one.

hope of preferment in the state; and on the 27th of June, 1582, he was called to the Utter Bar at the age of twentyWhile in Paris, we may presume he had made himself master of the French language, and probably of the Italian and Spanish also, if not before, besides superadding to the manners of the English Court something of the polish of the French. On his return home, he was charged with bearing a diplomatic despatch to the virgin Queen, in which he was mentioned as "of great hope, and endued with many good and singular parts." In 1584, with the help of his uncle, Lord Burleigh, he is elected to Parliament for two boroughs, and, not much later, ventures to undertake a "Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth;" but in 1586, he is still living, "as it were, in umbrâ, and not in public or frequent action," and his bashful nature and studious seclusion are mistaken to his prejudice for pride and arrogance.1 In 1587, when William Shakespeare is said to have come to London, Francis Bacon has become a Bencher, and sits at the Reader's table, in Gray's Inn, and, at the Christmas Revels of that year, he assists the Gentlemen of his Inn in getting up the tragedy of the "Misfortunes of Arthur," and certain masques and dumbshows, for which he writes, at least, some "additional speeches," to be exhibited before the Queen at Greenwich, while William Shakespeare is yet but a mere "servitor" at the Blackfriars, and still unsuspected of being the author of anything. In 1588-9, he is a member of Parliament for Liverpool, having already acquired an ascendency as an orator in the House of Commons, and writes a paper on Church Controversies, and a draft of a letter for Secretary Walsingham on the conduct of the Queen's government towards Papists and Dissenters, under the supervision of the Archbishop, his old tutor at Cambridge. About the year 1590, he makes the acquaintance 1 Spedding's Letters and Life, I. 59.

2 Collier's Hist. Dram. Poetry, I. 267; Knight's Biog. of Shakes., 326.

of the rising young Earl of Essex, also a Cambridge scholar, whose literary abilities, varied accomplishments, comprehensive views, and love for the liberal arts, were much in accord with his own. He pursues his studies at Gray's Inn, making an occasional visit to his mother's country-seat of Gorhambury, and for the vacations and greater intervals of leisure from Law and the Court, he has his retired and comfortable lodge at Twickenham Park, an estate of his brother Edward, delightfully situated on the Thames, near Twickenham (a place afterwards famous as the residence of Pope), where, as early as 1592, through the interest of his friend, the Earl of Essex, he has the honor of a visit from the Queen herself, and presents her with a Sonnet in compliment to that "generous nobleman;"1 and here also, in after years, the Queen honors him with her presence, on various occasions, and frequent opportunities occur of addressing other Sonnets to his sovereign mistress's eyebrow, though professing (as he says in parenthesis) "not to be a poet." His habits are regular, frugal, and temperate, and his life pure, but he lives like a gentleman, a scholar, a member of Parliament and a courtier; and with comparatively little ready money and means rather in prospect than in possession, and with these expensive ways, he is at length compelled to get help from the Lombards and Jews. The Queen grants him the reversion of the Clerkship of the Star-Chamber, which, not coming into possession before 1608, was but as "another man's ground buttailing upon his house; which might mend his prospect but did not fill his barn." With little professional business, and no promotion coming, he ventures to address a letter (1592) to Lord Burghley, "the Atlas of this commonwealth," as he styles him, the "honour" of his house, and "the second founder" of his " "poor estate," in which he says: "I wax now somewhat ancient; one-and-thirty years is a great deal of sand in the hour

1 Nichols' Progresses of Q. Eliz. (London, 1823), III. 190.

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 bear 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. . . Again the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me; for though I cannot accuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for I have taken all knowledge to be my province. . . This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it favorably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. . . And if your Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation to voluntary poverty; but this I will do: I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which (he said) lay so deep." Not far from this time were written the speeches in Praise of the Queen and in Praise of Knowledge, doubtless intended for a Masque to be exhibited before her upon some occasion of which there is no record, further than that on the celebration of the Queen's day, in 1592, a Device was presented by Essex. Not much later, we find him reading Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Seneca, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Erasmus' Adagia, and various French and Italian authors; in short, taking a survey of all the ancient and

1 Spedding's Letters and Life, I. 108.

2 Ibid. I. 120.

modern learning, and making notes, abstracts, and a "Promus of Formularies and Elegancies." At the same time, Robert Greene discovers that a new poet has arisen, who is getting to be "the only Shake-scene in a countrey." He soon begins to be pestered with duns and Jews' bonds, and is "poor and sick, working for bread." His brother Anthony now occupies rooms in Gray's Inn, having returned in impaired health from his travels abroad, where he has even had a Papist in his service to the great horror of the good Lady Ann, his mother, a fiery, vehement, pious, grave, and affectionate soul, in creed a Calvinist, and in morals a Puritan of the stricter sect, who enjoins upon him to "use prayer twice in a day," and suggests that his brother Francis "is too negligent herein:" without religion, there is little to be expected for either of them from the orthodox Lord Treasurer. The good mother also begins to observe that Francis is "continually sickly, . . by untimely going to bed, and then musing nescio quid when he should sleep." We get only an occasional glimpse of his private and secret studies, or of the exigencies that made them private.

In the mean time, he has made the acquaintance of the theatre-going young lords and courtiers, Essex, Southampton, Rutland, Montgomery, and the rest, and on the 18th of July, 1593, the Earl of Essex is on a visit of "three hours to Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony, at Twickenham Park," where he promises "to set up his whole rest of favour and credit" with the Queen for "Mr. Francis Bacon's preferment before Mr. Edward Coke."1 He becomes attached to the party and service of the Earl of Essex, and is made his confidential friend, political counsellor, and legal adviser, in September following; and at the same time, his brother Anthony becomes Essex's Secretary. The "Venus and Adonis" was entered at Stationers' Hall in April, 1593, and was printed in the Nichols' Prog. of Q. Eliz., III. 190, n. (2).

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same year. The author (if it were Bacon) did not mean to profess to be a poet, and it is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, under the name of William Shakespeare; and the "Rape of Lucrece," entered in May, 1594, soon follows. Some eight or ten of the earlier plays are already upon the stage, and are generally taken to be the work of William Shakespeare, though none of them have been as yet printed under his name; but Greene and Chettle have uttered their sharp protest against the pretensions of this "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," denouncing him as an absolute Johannes factotum" and "the only Shake-scene in a countrey." It is in August, 1594, that we get some further insight into the more intimate relations of these theatre-loving associates, learning from the letters of Lady Ann Bacon, first made public by Mr. Dixon, that they are having plays performed at Anthony's house, near the Bull Inn, "very much to the delight of Essex and his jovial crew" (of whom Southampton is, of course, one), but as the pious Lady Ann fears, "to the peril of her sons' souls;" for plays and novels are burnt privately by the Bishops, and publicly by the Puri

tans.

In the beginning of 1593, Bacon made that celebrated speech on the Subsidy, which boldly sustained the privilege of Parliament, but defeated Burghley, and so deeply offended the Queen, that he was denied access at Court for the next three years; though after much solicitation of his friends, and being too great a favorite with her Majesty to be wholly cast off, she had so far relented by the month of June, 1594, as to employ him as her counsel (verbi reg. Eliz.) in some legal business. Nevertheless, Essex undertook to make good his engagement of his "whole rest of favour and credit" to secure his preferment to the place of Attorney-General before "Mr. Edward Coke." Cecil said it was useless to think of office, when he was denied access at the palace. Another ob