pursuing the work for which by his genius he was intended. But except under the compulsion of circumstances he never could have brought himself to relinquish active life. At most he might have done it in the mood and for a few months if public affairs were quiescent. At this point, however, he is in the mood, and seems to shake himself free from the world, including, in particular, the young Earl, who had now become an embarrassment. I give both the letters:

To the Lord Keeper

It may please your good Lordship,

My not acquainting your Lordship hath proceeded of my not knowing anything, and my not knowing of my absence at Byssam with my Lady Russel upon some important cause of her son's. And as I have heard nothing, so I look for nothing, though my Lord of Essex sent me word he would not write till his Lordship had good news. But his Lordship may go on in his affection, which nevertheless myself have desired him to limit. But I assure your Lordship, I can take no furder care for the matter. I am now at Twicknam Park, where I think to stay: for her Majesty placing a Solicitor, my travel shall not need in her causes; though whensoever her Majesty shall like to employ me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service. This I write lest your Lordship mought think my silence came of any conceit towards your Lordship, which I do assure you I have not. And this needed I not to do if I thought not so. For my course will not give me any ordinary occasion to use your favour, whereof nevertheless I shall ever be glad. So I commend your good Lordship to God's holy preservation. This 11th of October,

1595.-Your Lordship's humbly at your hon. com.,

To the Lord Keeper

It may please your good Lordship,

FR. BACON.1

I conceive the end already made, which will I trust be to me a beginning of good fortune, or at least of content. Her Majesty by God's grace shall live and reign long. She is not running away, I may trust her. Or whether she look towards me or no, I remain the same, not altered in my intention. If I had been an ambitious man, it would have overthrown me. But

1 Spedding, Life, i. 368.

minded as I am, revertet benedictio mea in sinum meum. If I had made any reckoning of anything to be stirred, I would have waited on your Lordship, and will be at any time ready to wait on you to do you service. So I commend your good Lordship to God's holy preservation. From Twicknam Park, this 14th of October.- Your Lordship's most humble at your hon. commandments, FR. BACON.1

Indorsed: 14th October '95.

It would be beyond the scope of this book to discuss in any detail the relations of Francis Bacon and Essex. But as regards the remarkable words on that subject in the first of these letters, I will only say that it is a mistake to suppose that they can be appraised by any summary judgment. They are supplemented by similar words used by Bacon at the end of a letter written at the same time to Essex himself:

To my Lord of Essex

It may please your good Lordship,

I pray God her Majesty's weighing be not like the weight of a balance; gravia deorsum, levia sursum. But I am as far from being altered in devotion towards her, as I am from distrust that she will be altered in opinion towards me, when she knoweth me better. For myself, I have lost some opinion, some time, and some means; this is my account: but then for opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh; for time, it is true it goeth and cometh not; but yet I have learned that it may be redeemed.

For means, I value that most; and the rather, because I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law: (If her Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service :) and my reason is only, because it drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. But even for that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion, That a philosopher may be rich if he will. Thus your Lordship seeth how I comfort myself; to the increase whereof I would fain please myself to believe that to be true which my Lord Treasurer writeth; which is, that it is more than a philosopher morally can disgest. But without any such high conceit, I esteem it like the pulling out of an aching tooth, which, I remember, when I was a child and had little philosophy, I was glad of when it was done. For your Lordship, I do think myself more beholding to you than

1 Spedding, Life, i. 369.

to any man. And I say, I reckon myself as a common (not popular, but common); and as much as is lawful to be enclosed of a common, so much your Lordship shall be sure to have.-Your Lordship's, to obey your honourable commands, more settled than ever.1

The fact is that, with the exception of his brother, Bacon had no friends,2 and (though it may seem a harsh thing to say) he did not require them. He was selfcontained; the resources within him were sufficient; and all the companionship of a permanent kind which he needed he found in himself. The young Earl of Essex evidently had the power of attracting to himself much popular sympathy and even enthusiasm; he was affectionate, frank and munificent-qualities much appreciated by the English people. But such qualities afford no guarantee of the qualities for leadership, and as a leader Essex proved himself incapable. To the Queen, who loved him, he was "a rash and temerarious youth"; others observed that he was irresolute and flexible; and the whole course of his conduct showed him, in the higher spheres, impulsive, passionate, and unfit for power. Such a man could never have been a friend of Bacon, and there can be no doubt that, in "applying himself" to his affairs,

1 Spedding, Life, i. 372.

2 I refer to friends in the active world. Bettenham was a friend of a more intimate character; see Chapter XVIII.

3 I do not suggest that the passionate nature of Essex was peculiar to him; in those times men's feelings were stronger and less disciplined than they have since become. No doubt, however, among the men in high position Essex was more than ordinarily ungovernable, and Sir John Harington, a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth, has left some notes about him which are interesting evidence of this. Writing after an interview with Essex in the time of his trouble, he says: "It restethe withe me in opynion that ambition thwarted in its career, dothe speedilie leade on to madnesse. . . . The man's soule seemeth tossede to and fro, like the waves of a troubled sea."-Nugae Antiquae. Also in his "Tract on the Succession to the Crown" (1602) Harington refers to the extinction for the time being of "the Earle of Huntingden's title by the house of Clarence." "This faction," he adds, "dyed with my Lo. of Leicester, although that Earle of Huntingdon dyed after, and yet when the newes of his death came to the Earle of Essex I was told by one that knewe it that he took it so passionately that he tore his hear and all his buttons break with the swelling of his stomach, as if some great designe of his had bene frustrated thereby." I think this is written seriously, and I cite it therefore as an interesting light on the character of a man who was so closely connected with Bacon's life.

Bacon saw, or thought he saw, an opportunity, and the only one open to him, of obtaining a position in the State. It is easy to say that this is evidence of baseness. But such things are done (though perhaps seldom put in writing) in the competition for power, in all its forms. I think our judgment of them largely depends on the quality of the man. The world, for instance, did not, and does not now, think badly of Sir Robert Cecil, though his practice in regard to competitors who passed for friends was probably based entirely on calculation. But Cecil had no pretensions to be more than a man of his day and generation, engaged in the precarious business of government under a monarch with largely absolute powers. In all that appertained to this, in the handling of business, in method, judgment and knowledge of men, he was a much more capable man than Bacon, and probably than any one else of his time. But he had none of Bacon's imagination and speculative outlook, or that power of generalisation which marks the original mind. In such things Bacon was supreme. But they command little contemporary market; hence Bacon was out of touch with the men among whom he aspired to compete, and was exposed, as friendless men are, to the worst constructions. From the fact, too, that he claimed to see farther than his contemporaries, and aspired to put before them higher social standards, he is amenable to a stricter account than the men who made no claims beyond the conduct of affairs in the manner of the times without any gross betrayal of the interests of the country. This, I suppose, may be said in palliation of certain acts in Bacon's career. Even so,

however, they are difficult to account for; they present evidence of an abnormal personality; and on the whole it seems useless, and perhaps undesirable, to attempt to pronounce judgment upon them.

CHAPTER XVI

RALEGH'S CORRESPONDENCE AND POEMS

THE reader will now be in a position to realise to some extent the circumstances and state of mind of Francis Bacon during the period under review. It was clearly one of suspense, often of depression, mitigated by intermittent resolutions to abandon an active career for a life of study and literary production. During the same period Ralegh was also under a cloud, being denied access to Court owing to the Queen's displeasure at his marriage. His exile lasted for five years, from the middle of 1592 to the middle of 1597, when he was again restored to a considerable degree of favour. During this period he retired with his wife to Sherborne, then made his first voyage of discovery to Trinidad and explored the Orinoco (1595), and in 1596 he took a leading part, with Essex, in the assault and capture of Cadiz. At intervals he appears to have been at Durham House in London, and to this period (1592-1594) belong the charges of atheism which were brought against him and others (the set being referred to as "Sir Walter Rawley's School of Atheism "), which were inquired into by order of the Council, with what result is not known. The poems which pass under his name represent him during this time as melancholy to distraction and deeply enamoured of the Queen. His correspondence, on the other hand, which has been preserved shows that he was

1 This is alluded to in F.Q. IV. xi. 21, 22:

"Rich Oranochy, though but knowen late." Ralegh returned to England in the autumn of 1595.