Again; "But so it was, that not only the consent but the applause and joy was infinite, and not to be expressed, throughout the realm of England, upon this succession, whereof the consent, no doubt may be truly ascribed to the clearance of the right, but the general joy, alacrity and gratulation were the effects of different causes," etc. -Fragment of the History of Great Britain.*

In the contrary sense, but the like pleonasm :

"But yet for all that, this liberty is not infinite and without limits.” — Charge Against Whitelock.

And to cap the climax: "I know I ought doubly infinitely to be her Majesty's."-Letter framed for Essex.†

Neither mought I in reason presume to offer unto your Majesty dead lines, myself being excluded as I am; were it not upon this only argument or subject, namely to clear myself in point of duty. Duty, though my state lie buried in the sands, and my favors be cast upon the waters, and my honors be committed to the wind, yet standeth surely built upon the rock, and hath been, and ever shall be, unforced and unattempted."—Letter written for Essex to the Queen.

“Wolsey.
I am loyal, and will be,
Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
And throw it from their soul; though perils did
Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and
Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding flood,

Should the approach of this wild river break,

And stand unshaken yours."-Henry VIII., III., 2.

*"I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favor infinite."-Two Gentlemen of Verona, II., 1.

"A satire against the softness of prosperity; with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and prosperity." -Timon of Athens, V., 1.

"O, you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers

As infinite as immanent."-Troil. and Cress., IV., 1.

"In nature's infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read."-Ant. and Cleo., I., 2.

†“Oh, were the sum of these that I should pay

But it was in his pleasantries that Bacon gave the freer rein to this propensity. The following from a Court Masque, in celebration of the Queen's day in November, 1595, entitled by Spedding (Bacon's Works, Vol. VIII., page 377) Bacon's Device, is well worthy of its space, as an example, to mention nothing else, of the extravagance in thought and language of which he was capable :

"Shall any man make his conceit as an anchor, mured up with compass of one beauty or person, that may have the liberty of all contemplation? Shall he exchange the sweet travelling through the universal variety for one wearisome and endless round or labyrinth?

“If from a sanguine, delightful humor of love he turn to a melancholy, retired humor of contemplation, or a turbulent, boiling humor of the wars, what doth he but change tyrants? Contemplation is a dream, love a trance, and the humor of war is raving. These be shifts of humor, but no reclaiming to reason.

"Nay, in his demonstration of love let him not go too far; for these silly lovers, when they profess such infinite affection and obligation, they tax themselves at so high a rate they are ever under arrest.*

Countless and infinite, yet I would pay

them."

-Tit. Andron., V., S.

66 Beyond the infinite and boundless reach

Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death

Art thou damn'd, Hubert."-King John, IV., 3.

"he's a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar."

-All's Well, III., 6.

"Valor and pride excell themselves in Hector.

The one almost as infinite as all,

The other blank as nothing."

-Troil. and Cress., IV., 5.

*And in the like extravagance: "For these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do always reason themselves out again."—Henry V., V., 2. "Would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him,

"But give ear now to the comparison of my master's condition, and acknowledge such a difference as is betwixt the melting hail-stone and the solid pearl. Indeed it seemeth to depend as the globe of the earth seemeth to hang in the air; but yet it is firm and stable in itself. It is like a cube or die form, which toss it or throw it any way, it ever lighteth upon a square. Is he denied the hopes of favors to come? He can resort to the remembrance of contentments passed: destiny cannot repeal that which is past. Doth he find the acknowledgment of his affection small? He may find the merit of his affection greater? Fortune cannot have power over that which is within.

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Nay, his falls are like the falls of Antaeus; they renew his strength. His clouds are like the clouds of harvest, which make the sun break forth with greater force; his wanes and changes are like the moon, whose globe is all light towards the sun when it is all dark towards the world; such is the excellency of her nature and of his estate.

then forswear him, now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humor of love, to a living humor of madness; which was to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic."-As You Like It, III., And again:

2.

"Troilus. In all Cupid's pageant there is presented no mon

ster.

Cressida. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Troilus. Nothing, but our undertakings: when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough, than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstrosity in love, lady,—that the will is infinite, and the execution confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.

Cressida. They say, all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions, and the act of hares, are they not monsters."-Troil. and Cress., III., 2.

"Attend, you beadsman of the Muses, you take pleasure in a wilderness of variety; but it is but of shadows. You are as a man rich in pictures, medals, and crystals. Your mind is of the water, which taketh all forms and impressions, but is weak of substance. Will you compare shadows with bodies, picture with life, variety of many beauties with the peerless excellency of one? the element of water with the element of fire? And such is the comparison between knowledge and love."*

*The reader has doubtless already discerned our broader purpose, which is to afford him an opportunity to become personally acquainted with Bacon's innate imaginative power. And to this end we add still another example:

Writing to Essex in 1596, he embodies his thought in this beautiful figure:

"Wherein I do not doubt but as the beams of your favor often dissolved the coldness of my fortunes, so in this argument, your Lordship will do the like with your pen."

Again, in writing to King James, he amplifies the same poetic imagery:

"And so expecting that that sun which when it went from us left us cold weather, and now that it is returned towards us brought with it a blessed harvest, will when it cometh to us disperse all mists and mistakings, I ever rest, etc."

.

The same expressive figure is utilized in the opening words of Richard III.:

"Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

This is indeed but a slight variation of the theme; for it is but a hazy film that veils cold weather under the guise of winter, a blessed harvest in a glorious summer, and mists in lowering clouds. It is the same gorgeous transformation scene, utilizing poetically, in brilliant imagery, the subtle, inner, metaphorical meaning of the revivifying power of the returning sun.

CHAPTER I.-CONTINUED.

"He being thus lorded,

Not only with what my revenue yielded," "Sure I am that the treasure that cometh from you to her Majesty is but as a vapor which riseth from the earth and gathereth into a cloud, and stayeth there not long, but upon the same earth it falleth again: and what if some drops of this do fall upon France or Flanders? It is like a sweet odor of honor and reputation to our nation throughout the world."- Speech on the Queen's Subsidy.

"And first in general we acknowledge that this tree of Tenures was planted into the prerogative by the ancient common law of this land; that it hath been fenced in and preserved by many statutes; and that it yieldeth at this day to the King the fruit of a great revenue. But yet notwithstanding, if upon the stem of this tree may be raised a pillar of support to the Crown permanent and durable as the marble, by investing the Crown with a more ample, more certain, and more loving dowry than this of Tenures, we hope we propound no matter of disservice."-Speech upon the Compounding of Tenures.*

"But what my power might else exact,'

"And there is a great difference between a benevolence

66

*" And further, he that shall look into your revenues at the ports of the sea, your revenues in courts of justice, and for the stirring of your seals, the revenues upon your clergy, and the rest, will conclude that the law of England studied how to make a rich crown, and yet without levies upon your subjects."Of the True Greatness of the Kingdom of Britain.