562 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ject demands it ; I must only take care that it be 

 as just as my knowledge, insight, and critical gift 

 permit. 



Bacon's public career stretches over thirty- 

 seven years. He sat in every Parliament — nine 

 in all — that was called between his twenty-fourth 

 and sixty-first years, being a member of the Com- 

 mons' House in all but the last, in the last being 

 for a time not only a member of the Lords' House, 

 but in a certain sense its leading member. There 

 is no special distinction about his parliamentary 

 career, though constituencies and fellow-members 

 seem to have been sensible of his fine qualities. 

 Middlesex chose him to one Parliament, Cam- 

 bridge University to another, the latter carrying 

 him off from Ipswich and St. Albans, which had 

 also elected him. Hut the time had not yet come 

 when men could rise to what Bacon seems to 

 have sought after — power, honor, and wealth — 

 by the parliamentary ladder alone ; and Bacon, 

 though not undistinguished, cannot be said to 

 have shone as a Parliament-man. The day for 

 shining in Parliament had, however, not yet 

 dawned. His name is found in the debates from 

 the very first, appears with increasing frequency 

 in every successive Parliament or session of Par- 

 liament, and is now and then conspicuous in 

 originating, supporting, or pushing forward, im- 

 portant measures. There are two or three notice- 

 able things about his notions and behavior in 

 the Commons, and the sentiments of the other 

 members regarding him. He had a somewhat 

 higher conception of the parliamentary functions 

 than prevailed in the sixteenth century. Think- 

 ing it unworthy of a great nation that its repre- 

 sentatives should be called together merely to 

 vote money to the crown, he not only strove to 

 give the appearance of a more dignified purpose 

 and a loftier tone to the debates, but also did 

 somewhat to take away their reproach by intro- 

 ducing several measures of public utility himself. 

 One of these, for the repeal of superfluous laws, 

 on which he tried to awaken some degree of 

 interest in Elizabeth's last Parliament, is notable 

 as showing Bacon's forecast of a monstrous abuse, 

 and attempted anticipation of a great reform of 

 modern times. Even in speaking on a subsidy 

 bill — a not very inspiriting subject — he is seen 

 endeavoring to pitch the note of the discussion a 

 little higher than honorable gentlemen were ac- 

 customed to, and to stir up within the Commons 

 some sense of their own dignity. 



It is also honorable to Bacon that the Com- 

 mons appear to have had a large measure of faith 

 in his capacity, honesty, and discretion. He was 



their favorite — in his mature days perhaps their 

 invariable — reporter of committees, as the chair- 

 man was then called, and of conferences with the 

 king or the Lords : and so entirely did the Com- 

 mons trust him that they more than once put him 

 at the head of committees charged to carry out 

 objects that he had strongly opposed. Many 

 proofs of this unlimited confidence in his punc- 

 tual fulfillment of a trust are found in those stir- 

 ring passages of parliamentary history connected 

 with the impositions, purveyance, and other griev- 

 ances, over which James's first Parliament was so 

 fretful. For part of this time Bacon w as solicitor 

 or attorney general, and took the side of the crown 

 on every disputed question with a promptitude, 

 and adhered to it with a steadiness, that have 

 drawn down on him the scorn of some modern 

 writers ; yet the House would have him and no 

 other as the leading member of committees ap- 

 pointed to search for precedents, argue before the 

 Lords, or address the king, in favor of opinions 

 that were the reverse of his own. And in no 

 single instance did the House show the slightest 

 dissatisfaction with him ; in the only one in which 

 his conduct seemed open to exception, "the ac- 

 clamation of the House was " — these are the very 

 words of the report — " that the course " Bacon 

 had taken " on the spur of the moment " in the 

 king's presence " was a testimony of their duty 

 and no levity." * Mr. Spedding clearly has ex- 

 cellent grounds for his opinion that the Commons 

 found Bacon to be the man among them in whose 

 hands "any business of delicacy or difficulty al- 

 ways prospered best." 



And in the parliamentary element Bacon's 

 bearing was self-possessed, dignified, and manly. 

 So far as we know, Parliament seldom heard an 

 intemperate word fall from his lips ; though his 

 opinions were often ill-received by the majority 

 in the most exciting debates, he maintained an 

 unruffled serenity ; he seems to have never once 

 forgotten himself when upholding unpopular 

 views. For after the great queen's death the 

 temper of the Commons changed ; the premoni- 

 tory symptoms, though none understood them, of 

 a great revolution began to show themselves ; the 

 House not seldom betrayed a disposition to fall 

 into an ungovernable mood without precedent 

 in Elizabethan Parliaments. This was a new ex- 

 perience to Bacon. He had hitherto striven to 

 raise Parliament out of the region of humdrum, 

 but had never dreamed of its asserting a position 

 in the state injurious to the prerogative of the 

 crown. A state of things in which the Commons 

 1 Spedding, vol. iii., p. 172. 



