were constantly infused into the mind of the queen. He was scarcely more fortunate in attaching himself to the Earl of Essex, of whom Elizabeth was perpetually jealous, and therefore particularly suspicious of persons who were recommended by that noble- . man. Essex, indeed, as some immediate compensation for the unsuccessfulness of his own applications, made a grant of Twickenham Park, with its Garden of Paradise, to his friend Bacon; but all that the latter could elsewhere obtain, was the reversion of register of the court of Star-Chamber, worth nearly £1600 a year, which did not devolve to him till many years afterwards. He who claims the consideration of society, must come prepared to contend for that which always will awaken the vigilance of observation, and the asperity of opposition.

This struggle, though it could not altogether subdue, seems so far to have depressed Mr. Bacon, that he entreated her majesty's permission to travel. Whether such a request was tendered merely to attract the notice, and revive himself in the memory of the

queen; whether, in a moment of irrational despondency, he wished to obliterate in a foreign country the remembrance of what he had experienced in his own; or whether, foreboding the eventual disgrace of Essex, he was anxious to escape from the impending storm, it would now be impossible to decide: in whatever motive, however, his proposal for quitting England originated, it met with a decided negative from Elizabeth. Perhaps it was not thought desirable that the friend and adviser of Essex should be absent, at a time when his information and talents were likely to be summoned to the assistance of the throne.

As no circumstance in the conduct of Bacon has excited the severity of animadversion equal to the part which he sustained, in the prosecution shortly after commenced against the Earl of Essex, in the pamphlet entitled "A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex," which was understood to contain the manifesto of the court against that unhappy peer, so it requires no inconsiderable portion of calmness and discrimination not to be misled in estimating

the relative situation of the parties. While the pride of one description of persons must generally impel them to overrate the benefits they confer, perhaps ingratitude will be always too warmly stigmatized, and too hastily condemned. There are limits which the spirit of grateful recognition, however amiable within its proper sphere of operation, must not be permitted to exceed. Surely no one, whatever may be the extent of the obligations which attach him to another, is on that account doomed to participate in the errors and the vices of his benefactor; to exculpate openly, what he cannot extenuate privately; and to submit himself to the severity of consequences, which his advice, had it been adopted, would have fully prevented. Doubtless it is to be regretted that Bacon took an ostensible part in the condemnation of Essex; that he became, though from a sense of superior duty to the queen, and not without a sincere hope of being at the same time enabled to serve his friend and patron, the active participator in a scene, of which he ought to have existed the passive, yet afflicted spectator. But whatever advantages might otherwise have resulted to him, from

this instance of his attention to the desires of the court, they were rendered abortive by the decease of Queen Elizabeth; who died March the 24th, 1603, about a year after the decapitation of Essex, filled with regret, if not remorse, at his fate.

Of his application to legal knowledge, Mr. Bacon had lately given incontestible evidence by the completion of his "Maxims on the Law;" a work, on the execution of which he justly prided himself, and which has been esteemed the most judicious and satisfactory on the subjects which it professes to discuss. In 1597 he also published the first part of his " Essays on Councils, Civil and Moral." But the pressure of circumstances not permitting him to prosecute his favourite pursuits, he was induced to speculate in matrimonial chances, with a view of extricating himself from his pecuniary embarrassment. His attention was directed towards the daughter of Sir Thomas Cecil, then widow of Sir William Hatton; the design, however, did not succeed: and it is rather singular, that the lady afterwards married his rival and antagonist Lord Coke. This miscarriage

so far augmented his distress, that he was arrested for £300 one day on his return from transacting business at the Tower; a situation of which his enemies appear to have maliciously profited in order to injure him publicly. His parliamentary reputation, however, continued still unsullied. As to his book in "Praise of Elizabeth," which was published in refutation of a work that appeared in 1605 against the queen, "I freely confess myself," says Bacon, in a letter to a friend," not a disinterested man."

With the accession of James to the throne of England, the expectations of Mr. Bacon seem to have experienced an elevation. In a confidential letter to Matthews, son of Dr. Toby Matthews, there is the following observation:-" I have many comforts and assurances; but in my own opinion the chief is, the canvassing world is gone, and the deserving world is come." While this remark certainly displays an honourable confidence in his own talents and deserts, no one could have drawn a more humiliating representation of the court of Elizabeth than Bacon has thus exhibited.