the civilians, is no offence.' In another draft he adds this comment: 'For the first, I take myself to be as innocent as any born on St. Innocents' day in my heart. For the second, I doubt in some particulars I may be faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault.'

Such is Bacon's own interpretation of his confession, and we are bound to accept it, for it is borne out by twenty-two of the articles of the charge. To the twenty-third article, that he had given way to great exactions by his servants, 'he confessed it to be a great fault that he had looked no better to his servants.' With this confession, we may leave his name and memory, as he left it in his will, 'to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages.' The verdict can hardly be other than that he pronounced himself: 'I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years.' This censure, pronounced on the 3rd of May by the Lords, was that he should pay a fine of 40,000l. and be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure; that he should thenceforth be incapable of holding any office in the State, or of sitting in Parliament; and that he should not come within the verge of the Court. He had resigned the Seal to the King on the 1st of May. It had been decided by a majority of two that his titles were not to be taken from him. But the sentence of imprisonment was partially carried out, evidently to his great astonishment. On the 31st of May he was taken to the Tower, and instantly wrote a passionate letter to Buckingham, 'Good my Lord, procure the warrant for my discharge this day.' The order must have been given at once. On the 4th of June he wrote to thank the King and Buckingham for his release. On the 7the he dated a letter to the Prince of Wales from Sir John Vaughan's house at Parson's Green, whither he had been allowed to retire.

On the 9th, Chamberlain writes to Carleton that the

The date usually given to this letter, 'June 1,' is obviously incorrect. Mr. Spedding informs me that it should be 'June 7.'

Lord Chancellor had obtained leave to go to his own home, and is talked of as President of the Council. On the 23rd, he reports that the Chancellor has removed from Fulham to his house at Gorhambury. Here he remained till the end of the year. From his retirement he writes to Buckingham (September 5), ‘I am much fallen in love with a private life; but yet I shall so spend my time as shall not decay my abilities for use. The occupation of his enforced leisure was the History of Henry VII, which was completed in manuscript by October. The fine inflicted by the sentence in Parliament was released by the King's warrant on the 21st of September, but was assigned to trustees, that Bacon might be protected from the importunity of his creditors. He had nothing now but the pension of 1200l. a year which the King had recently given him, and his own private fortune. On being made Lord Keeper he had resigned not only the lucrative post of Attorney General, but the clerkship of the Star-Chamber. By his fall he had lost 6000l. a year. A pardon was issued under the Privy Seal on the 17th of October, but it appears to have been stayed by the new Lord-Keeper. The prohibition which prevented him from coming within twelve miles of the Court was relaxed in the following March, and he was allowed to approach as near as Highgate. Buckingham was annoyed at his refusal to give up York House, and opposed his return to London. In the course of the year, however, the restriction was removed, and he took up his residence at Bedford House, his own mansion meanwhile having been surrendered. The publication of the History of Henry the Seventh in the spring, and the translation into Latin of the Advancement of Learning, kept him fully employed. In the latter work he is said to have been assisted by George Herbert. Writing to Bishop Andrewes the dedication to his Dialogue touching a Holy War, which was also the work of this year, he says: 'And again, for that my book of Advancement of Learning may be some preparation, or key, for the better opening of the Instauration; because it exhibits a mixture of new conceits and old; whereas the Instauration gives the new un

mixed, otherwise than with some little aspersion of the old for taste's sake; I have thought good to procure a translation of that book into the general language, not without great and ample additions and enrichment thereof, especially in the second book, which handleth the Partition of Sciences; in such sort, as I hold it may serve in lieu of the first part of the Instauration, and acquit my promise in that part.’

The provostship of Eton fell vacant in April 1623, and Bacon sought the appointment as 'a retreat to a place of study so near London,' but without success. The Advancement of Learning in its Latin form was issued this year under the title of De Augmentis Scientiarum, in nine books, the first closely corresponding with the English. The last two or three years of his life were occupied with dictating his Sylva Sylvarum, putting the last touches to his Essays, which were published in their final form in March 1625, and superintending their translation into Latin with other works to be entitled Opera Moralia. The Apophthegms were the occupation of a morning. It does not appear that the sentence of Parliament was ever entirely revoked. The name of Lord St. Alban's, it is true, is among those of the Peers summoned to the first Parliament of Charles, but for some reason he did not take his seat in the House. On New Year's Day, 1625-6, he wrote to Sir Humphry May: 'The present occasion doth invite me to desire that his grace (i. e. Buckingham) would procure me a pardon of the King of the whole sentence. My writ for Parliament I have now had twice before the time, and that without any express restraint not to use it.' His health, long feeble, would not have allowed him to attend, but he could have appointed a proxy. At length came death, the friend, whom for five years he had looked steadily in the face, and released him from all his troubles. A cold, caught in the process of an experiment to test the preserving qualities of snow, terminated in a gentle fever, and after lingering a week he passed quietly away in the early morning of Easter-day, April 9, 1626. He died at the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, and was buried in the church of St. Michael, at

St. Alban's. His chaplain, Dr. Rawley, ends the life which he wrote of his old master with words which form a fitting conclusion to every life of him: 'But howsoever his body was mortal, yet no doubt his memory and works will live, and will in all probability last as long as the world lasteth.' And with this anticipation we leave Francis Bacon to the judgement of all time.

W. A. W.

This Second Edition has been revised and corrected throughout, and some additions have been made to the Notes and Glossary.

April, 1873.

W. A. W.

In the list of his Works I have not included his speeches in Parliament or his arguments in law. The date of composition when it could be ascertained is given; the date of publication, when different from that of composition, is included within parentheses. Probable dates are indicated by a dagger + Those pieces of which the date is altogether uncertain are placed at the end.