Xiv PREFACE. 



relieved himself from the embarrassment of his debts by selling 

 the reversion of his property and purchasing an annuity, and 

 would then have abandoned a profession for which he had no 

 love, and lived the life of a student. But he was kept in sus 

 pense during the summer of 1593, and the delay decided his 

 future career. 



In March, 1593-4, he drew up a report, not printed in his 

 lifetime, of the detestable treason, intended by Dr. Roderigo 

 Lopez, a physician attending upon the person of the Queen s 

 Majesty, which had been traced out with great skill by Essex. 

 The latter meanwhile was urging Bacon s claims upon the 

 Queen with a pertinacity and petulance which rather injured 

 than furthered his cause. Heartsick with hope deferred, 



Bacon writes to his friend, &amp;lt; I will, by God s assistance 



retire myself with a couple of men to Cambridge, and there 

 spend my life in my studies and contemplations, without look 

 ing back. On the loth of April Coke s patent as Attorney- 

 General was made out and delivered. By this appointment 

 the Solicitorship became vacant, and Essex renewed his im 

 portunities with the Queen, who disparaged Bacon in his legal 

 capacity as one who was not deep, but rather showed to the 

 utmost of his knowledge, while she admitted he had a great 

 wit and an excellent gift of speech, and much other good 

 learning. On the ayth of July, 1594, being detained by illness 

 at Huntingdon on his way north, he paid a visit to Cambridge, 

 and received the honorary degree of Master of Arts. The 

 Queen was still relentless, but had given way so far as to 

 employ him on the isth of June in the examination of two 

 persons in the Tower, who were implicated in a conspiracy. 

 In August and September he is again at work upon business 

 of the same kind. Still the long hoped-for promotion did not 

 come. In the Christmas vacation of this year he amused him 

 self with beginning his Promus of Formularies and Elegan 

 cies, and in writing speeches for an entertainment at Gray s 

 Inn. The suspense of more than a year and half was brought 

 to an end by the appointment of Serjeant Fleming to the 

 Solicitorship on the sth of November, 1595. Essex was mor- 



