Sir,

To FOULKE GREVILLE,1

I understand of your pains to have visited me, for which I thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said Requiesce anima mea: but I now am otherwise put to my psalter; Nolite confidere. I dare go no further. Her Majesty had by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her service; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to. And now whether invidus homo hoc fecit; or whether my matter must be an appendix to my Lord of Essex suit; or whether her Majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take advantage of some errors which, like enough, at one time or other I may commit; or what it is; but her Majesty is not ready to dispatch it. And what though the Master of the Rolls, and my Lord of Essex, and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the meantime I have a hard condition, to stand so that whatsoever service I do to her Majesty, it shall be thought to be but servitium viscatum, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature; which will, I fear, much hurt her Majesty's service in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if her Majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum, I am weary of it; as also of wearying my good friends: of whom, nevertheless, I hope in one course or other gratefully to deserve. And so, not forgetting your business, I leave to trouble you with this idle letter, being but justa et moderata querimonia: for indeed I do confess, primus amor will not easily be cast off. And thus again I commend me to you.

The exact date of this last letter I have no means of determining: but I find that in May, 1595, the Earl of Essex had been engaged in one of his frequent contests with the Queen about some favour which he was seeking at her hands either for himself or for some of his friends; that having been on cold terms with her for awhile, he

1 Rawley's 'Resuscitatio,' Supplement, p. 89.

was beginning to recover favour; but that "the book [i.e. the patent or grant], though faithfully promised, was not yet signed," and that it was thought "he would not to the Court again till that were done.” I conceive therefore that the signing of this "book" (whatever it was) may have been the "suit" to which Bacon thought his matter was perhaps to be an appendix.

However that may be, the vacation passed away, and still no resolution taken. Easter Term began on the 8th of May, and the Queen was still without a Solicitor-General. Upon which it seems that Bacon again withdrew to the quiet of Twickenham; thinking that at last the bird had flown fairly off, and that he was at liberty to make his arrangements according to his own tastes and purposes. From Twickenham, on the 25th of May, he wrote to Puckering the following short letter, on the back of which Puckering has written, Mr. Fr. Bacon, his contentation to leave the Solicitorship."

TO THE LORD KEEPER.2

It may please your Lordship,

I thought good to step aside for nine days, which is the durance of a wonder, and not for any dislike in the world; for I think her Majesty hath done me as great a favour in making an end of this matter, as if she had enlarged me from some restraint. And I humbly pray your Lordship, if it so please you, to deliver to her Majesty from me,-that I would have been glad to have done her Majesty service now in the best of my years, and the same mind remains in me still; and that it may be, when her Majesty hath tried others, she will think of him that she hath cast aside. For I will take it (upon that which her Majesty hath often said) that she doth reserve me and not reject me. And so I leave your good Lordship to God's good preservation. From Twicknam Park this 25th of May, 1595.

But the bird had not yet taken its final flight. Easter Term ended as it began, the place being still unsupplied, and the Queen's mind apparently not made up either way. Burghley had been ill and had to keep his house; confined, I suppose, by one of his frequent attacks 1 Birch, Memoirs, i. p. 245.

2 Harl. MSS., vol. 6997. fo. 26. Original: own hand.

of gout; and she had been to visit him there,-probably to consult him about the appointment. He mentioned Bacon. In the conversation which ensued (as I gather from the allusions in the next letter) it came out that his old offence in the affair of the moneybill in 1592-3, was still uppermost in her mind. And I suppose that this was after all the real impediment which stood in his way. It cannot be denied indeed (as I said before) that if she had reason to resent his conduct in that matter at all, she had reason to persevere in resenting it. For certainly he had neither said nor done anything to atone for it, or to imply that in a similar case he would not do the same again. If an offence at all, it was an offence not yet repented of. And I can well imagine that Elizabeth, though she would otherwise have been glad to promote him, and was in fact glad to employ him, had said to herself that until he showed a proper sense of the offence he had committed, he should not be an officer of hers. It does not appear however that she had yet held out hopes to any one else; and it may be that when she reminded Burghley of the old grievance, she meant it for a hint that there was still a locus pœnitentiæ, and that the penitence had still to be exhibited. Burghley, it seems, told Bacon where the obstruction lay. But on that point he had already given the only explanation he had to give, and could only repeat in substance what he had said two years before. The letter from which I gather these particulars (for it is but a conjectural explanation that I have offered) is given by Rawley in his principal collection, and therefore I presume was found in Bacon's own register,-preserved by his own care. It is contained also in Additional MSS. 5503, which for the reasons stated in my note, p. 233, I take as the best authority for the text.

A LETTER TO THE LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY, COMMENDING1 HIS FIRST SUIT, TOUCHING THE SOLICITOR'S PLACE.2

After the remembrance of my most humble duty,

Though I know by late experience how mindful your Lordship vouchsafeth to be of me and my poor fortunes, since it pleased your Lordship during your indisposition, when her Majesty came to visit your Lordship, to make mention of me for my employment and preferment; yet being now in the country, I do presume that your Lordship, who of yourself had so honourable care of the matter, will not think it a trouble to be solicited therein. My hope is, that whereas your Lordship told me her Majesty was 1 Resuscitatio, p. 1. Additional MSS. 5503, p. 1 b. 2 recommending: R.

somewhat gravelled upon the offence she took at my speech in Parliament, your Lordship's favourable and good word (who hath assured me that for your own part you construe1 that I spake to the best) will be as a good tide to remove her from that shelf. And it is not unknown to your Lordship that I was the first of the ordinary sort of the Lower House of Parliament that spake for the subsidy; and that which I after spake in difference was but in circumstances of time and manner, which methinks should be no great matter, since there is variety allowed in counsel, as a discord in music, to make it more perfect. But I may justly doubt, not so much her Majesty's impression upon this particular, as her conceit otherwise of my insufficiency; which though I acknowledge to be great, yet it will be the less because I purpose not to divide myself between her Majesty and the causes of other men (as others have done) but to attend her business only: hoping that a whole man meanly able, may do as well as half a man better able. And if her Majesty thinketh that she shall make an adventure of choosing2 one that is rather a man of study than of practice and experience; surely I may remember to have heard that my father (an example, I confess, rather ready than like) was made Solicitor of the Augmentation (a court of much business) when he had never practised, and was but twenty-seven years old; and Mr. Brograve was now in my time called to be Attorney of the Duchy, when he had practised little or nothing; and yet hath discharged his place with great sufficiency. But these things and the like are as her Majesty shall be made capable of them; wherein knowing what authority your Lordship's commendation hath with her Majesty, I conclude with myself that the substance of strength which I may receive will be from your Lordship. It is true my life hath been so private as I have had no means to do your Lordship service; but yet, as your Lordship knoweth, I have made offer of such as I could yield. For as God hath given me a mind to love the public, so incidently I have ever had your Lordship in singular admiration; whose happy ability her Majesty hath so long used, to her great honour and yours; besides that the amendment of state or countenance which I have received hath been from your Lordship. And therefore if your Lordship shall stand a good friend to your poor ally, you shall but proceed 2 in using: R.

1 construed: R.

tuendo opus proprium which you have begun. And your Lordship shall bestow your benefit upon one that hath more sense of obligation than of self-love. Thus humbly desiring pardon of so long a letter, I wish your Lordship all happiness. This 7th of June, 1595.

Whether Burghley showed this letter to the Queen,-or if he did, how she liked it, and whether she thought the harmony of her counsels more perfect for that kind of discord,-we do not know: but though Trinity Term passed without any resolution taken, I find that Bacon was employed during that term in Star Chamber business; and judging from the tone of some letters to Lord Keeper Puckering during the early part of the long vacation (the only letters of his during the period that happen to have been preserved) I should think that he must have been at the time in considerable hope of succeeding after all. As Michaelmas Term approached however, this hope grew fainter, and by the 11th of October it appears to have been (upon what particular occasion I do not know) altogether extinguished.

The allusion in the letter which comes next, to "a condition in law knit to an interest, and supposed to be broken by misfesance," may perhaps have reference to the Clerkship of the Star Chamber, of which Bacon had the reversion, and of which the then possessor was a year or two afterwards tried in the Star Chamber for some supposed offences. It had probably been suggested to Bacon that by pressing the case to a forfeiture he might come into possession at once. The allusion is not meant to be intelligible except to the person addressed: but it must refer either to that or to something else of the kind.

TO THE LORD KEEPER.1

It may please your good Lordship,

Not able to attend your Lordship myself before your going to the Court, by reason of an ague, which offered me a fit on Wednesday morning, but since by abstinence I thank God I have starved, yet so as now he hath turned his back I am chasing him away with a little physic; I thought good to write these few words to your Lordship, partly to signify my excuse, if need be, that I assisted not Mr. Attorney on Thursday last in the Star Chamber, at which time it is some comfort to me that I hear by relation somewhat was generally taken hold of by the Court which I formerly had opened and moved; and partly to

1 Harl. MSS. vol. 6997, fo. 34. Original: own hand. Docketed "xi Julii, 95 ;” the date in the letter is plainly "this xith of June."