CIVIL LIST. CCXX111 



promoted by the foundation of lectures in the university. 

 This his favourite opinion, which he, when Solicitor Gene 

 ral, had expressed in his tract upon Sutton s Hospital, (a) 

 and renewed in his will, (b) was immediately communi 

 cated to Buckingham, (c) to whom he suggested that part 

 of the founder s bounty ought to be appropriated to the 

 advancement of learning. 



Firm, however, as Bacon was with respect to patents, 

 his wishes, as a politician, to relieve the distresses of the 

 King, seem to have had some tendency to influence his 

 mind as a judge. In one of his letters he expresses his 

 anxiety to accelerate the prosecution, saying, &quot; it might, if 

 wind and weather permit, come to hearing in the term ;&quot; 

 and in another he says, &quot; the evidence went well, and I 

 will not say I sometimes helped it as far as was fit for 

 a judge. &quot;(d) 



(a) Ante, p. cliii. (&) Ante, p. xiii. 



(c) See note XOY at the end. See vol. xii. p. 259. 



(d) The following are the letters, which must speak for themselves : 



To the Marquis of Buckingham. 



My very good Lord, These things which I write now and heretofore 

 in this cause, I do not write so as any can take knowledge that I write, 

 but I dispatch things ex qfficio here, and yet think it fit inwardly to adver 

 tise the King what doth occur. And I do assure your lordship, that if I 

 did serve any king whom I did not think far away wiser than myself, I 

 would not write in the midst of business, but go on of myself. 



This morning, notwithstanding my speech yesterday with the duke, he 

 delivered this letter inclosed, and I having cleared the room of all save the 

 court and learned counsel (whom I required to stay), the letter was read a 

 little before our hour of sitting. When it was read, Mr. Attorney began to 

 move that my lord should not acknowledge his offences as he conceived he 

 had committed them, but as they were charged; and some of the lords 

 speaking to that point, I thought fit to interrupt and divert that kind of 

 question ; and said, before we considered of the extent of my lord s sub 

 mission we were first to consider of the extent of our own duty and power ; 

 for that I conceived it was neither fit for us to stay proceeding, nor to 

 move his majesty in that which was before us in course of justice; unto 



