HIS LEGAL RENOWN. 59 poverty, but familiarising himself with the true principles of English jurisprudence by slow and patient study. He is said, indeed, by some to have been no lawyer, and, perhaps, in legal subtleties and adroit perplexities he was far inferior to a Coke or a Fleming. But on this point Lord Campbell's testimony may surely be accepted as sufficient. "There can be no doubt," he says, "that he now diligently and doggedly sat down to the study of his profession, and that he made very great progress in it, although he laboured under the effect of the envious disposition of mankind, who are inclined to believe that a man of general accomplishments cannot be a lawyer; and e converso, if a man has shown himself beyond all controversy to be deeply imbued with law, that he is a mere lawyer without any other accomplishment. A competent judge who peruses Francis Bacon's legal treatises, and studies his forensic speeches, must be convinced that these were not the mere result of laboriously getting up a title of law pro re natâ, but that his mind was thoroughly familiar with the principles of jurisprudence, and that he had made himself complete master of the common law of England-while there might be serjeants and apprentices who had never strayed from Chancery Lane to 'the Solar Walk or Milky Way,' better versed in the technicalities of pleading and the practice of the Courts. He must have sedulously attended the 'readings' and 'mootings' of his Inn, and abstracted many days and nights from his literary and philosophical pursuits to the perusal of Littleton and Plowden." On the 27th of June 1582, he was called to the bar, and immediately, according to custom, walked in Fleet Street in his serge and bands, to intimate that he was willing to practise for fees. In 1584 he had sufficiently advanced to obtain a seat in the House of Commons, where he appeared as the member for the Dorsetshire sea-port of Melcombe Regis. There were, then, in that House, many illustrious statesmen and brilliant speakers; men whose names are among the immortals, and whose deeds are part and parcel of English history; but after an interval of silent preparation, Bacon stood forward among them as equal to the best and brightest,—his wit as keen, his humour as felicitous, his sagacity as great. No incompetent judge, but "rare Ben Jonson," pays him a noble eulogium: "There happened in my time," he says, "one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, when he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion [that is, at his will]. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end." He was called to the outer bar in 1586, when he was yet but twenty-five, and soon afterwards was admitted an inner barrister, and elected a Bencher of the Society. His popularity in Gray's Inn was great. He was selected to plant trees and lay out walks in the Inn-gardens. His last keen jest was repeated by every lip. At every board he was the favoured and the honoured guest. Within two years, and he was made Lent reader by his brother-benchers; and so extended was his repute for A THORNY PATH. 61 ng, sagacity, and eloquence that Queen Elizabeth nted him her Counsel Extraordinary. But it was and honour rather than profit, rather than any solid tage or substantial position, that the brilliant lawad yet acquired. Sir Robert Cecil's influence was nalignant against him, and he loved to represent lustrious cousin as no real lawyer, but a shallow ist, as "a speculative man," who indulged himself ilosophical reveries, and was far more likely to perthan promote public business. * mething, too, of his ill-success may be attributed to old position as a reformer which he had taken up e House of Commons. He spoke not with bated h or whispering humbleness, but declaimed loudly st the abuses which eat into the very heart of the . His speeches and votes were duly remembered Furghley and his son Cecil, and won him no favour e eyes of his imperious sovereign. all this turmoil of life, however, in all these heartings and strivings at the bar and in the senate, on's soul remained constant to its earliest mistress: "How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbèd as dull fools suppose, hus he writes (A.D. 1592): “I wax now somewhat ent; one-and-thirty years is a great deal of sand in hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find coned, and I do not fear that action shall impair it; ause I account my ordinary course of study and litation to be more painful than most parts of action I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I Basil Montagu, "Bacon's Works, with a new Life" (ed. 1825-34). 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." But the cares of poverty vexed him sorely. "If your lordship," he says, addressing his uncle, who was Elizabeth's great adviser— "if your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation into 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 bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which lies so deep.". With the noble confidence of genius, he felt what high achievements were within the compass of his lofty intellect; and what rare treasures, what costly spoils, he-as the pioneer-could rescue from the mine of truth he was longing to explore! Nor did this confidence ever desert him. In his last will he wrote: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen, after some time be over." Time, as D'Israeli remarks,* seemed always personated in the imagination of our philosopher, and with time he wrestled in full consciousness of triumph. * I. D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature." A BOLD SPEECH. 63 الله CHAPTER II.-BACON'S RISE AT THE BAR. A Parliamentary Reformer-A bold Speech-The Queen's Resentment-Her Influence upon the great minds of her time accounted for-Essex and Bacon become acquainted-The Earl befriends Bacon-A fruitless Struggle for the Solicitor-Generalship-Lady Bacon's Letter-Royal Favours-Bacon publishes his "Essays"-A Matrimonial Suit-Bacon and Coke-Bacon in favour with the Queen-Felony, but not Treason. A NEW Parliament met on the 19th of February 1593, in which Bacon took his seat as Knight of the shire for Middlesex. In the earliest debates which occurred, he entered upon his old rôle of reformer, and with earnestness and courage expatiated on the abuses which had crept into the administration of the state. On the 7th of March he delivered a speech so bold, so frank, so telling, that it smote with a panic of fear and amazement the minds of the "Queen's old courtiers." A subsidy had been demanded by Elizabeth's ministers. On this matter he propounded three questions which he desired. might be answered: "The first, impossibility or difficulty; the second, danger and discontentment; and thirdly, a better manner of supply. For impossibility, the poor man's rent is such as they are not able to yield it. The gentlemen must sell their plate, and farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid; and as for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, and not to skin them over. We shall breed discontentment in paying these subsidies, and endanger Her Majesty's safety, which must consist more in the love of her people than in their wealth. This being granted, other princes hereafter will look for the like, so that we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves and our posterity." This language, |