CCCXXX LIFE OF BACON. 



His enemies, who were compassing his ruin, might 

 imagine that he was thus indulging in the day-dreams 

 of philosophy, but, so imagining, they were ignorant of 

 his favorite doctrine, that &quot; Learning is not like some small 

 bird, as the lark, that can mount and sing, and please 

 herself, and nothing else, but that she holds as well of the 

 hawk, that can soar aloft, and at the right moment can 

 stoop and seize upon her prey.&quot;( fl ) The Chancellor retired 

 to prepare for his defence, to view the nature of the attack, 

 and the strength of his assailants, (b) 



The charges which were at first confined to Aubrey 

 and Egerton, were now accumulated to twenty-three in 

 number, (c) by raking up every instance of an offering, 

 even to the case of Wraynham, who had been punished 

 for his scurrilous libel against the Chancellor and the 

 Master of the Rolls. 



Of this virulence the Chancellor thus complained to 

 Buckingham: &quot; Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am 

 now in it; but my mind is in a calm ; for my fortune is not 

 my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, 

 and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job 

 himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting 

 for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may 

 for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness 

 is the mark, and accusation is the game. And if this be 

 to be a chancellor, I think if the great seal lay upon 

 Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up. (d) But the 



() Advancement of Learning. 



(6) See Theo. Idyll. 26, line 250, and Bishop Taylor on Sickness, 

 describing the retreating of a lion when first struck, in his Holy Dying. 



(c) But the leisure of three weeks multiplied a pile of new suggestions 

 against him, and nothing was presaged more certain than his downfall, 

 which came to ripeness on the third of May. 



(d) The biographer of Lord Keeper North says, &quot; I come now to his 



