. 73.] TO R. W. CHURCH. 749 



American life and manners which may be well 

 enough for him to see, though we should desire the 

 contrary, and will add to his rich repertory of stories, 

 which they say he can tell so well. The day he was 

 shown over our university he called here, and took a 

 cup of tea with us. He had recently been visiting 

 our good friend Lord Justice Fry at Failand, and 

 spoke of Lord Blachford as his friend and neigh- 

 bor. . . . 



March 31, 1884. 



... I have, moreover, another reason for sending 

 you this line, to thank you for the proof-sheets of the 

 " Bacon." I read it at a sitting, one day when I was 

 too ill for my daily task. I enjoyed the book greatly, 

 all the more, probably, from my freshness, not having 

 read anything upon the subject that I now recall 

 since Macaulay's essay, ages ago. It is like reading 

 a tragedy. 



What a great failure Bacon was, whenever he was 

 tried ! Poor Essex, hunted to death merely for " get- 

 ting up a row," and Bacon sacrificing him without 

 compunction, and without seeing that he was prob- 

 ably made a tool of, merely to serve his personal ad- 

 vantage ! Then the poetical justice, as they call it, 

 very prosaic justice, of his own destruction, by a 

 bolt out of a clear sky, which an enemy was adroit 

 enough to direct to his ruin. And poor Bacon with 

 conscience enough to feel that he deserved it, but not 

 spirit enough to make a fight. No, if Pope's fling 

 was undeserved, as you say, it was because of the 

 mean and ignoble set around him. 



Almost as pitiable and tragic in its way, pitiable in 

 its true sense, was the upshot of Bacon's higher and 

 nobler life, conceiving vaguely and laboring all his 



