202 BACON of his collegiate course his father sent him to Paris, under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador at that court, by whom he was shortly after intrusted with a mission to the queen. He then travelled in the French prov- j inces, spending some time at Poitiers, where he , prepared a work upon ciphers, and also one upon the state of Europe ; but his father dying (1579) while he was engaged upon them, he instantly returned to England. He applied for an office, which he failed to get, when he en- tered as a student of law in Gray's Inn (1580). On June 27, 1582, he was called to the bar; in 1586 he was made a bencher, and in 1590, when he was but 28, counsel extraordinary to the queen " a grace," says his biographer Raw- j ley, "scarce known before." At that time the j court was divided into two parties, of which ( one was headed by the two Cecils, and the : other by the earl of Leicester, and afterward j by his son-in-law, the earl of Essex. Bacon was allied to the Cecils, being a nephew of Lord Burleigh, and first cousin to Sir Robert Cecil, the principal secretary of state ; and yet his affections lay with Essex. His advance- ment, however, did not correspond either with his abilities or his connections. The Cecils rep- resented him as rather a speculative man, not fitted for business. After renewed solicitations they procured for him the reversion of the re- gistrar of the star chamber, with about 1,600 a year, but he did not come into possession of it for 20 years. In 1593 he was returned to par- liament as a knight of Middlesex. His first speech there was delivered in favor of his plan for the improvement of the law ; another speech related to the postponement of certain subsi- ; dies which created popular discontent, where- by he provoked the anger of the queen ; and being remonstrated with, he replied that he "spoke in discharge of his conscience and duty to God, to the queen, and to his country " a noble reply, which he did not himself always in after life remember. Ben Jonson compli- ments his parliamentary eloquence highly, al- leging that "no man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered ; no member of his speech but consisted of its own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss ; he commanded when he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his devotion. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." In the spring of 1594 the solicitorship became vacant, by the promotion of Sir Ed- ward Coke to the office of attorney general, and Bacon applied for it, strenuously backed by Essex ; but he did not succeed, the superior influence of the Cecils being against him. Es- sex, however, as some compensation for his dis- appointment, made him a present of Twicken- ham court, worth about 1,800, and so beauti- ful that Bacon called it the garden of paradise. It is worthy of remark that Elizabeth rejected the official claims of Bacon on the ground that although he was a man of wit and learning, lie was yet "not very deep." During this year Bacon published his first political tract, en- titled "A Declaration of the Causes of the Great Troubles," a vindication of the course of England in respect to continental policy. Three years later (1597) he issued a small 12mo called " Essays, Religious Meditations, and a Table of the Colors of Good and Evil." It con- tained but 10 essays in all, of which he says that he hopes they will be "like the late new halfpence, which, though the pieces are small, the silver is good." Abounding in condensed and practical thought, expressed with much simplicity, and without much imagery, they yet evinced a mind of wonderful sagacity and comprehensive reach. They were translated almost immediately into French, Italian, and Latin, and have proved, as subsequently aug- mented both in number and length, the most popular of his writings. Dugald Stewart has properly remarked of the book that "it may he read from beginning to end in a few hours, and yet, after the twentieth reading, one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before." Dr. Whately published in 1857 a new edition, with an excellent introduction and many valu- able notes. By Bacon's contemporaries it was gratefully received. Bacon's pecuniary affairs at this time were in a wretched state ; in order to retrieve them he twice tried to form lucra- tive matrimonial connections ; but these plans also miscarried, and he was twice arrested for debt. Early in 1599 a large body of the Irish, denied the protection of the laws, and hunted like wild beasts by an insolent soldiery, fled the neighborhood of cities, sheltered themselves in their marshes and forests, and grew every day more intractable and dangerous. It became necessary to subdue them, and Essex was ap- pointed lord lieutenant of Ireland; but his conduct in his office was so rash and haughty that Bacon, after vainly remonstrating with him, was at length compelled to turn against him. By this means he lost the aid of that powerful noble, without making either very many or very sincere friends on the other side. His conduct in respect to Essex, who was tried and condemned for his offences in the year 1600, exposed Bacon to the charge of ingrati- tude and double-faced friendship ; and though Mr. Basil Montagu, in his life of Bacon, labored hard, and to some degree justly, to acquit him of the obloquy with which he was then visited, he has scarcely escaped all blame in the judg- ment of posterity. Bacon not only appeared in the court against the man who had been his benefactor and friend, but, in pursuit of the good will of the queen, he used all his skill as a lawyer to heighten the guilt of his crime. He did not, however, gain much from his fidel- | ity to this sovereign, who either did not discern or wilfully neglected his merits. On the acces- sion of James in 1603 he had everything to expect from the disposition of that monarch, who was a lover of letters, and desired to di-
