Xvi PREFACE, 
Lordship shall be sure to have.’ Five years later he reiterated 
in the same tone, ‘I humbly pray you to believe that I aspire 
to the conscience and commendation first of onus civis, which 
with us is a good and true servant to the Queen, and next of 
bonus vir, that is, an honest man.’ But of this anon. The 
result of the present negotiation was that Essex presented 
Bacon with a piece of land, which he afterwards sold to Rey- 
nold Nicholas for 180o/, 
At what precise time Bacon was appointed by the Queen 
one of her counsel learned in the law, is not quite certain. It 
has been supposed that the appointment was made as early as 
the beginning of 1592, and he is certainly described by this 
title in a lease of sixty acres of land in Zelwood Forest, Somer- 
setshire, which was granted him by the Crown, July 14, 1596. 
From the fact that he is not so described in the grant of the 
reversion of the lease of Twickenham Park, dated Noy. 17, 
1595, it would seem that he had been made Queen’s counsel 
in the interval. Meanwhile he consoled himself for his pro- 
fessional disappointments by increased devotion to his favourite 
studies, and early in 1597 published, in a small volume, the first 
instalment of his Essays, which had been written some time 
before, and were already circulated in manuscript. From an 
expression in the dedication to his brother Anthony, he evid- 
ently regarded the publication as premature. ‘I doe nowe,’ 
he says, ‘like some that have an orcharde ill neighbored, 
that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing.’ 
The same volume contained the Colours of Good and Evil, and 
the Meditationes Sacre. Traces of his hand are also to be 
found in the ‘ Advice to the Earl of Rutland on his Travels,’ 
and to‘ Sir Fulke Greville on his Studies,’ which appear in the . 
name of Essex, and belong to the beginning of 1596. 
On the 30th of April, 1596, the Mastership of the Rolls 
became vacant by the death of Lord Keeper Puckering, and 
the promotion of Egerton to his place. For this post Bacon 
was again a candidate, Essex as before supported his claim, and 
with the same result, suspense and ultimate disappointment. 
Burghley’s influence was exerted with no better success. He 
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