INTRODUCTION

I

THE LIFE OF BACON

THE life of Francis Bacon is one of the most interesting, picturesque, and pathetically tragic in the whole range of literary history. He was born for great things; he had a brilliant public career, which came to a startling and ignominious end. Withal his devotion to science and letters was such that the world will not soon forget it. So great and versatile was his genius that he not only has been called the Shakespeare of English prose, but has also (though on wholly inadequate grounds) been regarded by some as the author of Shakespeare's plays. The story of so eventful a life cannot well be told in the space at our command; we must be content with the leading facts and a few general observations.

age

Francis Bacon was born at York House, in the Strand, London, January 22, 1561. He was the youngest of the eight children of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Bacon's Keeper of the Great Seal, who was of a good- birth, 1561, natured, easy-going temperament and something and parentof a humorist. The second wife of Sir Nicholas, and the mother of Anthony and Francis Bacon, was Ann, second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke; her sister was the wife of Sir William Cecil, then Secretary of State, and later Lord Burghley. Lady Bacon was a well-educated woman of strong character. She translated sermons from the Italian, quoted Latin frequently, and knew something of Greek. A rigid Calvinist, she exerted a marked influence on her sons' religious beliefs; and one clue to the explanation of Francis Bacon's character is perhaps the fact that in early youth, frequenting a court where lax moral and ethical views prevailed, he was at the same time filled with the self-assurance born of the Calvinistic doctrine of election to eternal happiness.

In his twelfth year, in 1573, Francis Bacon went with his brother Anthony to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he found not quite eighteen hundred students, among them Edward Coke, his later rival, Edmund Spenser and his friend Edward Kirke, and Gabriel Harvey; many of these were too young to know why they were there. His prescribed studies Education were mathematics (including cosmography, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy), dialectics, phi

at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1573-74

losophy, perspective, and Greek. In public, except in hours of leisure, he had to speak Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. While devoting himself to Greek, he rebelled against the doctrines of Aristotle, whose infallibility had been somewhat shaken by Peter Ramus (1515-1572) a decade before; but it was not so much Aristotle's logical method as his physical theories that Bacon questioned. For example, Aristotle's theory of astronomy was based on the fundamental proposition that the heavens and heavenly bodies were incorruptible, unchangeable, and wholly regular; hence all the motions of these bodies must be in the perfect figure of the circle and all their orbits must be concentric; moreover, the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, being perishable, the imperishable stars must be made of an imperishable fifth essence. These doctrines of Aristotle the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, especially Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), so systematized and fixed that they virtually became great obstructions to the progress of knowledge. But even as a boy of eleven Bacon saw in the northern heavens, in a region that Aristotle had pronounced incapable of change, the wonderful new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. No wonder the study of nature through Aristotle's dogmas struck Bacon as barren and wrong, and moved him to devise a more fruitful method. The remarkable thing, as Mr. Spedding points out, is that this undertaking became the real if not wholly absorbing passion of his life.

The plague which broke out in August, 1574, drove the Bacons from Cambridge until the following March; then they returned and remained until Christmas.

In June, 1576, the brothers were admitted to Gray's Inn,

London, and began the study of law. Three months later Francis went with Sir Amias Paulet, the British Begins the ambassador, to France. Here he remained dur- study of ing two and a half significant years, studying law, 1576 diplomatic affairs and foreign policy. The impression he made upon those who talked with him is indiTwo years cated by the inscription on Hilliard's miniature, in France, painted in 1578: "If a worthy canvas were 1576-78 given me, I would rather paint his mind." From this life of studious ease he was rudely awakened by the death of his father, which obliged him to return to England; and as Sir Nicholas had failed to provide for his youngest son, Francis was now compelled to begin in earnest his preparation for the legal profession, by which he was to live.

1584

In June, 1582, he was admitted an utter (or junior) barrister of Gray's Inn; and November 23, 1584, he took his seat in Parliament for Melcombe Regis, Dor- M. P. for setshire. That he was a bold as well as alert Melcombe politician is evident from his Advice to Queen Regis, Elizabeth, written soon after entering Parliament. The conflict was approaching between Protestant England and Catholic Spain. Three plots had already been exposed against the life of the Queen, in whom were centred the hopes "of England, of liberty, and of the Pro- "Advice to testant faith; " and a voluntary association had Queen Elizbeen formed to prosecute to the death any person in whose behalf violence should be offered to the Sovereign. Bacon urged rigorous repression of the suspected Catholics, but less violent measures against the Puritans. The treatise is remarkable for shrewdness, wit, and tact.

abeth "

Two years later, in 1586, came the trial and conviction of Mary, Queen of Scots. In the Parliament of that year Bacon sat for Taunton, Somersetshire, and was M. P. for one of those who signed the petition for Mary's Taunton, execution. Becoming a bencher of Gray's Inn, Bacon now attained the full rights of a practising lawyer. While he did not earn much as a barrister, he became more and more prominent in Parliament.

1586

The Armada came and went; and in the following year

"Advertisement touching

the Contro

versies of

the quarrel between the Puritans and the High Churchmen was renewed. In his Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England (1589), Bacon sought to arbitrate the bitter and bigoted conflict by considering the occasions of the controversies, their growth, the unjust measures of the bishops, and the separatist tendencies of the Puritans; prescribing, as the remedy, greater charity and more knowledge, or, as Matthew Arnold would have put it, more 66 sweetness and light."

the Church

of England," 1589

Beginning

of friend

ship with

Essex, 1590

About 1590 Bacon made the acquaintance of the Earl of Essex, the rash, impetuous, generous, sympathetic favorite of the Queen. Here was a man whose friendship could do much for Bacon and for the great philosophical enterprise which he had begun to think of in his Cambridge days. Essex was able and ready to discuss the high aims that inspired Bacon, and to intercede for him with the Queen for some office whereby he might be freed from professional drudgery and enabled to prosecute his studies. In asking Lord Burghley for help, about this time, Bacon says:

"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; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations. confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state in that 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."

Failure to

obtain of

But while Bacon's repeated requests to Burghley were poured into a deaf ear, Essex proved an ardent and faithful patron. The place of Attorney-General soon became vacant; and Essex tried to secure it for his friend. But Bacon had made himself Solicitor obnoxious to the Queen by protesting against certain subsidies which he thought would involve excessive

fices of Attorney-General and

taxation; and his rival Coke was made Attorney-General. No better fortune attended his suit for the humbler office of Solicitor; but Essex, anxious to pay for the time and pains devoted to his own affairs, gave Bacon a piece of land which afterwards sold for £1800, the equivalent in purchasing power of about $45,000 to-day. This for a while relieved Bacon of the financial embarrassments which beset him.

Up to this time of his life Bacon is not accused of doing anything distinctly dishonorable. True, his servile placehunting is not admirable; but it arose partly out of unfortunate conditions. His conduct toward Essex from now on is variously interpreted: by some, as that of a patriot who placed loyalty to the state above friendship; by others, as the conduct of a heartless ingrate. Much depends on whether Essex can or cannot be proved to have become a traitor.

works from 1596 to

1597; including "Essays,"

Essex and Bacon continued friends as before; but Bacon ceased for a time to seek for office. He wrote his Maxims of the Law (published in January, 1596), his Essays, Colors of Good and Evil, and Meditationes Sacræ, all of which appeared in 1597. He still sat in Parliament, in 1597 for Southampton. He was an unsuccessful suitor for the 1597 hand of a rich widow, his cousin Lady Hatton, who accepted his rival Coke instead. Meanwhile he counselled Essex to try to win and retain the Queen's M. P. for favor by making a show of being deferential and Southamp obsequious. But Essex was not skilled in dis- ton, 1597 simulation; he quarrelled more than once with Elizabeth, and on one occasion his insolence so enraged her that she struck him and had him ejected from the council-chamber. A few months later, acting on Bacon's advice, he pretended that he would accept the task of quelling the Irish rebellion under the Earl of Tyrone. Of this expedition Essex made a wretched failure; and he was ordered to answer for his mismanagement and for disobedience, in the Court of the Star Chamber. Although soon released, he continued under the displeasure of the Queen, who refused to renew the grant of the

Quarrel

between

Essex and the Queen