Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/43

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INTRODUCTION

(note the words, for they cannot be her own). We parted in kindness secundum exterius." Essex never had any real political power, and by his impetuousness and lack of judgment, what Bacon called his "fatal impatience," he really injured Bacon more than he helped him. He was conscious of this himself, for he wrote to his friend,—"The Queen was not passionate against you, until she found I was passionate for you." She passed over Bacon a second time, and appointed the Recorder of London, Thomas Fleming, Solicitor-General, November 5, 1595. Bacon's letter, just quoted, shows that he attributed his failure, not to Essex, but to Sir Robert Cecil. Many years later, upon sending to the Duke of Buckingham the patent creating him a viscount, he wrote,—"In the time of the Cecils, the father and son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed."

Bacon retired to Essex's villa at Twickenham, whence he wrote to Fulke Greville,—"I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if Her Majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child is after it again, and so in infinitum, I am weary of it."

Attendance upon Court was an expensive way of life, and both Anthony and Francis Bacon lived beyond their means. "I am sorry," Lady Anne Bacon wrote to Anthony, "your brother and you charge yourselves with superfluous horses. The

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