SPECIAL INTRODUCTION v 



ing these years of worldly ambitions and disappointments, 

 Bacon seems to have constantly cherished the hope of carrying 

 out the great purpose, which he had formed in his youth, of 

 renewing science by pointing out to it its true mission and its 

 only fruitful method. 



In a letter containing an earnest appeal for aid to his uncle, 

 Lord Burleigh, written when he was thirty-one years of age, we 

 find this passage : " I confess that I have as vast intellectual 

 ends as I have moderate civil ends ; for I have taken all knowl- 

 edge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two sort of 

 rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confuta- 

 tions, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and au- 

 ricular traditions and impostures hath committed so many 

 spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, 

 grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discov- 

 eries: the best state of the province. This, whether it be 

 curiosity or vain-glory, or nature, or (if one take it favorably) 

 philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed." 



At length, in 1595, Bacon was made a Queen's Counsel, and 

 employed in government business. It was in this capacity 

 that he was called upon to take part in the prosecution of his 

 former benefactor, the rash and unfortunate Essex. For his 

 action in connection with this trial, Bacon has been severely 

 criticised. A careful study of the facts, however, seems to 

 show that so long as Bacon believed that Essex had been guilty 

 only of folly and imprudence, he used all his influence in his be- 

 half. When, on the other hand, it became plain that his friend 

 had been guilty of treason, he simply did his duty as an officer 

 of the Crown, extenuating nothing, nor setting aught down in 

 malice. 



It was not until several years after James I came to the 

 throne of England that Bacon received the recognition which 

 his great talents merited. The part he had played in the trial of 

 Essex ( who had been a strong champion of the Scottish succes- 

 sion) made him unpopular with that monarch. But in 1607, 

 his good fortune began by his appointment as Solicitor-Gen- 

 eral, and was followed by his being made Attorney-General in 

 1613. In 1617, he was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal, and 

 in 1619 he was made Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron 

 Verulam. In the year following, he was created Viscount St. 

 Albans. But his fall was at hand. In the same year in which 



