XXVI LIFE OF BACON. 



with suspicion : instead, therefore, of uniting himself to the 

 party in power, he not only formed an early friendship 

 himself with Essex, but attached to his service his brother 

 Anthony, who had returned from abroad, with a great repu 

 tation for ability and a knowledge of foreign affairs, (c) 

 1591. This intimacy could not fail to excite the jealousy of 

 ;Et. 31. Lord Burleigh; and, in after life, Bacon was himself 

 sensible that he had acted unwisely, and that his noble 

 kinsmen had some right to complain of the readiness with 

 which he and his brother had embraced the views of their 

 powerful rival, (d) But, attached as he was to Essex, 

 Bacon was not so imprudent as to neglect an application 

 to them whenever opportunity offered to forward his inte 

 rests. In a letter written in the year 1591 to Lord Burleigh, 

 in which he says that &quot; thirty-one years is a great deal of 

 sand in the hour-glass,&quot; he made another effort to extricate 

 himself from the slavery of the law, by endeavouring to pro 

 cure some appointment at court; that, &quot; not being a man 

 born under Sol that loveth honour, nor under Jupiter that 

 loveth business, but wholly carried away by the contem 

 plative planet,&quot; he might by that mean become a true 

 pioneer in the deep mines of truth, (d) To these applications, 

 the Cecils were not entirely inattentive ; for, although not 

 influenced by any sympathy for genius, &quot; for a speculative 

 man indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and calcu 

 lated more to perplex than to promote public business,&quot; 

 as he was represented by his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, (f) 

 they procured for him the reversion of the Registership of 

 the Star Chamber, worth about 1600. a year, for which, 

 modestly ascribing his success to the remembrance of his 

 father s virtues, he immediately acknowledged his obliga 

 tion to the queen. This reversion, however, was not of 



(c) See note Y at the end. (d) See note Z at the end. 



(/) There is a letter containing this expression, but I cannot find it. 



