seen him looking better." But the Solicitorship not having been filled up during the term, and Essex being still determined that he should have it, the canvassing time was not over yet. As Easter Term approached, preparations were to be made for another fight among the rival patrons, and Bacon had to reappear in the old part, of which how weary he was the letters which follow will sufficiently show. Many of them being undated, and the conditions of the case being so much alike in its different stages, I cannot be sure that I have placed them in the right order, or even that they all belong to this year. One or two may possibly have been written some months earlier, one or two some months later: but I do not doubt that the series, taken together, represents truly the state of things in the spring and summer of 1595; and if it be remembered at the same time that during all that period creditors who had lent money with alacrity to the expectant Attorney-General were becoming more and more alarmed for their security and less and less disposed to renew their bonds, and that every recurring pay-day threatened the brothers with demands which they hardly knew how to meet, the correspondence will be sufficiently intelligible, and allowance will be made for an occasional failure of patience, and perhaps a little unreasonable irritability.

An undated letter from Essex to Puckering belongs probably to this stage of the business:

My very good Lord,'

The want of assistance from them which should be Mr. Fra. Bacon's friends makes me the more industrious myself, and the more earnest in soliciting mine own friends. Upon me the labour must lie of his establishment, and upon me the disgrace will light of his being refused. Therefore I pray your Lordship, now account me not as a solicitor only of my friend's cause, but as a party interessed in this: and employ all your Lordship's favour to me or strength for me in procuring a short and speedy end. For though I know it will never be carried any other way, yet I hold both my friend and myself disgraced by this protraction. More I would write, but that I know to so honourable and kind a friend this which I have said is enough. And so I commend your Lordship to God's best protection, resting,

At your Lordship's commandment,

ESSEX.

They who should be Mr. Fr. Bacon's friends" were of course the Cecils; whose influence in Council was so great that they were easily suspected of not trying to further a cause which made so little progress.

1 Harl. MSS. vol. 6997, fo. 205. Original: own hand.

We have seen that when Sir Robert sent to speak with Bacon a little after the 21st of January, they "parted in kindness, secundum exterius ;" and that in his conversation with Lady Bacon about the same time, "his speech was all kindly outward." The qualification thus in both cases suggested shows that in neither case had he succeeded in inspiring perfect confidence in his sincerity. And not long after it seems to have been generally believed among Bacon's friends that he was secretly throwing obstructions in the way. Mr. Montagu says that he represented Bacon "as a speculative man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calculated more to perplex than to promote public business;" a statement repeated with variations by all modern biographers; but for which I suspect there is no authority beyond what may be gathered from the letter which I place next, and which certainly, though it contains sufficient evidence that Bacon suspected him of having tried to discredit his abilities for business under pretence of praising his speculative gifts, does not say nearly so much as Mr. Montagu's report implies.2 An admission in a subsequent letter to Burghley (21st of March), that he had "shown himself too credulous to idle hearsays in regard of his right honourable kinsman and good friend Sir R. Cecil," makes it probable that this letter belongs to this period and refers to this occasion.

Sir,

TO SIR ROBERT CECIL.3

Your Honour knoweth my manner is, though it be not the wisest way, yet taking it for the honestest, to do as Alexander did by his physician, in drinking the medicine and delivering the advertisement of suspicion. So I trust on, and yet do not smother what I hear. I do assure you, Sir, that by a wise friend of mine, and not factious toward your Honour, I was told with asseveration that your Honour was bought by Mr. Coventry for two thousand angels; and that you wrought in a contrary spirit 1 Life of Bacon, p. xxvi.

2 Mr. Montagu says, "There is a letter containing this expression, but I cannot find it." I conceive that he was confusing an imperfect recollection that he had seen something about "speculation " in a letter, with an imperfect recollection of what he had read in Mallet's 'Life of Bacon;' which (as a good specimen of the growth of evidence as it passes from mouth to mouth) I may as well quote in juxtaposition with what I suppose to be all it grew out of. "Cecil, who mortally hated Essex, and had entertained a secret jealousy of Bacon on account of his superior talents, represented the latter to the Queen as a man of mere speculation, as one wholly given up to philosophical inquiries, new, indeed, and amusing, but fanciful and unsolid; and therefore more likely to distract her affairs than to serve her usefully and with proper judgment."

3 Rawley's 'Resuscitatio,' Supplement, p. 87.

to my Lord your father. And he said further, that from your servants, from your Lady, from some counsellors that have observed you in my business, he knew you wrought underhand against me. The truth of which tale I do not believe. You know the event will show, and God will right. But as I reject this report (though the strangeness of my case might make me credulous), so I admit a conceit that the last messenger my Lord and yourself used dealt ill with your Honours; and that word (speculation) which was in the Queen's mouth, rebounded from him as a commendation: for I am not ignorant of those little arts. Therefore I pray, trust not him again in my matter. This was much to write; but I think my fortune will set me at liberty, who am weary of asserviling myself to every man's charity. Thus I, etc.

Another letter to Cecil, also undated, and of which (the most material part having been lost) there is nothing left to determine the date, refers apparently to some similar occasion; and in the absence of all reason for placing it anywhere in particular, may as well be disposed of here. Occasions of the kind would be continually occurring, for Cecil had a manner so open and friendly secundum exterius, and a temper so completely under command, that as long as he lived I think Bacon never felt quite sure whether he was his friend or not.

Sir,

To SIR ROBERT CECIL.1

I forbear not to put in paper as much as I thought to have spoken to your Honour to-day, if I could have stayed: knowing that if your Honour should make other use of it than is due to good meaning, and than I am persuaded you will, yet to persons of judgment, and that know me otherwise, it will rather appear (as it is) a precise honesty, and this same suum cuique tribuere, than any hollowness to any. It is my luck still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature nor would willingly meet with in my course, but yet cannot avoid without show of base timorousness or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness.

[Some hiatus in the copy.]

And I am of one spirit still. I ever liked the

1 Rawley's 'Resuscitatio,' Supplement, p. 110.

Galenists, that deal with good compositions; and not the Paracelsians, that deal with these fine separations: and in music, I ever loved easy airs, that go full all the parts together; and not these strange points of accord and discord. This I write not, I assure your Honour, officiously; except it be according to Tully's Offices; that is, honestly and morally. For though, I thank God, I account upon the proceeding in the Queen's service or not proceeding, both ways; and therefore neither mean to fawn nor retire; yet I naturally desire good opinion with any person which for fortune or spirit is to be regarded, much more with a secretary of the Queen's and a cousin-german; and one with whom I have ever thought myself to have some sympathy of nature, though accidents have not suffered it to appear. Thus not doubting of your honourable interpretation and usage of that I have written, I commend you to the Divine preservation. From Gray's Inn.

These two letters, being from the supplementary collection, are subject to the doubts which I noticed at the beginning of this chapter, and the inferences we draw from them are to be guarded accordingly. The next is from the original, and being found among Burghley's papers (to whom it is addressed), we need not doubt that it was both sent and received.

TO THE LORD HIGH TREASURER.1

After the remembrance of my humble and bounden duty, it may please your good Lordship: The last term I drew myself to my house in the country, expecting that the Queen would have placed another Solicitor; and so I confess, a little to help digestion and to be out of eye, I absented myself. For I understood her Majesty not only to continue in her delay but (as I was advertised chiefly by my Lord of Essex) to be retrograde (to use the word apted to the highest powers). Since which time I have as in mine own conceit given over the suit, though I leave it to her Majesty's tenderness and the constancy of my honourable friends, so it be without pressing.

And now my writing to your Lordship is chiefly to give you thanks. For surely if a man consider the travail and not the event, a man is often more bound to his honourable friends for

1 Lansd. MSS. lxxviii. fo. 74. Original: own hand.

a suit denied than for a suit succeeding. Herewithal I am bold to make unto your Lordship three requests, which ought to be very reasonable because they come so many at once. But I cannot call that reasonable which is only grounded upon favour. The first is, that your Lordship would yet tueri opus tuum, and give as much life unto this present suit for the Solicitor's place as may be without offending the Queen (for that were not good for me). The next is, that if I did show myself too credulous to idle hearsays in regard of my right honourable kinsman and good friend Sir Robert Cecil (whose good nature did well answer my honest liberty), your Lordship will impute it to the complexion of a suitor, and of a tired sea-sick suitor, and not to mine own inclination. Lastly, that howsoever this matter go, yet I may enjoy your Lordship's good favour and help as I have done in regard of my private estate, which as I have not altogether neglected so I have but negligently attended, and which hath been bettered only by yourself (the Queen except), and not by any other in matter of importance. This last request I find it more necessary for me to make, because (though I am glad of her Majesty's favour, that I may with more ease practise the law, which percase I may use now and then for my countenance) yet to speak plainly, though perhaps vainly, I do not think that the ordinary practice of the law, not serving the Queen in place, will be admitted for a good account of the poor talent which God hath given me; so as I make reckoning I shall reap no great benefit to myself in that course. Thus again desiring the continuance of your Lordship's goodness as I have hitherto found, and on my part sought also to deserve, I commend your good Lordship to God's good preservation. From Gray's Inn, this 21st of March, 1594.

Your Lordship's most humbly bounden,

FR. BACON.

The state of Bacon's spirits under this condition (" to him the most unwelcome ") of interminable delay may be gathered well enough from the foregoing letters; but he writes to Burghley under a feeling of ceremonious restraint, to Sir Robert Cecil in an outbreak of impatience, to his brother as to one who already knew all he felt, and shared all his feelings. It is interesting therefore to know how he expresses himself to a familiar but not very intimate friend. A letter to Foulke Greville belongs apparently to this spring, and represents his condition in a very lively and natural manner.