~.t. u. AW LEY'S LIFE OF BACON. 



prove him with questions; unto whom he delivered himself 

 with that gravity and maturity above his years, that Her Majesty 

 would often term him, The young Lord-keeper. Being asked 

 by the queen how old he was, he answered with much discre- 

 tion, being then but a boy, That he was two years younger than 

 Her Majesty's happy reign ; with which answer the queen was 

 much taken. 1 



At the ordinary years of ripeness tor the university, or rather 

 something earlier, he was sent by his father to Trinity College, 

 in Cambridge 2 , to be educated and bred under the tuition of 

 Doctor John White-gift, then master of the college ; afterwards 

 the renowned archbishop of Canterbury ; a prelate of the first 

 magnitude for sanctity, learning, patience, and humility ; under 

 whom he was observed to have been more than an ordinary 

 proficient in the several arts and sciences. Whilst he was 

 commorant in the university, about sixteen years of age, (as 

 his lordship hath been pleased to impart unto myself), he first 

 fell into the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle; not for the 

 wort hlessn ess of the author, to whom he w r ould ever ascribe all 

 high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way ; being a 

 philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputa- 

 tions and contentions, but barren of the production of works 

 for the benefit of the life of man ; in which mind he continued 

 to his dying day. 



After he had passed the circle of the liberal arts, his father 

 thought fit to frame and mould him for the arts of state ; and 

 for that end sent him over into France with Sir Amyas Paulet 

 then employed ambassador lieger into France 3 ; by whom he 

 was after awhile held fit to be entrusted with some message or 

 advertisement to the queen ; which having performed with 

 great approbation, he returned back into France again, with 

 intention to continue for some years there. In his absence in 

 France his father the lord-keeper died 4 , having collected (as I 



1 This last sentence was added in the edition of 1661. The substance of it had 

 appeared before in the Latin Life prefixed to the Opuscula Philosophica in 1658, which 

 is only a free translation of this, with a few corrections. 



z He began to reside in April 1573; was absent from the latter end of August 

 1574 till the beginning of March, while the plague raged; and left the university 

 finally at Christmas 1575, being then on the point of sixteen. See Whitgift's ac- 

 counts, printed in the British Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 365., and xxxiii. p. 444. 



3 Sir Amyas landed at Calais on the 25th of September 1576, and succeeded Dr. 

 Dale as ambassador in France in the following February. See Burghley's Diary, 

 Murdin, pp. 778, 779. 



* In February 1578-9. 



