INTRODUCTION.

I. RAWLEY'S LIFE OF BACON.1

FRANCIS BACON, the glory of his age and nation, the adorner and ornament of learning, was born in York House, or York Place, in the Strand, on the 22d day of January in the year of our Lord 1560. His father was that famous counselor to Queen Elizabeth, the second prop of the kingdom in his time, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, a lord of known prudence, sufficiency, moderation, and integrity. His mother was Ann Cook, one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, unto whom the erudition of King Edward the Sixth had been committed; a choice lady, and eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, being exquisitely skilled, for a woman, in the Greek and Latin tongues. These being the parents, you may easily imagine what the issue was like to be; having had whatsoever nature or breeding could put into him.

His first and childish years were not without some mark of eminency; at which time he was endued with that pregnancy and towardness of wit as they were presages of that deep and universal apprehension which was manifest in him afterward, and caused him to be taken

1 First published in 1657, and afterwards, with slight additions, in 1661. The text is here modernized in spelling, punctuation, and the writing out of numbers; otherwise it follows the edition of 1657, only inserting in their proper places the three new sentences added in 1661. The reprint in Spedding, Ellis, and Heath's edition of Bacon's Works (1. 3-18) is not quite exact.

notice of by several persons of worth and place, and especially by the Queen; who (as I have been informed) delighted much then to confer with him, and to 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 discretion, 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.

At the ordinary years of ripeness for the university, or rather something earlier, he was sent by his father to Trinity College in Cambridge, to be educated and bred under the tuition of Doctor John Whitgift, 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 sixteen1 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 worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ever ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a philosophy (as his lordship used to say) only strong for disputations 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 mold 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; by whom he was after a while held fit to be

1 The original has 16, and so in similar cases.

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, having collected (as I have heard of knowing persons) a considerable sum of money, which he had separated, with intention to have made a competent purchase of land for the livelihood of this his youngest son (who was only unprovided for; and though he was the youngest in years, yet he was not the lowest in his father's affection); but the said purchase being unaccomplished at his father's death, there came no greater share to him than his single part and portion of the money dividable amongst five brethren; by which means he lived in some straits and necessities in his younger years. For as for that pleasant site and manor of Gorhambury, he came not to it till many years after, by the death of his dearest brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a gentleman equal to him in height of wit, though inferior to him in the endowments of learning and knowledge; unto whom he was most nearly conjoined in affection, they two being the sole male issue of a second venter.

Being returned from travel, he applied himself to the study of the common law, which he took upon him to be his profession; in which he obtained to great excellency, though he made that (as himself said) but as an accessary, and not as his principal study. He wrote several tractates upon that subject, wherein, though some great masters of the law did outgo him in bulk, and particularities of cases, yet in the science of the grounds and mysteries of the law he was exceeded by none. In this way he was after a while sworn of the Queen's Counsel Learned Extraordinary—a grace (if I err not) scarce known before. He seated himself, for the commodity of his studies and practice, amongst the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, of

which house he was a member; where he erected that elegant pile or structure commonly known by the name of the Lord Bacon's Lodgings, which he inhabited by turns the most part of his life (some few years only excepted) unto his dying day. In which house he carried himself with such sweetness, comity, and generosity, that he was much revered and beloved by the readers and gentlemen of the house.

Notwithstanding that he professed the law for his livelihood and subsistence, yet his heart and affection was more carried after the affairs and places of estate; for which, if the Majesty Royal then had been pleased, he was most fit. In his younger years he studied the service and fortunes (as they call them) of that noble but unfortunate earl, the Earl of Essex; unto whom he was, in a sort, a private and free counselor, and gave him safe and honorable advice, till in the end the earl inclined too much to the violent and precipitate counsel of others, his adherents and followers; which was his fate and ruin.

His birth and other capacities qualified him above others of his profession to have ordinary accesses at court, and to come frequently into the Queen's eye, who would often grace him with private and free communication, not only about matters of his profession or business in law, but also about the arduous affairs of estate; from whom she received from time to time great satisfaction. Nevertheless, though she cheered him much with the bounty of her countenance, yet she never cheered him with the bounty of her hand, having never conferred upon him any ordinary place or means of honor or profit, save only one dry reversion of the Register's Office in the Star Chamber, worth about 1600l. per annum, for which he waited in expectation either fully or near twenty years; of which his lordship would say in Queen Elizabeth's

time, That it was like another man's ground buttaling upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn; (nevertheless, in the time of King James it fell unto him); which might be imputed, not so much to Her Majesty's averseness or disaffection towards him as to the arts and policy of a great statesman then, who labored by all industrious and secret means to suppress and keep him down, lest, if he had risen, he might have obscured his glory.

But though he stood long at a stay in the days of his mistress Queen Elizabeth, yet after the change, and coming in of his new master King James, he made a great progress; by whom he was much comforted in places of trust, honor, and revenue. I have seen a letter of his lordship's to King James, wherein he makes acknowledgment That he was that master to him that had raised and advanced him nine times; thrice in dignity, and six times in office. His offices (as I conceive) were Counsel Learned Extraordinary to His Majesty, as he had been to Queen Elizabeth; King's Solicitor-General; His Majesty's Attorney-General; Counselor of Estate, being yet but Attorney; Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England; lastly, Lord Chancellor; which two last places, though they be the same in authority and power, yet they differ in patent, height, and favor of the prince; since whose time none of his successors, until this present honorable lord, did ever bear the title of Lord Chancellor. His dignities were first Knight; then Baron of Verulam; lastly, Viscount Saint Alban; besides other good gifts and bounties of the hand, which His Majesty gave him, both out of the Broad Seal and out of the Alienation Office, to the value in both of eighteen hundred pounds per annum; which, with his manor of Gorhambury, and other lands and possessions near thereunto adjoining, amounting to a third part more, he retained to his dying day.