followed by others concerning the Church of England, and with the view of harmonizing its discordant elements, consisting, as in the days of Defoe, of the Church party, the Nonconformists, and the Catholics. In 1589 he prepared an important paper of this kind, when the High Church party and the Nonconformists, now beginning to be called Puritans, were in much heat. Though of Puritan stock, still no merely sectarian mould could compass him.

The first reformers had left room for such variety of opinion as time was likely to breed. But their successors inherited not their policy and chose not to tolerate further reform, and so in the perilous times of 1584 a struggle arose between the bishops and the Nonconformists, wherein Elizabeth, through fear or otherwise, decided against the Puritan element. Commissioners appointed by the crown chose now to silence and remove such ministers as they approved not, and thus a check was put upon the free interpretation of the Word. Concerning this step by Elizabeth, Mr. Spedding says: "I doubt whether there has been a more important crisis in English history, or whether the queen ever made a greater mistake than in choosing this moment to stop the tide and put' herself in direct opposition to this party. She succeeded indeed; she carried her point and stood her ground dur ing her own life; but it was at the expense of creating a division among the Protestant party, which ended in the overthrow of the monarchy itself for a time, and in making the existence of a national English Church, in any true sense of the word national, an impossibility to this day. The Church of England emerged from the storm with the name and legal rights and temporal attractions, but without the moral and spiritual authority of a national church, to be thenceforward only one of many Protestant sects into which the English people are divided." (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., p. 39.)

Bacon's mother longed to see this step averted, and sought a personal interview with the crown adviser, Burghley, for the purpose. See her able letter to him upon the subject and the full chapter in which it occurs. (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 40-42.)

rarely published. They were what would now be called magazine articles.

The court of Elizabeth was divided into two parties, the Cecils-Lord Burghley and his son Robert-being at the head of the one party, and party in power; and the Earl of Leicester and later the Earl of Essex of the other. Bacon through friendship became allied to Essex, who upon Leicester's death, in 1588, became chief favorite of the queen. Though Essex at first seemed generous and noble, he still possessed elements that grew increasingly discordant. In 1591 we find Bacon acting as his confidential adviser, their acquaintance beginning, it is said, in the early part of this year. Upon the return of Bacon's brother Anthony from abroad, the following year, they both exerted themselves in his interest. Concerning their employment Mr. Spedding says: "In both these countries Essex had correspondents, in his intercourse with whom Anthony Bacon appears to have served him in a capacity very like that of a modern under secretary of state; receiving all letters, which were mostly in cipher, in the first instance; forwarding them generally through his brother Francis's hands to the earl, deciphered and accompanied with their joint suggestions; and finally, according to the instructions thereupon returned, framing and despatching the answers.'

Essex had been in France during the latter half of 1591 as commander of the forces sent to assist Henry the Fourth of France, and the acquaintance, it is said, cannot be dated later than the preceding July. Bacon was still at Gray's Inn.

Though there was at court at this period much pedantry and a kind of grave learning, still that of the lighter sort was looked upon by the Burghley party with coldness, while philosophy, concerning which Bacon was now reminding himself of his unhappy slowness, was viewed with positive suspicion. At about this juncture, and in 1592, it was that Bacon, desirous of escape from his profession, by procuring some appointment at court that should yield him support and at the same time leisure for literary work, that his noted letter to Lord Burghley, set out in our introduction to this work, was written. Following this letter he received the right to the reversion of the registership of the Star Chamber. But as this did not fall into possession for some twenty years, it was of no immediate value to him. We think this matter is

alluded to in The Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i., p.

208.

As one of the knights from Middlesex, he sat in the Parliament which met February 19th, 1592, and chiefly for consultation and preparations against further Spanish designs upon England. Early in the session, and on March 7th, he made a speech which, we think, had much influence in curbing his freedom of action upon political issues. It displeased the queen, and he was made very uncomfortable by reason of it. Though he favored the subsidies for the present necessities of the government, he opposed the shortness of the time in which they were to be raised. He likewise raised a question of privilege, insisting that the Lords had no rights in the deliberations of the Commons on questions of supply, as such questions. were exclusively with them; and Burghley and the queen were compelled to shift the position which they had taken in the matter. (Bacon's Letters, vol. i., pp. 208-42.)

He was at once charged with seeking popularity, and for a time he was excluded from court, and was even forbidden to enter the queen's presence. To the Cecils, through whom the queen's displeasure was communicated to him, he, among other things, though not apologizing, said "he spoke in discharge of his conscience and duty to God, to the queen, and to his country." Afterwards in a letter upon the subject to the lord keeper, Sir John Puckering, he says:

"MY LORD: It is a great grief unto me, joined with marvel, that her majesty should retain a hard conceit of my speeches in Parliament. It might please her sacred majesty to think what my end should be in those speeches, if it were not duty, and duty alone. I am not so simple but I know the common beaten way to please. And whereas popularity hath been objected, I muse what care I should take to please many, that take a course of life to deal with few. On the other side, her majesty's grace and particular favour towards me hath been such, as I esteem no worldly thing above the comfort to enjoy it, except it be the conscience to deserve it. But, if the not seconding of some particular person's opinion shall be presumption, and to differ upon the manner shall be to impeach the end, it shall teach me devotion not to exceed wishes, and those in silence. Yet notwithstanding (to

speak vainly as in grief), it may be her majesty hath discouraged as good a heart as ever looked towards her service, and as void of self-love. And so, in more grief than I can well express, and much more than I can well dissemble, I leave your lordship, being as ever, your lordship's entirely devoted, etc." (Works, vol. iii., p. 91.)

Could he now but have realized, as fully as he was ultimately compelled to do, the difficulties of uniting in one and the same person the incongruous character of the politic courtier with that of the sincere philosopher, it had been better. But his refined tastes unfitted him for the common walks of life, to say nothing as to his great felt mission; and his means were such as poorly to yield him leisure.

In a still earlier speech, and on February 25th, he presented the ever-important question to him touching improvement of the laws, and which after his method was to be in their very roots and foundations. He continued ever interested in this subject, and late in life prepared a plan for the renovation and digest of the whole body of English law, and particularly as to that branch which is penal in its nature. He likewise composed a tract upon universal justice. The next year, 1593, the office of attorney-general fell vacant, and Bacon earnestly sought the place. His insolent and galsome rival, Sir Edward Coke, was likewise an aspirant. Essex, of whom Bacon was for a time the ballast and intellectual right arm, became this year a member of the Privy Council, and now in his pompous and showy way undertook to forward Bacon's claims with the queen. To the Cecils Bacon also applied himself. After much shifting, Coke in April, 1594, received the appointment. Bacon felt not only deeply wounded, but disgraced. Coke's promotion, however, left vacant the solicitor's place, and Bacon's debts pressing now somewhat heavily, he made trial for it. Again Essex pretended assistance, but after a tedious. and protracted effort Mr. Sargent Fleming received the appointment, November 5th, 1595, and Bacon, among other things, writes to Essex: "For means, I value that most; and the rather because I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law (if her Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service): and

my reason is only, because it drinketh too much time,1 which I have dedicated to better purposes.'

Though not idle, still this great delay, anxiety, and disappointment threw Bacon into much mortification and gloom. He began to lose confidence in Essex's ability either as a leader or to in any way do him good. For once he lost his patience, and seemed disgusted with all concerned. Did he begin to indulge a suspicion that Essex thought his time, talent, and friendship more important to him-Essex-than if encumbered by public employment? He in a letter to Essex, in 1593, concerning his services and while trying for the attorney's place, says: "MY LORD: I did almost conjecture, by your silence and countenance, a distaste in the course I imparted to your lordship touching mine own fortune; the care whereof in your lordship as it is no news to me, so, nevertheless, the main effects and demonstrations past are so far from dulling in me the sense of any new, as, contrariwise, every new refresheth the memory of many past. And for the free and loving advice your lordship hath given me, I cannot correspond to the same with greater duty, than by assuring your lordship, that I will not dispose of myself without your allowance, not only because it is the best wisdom in any man in his own matters, to rest in the wisdom of a friend, (for who can by often looking in a glass discern and judge so well of his own favour as another with whom he converseth ?) but also because my affection to your lordship hath made mine own contentment inseparable from your satisfaction. But notwithstanding, I know it will be pleasing to your good lordship that I use my liberty of replying; and I do almost assure myself, that your lordship will rest persuaded by the answer of those reasons which your lordship vouchsafed to open. They were two, the one that I should include.

April, 1593. The rest of the letter is wanting. (Works, vol. iii., p. 200.)

That he became suspicious in these matters may be seen by his letter to his friend Faulk Grevil the following year.

He says:

1 In King Richard II., Act v., sc. 2, p. 125, we have:

64

Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?"

Note throughout these writings, and particularly in the plays, the emphasis placed upon the subject of time.