to believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of bonus civis, which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen, and next of bonus vir, that is an honest man. I desire your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some things much better than I love your Lordship, as the Queen's service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the like, yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for gratitude's sake, and for your own virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident or abuse. Of which my good affection I was ever and am ready to yield testimony by any good offices but with such reservations as yourself cannot but allow : for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus' fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, specially ostrich's, or any other save of a bird of prey, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree whereupon I have turned and shall turn; which to signify to you, though I think you are of yourself persuaded as much, is the cause of my writing; and so I commend your Lordship to God's goodness. From Gray's Inn, this 20th day of July, 1600. Your Lordship's most humbly, FR. BACON. To this letter Essex returned an answer such as Bacon might himself have dictated. the first draft. It was printed in the 'Resuscitatio' and also in the Cabala ;' and as the differences, though not material, are in such a case interesting, I give it in extenso. A Letter to the Earl of Essex, in offer of his service, when he was first enlarged to Essex House. My Lord, No man can expound my doings better than your Lordship, which makes me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to believe, that I aspire to the conscience and commendation of bonus civis and bonus vir; and that though I love some things better (I confess) than I love your Lordship, yet I love few persons better; both for gratitude's sake, and for your virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident. Of which my good affection it may please your Lordship to assure yourself, and of all the true effects and offices that I can yield. For as I was ever sorry your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus' fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, be they ostriches or other kind, no man shall be more glad; and this is the axletree whereon I have turned and shall turn. Which having already signified to you by some near mean, having now so fit a messenger for my own letter, I thought good to redouble also by writing. And so I commend you to God's protection. From Gray's Inn, this 19th day of July, 1600. The Lansdowne MS. has no direction nor seal. The original docket was merely "20th July, Mr. Fra. Bacon;" underneath which some later hand has written, "To ye Erl of Salisbury,"-a mistake not corrected by Mr. Montagu, by whom the letter was first printed, vol. xii. p. 477. AN ANSWER OF MY LORD OF ESSEX, TO THE PRECEDING LETTER OF MR. BACON.' Mr. Bacon, I can neither expound nor censure your late actions; being ignorant of all of them save one; and having directed my sight inward only, to examine myself. You do pray me to believe that you only aspire to the conscience and commendation of bonus civis and bonus vir; and I do faithfully assure you, that while that is your ambition (though your course be active and mind2 contemplative) yet we shall both convenire in eodem tertio; and convenire inter nosipsos. Your profession of affection, and offer of good offices, are welcome to me. For answer to them I will say but this; that you have believed I have been kind to you, and you may believe that I cannot be other, either upon humour or mine own election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else I should say somewhat of your poetical example. But this I must say, that I never flew with other wings than desire to merit, and confidence in my Sovereign's favour; and when one of these wings failed me, I would light nowhere but at my Sovereign's feet, though she suffered me to be bruised with my fall. And till her Majesty, that knows I was never bird of prey, finds it to agree with her will and her service that my wings should be imped again, I have committed myself to the mue. No power but my God's, and my Sovereign's, can alter this resolution of Your retired friend, ESSEX. Words could not describe an attitude of mind more becoming to the Earl's present position, or one which Bacon more wished him to maintain; and if he had had patience to maintain it, it is probable that in spite of all that had passed the Queen would have once more forgotten or forgiven his many offences and received him again into favour. Cautious she was, and suspicious, and distrustful of fair words, as she might well be. But Bacon, judging from her demeanour, lived in continual expectation that she would relent. "Having received from his Lordship a courteous and loving acceptation of my goodwill and endeavours, I did apply it in all my accesses to the Queen, which were very many at that time, and purposely sought and wrought upon other variable pretences, but only and chiefly for that purpose. And on the other side I did not forbear to give my Lord from time to time faithful advertisement of what I found and what I wished. And I drew for him by his appointment some letters to her Majesty; which though I knew well his Lordship's gift and style to be far better than mine own, yet because he required it, alleging that by his long restraint he was grown almost a stranger 1 Rawley's 'Resuscitatio,' p. 10. 2 So in Resuscitatio:' qy. mine. to the Queen's present conceits, I was ready to perform it: and sure I am that for the space of six weeks or two months it prospered so well, as I expected continually his restoring to his attendance. And I was never better welcome to the Queen nor more made of than when I spake fullest and boldest for him."1 Of the letters drawn up by Bacon in Essex's name two have been preserved, which may possibly belong to this period; and though they contain certain expressions which appear more applicable to some of his earlier eclipses, yet in the absence of all means of fixing the date, they may as well be inserted here; being no doubt, if not the very letters referred to in the above passage, at least letters of the same kind and written for the same purpose. The similarity of the circumstances in the several cases, and the uniformity of the tenor of Bacon's advice, make it at once more difficult and less important to ascertain which was meant for which. The first comes from the supplementary collection in the 'Resuscitatio,' and runs thus. TO THE QUEEN.2 It may please your Majesty, It were great simplicity in me to look for better, than that your Majesty should cast away my letter as you have done me; were it not that it is possible your Majesty will think to find somewhat in it whereupon your displeasure may take hold; and so indignation may obtain that of you which favour could not. 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 favours be cast upon the waters, and my honours be committed to the wind, yet standeth surely built upon the rock, and hath been, and ever shall be, unforced and unattempted. And therefore, since the world out of error, and your Majesty I fear out of art, is pleased to put upon me that I have so much as any election or will in this my absence from attendance, I cannot but leave this protestation with your Majesty; that I am and have been merely a patient, and take myself only to obey and execute your Majesty's will. And indeed, Madam, I had never thought it possible that your Majesty could have so disinteressed your Written by Mr. Bacon for my Lord of Essex. self of me; nor that you had been so perfect in the art of forgetting; nor that after a quintessence of wormwood, your Majesty would have taken so large a draught of poppy; as to have passed so many summers without all feeling of my sufferings. But the only comfort I have is this, that I know your Majesty taketh delight and contentment in executing this disgrace upon me. And since your Majesty can find no other use of me, I am glad yet I can serve for that. Thus making my most humble petition to your Majesty, that in justice (howsoever you may by strangeness untie, or by violence cut asunder all other knots), your Majesty would not touch me in that which is indissoluble; that is point of duty; and that your Majesty will pardon this my unwarranted presumption of writing, being to such an end: I cease in all humbleness; Your Majesty's poor, and never so unworthy servant, ESSEX. The other is a first draft, written in great haste, and preserved among the papers at Lambeth. It is docketed in Bacon's own hand "A letter framed for my Lord of Essex to the Queen;" but being such a letter as Essex might have naturally and wisely addressed to her on several occasions, and containing no allusion to the special circumstances of this particular time, the date (which is wanting) must remain doubtful. It would have been well fitted however to bring about the result which at this time Bacon most wished to see, namely a personal interview. And the expression of an earnest desire for explanation and direction was more likely to induce it, as well as more becoming in itself, than the vague language of affected love and despair in which the Earl himself was in the habit of addressing her. THE SUBSTANCE OF A LETTER I NOW WISH YOUR LORdship SHOULD WRITE TO HER MAJESTY. That you desire her Majesty to believe id quod res ipsa loquitur, that [it] is not conscience to yourself of any advantage her Majesty hath towards you (otherwise than the general and infinite advantage of a queen and a mistress), nor any drift or device to win her Majesty to any point or particular, that moveth you to send her these lines of your own mind; but first and prin 1 Lambeth MSS. 941. 139. cipally gratitude, next a natural desire out of, you will not say the tedious remembrance, for you can hold nothing tedious that hath been derived from her Majesty, but the troubled and pensive remembrance of that which is past, to enjoy better times with her Majesty, such as others have had, and that you have wanted. You cannot impute the difference to the continuance of time, which addeth nothing to her Majesty but increase of virtue; but rather to your own misfortune or errors. Wherein nevertheless, if it were only question of your own endurances, though any strength never so good may be oppressed, yet you think you should have suffocated them, as you had often done, to the impairing of your health and weighing down of your mind. But that which indeed toucheth the quick, is that, whereas you accounted it the choice fruit of yourself to be a contentment and entertainment to her Majesty's mind, you found many times to the contrary, that you were rather a disquiet to her and a dis taste. Again, whereas in the course of her service, though you confess the weakness of your own judgment, yet true zeal not misled with any mercenary nor glorious respect made you light sometimes upon the best and soundest counsel, you had reason to fear that the distaste particular against yourself made her Majesty further off from accepting any of them from such a hand. So as you seemed (to your deep discomfort) to trouble her Majesty's mind and to foil her business; inconveniencies which, if you be minded as you ought, thankfulness should teach you to redeem with stepping down, nay throwing yourself down, from your own fortune. In which intricate case, finding no end of this former course, and therefore desirous to find the beginning of a new, you have not whither to resort but unto the oracle of her Majesty's direction. For though the true introduction ad tempora meliora be by an amnestia of that which is past, except it be in the sense that the verse speaketh Olim hæc meminisse juvabit, when tempests past are remembered in the calm; and that you do not doubt of her Majesty's goodness in pardoning and obliterating any your errors or mistakings heretofore, refreshing the memory and contemplation of your poor services or anything that hath been grateful to her Majesty from you, yea and somewhat of your sufferings,-So, though that be, yet you may be to seek for the time to come. For as you have determined your hope in a good |