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England at least as early as 1610, are left unnoticed by Bacon in 1612; and he speaks briefly and unappreciatively of those famous discoveries of Galileo concerning which, two years before, the able mathematician Harriot had written, "Methinks my diligent Galileus hath done more in his threefold discovery than Magellane in opening the straits to the South Sea." Harriot indeed might have said of the Solicitor's speculations in this direction what Harvey said of the Lord Chancellor's physiology, that he wrote astronomy like a Solicitor-General-or, still worse, like a Solicitor-General aspiring to be Attorney-General. Yet such as it is, this little quasi-astronomical attempt, with its Appendix, is almost the only literary work (besides the revision of the Novum Organum) for which Bacon will find leisure during the next eight years.1

Bacon's determination to obtain promotion in his profession may naturally have turned his attention to the duties of a judge and may have induced him to include that subject among the Essays published in 1612. The Essay on Judicature breathes a spirit of loyalty and almost of subservience, which might well commend the aspiring lawyer to the King. Besides many admirable remarks on the mischief that may be wrought by a judge who is unjust, dilatory, impatient, or avaricious, he speaks emphatically on the necessity of consultation between the judges and the Sovereign. In accordance with old custom judges were sometimes consulted by the King before, or during, a trial in which the interests of the Government were affected. But already in the time of Sir Thomas More the custom, or the abuse of it, seems to have been considered irregular; for the author of Utopia 2 protests against those who give the King counsel "to endaunger unto his grace the judges of the Realme, that he maye haue them euer on his side, and that they may in euerye matter despute and reason for the kynges right. Yea, and further, to call them into his palace and to require them there to argue and discusse his matters in his owne presence." But Bacon sees none of the dangers seen by Sir Thomas More. He desires to extend, not to curtail, the royal control over the judges. No one contended that, where individual interests were concerned, the Crown had any right to interfere with the ordinary course of justice; but the Solicitor-General, in his essay on Judicature, acutely suggests that cases affecting individuals ("meum and tuum") may indirectly affect the State, and therefore be liable to State interference.

1 The New Atlantis (see § 58) was written before 1614. 2 Arber's reprint, p. 60.

"It is a happy thing in a State when Kings and States1 do often consult with judges, and again when judges do often consult with the King and State. For many times, the thing deduced to judgment may be meum et tuum when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of Estate." 2

After Bacon's promotion, we shall in due course see a practical application of this theory concerning the fitness of consultation between King and judges. Meantime, he is merely an expectant; but with prospects greatly improved by the death of Salisbury. But it naturally occurred to him that the path of influence and power might now be more open and rapid through the King's Privy Council than through the routine of legal promotion. Salisbury's death had vacated the place of Secretary as well as that of Treasurer. Elizabethan traditions had passed away with Cecil, and there was room for a new man and new notions at the Council board. And new notions were sadly needed. The total result of Salisbury's financial policy (as shaped or thwarted by the King) had been to halve the debt at the cost of almost doubling the annual deficiency. The debt was now £500,000; the annual deficiency £160,000. The Great Contract had failed; the constitutional problems put forward in the last session all remained unsolved; the House of Commons had entered new paths of jealousy and suspicion. For all reasons the King needed a new Councillor, one who should be in fact his Prime Minister; and that he was the man, selected at once by circumstances and by natural fitness for this position, Bacon never for a moment questioned. His only doubt was as to the wording and expression of the delicate offer which he desired to make to the King. Here is his first rough draft ; partly written (for privacy's sake) in Greek characters, after his mother's fashion.

1 That is, I suppose "governments." The Latin translation has "status." 2 Essays, lvi. 122-130.

N

"THE BEGINNING OF A LETTER TO THE KING, IMMEDIATELY AFTER MY

LORD TREASURER'S DECEASE.1

"It may please your Majesty,

May 29, 1612.

"If I shall seem in these few lines to write majora quam pro fortuna, it may please your Majesty to take it to be an effect not of presumption but of affection. For of the one I was never noted; and for the other I could never shew it hitherto to the full; having been as a hawk tied to another's fist, that mought sometimes bate and proffer, but could never fly. And therefore if as it was said to one that spoke great words, Amice, verba tua desiderant civitatem so your Majesty say to me, 'Bacon, your words require a place to speak them, I must answer that place, or not place, is in your Majesty to add or refrain: and, though I never go higher but to Heaven, yet your Majesty...."

Here the letter breaks off, and two days afterwards (31 May) he tried again, in a second draft, much less egotistical, more biblically adapted to the King's style, and more calculated to be persuasive by putting the King's needs in the fore-front:

"31 MAY: LETTER TO THE KING, IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LORD TREASURER'S DEATH.

"It may please your excellent Majesty,

"I cannot but endeavour to merit, considering your preventing graces, which is the occasion of these few lines.

"Your Majesty hath lost a great subject and a great servant. But if I should praise him in propriety, I should say that he was a fit man to keep things from growing worse, but no very fit man to reduce things to be much better. For he loved to have the eyes of all Israel a little too much upon himself, and to have all business still under the hammer, and like clay in the hands of the potter, to mould it as he thought good; so that he was more in operatione than in opere. And though he had fine passages of action, yet the real conclusions came slowly on. So that although your Majesty hath grave counsellors and worthy persons left, yet you do as it were turn a leaf, wherein if your Majesty shall give a frame and constitution to matters, before you place the persons, in my simple opinion it were not amiss. But the great matter and most instant for the present, is the consideration of a Parliament, for two effects: the one for the supply of your estate, the other for the better knitting of the hearts of your subjects unto your Majesty, according to your infinite merit; for both which, Parliaments have been and are the antient and honourable remedy.

1 Cecil died on 24 May, so that this letter was written five days afterwards. 2 Cecil's.

2 i.e. beat (battre) or flutter its wings.

Compare the expression in the Prayer-book, "that thy grace may always prevent and follow us." Bacon is fond of applying the language of religious prayer to the King; see p.103.

"Now because I take myself to have a little skill in that region, as one that ever affected that your Majesty mought in all your causes not only prevail, but prevail with satisfaction of the inner man; and though no man can say but I was a perfect and peremptory royalist, yet every man makes me believe that I was never one hour out of credit with the lower house; my desire is to know, whether your Majesty will give me leave to meditate and propound unto you some preparative remembrances touching the future Parliament.

"Your Majesty may truly perceive that, though I cannot challenge to myself either invention, or judgment, or elocution, or method, or any of those powers,1 yet my offering is care and observance: and as my good old Mistress was wont to call me her watch-candle, because it pleased her to say I did continually burn (and yet she suffered me to waste almost to nothing) so I must much more owe the like duty to your Majesty, by whom my fortunes have been settled and raised. And so, craving pardon, I rest

Your Majesty's most humble servant devote,

F. B."

The epigram on his cousin, contained in the first sentence of the above letter, is contained in the Apophthegms as being spoken to the King. Possibly it was; and nothing but some very outspoken condemnation of Cecil on the King's part can have encouraged Bacon to adopt towards the deceased Lord Treasurer the virulent tone which characterises the next letter. But he speaks as he feels. Bitterness, suppressed for years while suppression was expedient, breaks out from the very heart of the courtier, now that the King is bitter too, and bitterness pays.

"My principal end being to do your Majesty service, I crave leave to make at this time to your Majesty this most humble oblation of myself. I may truly say with the psalm, Multum incola fuit anima mea; for my life hath been conversant in things wherein I take little pleasure. Your Majesty may have heard somewhat that my father was an honest man, and somewhat you may have seen of myself, though not to make any true judgment by, because I have hitherto had only potestatem verborum, nor

1 Compare Cicero's famous saying, "Si quid est in me ingenii, judices, quod sentio quam sit exiguum," and Julius Cæsar, iii. 2, 225-6, the speech of Antony:

"For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on."

that neither. I was three of my young years bred with an ambassador in France; and since, I have been an old truant in the school-house of your council-chamber, though on the second form; yet longer than any that now sitteth hath been upon the head form. If your Majesty find any aptness in me, or if you find any scarcity in others, whereby you may think it fit for your service to remove me to business of State; although I have a fair way before me for profit (and by your Majesty's grace and favour for honour and advancement), and in a course less exposed to the blasts of fortune, yet now that he is gone, quo vivente virtutibus certissimum exitium, I will be ready as a chessman to be wherever your Majesty's royal hand shall set me. Your Majesty will bear me witness, I have not suddenly opened myself thus far. I have looked upon others, I see the exceptions,1 I see the distractions, and I fear Tacitus will be a prophet, magis alii homines quam alii mores. I know mine own heart, and I know not whether God that hath touched my heart with the affection may not touch your royal heart to discern it. Howsoever, I shall at least go on honestly in mine ordinary course, and supply the rest in prayers for you, remaining ..."צ

None of these applications succeeded. If Bacon had come into power, he would have advised (as he implies in his second letter) the calling of Parliament; and this course was distasteful to the King and still more to some of the great persons about him. For the present therefore Bacon was left without promotion; but the King appears now to have accepted counsel more freely from him, and from the time of Salisbury's death his political correspondence becomes more ample and important.

§ 26 TRIAL OF LORD SANQUHAR; BACON BECOMES
ATTORNEY-GENERAL

A short speech delivered about this time by Bacon at the conclusion of a trial for murder is too characteristic to be passed over. A certain Lord Sanquhar, having had one of his eyes struck out accidentally by a fencing master named Turner, determined, five years afterwards, to be revenged, and returned to England from his continental travels with this intention. Finding that he could not himself safely kill Turner, he intrusted

1 1.6.

"objections."

2 He had at first written (but with true tact suppressed) "and I wish to God your M. case were not to require extraordinary affection, for of ability I cannot speak. Sending my best prayers, I rest," &c.

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