INTRODUCTION. 9 



old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, 

 he hoped to win back the Queen s favour, he twice 

 obtruded violent attacks upon Essex when he was not 

 called upon to speak. On the 25th of February, 1601, 

 Essex was beheaded. The genius of Bacon was next 

 employed to justify that act by &quot; A Declaration of 

 the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed 

 by Robert late Earle of Essex and his Complices.&quot; 

 But James of Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had 

 intervened, came to the throne by the death of Eliza 

 beth on the 24th of March, 1603. Bacon was among the 

 crowd of men who were made knights by James I., and 

 he had to justify himself under the new order of things 

 by writing &quot; Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie in certain 

 Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex.&quot; He 

 was returned to the first Parliament of James I. by 

 Ipswich and St. Albans, and he was confirmed in his 

 office of King s Counsel in August, 1604 ; but he was 

 not appointed to the office of Solicitor-General when it 

 became vacant in that year. 



That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when 

 he published this work, where in his First Book he 

 pointed out the discredits of learning from human 

 defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the 

 studies chosen, or the way of dealing with them. This 

 came, he said, especially by the mistaking or misplacing 

 of the last or furthest end of knowledge, as if there wer 

 sought in it &quot;a couch whereupon to rest a searching 

 and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and 

 variable mind to walk up and down with a fair pros 

 pect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise 



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