Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 Part 36

[7] See _Letters and Life_, iv. 177, vi. 38, vii. 116, 117.

[8] In October 1608 he became treasurer of Gray's Inn. The tercentenary was celebrated in 1908.

[9] _Letters and Life_, iv. 380.

[10] _Ibid._ iv. 365-373.

[11] _Ibid._ iv. 375-378.

[12] _Ibid._ v. 81-83.

[13] Not to be confounded with any of those of the same name who held the t.i.tle of Baron St John of Bletsho (see _Dict. of Nat. Biog._ vol. 1. p. 150 _ad fin._).

[14] _Circa_ 1554-1616; educated at Cambridge; ordained priest 1581; vicar of Ridge, Herts, 1581; rector of Hinton St George, Somerset, 1587; eventually condemned to death at the Taunton a.s.sizes (7th August 1615). The sentence was not carried out, and Peacham is said to have died in gaol (March 1616). See Gardiner's _Hist. of England_, ii. 272-283; _State Trials_, ii. 869; _Calendar of State Papers_ (1603-1606); Hallam's _Const.i.tutional Hist._ i. 343; T. P. Taswell-Langmead, _English Const.i.tutional History_ (5th ed., 1896), p. 425. Nearly all works on const.i.tutional law and history discuss the case.

[15] _Letters and Life_, v. 101

[16] Ibid. v. 121, _n_.

[17] _Ibid_. v. 124.

[18] Macaulay's _Essay_.

[19] Campbell, _Lives_, ii. 344.

[20] The mysterious crimes supposed to be concealed under the obscure details of this case have cast a shadow of vague suspicion on all who were concerned in it. The minute examination of the facts by Spedding (_Letters and Life_, v. 208-347) seems to show that these secret crimes exist nowhere but in the heated imaginations of romantic biographers and historians.

[21] A somewhat similar case is that of the writ _De Rege inconsulto_ brought forward by Bacon. See _Letters and Life_, v. 233-236.

[22] _Ibid_. vi. 6, 7, 13-26, 27-56.

[23] Ibid. vi. 33.

[24] A position which Bacon in some respects approved. See _Essays_, "Of Ambition." "It is counted by some a weakness in princes to have favourites; but it is of all others the best remedy against ambitious great ones; for when the way of pleasuring and displeasuring lieth by the favourite, it is impossible any other should be over great."

[25] _Letters and Life_, vi. 278, 294-296, 313.

[26] _Ibid_. vii. 579-588, a.n.a.lysis of the case by D. D. Heath, who expresses a strong opinion against Bacon's action in the matter.

[27] _Ibid_. vi. 444.

[28] For a full discussion of Bacon's connexion with the monopolies, see Gardiner, _Prince Charles_, &c. ii. 355-373. For his opinion of monopolies in general, see _Letters and Life_, vi. 49.

[29] _Letters and Life_, vii. 213: "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, specially in a time when greatness is the mark and accusation is the game."

[30] _Ibid._ vii. 215-216.

[31] _Ibid._ vii. 225-226. From the letter to the king (March 25, 1621)--"When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is comen upon me. I have been (as your majesty knoweth best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things carried _suavibus modis_. I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty or intolerable or hateful man in my conversation or carriage. I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should this be? For these are the things that use to raise dislikes abroad.... And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice, howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuse of the times."

[32] _Ibid._ vii. 227, and Gardiner, _Prince Charles_, &c. i. 450.

[33] _Letters and Life_, vii. 236, 238.

[34] _Ibid._ vii. 241.

[35] _Ibid._ vii. 242-244; "It resteth therefore that, without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge, that having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lords.h.i.+ps to condemn and censure me."

[36] _Ibid._ vii. 252-262.

[37] _Ibid._ vii. 261.

[38] _Ibid._ vii. 270.

[39] _Letters and Life_, vii. 235-236: "The first, of bargain and contract for reward to pervert justice, _pendente lite_. The second, where the judge conceives the cause to be at an end, by the information of the party or otherwise, and useth not such diligence as he ought to inquire of it. And the third, where the cause is really ended, and it is _sine fraude_ without relation to any precedent promise.... For the first of them I take myself to be as innocent as any born upon St Innocent's Day, in my heart. For the second, I doubt on some particulars I may be faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault, but therein I desire to be better informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for the fact and again for the error."

[40] _Ibid._ vii. 242.

[41] _Ibid._ vii. 244: "Neither will your lords.h.i.+ps forget that there are _vitia temporis_ as well as _vitia hominis_, and that the beginning of reformations hath the contrary power to the pool of Bethesda, for that had strength to cure only him that was first cast in, and this hath commonly strength to hurt him only that is first cast in."

[42] See, among many other pa.s.sages, _Essays_, "Of Great Place ": "For corruptions do not only bind thine own hands or thy servant's hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering; for integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault but the suspicion."

[43] Cf. _Letters and Life_, vii. 560: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years."

[44] Or on the ground that there was a distinct rule forbidding chancellors and the like officials to take presents. This does not seem to have been the case, if we may judge from what Bacon says _Letters and Life_, vii.

233.

[45] Not only do the cases, so far as they are known, support Bacon's plea of innocence, but it is remarkable that no attempt at a reversal of any of his numerous decrees appears to have been successful. Had his decrees been wilful perversions of justice, it is scarcely conceivable that some of them should not have been overturned. See _Letters and Life_, vii. 555-562.

[46] The peculiarities of Bacon's style were noticed very early by his contemporaries. (See _Letters and Life_, i. 268.) Raleigh and Jonson have both recorded their opinions of it, but no one has characterized it more happily than his friend, Sir Tobie Matthews, "A man so rare in knowledge, of so many several kinds, endued with the facility and felicity of expressing it all in so elegant, significant, so abundant, and yet so choice and ravis.h.i.+ng a way of words, of metaphors, of allusions, as perhaps the world hath not seen since it was a world."--"Address to the Reader"

prefixed to _Collection of English Letters_ (1660).

[47] The division of the sciences adopted in the great French _Encyclopedie_ was founded upon this cla.s.sification of Bacon's. See Diderot's _Prospectus (Oeuvres_, iii.) and d'Alembert's _Discours (Oeuvres_, i.) The scheme should be compared with later attempts of the same nature by Ampere, Cournot, Comte and Herbert Spencer.

[48] See also "Letter to Fulgentio," _Letters and Life_, vii. 533.

[49] _Fil. Lab._; _Cog. et Visa._ i.; cf. Pref. to _Ins. Mag._

[50] _Val. Ter._ 232; cf. _N. O._ i. 124.

[51] _Letters_, i. 123.

[52] _N. O._ i. 116.

[53] _Fil. Lab._ 5; cf. _N. O._ i. 81; _Val. Ter._ (_Works_, iii. 235); _Advancement_, bk. i. (_Works_, iii. 294).

[54] _Fil. Lab._ 5; cf. _N. O._ i. 81; _Val. Ter._ (_Works_, iii. 222-233); _New Atlantis (Works_, iii. 156).

[55] _N. O._ i. 116.