2»<» S. No 59., Feb. 14. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



121 



LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14. 1857. 



ANTHONY BACON AND SIB H£NBT WOTTON. 



It is evident that the writer of the article in 

 the last number of Bentley's Miscellany, entitled 

 " The Two Bacons," in which the truth of a story 

 told by Sir H. Wotton about Anthony Bacon is 

 taken for granted, cannot have seen the following 

 passage in Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth (vol. ii. p. 371.), written after a careful 

 examination of many volumes of original corre- 

 spondence, relating to Anthony Bacon's private 

 affairs, and to the services in which he was em- 

 ployed by the Earl of Essex : — 



"And I must acknowledge that I now entertain a 

 much more favourable opinion of his fidelity to the Earl, 

 than when I repeated from Sir Henrv Wotton, in my 

 preface to the Historical View, a, story of his having twice 

 extorted considerable suras of money from his Lordship, 

 by threatening to betray his secrets, especially those of 

 his intelligence with the King of Scots, to the Cecils. 

 For Sir Henry's veracity, which I have seen good reason 

 to question in other cases, is justly to be suspected in this, 

 since he appears to have conceived some disgust against 

 Mr. Bacon, while he was one of the Earl's secretaries; 

 that gentleman frequently complaining of his behaviour 

 towards him, and charging hira with having suppressed 

 his letters, which he had been ordered by his Lordship to 

 write in favour of Dr. Hawkyns, and yet affirming that 

 he had sent them. Nor does he seem to be well founded 

 ill his assertion, that Mr. Bacon was of a provident nature, 

 contrary /o the temper of his brother Francis ; since the 

 reverse of that character is evident from Mr. Bacon's own 

 papers ; who could not have been so frequently distressed 

 in his circumstances, if he had been an economist, or sup- 

 plied by the Earl, as Sir Henry farther adds, with a noble 

 entertainment in his house, and at least one thousand pounds 

 of annual pension. And indeed of this pretended pen- 

 sion there is not the least trace in all Mr. Bacon's papers ; 

 nor is there any appearance that he was entertained at 

 Essex-house at the Earl's charge ; but it is, on the con- 

 trary, evident from a letter of that gentleman to his 

 mother, dated Oct. 2, 1596, that he enjoyed no other 

 advantage in that house than of his lodgings, his other 

 expences being defrayed by himself, his Lordship seldom 

 coming thither except to visit him, or to give entertain- 

 ments occasionally to persons of distinction. In the 

 passage upon which I ground this remark, Mr. Bacon ac- 

 knowledged that his expence for coals for four summer 

 months might justly seem over great, unless these cir- 

 cumstances were considered : first, his sickness, then the 

 extraordinary moistness of the season of that year, 1596, 

 the situation of his lodgings, and the honourable helps 

 which he had had to spend them since the Earl's return 

 from Cadiz; 'which I know,' says he, 'your Ladyship 

 would not have had me refuse for ten times as much, so 

 long as not only it is known to the highest in this house, 

 but thankfully taken.' " 



It might be replied, no doubt, on behalf of 

 Wotton, that Anthony Bacon continued in Essex 

 House from November, 1595, till March, 1599- 

 1600 ; that Essex did not go to Ireland before 

 March, 1598-9 ; that few of the letters which 

 passed between them, after 1597, have been pre- 



served, and that the fact stated may have taken 

 place during that interval. But the truth is, that 

 in the course of this correspondence — consisting 

 chiefly of rough drafts of letters addressed to his 

 mother, brothers, steward, friends, servants, cre- 

 ditors, debtors, — to foreign correspondents, agents, 

 and intelligencers, — to Papists and Puritans, and 

 to the Earl himself, upon all variety of occasions, 

 together with the answers to them, — the personal 

 character of Anthony Bacon comes out so dis- 

 tinctly, and so entirely unlike Wotton's repre- 

 sentation of it, that to any one who has looked 

 through the series, the whole story must seem 

 simply incredible. Every such story, by whom- 

 soever repeated, is subject to suspicion ; because 

 such transactions being necessarily very private 

 and confidential, there can be no authentic report 

 of them, except from one of the parties. Wotton 

 does not say when the thing took place, or who 

 told him ; only that it was at a private interview 

 one morning between Essex and Lord Henry 

 Howard, — not the best of witnesses, even if we 

 had it under his own hand ; for he was certainly 

 one of the chief instigators in the murder of Sir 

 Thomas Overbury. Nor is there any difficulty in 

 suggesting a probable origin of the story. Essex 

 had a great number of agents and intelligencers 

 in his service ; their expenses had to be provided 

 for ; the payments passed for the most part 

 through Anthony Bacon's hands : an emergency 

 may easily have arisen requiring a large sum of 

 money on the sudden ; it may have been necessary 

 to pledge Essex House in order to raise it ; the 

 transaction (necessarily kept as secret as possible) 

 may have been misunderstood. Anthony Bacon 

 may have been supposed to have got the money 

 for himself; how he contrived to get it, one man 

 may have wondered, another guessed, a third told, 

 and Sir Henry Wotton believed. But everything 

 that we know of Anthony Bacon makes it in- 

 credible that he should have done such a thing ; 

 while nothing that we know of Sir Henry makes 

 it incredible that he should have believed such a 

 story. J- S. 



MANCSCEIPT NOTES OF PROFESSOR MOOR. 



(2"'i S. iii. 21.) 



" I, born a Goth but bred a Greek, 

 Act not so mildly as I speak ; 

 To me a portion large did fall 

 Of Gothic Sin original ; 

 Nature presented me the Cup, 

 At her desire I drank it up : 

 God grant me ere 1 end my race* 

 An antidote of Grecian grace. 

 You think perhaps that phrase is odd. 

 Who know I mean the grace of God ; 



* The Professor appears to have written a number of 

 his notes when in old age. 



