was that for my fortune it was no great matter; but that his lordship's offer (which was of a piece of land worth about £1800.) made me call to mind what was wont to be said when I was in France of the Duke of Guise, that he was the greatest usurer in France, because he had turned all his estate into obligations. He bad me take no care for that, and pressed it; whereupon I said, "my lord, I see I must be your homager, and hold land of your gift; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law? Always it is with a saving of his faith to the king and his other lords." (a)

himself.

His considerations were not, however, confined to his Bacon's duties to the Queen and to Essex, but extended to the duty to peculiar situation in which, with respect to his own worldly prospects, he was placed. He saw that, if he did not plead against Essex, all his hopes of advancement might, without any benefit to his friend, be destroyed; and that if he did plead against him, he should be exposed to obloquy and misrepresentation. The consideration of his worldly prospects were to him and to the community of great importance.

It is, perhaps, to be lamented that, formed for contemplation, he was induced, either by his necessities, or any erroneous notion of the virtue of activity, to engage in public life, but he was always unskilful to note the card of prudent lore, and it was his favourite opinion that, to dignify and exalt knowledge, contemplation and action should be nearly and strongly conjoined and united together: a conjunction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action.

Having engaged and encountered all the difficulties of his profession, he was entitled, by his commanding intellect, to possess the power, which, although it had not prece

(a) Bacon's Apology.

His professional duties.

dence in his thoughts, followed regularly in the train of his duty; not the common vulgar power, from ostentation, loving trivial pomp and city noise; or from ambition, which, like the sealed dove, mounts and mounts because it is unable to look about it; but power to advance science and promote merit, according to his maxim and in the spirit of his own words "detur digniori." (s) "Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground." With these prospects before him he could not be so weak as hastily to abandon them, by yielding to that generous illusion by which the noblest minds are often raised in their own esteem by imagined disinterestedness.

With respect to his professional duties he was in less difficulty. He knew that his conduct would be subject "to envy and peril," but knowing also that these aspersions would originate in good feeling, in the supposition of ingratitude and disregard of truth, he could not be alarmed at the clamours of those who knew not what they did. To consider every suggestion, in favour and in opposition to any opinion is, according to his doctrine in the Novum Organum, the only solid foundation upon which any judgment, even in the calm inquiries of philosophy, can be formed. In public assemblies, therefore, agitated by passions by which the gress of truth is disturbed, he of all men knew and admired the wise constitution of our courts, (t) in which it has been deemed expedient, that, to elicit truth, the judge should hear the opposite statements of the same (t) or of different powerful disinterested minds, who may be more able than

(s) See note 4 A at the end.

(t) See note 4 B at the end.

pro

the suitors to do justice to the causes upon which their interests depend. A more efficacious mode to disentangle difficulty, to expose falsehood, and discover truth, was, perhaps, never devised. It prevents the influence of passions by which truth may be impeded, and calls in aid every intellectual power by which justice may be advanced. He was not likely, therefore, to be moved by the censures of those who, ignorant of the principle upon which this practice is founded, imagine advocates to be indiscriminatedefenders of right and wrong, (x) instead of being officers assisting in the administration of justice, and acting under the impression that truth is best discovered by powerful statements on both sides of the question. He was not likely to be moved by that ignorant censure which mixes the counsel with his client, instead of knowing that the advocate is indifferent on which side he pleads, whether for the most unfortunate or the most prosperous, for the most virtuous or the most abandoned member of the community; and that, if he were not indifferent,-if he were to exercise any discretion as to the party for whom he pleads, the course of justice would be interrupted by prejudice to the suitor, and the exclusion of integrity from the profession. The suitor would be prejudiced in proportion to the respectability of the advocate who had shrunk from his defence, and the weight of character of the counsel would be evidence in the cause. Integrity would be excluded from the profession, as the counsel would necessarily be associated with the cause of his client; with the slanderer, the adulterer, the murderer, or the traitor, whom it may be his duty to defend.

Such were the various conflicting duties by which a common mind might have been perplexed; but, strong in

(x) See note 4 B at the end.

Bacon's

Letter to

knowledge, he, without embarrassment, looked steadily at the undefined shapes of difficulty and danger, of possible mistake or mischance, and, without any of the vacillation in which contemplative genius is too apt to indulge, he saw instantly the path of his duty, and steadily advanced in it. He saw that, if he acted in obedience to general rules, he ought neither to desert the Queen, or to bereave himself of the power to do good. If, not adhering to general rules, he exercised his own understanding upon the particular circumstances of the case, he saw that, by yielding to popular feeling, he might gain momentary applause, might leave Essex to a merciless opponent, and, by depriving himself of all influence over the Queen, might sacrifice his friend at the foot of the throne.

He therefore wrote instantly to the Queen, and, by this the Queen, sagacious and determined conduct, having at once defeated the stratagems by which it was vainly hoped that he would be entangled, he, regardless of the senseless clamour of those who praise they know not what, and know not whom; of those who could neither be put in possession of his real sentiments towards Essex, or the private communications on his behalf with the Queen, went right onward with his own, and the approbation of intelligence.

The following is Bacon's own account of this extraordinary event:-And then did some principal counsellors send for us of the learned counsel, and notify her majesty's pleasure unto us: save that it was said to me openly by one of them, that her majesty was not yet resolved whether she would have me forborn in the business or no. And hereupon might arise that other sinister and untrue speech that, I hear, is raised of me, how I was a suitor to be used against my lord of Essex at that time; for it is very true, that I that knew well what had passed between the Queen and me, and what occasion I had given her both of distaste

and distrust, in crossing her disposition, by standing steadfastly for my lord of Essex, and suspecting it also to be a stratagem arising from some particular emulation, I writ to her two or three words of compliment, signifying to her majesty, “That if she would be pleased to spare me in my lord of Essex's cause, out of the consideration she took of my obligation towards him, I should reckon it for one of her greatest favours: but otherwise desiring her majesty to think that I knew the degrees of duties; and that no particular obligation whatsoever to any subject could supplant or weaken that entireness of duty that I did owe and bear to her and her service." And this was the goodly suit I made, being a respect no man that had his wits could have omitted: but nevertheless I had a farther reach in it; for I judged that day's work would be a full period of any bitterness or harshness between the Queen and my lord and therefore, if I declared myself fully according to her mind at that time, which could not do my lord any manner of prejudice, I should keep my credit with her ever after, whereby to do my lord service.

The proceedings after this communication to the Queen are thus stated by Bacon:-" Hereupon the next news that I heard was, that we were all sent for again; and that her majesty's pleasure was, we all should have parts in the business; and the lords falling into distribution of our parts, it was allotted to me, that should set forth some undutiful carriage of my lord, in giving occasion and countenance to a seditious pamphlet, as it was termed, which was dedicated unto him, which was the book before mentioned of King Henry IV. Whereupon I replied to that allotment, and said to their lordships, That it was an old matter, and had no manner of coherence with the rest of the charge, being matters of Ireland: and therefore, that I having been wronged by bruits before, this would expose