CC11 LIFE OF BACON. 



This truth, necessarily attendant upon all knowledge, is 

 not excluded from judicial knowledge. It has influenced 

 all intelligent judges: Sir Thomas More; the Chancellor 

 de PHopital ; Lord Somers, to whom he has been compared ; 

 d Aguesseau ; Sir Edward Coke, and Sir Matthew Hale. 

 Bacon s favourite maxim therefore was, &quot; Detur digniori: 

 qui beneficium digno dat omnes obligat;&quot; and in his 

 prayer, (a) worthy of a Chancellor, he daily said, &quot; This 

 vine which my right hand hath planted in this nation I 

 have ever prayed unto thee that it might stretch her 

 branches to the seas and to the floods.&quot; 



Whatever were Sir Francis s gratifications, attendant 

 upon the dignity of this promotion, in direct pecuniary 

 profit he sustained great loss : as he relinquished his office 

 of Attorney General, worth at least 6000. a year, his 

 Chancellorship to the Prince, and his post of Registrar of 

 the Star Chamber, worth about 1600. a year, (6) whilst 

 the direct profits of the great seal were only 918. 15s.(c) 

 Of the amount of the indirect profits from fees and pre 

 sents it is, of course, impossible to form a correct estimate. 

 It must, however, have been considerable, as, according to 



However, I soon succeeded in encouraging him ; and before he reached 

 the gate of the palace, he had mustered a tolerable degree of confidence. 

 This officer was General Bernard, whose great talents were brought into 

 notice by this circumstance, and who, at the time of our disasters, pro 

 ceeded to America, where he was placed at the head of the military 

 works of the United States.&quot; Las Cases, iv. 62. 



&quot; A man who by a partial, prejudiced, or corrupt vote, disappoints a 

 worthy candidate of a station in life, upon which his hopes, possibly, or 

 livelihood, depended, and who thereby grievously discourages merit and 

 emulation in others, commits, I am persuaded, a much greater crime, than 

 if he filched a book out of a library, or picked a pocket of a handkerchief.&quot; 



Paley. 



(a) Vol. vii. p. 1. 



(6) Biog. Brit. p. 392. 



(c) See note E E E at the end. 



