Saracens, Goths, and others should of late years take unto themselves that spirit as to dream of a Monarchy in the West, according to that device, Video solem orientem in occidente, only because they have ravished from some wild and unarmed people mines and store of gold; and, on the other side, that this Island of Brittany, seated and manned as it is, and that hath (I make no question) the best iron in the world, that is, the best soldiers of the world, should think of nothing but reckonings and audits, and meum and tuum, and I cannot tell what." 1

Deprecating the imputation of courtier-like flattery, "it were much alike," he says, to rest a 'tacebo' as to sing a 'placebo '2 in this business. But I have spoken out of the foundation of my heart. Credidi propter quod locutus sum' (I believed, therefore I spake). So as my duty is performed. The judgment is yours. God direct it for the best."

There is no doubt that in this speech, and especially in his advocacy of a warlike policy, Bacon was expressing his genuine convictions. We have not only the Essay on Greatness of Kingdoms but also the trustworthy and unmistakable evidence of his private entries in the Commentarius Solutus, to show that he deliberately desired an aggressive foreign policy in order to divert the attention of the English people from questions affecting the royal Prerogative. But it was natural that such constant and valuable support should be none the less appreciated in high quarters because it was sincere; and two or three days afterwards Bacon received the promise of the Solicitor's place when next vacated. The promise was soon fulfilled, and on 25 June, 1607, in his forty-seventh year, Sir Francis Bacon became Solicitor-General, with an income of £1,000 a year (about £4,000 of our money) and the prospect of further promotion.

At this point in Bacon's career we may introduce a friend of his, the principal confidant of his literary projects. Toby Matthew, son of the Bishop of Durham, seems to have been fond of literature and travel, and Bacon had a great respect for his literary judgment and a strong personal affection for him. Their friendship lasted unbroken till Bacon's death; and in the last year of his life he wrote the enlarged Essay on Friendship, as a kind of memorial of the bond that had united them. While travelling on the Continent from 1605 to 1607 he was converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and consequently, upon returning to England was committed to safe custody (probably in Lambeth) while his case was under consideration. The following letter, written (at the end of 1607) to put off a proposed visit from Matthew, shows how Francis Bacon valued his friend's criticisms.

"SIR,

"Because you shall not lose your labour this afternoon, which now I must needs spend with my Lord Chancellor, I send my desire to you in this letter, that you will take care not to leave the writing which I left with you last, with any man, so long as that he may be able to take a copy of it; because first it must be censured by you and then considered again by me.

"The thing which I expect most from you is, that you would read it carefully over by yourself; and to make some little notes in writing where you think (to speak like a critic) that I do perhaps indormiscere; or where I do indulgere genio; or where, in fine, I give any manner of disadvantage to myself. This, super totam materiem, you must not fail to note, besides all such words and phrases as you cannot like; for you know in how high account I have your judgment."

As Matthew refused to take the oath which, at the King's command, was tendered to him, he was committed to the Fleet. Meanwhile Bacon, although he interceded for him, wrote him the following letter, which is interesting as an illustration of the Essay on Superstition, and of Bacon's attitude towards Roman Catholicism.

"MR. MATTHEW,

"Do not think me forgetful or altered towards you. But if I should say I could do you any good I should make my power more than it is. I do hear that which I am right sorry for, that you grow more impatient and busy than at first; which maketh me exceedingly fear the issue of that which seemeth not to stand at a stay. I myself am out of doubt that you have been miserably abused when you were first seduced; 1 but that which I take in compassion, others may take in severity. I pray God (that understandeth us all better than we understand one another) contain you (even as I hope He will) at the least within the bounds of loyalty to his Majesty, and natural piety towards your country. And I entreat you much sometimes to meditate upon the extreme effects of Superstition in this last Powder Treason; fit to be tabled and pictured in the chambers of meditation, as another hell above the ground; and well justifying the censure of the heathen that superstition is far worse than atheism; by how much it is less evil to have no opinion of God at all, than such as is impious towards His divine majesty and goodness." 2

"Good Mr. Matthew, receive yourself back from these courses of perdition. Willing to have written a great deal more, I continue...."

Not long afterwards (February, 1608) Matthew was released from prison on condition of going into exile: but his literary correspondence with Bacon was not broken off, as will be hereafter seen.

§ 16 SIGNS OF THE COMING REVOLUTION

Four years under the new Sovereign ought to have sufficed to prepare the most short-sighted of political prophets for some great struggle between the Crown and the House of Commons.

As early as 1604, when Parliament was prorogued (7 July), the breach between the King and the Commons was "practically final." James appeared to have no knowledge of the privileges of Parliament, and no sense of the spirit which had originated them and which should have regulated his relations with his subjects. "The privileges of our House, and therein the liberties and stability of the whole kingdom, hath been more universally and dangerously impugned than ever, as we suppose, since the beginning of Parliaments:" such was the ominous remonstrance provoked by the King's arbitrary conduct in the very first year in which he met a House of Commons. Everything tended to widen the gulf between James and his people. James, as he fondly hoped, had settled ecclesiastical questions at the Hampton Court Conference, but the Commons immediately afterwards urged reforms in the interest of the Nonconformists; the King had taken steps for the revocation of injurious Monopolies, but the Commons, with a view to the liberation of trade, were preparing a large measure aimed at the Monopolies of the great Companies; the discussion of the proposed composition for Wardships and tenures had led to inconvenient inquiries into the condition and sources of the Crown revenues; and now the renewal of complaints of long standing arising from the disputed jurisdiction of the Council of Wales, threatened to trench on the royal Prerogative.1 And beneath all these particular grievances there was the less definite and far more fatal evil, which no statesman could hope to remove, the want of sympathy and confidence between the House of Commons and the King, arising from an unalterable difference of natures, interests, and opinions.

Even if James had been the Solomon Bacon believed, or tried to believe, him to be, Solomon himself would have found all his powers tasked in the endeavour to solve the political problems of the time. Everywhere the nation was outgrowing the machinery of national Government: and the problem of adjustment was almost insoluble. The ordinary income of the Crown was no longer equal to the ordinary demands on it, and, whatever may have been the reason, the subsidies brought in less than formerly. Three subsidies in the beginning of James's reign brought in less than two in the beginning of Elizabeth's; yet the people thought they were paying more. Even with the strictest economy James would have had to spend a tenth more than his receipts; and James was so far from an economist that, by 1608, his ordinary expenditure exceeded his ordinary income by £83,000 and his debt had risen to a million. great problem, therefore, was how to obtain the double result of replenishing the King's coffers without discontenting the peoplea problem that was always before the minds both of Cecil and his supporter, Bacon. The latter familiarly alludes to it in his private notebook, as "poll. è gem.," i.e. " politica è gemino," or

The "the double policy:" "To correspond to Salisbury (Cecil) in the invention of suits and levies of money, and to respect poll. è gem. for emptying coffers and alienation of the people," and again, "Το think of matters against next Parliament for satisfaction of King and people in my particular" (i.e. so as to make himself acceptable to both), "otherwise with respect ad Poll. è gem."

Closely connected with the Poll. è gem. was another difficulty, the use and abuse of the royal Prerogative. The old feudal system assigned to the Crown many rights which, being in former times intelligible as well as valuable, had, therefore, been once borne without complaint. There was for example Escuage, or Knight's service, due from one who held land in Knight's tenure, whereby the tenant was bound to follow his Lord into the Scottish or Welsh wars at his own charge. Since these wars were no longer possible, was this to be still exacted? Again, a Minor, being unable to serve in the field, might naturally be assigned in feudal times as a Ward to the Crown, and the profits of the estate might naturally be made chargeable with the service which the Ward could not perform; and this right, continued into the seventeenth century, was a source of considerable revenue to the Crown; but was this also to continue, when the reason for it had disappeared? 1 Another source of revenue was the granting of Monopolies. Elizabeth had allayed the popular discontent by suppressing many of these; but she had not disclaimed the right thus to exercise her royal Prerogative: and the question, therefore, remained undecided. Most important of all, there was the question of Impositions, that is, of the King's right to impose duties at will upon exports and imports. This involved the fundamental question of supremacy in the State. For if the King could levy Impositions at will, he could govern without the aid of Parliament; if not, Parliament could always control the Government by refusing supplies. On the one side it was alleged against Impositions that the Edwards had bound themselves not to levy them, and that none had been levied from the time of Richard II. to Queen Mary; on the other side, that they had been levied for a hundred years during the times of the Edwards, and also during the last