claimed by his friends as anything out of the common way speedily disappears if the pretensions be made good; as we shall see that in Bacon's case it very soon did. To any one who would understand his position and follow his career in the world, the little glimpse revealed by the next letter of the feelings with which some of his contemporaries regarded him, now in his twenty-sixth year, will prove very instructive.

TO LORD BURGHLEY.

MY VERY GOOD LORD, - I take it as an undoubted sign of your Lordship's favor unto me that being hardly informed of me you took occasion rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if your Lordship had grounded only upon the said information of theirs, I mought and would truly have upholden that few of the matters were justly objected; as the very circumstances do induce in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me and besides were to give color to their own doings. But because your Lordship did mingle therewith both a late motion of mine own and somewhat which you had otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand affected) rather to prove your Lordship's admonition effectual in my doings hereafter, than causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your Lordship's pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember that I did endeavor to set forth that said motion in such sort as it mought breed no harder effect than a denial. And I protest simply before God that I sought therein an ease in coming within Bars, and not any extraordinary and singular note of favor. And for that your Lordship may otherwise have heard of me, it shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself. Indeed I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever

:

CHAPTER II.

A. D. 1584-1586. ÆTAT. 24-26.

THE occasion upon which Bacon commenced what may be called his public life deserves particular notice, as well fitted to feed and stimulate that interest in questions of Church and State which I suppose to have been excited in him by the accidents of his boyhood and encouraged by his residence in France.

In November, 1584, a new Parliament was called, under circumstances of a highly agitating character. The Bull of Excommunication which had been issued against Elizabeth in 1569 having failed to frighten England out of its Protestantism, and the experience of the next twelve years having shown that, so long as she lived, there was little chance of overthrowing the reformed religion by open methods, the hopes of the Catholic world turned thenceforward towards her death; in the event of which (no provision having been made for the succession) Mary of Scotland would have claimed the crown; her claim would have been supported by the Pope, by Spain, by a considerable party in Scotland, and (what was perhaps of still more importance) by the natural right of inheritance; and thereupon would probably have ensued either the reëstablishment of the Catholic religion in England, or a civil war, or both. Such an apprehension was sufficient of itself to unite all Protestants in emulous devotion to Elizabeth; and this devotion was warmed into enthusiasm by the detection of several secret conspiracies against her life, together with her own magnanimous contempt for personal danger. Upon this point, therefore, all varieties of Protestant opinion met. Whoever regarded the Reformed Church as God's cause; whoever believed the anointed head to be under God's

especial protection; whoever abhorred murder and treachery; whoever feared civil war; whoever valued national independence; whoever felt his blood run warmer at the sight of a woman who in the face of perils so secret and imminent could exhibit all majesty and no fear, - all fell in alike with the popular sentiment of the time, and swelled the flood of loyalty.1 During the twelve months immediately preceding, three several plots for the assassination of Elizabeth had been detected; plots undertaken indeed by individuals, but all certainly Popish, and all supposed to be countenanced by the Popish powers, and to have in view the placing of a Popish queen on the throne. Hereupon a voluntary association had been entered into by subjects of all degrees, the members of which bound themselves to defend the Queen against all her enemies, foreign or domestic; to prosecute to the death any person by whom or for whom violence should be offered to her life, and to hold such person forever incapable of the crown. This was in October, 1584. On the 23d of November, in the midst of the general fervor and alarm, the Houses met; and Francis Bacon, now in his twenty-fifth year, took his seat for Melcombe, in Dorsetshire. The causes of their meeting were explained by Sir Christopher Hatton, then Vice-Chamberlain, with unprecedented frankness. "His speech," says Fleetwood, Recorder of London, writing to Burghley, "tended to particularities and special actions, and contain through his interest at Court some furtherance in the direct line of his profession. It is certain that about this time or soon after he made another application to Burghley, the precise nature of which we are again left to guess, but which was to facilitate his "coming within bars;" that is, as I suppose (for the meaning of the phrase is doubtful), his admission to practice in the Courts. By the regulations then in force an utter barrister had to continue in "exercise of learning" for five years, before he was permitted to plead at any of the Courts at Westminster, or to subscribe any plea. Bacon, having been admitted to the Utter Bar on the 27th of June, 1582, had still more than two years to wait; and if, according to the intention intimated in the last letter, he was now ready and resolved " to take a course of practice," he would naturally wish to have his term of probation shortened. In what precise way this was to be done I do not know, but I presume that between Burghley and the Queen means might have been found, and that he now submitted to Burghley some proposition with that view.

We need not assume that his pretensions were really unreasonable or his manners justly offensive, to account for the fact which appears from the next letter, that they had by this time exposed him to some unfriendly criticism, that complaints reached Burghley of his nephew's arrogance, and that Burghley thought it expedient to give him some good advice on the subject. The solid grounds on which Bacon's pretensions rested had not yet been made manifest to the apprehension of Bench and Bar; his mind was full of matters with which they could have no sympathy, and the shy and studious habits which we have seen so offend Mr. Faunt, would naturally be misconstrued in the same way by many others. The incredulous disdain with which the English public greets every young aspirant who proclaims himself or is proclaimed by his friends as anything out of the common way speedily disappears if the pretensions be made good; as we shall see that in Bacon's case it very soon did. To any one who would understand his position and follow his career in the world, the little glimpse revealed by the next letter of the feelings with which some of his contemporaries regarded him, now in his twenty-sixth year, will prove very instructive.

TO LORD BURGHLEY.

MY VERY GOOD LORD, - I take it as an undoubted sign of your Lordship's favor unto me that being hardly informed of me you took occasion rather of good advice than of evil opinion thereby. And if your Lordship had grounded only upon the said information of theirs, I mought and would truly have upholden that few of the matters were justly objected; as the very circumstances do induce in that they were delivered by men that did misaffect me and besides were to give color to their own doings. But because your Lordship did mingle therewith both a late motion of mine own and somewhat which you had otherwise heard, I know it to be my duty (and so do I stand affected) rather to prove your Lordship's admonition effectual in my doings hereafter, than causeless by excusing what is past. And yet (with your Lordship's pardon humbly asked) it may please you to remember that I did endeavor to set forth that said motion in such sort as it mought breed no harder effect than a denial. And I protest simply before God that I sought therein an ease in coming within Bars, and not any extraordinary and singular note of favor. And for that your Lordship may otherwise have heard of me, it shall make me more wary and circumspect in carriage of myself. Indeed I find in my simple observation that they which live as it were in umbra and not in public or frequent action, how moderately and modestly soever