FRANCIS BAG OK 



5G3 



should be supreme would have been to him a 

 revelation of political chaos, a confusion worse 

 confounded. To Bacon the idea that the affairs 

 of a great nation should be controlled, and its 

 policy dictated, by a miscellaneous collection of 

 country gentlemen, lawyers, and merchants, would 

 have been ridiculous. Accordingly, from the be- 

 ginning of the seventeenth century Bacon held 

 steadfastly to the crown. lie took the same side 

 as King James on every public question, was dili- 

 gent in seeking arguments in favor of every pet 

 scheme of the king's, pushed himself into the 

 front of the king's partisans in every dispute, in 

 a word placed his reasoning and persuading pow- 

 ers absolutely at the king's disposal. It would 

 not be easy to find a trace of a difference of 

 opinion between the king and Bacon during the 

 first fourteen years of Stuart rule. 



For all that, it is not necessary to pronounce 

 Bacon a servile tool of tyranny, though some 

 have not scrupled to do so. It is easy to point 

 out the close association between Bacon's world- 

 ly interests and the course he pursued, and to 

 hint that like many philosophical politicians he 

 had a turn for swimming with the stream. It is 

 true that during a part of this time Bacon was 

 hungry for office, during another part actually in 

 office, the paid servant of the crown ; but there 

 is nothing to show that the opinions he expressed 

 were not the opinions he held. We may have 

 our suspicions, may be eager to find indications 

 that the motives ascribed to him did not operate, 

 but we can confidently assert that in Bacon's 

 parliamentary career there is nothing to fix a dis- 

 honorable stain on his name. If he went with 

 the crown now, whereas he had once shown an- 

 other inclination, the circumstances were altered. 

 Instead of lying in stagnation, Parliament was 

 now instinct with life. Bacon had now little rea- 

 son to fear that the Lower House would settle 

 down into a mere political mechanism for increas- 

 ing the royal revenue. His apprehension may 

 now have been that it would show too great 

 activity, and advance pretensions irreconcilable 

 with order and good government, and Mr. Sped- 

 ding actually credits him with such an apprehen- 

 sion ; and Bacon, whose longing for good gov- 

 ernment was undoubtedly a genuine feeling, may 

 have been convinced that with the crown only 

 lay the possibility of giving the nation that one 

 priceless blessing. For this is the theory on 

 which his champions rest their vindication of 

 his conduct in attaching himself to the court. 

 What his eyes desired to see above all things was 

 the establishment of rational principles and sound 



methods of government ; there was but one means 

 of securing this, he thought, the royal preroga- 

 tive, and so he was ready to defend the royal pre- 

 rogative against all attacks. Unless I am much 

 mistaken in my reading of Bacon's political ca- 

 reer, this is a well-founded theory ; it seems to 

 me to rhyme accurately with everything we know 

 of his sayings and doings as a political thinker, a 

 parliamentary speaker, and a minister of state. 

 If this be so, there is little to object to in Bacon's 

 conduct as a Parliament-man. The case against 

 him would have little plausibility if it drew its 

 materials from this province of his life alone. 



But the far more active sphere of Bacon's 

 political labors lay outside Parliament, and to it 

 belong those parts of Bacon's conduct over which 

 historians and moralists have shaken their heads, 

 and regarding which thoroughly-informed critics 

 are not yet agreed as to their verdict. Into this 

 sphere Bacon did not find admission so easy as 

 into Parliament. He had to wait for nearly a 

 quarter of a century and to sit in seven Parlia- 

 ments before he was appointed to any office un- 

 der the crown, or was even given any permanent 

 public employment. Why he was kept in the an- 

 techamber so long has never been satisfactorily 

 explained. His transcendent ability seems to 

 have been admitted from the first ; his father, 

 who had been for twenty-one years among the 

 most faithful and valued of Elizabeth's ministers, 

 had designed and partly trained him for the ser- 

 vice of the queen ; he was himself more than 

 willing to be dedicated to the same service ; the 

 man highest in the confidence of the sovereign 

 was his close connection, for some years the 

 young noble whom the queen delighted to honor 

 was his enthusiastic friend and vehement advo- 

 cate, for a time the royal ear was open to his own 

 pleadings; one could hardly conceive an aspir- 

 ant with greater advantages, internal and exter- 

 nal, better gifted or better circumstanced. Yet, 

 though a seeker as early as 15S0, he was not a 

 finder of what he sought until 160?, when he 

 was made solicitor-general. He had certainly 

 been before this one of the learned counsel to 

 both Elizabeth and James, and an occasional 

 bit of employment had been thrown him, in 

 which he did his part so well that it is surprising- 

 he did no get more. It would have been well for 

 his fame, however, had he been passed over in 

 one too notorious case ; his appearance in court 

 against his benefactor, Essex, and his acceptance 

 of £1,200 (about £6,000 now), the fine of one of 

 Essex's less unlucky associates, still make a dark 

 blot on his memory, which, to my mind, no 



