WHEN, or under what circumstances, the acquaintance between Bacon and the Earl of Essex began, I cannot exactly learn. In his brother's papers I find no allusion to it earlier than February 1591-2, by which time it had ripened into intimacy; and since Essex had been engaged in France during the latter half of 1591, as commander of the forces sent to assist Henry IV., the commencement of the acquaintance cannot well be dated later than the preceding July. Essex was then twenty-three, and had been for some years high in the Queen's favour. In 1585 and 1586, he had served with distinction under the Earl of Leicester in Holland. In 1587 the Queen had made him her Master of the Horse. In 1588, on occasion of the Spanish invasion, she had appointed him General of the Horse. In 1589, when he returned from the expedition to Portugal in aid of Don Antonio, which he had joined against her orders, she had received him, in spite of his disobedience, with greater favour than ever. Had this been all, a man in Bacon's position could not but be glad of his friendship, and their common relation to Burghley (to whose guardianship Essex had been especially bequeathed by his father on his deathbed) would naturally bring them together. But the attraction which drew them towards each other was not of that ordinary kind. Bacon had many things at heart besides the advancement of his own fortune; and there was promise in Essex of something far greater than ascendancy in the Queen's favour. Except Sir Philip Sidney, no man had appeared on that stage who seemed so likely, if he attained great power, to make a great use of it; especially in those things which Bacon was most anxious about, but for which he had little reason to expect encouragement in high places. How to steer the State through the dangers and difficulties of the present time, none knew better then Walsingham and Burghley; whose skill and policy, along with their offices, Robert Cecil seemed destined to in1 See Birch's Memoirs, i. 73, and Bacon's Apology.

herit. How to maintain the dignity of the Crown, the greatness of the kingdom, and the authority of the existing laws,-how to attract, attach, and use the ablest servants both for peace and war, no one knew better than the Queen herself. But her cares did not extend beyond her own people and her own times. Though one of the greatest of governors, she was no great legislator. Though one of the most learned of women, she was no great patroness of learning, except where (as in the church and the law) she wanted it for an instrument to govern with. Though the champion of Protestantism, and without any shade of religious bigotry, she took no care to provide for the spiritual wants of the next generation, by making room within the church for those varieties of opinion which the spirit of Protestantism was sure to develope. Though a reverencer of the laws herself, and well aware that the reverence of the people for the laws was the foundation and life of government, she took but little interest in projects for the reformation of them, by correcting abuses, removing uncertainties, simplifying complexities, and settling principles. Whatever savoured of 'speculation' she regarded with indifference or distrust, as a disqualification for practical service. And as for the recovery to Man of his lost dominion over Nature by means of Knowledge, she had enough to do in maintaining the dominion of England within its own shores by means of vigilance and state-policy. Neither to her therefore nor to her ministers could Bacon have looked for much encouragement in the prosecution of those larger reforms in philosophy, in letters, in church, in state, upon which his mind was brooding, and which he certainly believed to be practicable if the Government would take them in hand.

But the rise of a man like Essex, offered a new and unexpected chance. He was a man of so many gifts and so many virtues, that even now, when his defects and the issue to which they carried him are fully known, it still seems possible that under more favourable accidents he might have realized all the promise of his morning: then it must have seemed more than possible. From his boyhood he had been an eager reader and a patient listener. The first year after he left Cambridge he spent happily in studious retirement. His knowledge was already considerable, his literary abilities great, his views liberal and comprehensive, his speech persuasive, his respect for intellectual qualifications in other men earnest and unaffected. His religious impressions were deep, and without being addicted to any of the religious parties in the state, he had points of sympathy with them all. His temper was hopeful, ardent, enterprising; his will strong, his opinions decided; yet he was at the same time singularly patient of oppugnant advice, and liked it the better the more frankly

it was given. He had that true generosity of nature which appeals to all human hearts, because it feels an interest in all human things; and which made him a favourite, without any aid from dissimulations and plausibilities, at once with the people, the army, and the Queen. A character rare at all times and in all places; most rare in such a station as he seemed destined thus early to occupy; and promising fruits proportionably rare, if it might only escape the dangers incident to an over-forward season. It was easy for Bacon to see that here was a man capable by nature of entering heartily into all his largest speculations for the good of the world, and placed by accident in a position to realize, or help to realize, them. It was natural to hope that he would do it. The favourite of a mighty Queen, herself the favourite of a mighty nation; with a heart for all that was great, noble, and generous; an ear open to all freest and faithfullest counsel; an understanding to apprehend and appreciate all wisdom; an imagination great enough to entertain new hopes for the human race; without any shadow of bigotry or narrowness; without any fault as yet apparent, except a chivalrous impetuosity of character; the very grace of youth, and the very element out of which, when tempered by time and experience, all moral greatness and all extraordinary and enterprising virtue derive their vital energy; in times when the recent agitations of society had stirred men's minds to hope and dare, and exercised them in all kinds of active enterprise; he must have seemed in the eyes of Bacon like the hope of the world. We need not seek any further surely, to account for the attachment which soon sprang up between the two. The proffered friendship and confidence of such a man-what could Bacon do but embrace it as frankly as it was offered? Such a friend and counsellor seemed to be the one thing which such a spirit stood in need of. If Essex seemed like a man expressly made to realize the hopes of a new world, so Bacon may seem to have been expressly made for the guardian genius of such a man as Essex. And thus their acquaintance began, about the time at which we are now arrived; in 1590, probably, or the early part of 1591. For "I held at that time," wrote Bacon fourteen years after, " my Lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the state; and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner which I think happeneth rarely among men; for I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that he set me about, whether it were matter of advice or otherwise; but neglecting the Queen's service, mine own fortune, and in a sort my vocation, I did nothing but advise and ruminate with myself to the best of my understanding, propositions and memorials of anything that might concern his Lordship's honour, fortune, or service. And when, not long after I had entered into this course, my brother,

master Anthony Bacon, came from beyond the seas, being a gentleman whose ability the world taketh knowledge of for matters of state specially foreign, I did likewise knit his service to be at my Lord's disposing."1

Anthony Bacon arrived in England in the beginning of 1592: and was met by his friend Nicholas Faunt with a letter from his mother (dated February 3rd2), full of maternal welcome and advice, while his brother was preparing his chambers in Gray's Inn to receive him. He was in very bad health; crippled with gout; but well furnished with information concerning foreign affairs, gathered during his ten years' residence abroad, and kept alive by an extensive correspond. ence with able intelligencers in different parts of Europe; the benefit of which, hitherto enjoyed by Burghley, he not long after transferred to Essex.

2.

In the meantime Francis's plans with regard to his own fortune remained the same; but unhappily the prospect of realizing them did not improve. He had just completed his thirty-first year. He had been a Bencher of his Inn for nearly five years, a Reader for nearly three; but I do not find that he was getting into practice. His main object still was to find ways and means for prosecuting his great philosophical enterprise; his hope and wish still was to obtain these by some office under the Government, from which he might derive both position in the world which would carry influence, employment in the State which would enable him to serve his country in her need, and income sufficient for his purposes,-without spending all his time in professional drudgery. Nearly six years had passed since his last application to Burghley (the last which we know of), and his hopes were no nearer their accomplishment. The clerkship of the Star Chamber did not help; for it was not in possession nor likely to be for many years; it was but as "another man's ground buttailing upon his house; which might mend his prospect but did not fill his barn."3 It has been said indeed that before this time the Queen had appointed him "one of her counsel learned extraordinary;" but even if this be true (which, from the absence of all contemporary allusions to a distinction so unusual, I doubt), it does not alter the case; for whether he obtained it sooner or later, it was an honour only, without any emolument appertaining. The

1 Apology.

2 Lambeth MSS. 653. 192. A copy of it will be given a little further on.

3 His own expression, as given by Rawley (Works, i. p. 7).

4 The best authority for dating this appointment so early is the expression used by Dr. Rawley in the Latin version of his Life of Bacon, which was published

entrance upon a new decade reminded him of the swiftness of time and the slowness of his fortune, and suggested a fresh remembrance to Burghley of his hopes and objects; the rather, perhaps, because with such a friend at Court as Essex, there was now a fresh chance of favourable entertainment for them. The following letter needs no further elucidation; and as I have no means of determining the date of it, except from the allusion it contains to his 'thirty-one years,' I place it here at the point when he entered upon his thirty-second.

My Lord,

TO MY LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY.1

With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto your service and your honourable correspondence unto me and my poor estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship. I wax now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not fear that action shall impair it, because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are. I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to serve her Majesty; not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honour; nor under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent Sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my friends, and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of this commonwealth, the honour of my house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I am tied by all duties, both of a good patriot, and of an unworthy kinsman, and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service. Again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me for though I cannot accuse myself that I am after the English one, and occasionally differs from it. "Nondum tyrocinium in lege egressus, a regina in consilium suum doctum extraordinarium adscitus est." But this may possibly have been an inference drawn from Bacon's Letter to Burghley of the 18th of October, 1580 (see p. 13), of which Dr. Rawley did not know the date. I am told also that in legal phraseology a barrister's tyrocinium continues until he is called to be a Serjeant; and that Rawley may only have meant that Bacon was made a Q.C. without being first made a Serjeant. Rawley however was a scholar and not a lawyer, and I am inclined to think that he used the word in its classical sense. The import of the word extraordinary he evidently misunderstood. See Works, i. 5, note 3.

1 Rawley's 'Resuscitatio,' Supplement, p. 95.