FHANCIS BACOK. 17 



cclobratod Hampton Court Conference — James conceded some points 

 on wlucli Bacon bad insisted, granting certain liberties wbicb the 

 Chui-cb has possessed ever since. 



"While engaged upon these subjects — learning, the Union, and 

 the Church — Bacon is the most active and hardworking member of 

 the House of Commons, sitting, in the Parliament of 1604-5, on 

 twenty-nine committees, and usually if not always being chosen as 

 the reporter of the Commons to the Lords and the King. His 

 advancement now was rapid : knighted in 1603, he became 

 Solicitor-general in 1607, Attorney-general in 1013, Lord Keeper 

 in 1617, and Lord Chancellor in 1618. This was an eventful 

 period, the principal events being the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, 

 the colonisation of Virginia in 1607, the completion of the New 

 River to supply London with water from the valley of the Lea in 

 1608, the invention of the telescope by Lipperhay and the discovery 

 of Jupiter's satellites by Galileo in 1610, the publication of the 

 authorised version of the Bible in 1611, the foundation of the first 

 English settlement in India in 1612, the invention of logarithms 

 by Napier in 1614, the introduction of Episcopacy into Scotland in 

 1617, the commencement of the thirty-years' war in 1618, and the 

 discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey in this or the 

 following year. 



In 1606 Bacon marries Alice Barnham, in 1607 he writes the 

 * Cogitata et Visa,'' in 1608 he begins the '■ JSfoviim Organum,'' and 

 in the same year he writes an eulogy of Queen Elizabeth (' In 

 felicem memoriam Elizaiethfe '), which he regarded as one of the 

 most precious efforts of his pen, and in 1609 he writes 'Be Sapientid 

 Veterum ' (The Wisdom of the Ancients). In 1610 his mother dies 

 and he succeeds to Gorhambury, for his brother Anthony had died 

 in 1601, and in 1612 he publishes the second edition of his 

 'Essays,' now thirty-eight in number. For the next few years 

 he wrote nothing of importance, except that he was engaged on 

 his greatest work, the ' Novum Organum.'' 



All this time he is struggling with his creditors, for he was 

 always short of money and continually borrowing, assiduously 

 pursuing his professional duties, taking an active part in politics, 

 advising the King, and mediating between him and the refractory 

 House of Commons. No wonder that he has been accused of 

 carelessness and haste in some of his conclusions ; no wonder that 

 he does not keep abreast with the scientific discoveries of his time. 

 Yet it seems strange that he should reject the Copernican system 

 of astronomy, believing that the Earth was the centre of the 

 Universe ; that he should be unaware of the astronomical work 



VOL. VII. — PART I. 2 



