceive, that nothing under mere impossibility could have detained me from earning so gracious a vail, as it pleased your majesty to give me. But your majesty's service, by the grace of God, shall take no lack thereby; and, thanks to God, it hath lighted upon him that may be best spared. Only the discomfort is mine, who nevertheless have the private comfort, that in the time I have been made acquainted with this service, it hath been my hap to stumble upon somewhat unseen, which may import the same, as I made my Lord Keeper acquainted before my going. So leaving it to God to make a good end of a hard beginning, and most humbly craving your majesty's pardon for presuming to trouble you, I recommend your sacred majesty to God's tenderest preservation. Your sacred Majesty's in most humble obedience and devotion, From Huntingdon, this 20th of July, 1594. FR. BACON.

3 A. Life, p. xxxv.

This appears by a letter to Burleigh, in which, thanking him for former obligations, he says, "Together with your lordship's attempt to give me way by the remove of Mr. Solicitor, in which he says: And now seeing it hath pleased her majesty to take knowledge of this my mind, and to vouchsafe to appropriate me unto her service, preventing any desert of mine with her princely liberality; first, I humbly do beseech your lordship to present to her majesty my more than humble thanks for the same: and withal, having regard to mine own unworthiness to receive such favour, and to the small possibility in me to satisfy and answer what her majesty conceiveth, I am moved to become a most humble suitor to her majesty, that this benefit also may be affixed unto the other."

3 B. Life, p. xxxv.

Baker's MSS. Our register is a blank, and nothing entered from the year 1589 to the year 1602; but from Bedel Ingram's book, of equal authority in history, though not in law, we have this account :—An. 1594. Jul. 27. Whereas there is something purposed to be done at this meeting more than usual at convocations. Maye it therefore please yow, that this convocation be changed into a congregation, and the same to be effectual to no other intent then for the dispatch of such matters as shall presently be propounded hearin, and by your approbation and consent, be granted and concluded. This being passed, the Vicechan. dissolved the convocation, and the bedell called a congregation immediate, at which congregation this grace following was passed: Placet vobis, ut Mr. Franciscus Bacon armiger, honorandi et nobilis viri domini Nicholai Bacon militis, magni Angliæ sigilli custodis, ante aliquot annos defuncti, filius, post studium decem annorum, partem in hac academia nostra partim in transmarinis regionibus, in dialecticis, philosophicis, Græcis Latinisque literis, ac cæteris, humanioribus disciplinis sufficiat ei, ut cooptetur in ordinem magistrorum in artibus: ita tamen ut ad nullas ceremonias, ad magisterii gradum pertinentes coarctetur; sed tantum in admissione sua juramentum præstet, de regiæ majestatis suprema authoritate in primis agnoscenda et colenda, et fidem del D. Procan de observandis statutis, privilegiis, et consuetudinibus hujus universitatis approbatis.

Concess. 27 Julii, 1594.

Franciscus Bacon, Mr. in artibus, Jul. 27. Mr. Ingram's book.