never made any difficulty to do the like by him according to our several occasions. And therefore if it be not to his own disfurnishing, which I reckon all one with mine own want, I shall receive good ease by that hundreth pounds; specially your Ladyship of your goodness being content it be repaid out of Mr. Boldroe's debt, which it pleased you to bestow upon me. And my desire is it be paid to Knight at Gray's Inn, who shall receive order from me to pay two fifties (which I wish had been two hundreths) where I owe and where it presseth me most. Sir John Hosken is not yet in Court. Both to him and otherwise I will be mindful of Mr. Downing's1 cause and liberty with the first opportunity. Mr. Nevell, my cousin, though I be further distant than I expected, yet I shall have an apt occasion to remember. To my cousin Kemp I am sending. But that would rest between your Ladyship and myself, as you said. Thus I commend your Ladyship to God's good providence. From the Court, this 4th of 10bre, 1593.

Your Ladyship's most obedient son,

F. B.

FRANCIS BACON TO SIR FRANCIS ALLEN.2

Sir Francis Allen,

I do so much favour this gentleman, Mr. Garret, who from my service entered a course of following the wars, which hath succeeded unto him, as to his own commendation, so yet nevertheless not hitherto to his settling in any place answerable to his desert and profession; in regard whereof, understanding of the nomination and appearance of your employment in Ireland, he conceiveth it will be some establishment to him if he may run your fortune, being by you accepted in the place of your lieutenant, your own virtue and reputation considered, and the uncertainty of the French employment. Of his proof and sufficiency to serve I write the less, because I take it to be well known to yourself. But for my particular I do assure you I can hardly imagine a matter wherein you shall more effectually tie me unto

1 "Brother, my mother hath willed me to recommend unto you, in her name, the earnest soliciting of Mr. Downing's speedy liberty, whose letter to her Ladyship you shall receive enclosed." A. B. to F. B., from Gorhambury, 3rd December, 1593. Lambeth MSS. 619. 306. Mr. Downing was one of the "preachers."

2 Lambeth MSS. 619. 310. Copy.

you than in this. I wished him to use me but as a means of my brother's commendation, which I esteemed to be of extraordinary weight with you. But because this was the readier and that the entireness between my brother and myself is well known unto you, he desired to begin with this. Thus I wish you all prosperity. From Hampton Court, the 20th of December, 1593. Yours in unfeigned good affection,

FR. BACON.

I was sorry to hear from Mr. Anthony Standen how sharply and unseasonably you were assailed by the gout. But you have of him a careful solicitor, and if I can come in to him with any good endeavour of mine you may reckon of it.

66

The employment to which Sir Francis Allen had been "nominated" (that is, recommended) is described by Standen in a letter to Anthony Bacon1 as "a fine and profitable government in Ireland, worth more than three hundred pounds yearly," vacant by "the late decease of one Mr. Carlisle ;" for which there was much canvassing; and Sir Francis having been persuaded to apply for it, the Earl of Essex according to his accustomed manner and forwardness to pleasure his friends" had embraced his suit. Burghley on the contrary, “according to his laudable custom, having an eye to her Majesty's profit," wanted to extinguish the office. So there grew a struggle for it among the Court parties, which caused a long delay. What the business of the office was does not clearly appear, but Sir Francis, to judge by his answer to Bacon's letter, did not take it to be a

sinecure.

Sir,2

I have received your letter in the behalf of one I love very well, and think myself much beholding to him for his good will, I mean Mr. Garret. But to dispose of that I have not is not my custom. My most honourable Earl of Essex hath embarked himself for me concerning an Irish preferment. How it will please God it shall succeed, with or against me, I am resolved to be his Lordship's thankful ever. If I should have it granted, the quality of the command beareth no such place as a Lieutenant's. And moreover, Sir, to be plain with so honourable a friend as I esteem you, it were mere folly to place such under me that hath no experience of the country service. For myself I have served there; [which] nevertheless will not make me so able but to have great need to 1 17th November, 1593. See Birch, i. 130.

2 Lambeth MSS. 653. 168. Indorsed in Sir F. Allen's hand, "The coppy of my letter to Mr. Fran. Bacon."

be seconded with some one of larger continuance upon the government. When I see you next I will delate to you more at large my court-hopes, all and some. In the meantime I pray, Sir, love me, for I will ever honour your house. And so I commit you to God. Yours most assured to do you

service.

It is proper to add that Anthony Bacon (whose approval of the application his brother seemed to assume), on receiving from Sir Francis a copy of this reply, heartily approved of it "to the last and least tittle,”-protesting that "the straitest link of german consanguinity should never have prevailed so far with him as to have once moved him to have given his bare consent to his brother for such his request and commendation," from which it would seem that he thought Francis to blame for making the application; though I do not see how it could have been made in a manner more inoffensive and less importunate.

Meantime Christmas passed without any resolution concerning the Attorneyship either way. On the 18th of January, Bacon was informed by the Earl that he might retire at his pleasure, for nothing more would be done till Easter term;2 and his thirty-third birthday found him still unpreferred, still without professional practice, still entangled in the unavoidable expenses of attendance about the Court, and gradually growing familiar with the fatal necessity of borrowing money to pay the interest due upon money already borrowed.

1 Lambeth MSS. 649. 309. 25th December, 1593.
2 Lambeth MSS. 650. 20.

267

CHAPTER VIII.

A.D. 1594, JANUARY-JUNE. ÆTAT. 34.

1.

THE strongest point against Bacon's pretensions for the Attorneyship was his want of practice. His opponents said that "he had never entered the place of battle."1 Whether this was because he could not find clients or because he did not seek them, I cannot say. It is certain that his ambition never pointed to the life of a private lawyer as his fit vocation, and that as often as he began to despair of employment in the service of the Crown, he began likewise to think of giving up his profession. It was important however in present circumstances to meet the objection by showing what he could do; and opportunity favoured him. On the 25th of January, 1593-4, he made his first pleading in the King's Bench-appearing for the heir of Lord Cheyney against the purchasers of his land—and acquitted himself so well that Burghley sent his secretary "to congratulate unto him the first-fruits of his public practice," and to ask for a note of "his case and the chief points of his pleading, to the end he might make report thereof there where it might do him most good." On the 5th of February he argued another case in the King's Bench,4 and on the 9th appeared again "in a most famous Chequer Chamber case, where the Lord Keeper and the Lord Treasurer (if he were able), the two Lords Chief Justices, with two other judges of each bench, the Lord Chief Baron, and the rest of the Barons," were expected to be present. Of the impression produced by this last argument we have some record, in a letter from Henry Gosnold, a young lawyer of Gray's Inn, to Anthony Bacon: a letter full of juvenile 1 Birch, i. 154.

2 Standen to A. B., 24th January, 1593-4. Lambeth MSS. 650. 16.

3 A. B. to his mother, 8th February, 1593-4. Lambeth MSS. 649. 29.

5

A. B. to his mother, 5th February. Lambeth MSS. 649. 31.

Anthony Bacon sent it to his mother on the 12th of February, 1593-4. “I am bold to send your Ladyship a letter from Mr. Harry Gosnalls, thinking it more convenient for myself and comfortable to your Ladyship that you should understand rather by other men's letters than by my own report that which concerns him that is so near and dear to us both."-Lambeth MSS. 650. 32. It may be however that this was not a third case, but the same which was to have come on on the 5th.

affectations, but as the report of one who was present, and the only report we have, worth reading :

My news are good but not great, and my thanks great but not ceremonious. That Mr. Francis Bacon retains his reputation gained, is not strange to any that knows him. That he hath increased it, is not incredible. The absence of the Lords that were looked for was recompensed with a presence of learned Judges, and seemed an assembly rather capable than honourable. The respect they gave him, although it was extraordinary, was well noted but not envied. The attention of the rest, springing from an experience of good and an expectation of better, could not be better. His argument, contracted by the time, seemed a bataille serrée, as hard to be discovered as conquered. The unusual words wherewith he had spangled his speech, were rather gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, and like to serve both for occasions to report and means to remember his argument. Certain sentences of his, somewhat obscure, and as it were presuming upon their capacities, will I fear make some of them rather admire than commend him. In sum, all is as well as words can make it, and if it please her Majesty to add deeds, the Bacon may be too hard for the Cook.1

A letter from Nicholas Faunt also (11th of February) speaks of this pleading as having obtained general applause. "I hope (he says) his Saturday's work (though half-holiday) shall weigh more than the whole week's travel employed by some. Howsoever, in my poor opinion, it cannot but be well in the end that is generally of all sorts so well taken."2

No doubt it was a successful performance, and Bacon prepared to retire to Twickenham for the vacation (which began on the 13th of February and lasted till the 17th of April) with an increased reputation, and the appearance of a better chance of success in his suit; which Essex continued to follow on his behalf as earnestly as ever, though without making any real way. Two vacancies among the puisne judges had been recently filled up, but the Mastership of the Rolls was still empty; no one had yet been appointed to succeed Walsingham, who had been dead now nearly four years; and there was another secretaryship vacant besides. Burghley, weary of the delay, had begun to press the Queen for a decision, and "straitly urged her to the nomination of Coke to be her Attorney-General "-(the Rolls seem to have been all along destined for Sir Thomas Egerton)-" and also to the nomination of a pair of secretaries, Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Edward Stafford, and a pair of other officers in her household."3 But Essex set his face against 1 Lambeth MSS. 653. 101. Original: no date. 2 Lambeth MSS. 650. 67. 3 A. B. to his mother, 5th February, 1593-4. Lambeth MSS. 649. 31.