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jotted down by him in the Christmas vacation of 1594 and called a Promus (i.e. Dispenser, or Steward) of Formularies and Elegancies. Many of the extracts bear witness to his aversion to the practice of the law and to his love of philosophy, such as:

(1.) Vae vobis, juris periti !

(2.) Nec me verbosas leges ediscere, nec me
Ingrato voces prostituisse foro.

Others express his desire to return to his old philosophic life :

(1.) Vitae me redde priori.

(2.) I had rather know than be known.

Others express his contempt for the existing standard of knowledge :

(1.) In academiis discunt credere.

(2.) Vos adoratis quod nescitis.
(3.) Vos, Graeci, semper pueri.

(4.) Scientiam canimus inter perfectos.

Others express his sense of the grandeur of his philosophic plans, and, at one time, the possibility of failure, at another time, the glorious completeness of the ultimate fulfilment :

(1.) Quem si non tenuit, magnis tamen excidit ausis.
(2.) Conamur tenues grandia.

(3.) Aspice venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo.

Independently of other interests, many of the notes in the Promus are valuable as illustrations of the manner in which Bacon's method of thought influenced him even in the merest trifles. Analogy, with him, is all-pervasive. If you can say

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good-morrow," why should you not also say "good-dawning"? If you can anglicise some French words, why not others? Why not, for example, say "good-swoear" (i.e. "good-soir") for "good night," and "good-matens" for "good morning"? Instead of "twi-light," why not try "vice-light"? In the place of "adventurous," how much more novel and choice is "remuant"! On the other hand, is not the usual Latin-derived "impudent" less forcible than the vernacular but novel "brased"?

1 Published for the first time in full by Mrs. Henry Pott. Longmans, Green and Co., 1883.

Other extracts from the Promus have quite a different, and more than a merely linguistic, interest. They are repartees and retorts, occasionally of an uncomplimentary nature-such as in his note-book of 1608 he systematically entitled "Disparagement.' In some of these Bacon deliberately writes down some good quality, and, opposite to it, a disparaging description of it. If, for example, your adversary speaks easily, you are to say, "Yes, but not wisely;" if he puts pros and cons in a dramatic way by question and answer, you are to remark with a sneer, “Notwithstanding his dialogues, he proves nothing," and so on :

(1.) No wise speech, though easy and voluble.

(2.) Notwithstanding his dialogues (of one that giveth life to his speech by way of question).

(3.) He can tell a tale well (of those courtly gifts of speech which are better in describing than in considering).

(4.) A good comediante (of one that hath good grace in his speech).

It is impossible to read these forms of "disparagement," without being reminded that Francis Bacon, in his recent suit, had probably found occasion to use them. More than once at that time he is found urging his intimate friend Essex to remember the "exceptions" against Coke and his other competitors, as when he begs him to "drive in the nail for the Huddler." 1 But it is a terrible falling off that the man who wrote the Greatest Birth of Time in 1585 should think it right or seemly in 1594, not only to suffer his mind to rest on such petty tricks of the Art of the Architecture of Fortune (as he afterwards called it), but even to commit them to paper. "How can a man comprehend great matters," asks Bacon in the Essays, "that breaketh his mind too much to small observations!" 2 It is characteristic of a philosopher that he apprehended most, not the moral, but the intellectual dangers, attendant on petty pursuits. But in reality the moral danger was the more imminent of the two. No one could pursue the petty arts of Court-advancement without becoming morally callous. Bacon has already lost the youthful indifference to wealth and power with which he had entered on Court-life when he was determined to be "like himself:" he has now begun to "frame." But will the "framing" be favourable to the moral development of the philosopher who is "born for the utility of mankind"? Is it possible to pursue office and power with so much passion, and to cultivate the arts of pushing and disparaging so assiduously without ultimately forgetting that fortune is only worthy of consideration when it is "the organ of merit and virtue"? That is a question which the further life of Bacon may perhaps help us to answer.

1 i.e. Bacon's rival, Coke, Spedding, i. 262-3. I do not know why this name was given to Coke, unless because Essex (or Bacon) wished to imply that the great lawyer rather "huddled" together precedents and isolated instances, than distinguished principles. Comp. Chamberlain's expression (Spedding, iii. 21), "The Parliament huddles in high matters."

2 Essays, lii. 19.

[1596-9]

§ 8 BACON AS THE COUNSELLOR OF ESSEX

A vacancy in the Mastership of the Rolls in the spring of 1596 gave Bacon a new prospect of office; but he no longer openly makes Essex the medium of his application. He wished to have it believed and to be able himself to assert, if necessary, that he had had no communication with Essex on the subject; and this motive suggested a petty falsehood not pleasant to record. Writing to the Earl he makes no mention of the vacancy; but the letter to the Earl is inclosed in one to Anthony Bacon, in which Francis begs his brother to secure the Earl's interest, but to say that he (Francis) has no knowledge of the communication between Anthony and Essex.

Although, however, Francis Bacon had probably resolved that he would for the future avoid so far committing himself to the Earl as to incur the enmity of the Cecils, it is clear that he had not yet determined to give up Essex. The Favourite's influence with the Queen was undoubtedly not so great as had been supposed; but it was yet possible that he might regain and retain at its highest the royal favour, if only he could be induced to adopt wise counsels; and in spite of all his faults, his impulsiveness, changeableness and hot temper, he had at least the merit of being ready to listen to advice and even to rebuke. "I would have given a thousand pounds to have had one hour's speech with you," writes the Earl to an old friend in a fit of passionate despair after one of his earliest quarrels with the

Queen; and Bacon himself, noting this characteristic, writes to an agent of Essex: "The more plainly and frankly you shall deal with my Lord, admonishing him of any error which in this action he may commit, such is his Lordship's nature the better he will take it."

Appearing now therefore (October, 1596), for the first time so far as we know, in the character of the Earl's counsellor, Bacon addresses himself at once to the object which Essex should aim at, and the means by which he should attain it. The object was the Queen's favour; and the means, obsequiousness-or, as Bacon calls it, "correspondence and agreeableness" to the Queen. The Favourite had attained his position as a mere youth and retained it hitherto by his hold on Elizabeth's affections; but his counsellor foresaw that "favour of affection" is more transitory and untrustworthy than "favour of correspondence."

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But by nature Essex was eminently unfitted to "correspond;" the task demanded a constant self-suppression, not to say dissimulation, and Essex was the frankest and most open of courtiers, a great resenter," says Wotton, "and no good pupil to my Lord of Leicester who was wont to put all passions in his pocket;" "one that always carried on his brow either love or hatred and did not understand concealment" writes Cuffe, his private secretary. To such a character, utterly devoid of that "discreet subtlety in the composition," and that "comparity and conformity of manners" without which, says Clarendon, "no man in any age or court shall be eminent in the aulical function "- Francis Bacon now undertakes to offer advice on the Arts of a Courtier.

The Queen, he says, is in danger of receiving five unfavourable impressions of the Earl, which impressions must be avoided by five remedies. The first impression is that he is "opiniastre and not rulable;" this is to be avoided by pretending to take up projects which he is to drop at the Queen's bidding, "as if you would pretend a journey to see your living and estate towards Wales and the like." The second is, "of a militar dependence;" this Essex must "keep in substance but abolish it in shews to the Queen," pretending to be as bookish and contemplative as he was in the days of his youth, before the Earl of Leicester-to quote Wotton again-drew him first into "the fatal circle from a kind of resolved privateness at his house at Lampsie in South Wales, when, after the academical life, he had taken such a taste for the rural as I have heard him say that he could well have bent his life to a retired course." The third is the fear of "a popular reputation." The only remedy is to quench it " verbis" not "rebus;" to take occasion to blame popularity in all others, "but nevertheless to go on in your honourable commonwealth courses as you do." The fourth and fifth impressions are that the Earl is careless about money matters, and that he takes advantage of his position as favourite. The former is to be remedied by increased prudence and by changing some of his servants; the latter by introducing a tool of his own into the position of minor favourite.

In this counsel there is much that is sagacious, especially in the advice to avoid military expeditions and to shun the suspicion of popularity; but from first to last it is spoiled by the trickiness which breathes through every precept; and Bacon ought to have known that it was peculiarly unfit for Essex, who was the last man in the world to be able to carry into effect such a scheme of systematic dissimulation. Essex might attempt to carry out the letter of some of these precepts indeed, as we shall immediately see, he did make the attempt in one case, with no satisfactory results-but he could not imbue himself with their spirit. It is possible that if the Earl had been frankly warned that it was his duty, not only "in shews" but also in "substance," to subordinate some of his own inclinations to the will of the Queen, in order that he might the better serve his country, some real good might have been done; but, as it was, this and similar advice may not improbably be considered responsible (see p. 57) for at least one false step on the Earl's part; and on the whole we may say, in the language of the Essays, that few things did Essex more harm than that the friend in whom he placed most trust gave him advice that was rather cunning than wise.1

At the time when this advice was given, the Earl was in high favour; but in the spring of the next year (1597) he was once 1 Essays, xxii. 119.

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