MR SPEDDING, in the modest form of a commentary on the letters and occasional writings of Lord Bacon, is now giving us a biography of that celebrated man, which bids fair, for a long time to come, to be our highest authority on the subject. To place all the facts before us on which our judgment of the character of Lord Bacon should be formed, is his great object; he deals in few assertions of his own; he is disposed to let facts speak for themselves; he guides our opinion by a full narrative of the events, and makes few attempts to influence us by argument or eloquence. A more satisfactory or trustworthy book has rarely come before us.

We will not say that Mr Spedding's narrative is never coloured by an imagination which has received its unconscious prompting from his admiration of Bacon: one rather amusing instance of this colouring of the imagination we think we have detected, and shall have occasion to notice; but no admiring biographer of a great man has more studiously refrained from thrusting forward his own opinions or conceptions where the reader is merely desirous of obtaining a clear insight into the facts themselves. Mr Spedding has not yet completed his task, but he has given us in these two volumes more materials of interest than in the space of a single paper we shall have room to touch upon, and the main topic which occupies them is fully discussed and finally dismissed.

That topic is the relation between Bacon and Essex. Of the splendid Essay of Lord Macaulay's, which is still ringing in the ears of most English readers, no part was written with more force, or was more damaging to the character of Bacon, than that which treated of

his conduct to the Earl of Essex. Many who could have forgiven the peccant Chancellor for being too ready to accept whatever was offered to him in the shape of present or gratuity, could not pardon the cold-blooded and faithless friend. Now it is precisely on this subject that Mr Spedding presents us with materials for forming a very different judgment from that which the eloquent pages of Macaulay had betrayed us into. Up to the period when Essex disappears from the scene, these two volumes give us their clear guidance. Of that guidance we very gladly avail ourselves.

We would premise that it is not our purpose, or endeavour, to defend Bacon at all points-to robe our Chancellor in spotless ermine; neither do we think that the result of renewed investigation is a clear verdict of "Not Guilty" on all the charges that have been brought against him.

There is much in Macaulay's estimate both of the character and the philosophy of Bacon with which we cordially agree. It happens frequently with great historic names that there is an oscillation of public opinion; the too harsh verdict of one writer, or one age, is followed by a verdict as much too lenient. Such oscillation seems to have lately taken place with regard to Bacon, and the disposition is at present to find nothing blameworthy in him. This disposition we do not share. We think that no good is done, but rather harm, when enthusiasm for the brilliant achievements of any man, whether in a career of war, or statesmanship, or letters, induces us to shut our eyes to his moral defects. For in these cases we do not, and cannot, exactly shut our eyes: we do something worse; we

try to see that vices are not vices. We lower our standard, that we may pass no unfavourable judgment. It is an ill lesson that teaches us to forgive the overbearing despotism of a great soldier or great minister, or the rascality of a great wit; to see no injustice in a Napoleon, and no villany in a Sheridan. We believe that the censure of Lord Macaulay is too severe, but it is censure and not praise which the character of Bacon provokes. We all know that the fervid eloquence, or rather the ardent temperament, of our more than English Livy, led him into manifest exaggerations; but in general, we should say that his drawing is true to nature, except that it had this too swelling outline. His exaggerations were like those of Michael Angelo, who drew muscles disproportionately large, but who never drew a muscle where none existed. A sterling good sense presided over the verdicts of Macaulay-over the yes or no; but the verdict once determined, the impassioned orator ran the risk of falsifying it by the ruthless, unmitigated energy with which it was delivered.

We should not say of Bacon either that he was the "greatest" or the "meanest" of mankind. But as certainly as he was great in his intellectual attributes, so certainly was he not great in his moral character. Here he lacked elevation.

He could tolerate artifice, and dissimulation, and gross flattery. If the crime of Essex justified him, as we are inclined to think it did, in breaking entirely with that nobleman, and treating him as an enemy to the State, what are we to say of the strain of advice which he habitually gives to Essex while the two are yet in perfect amity? A mere personal ambition, to be obtained by the petty arts of the courtier, is all that he prompts his friend to aspire after. Win the Queen-honestly, if possible; but, at all events, win the Queen! This is the burden of his counsel. Bacon was great in his intellectual specu

lations; he was mean in the conduct of life. The antithesis still remains to us in a modified form. All his life is a continual suing for place; and what he obtained by flattery and subservience, he lost by some poor cupidity.

Bacon was a philosopher from his youth, but from his youth to his old age he was also a lover of social distinctions, and of a sumptuous mode of life. If he had the desire to take all human knowledge for his province, and to extend his name and his good influence into future ages, if he desired to be a reformer even of philosophy itself, he had also other desires of a much more commonplace description; not evil in themselves-good perhaps in themselves - but not subordinated to the high morality which might have been expected from one so wise. But if in his rise to power he showed too much servility-if, when in the seat of power, he showed too much cupidity,-surely no one ever fell from greatness, no one was ever struck down from the seat of power, for so slight a measure of criminality. No historic personage can be mentioned amongst us, on whom so severe a punishment, so deep a disgrace, was inflicted for a fault so little heinous.

The first great error which Bacon committed, the consequence of which pursued him all his life, was the running into debt. It was a life-long fault. It was his fault, not his misfortune. He received less, we know, from his father than he might reasonably have expected, less than his brothers had received, but no biographer has ventured to call him poor-so poor that he could not have held his ground as a student of the law without incurring debt. Whether it was mere carelessness and imprudence, or a wilful spending "according to his hopes, not his possessions," we find him very early in debt; and as years advance we find the debts, of course, more and more onerous. No one knew better than Bacon that he

who owes has to borrow, and that he who borrows will have, in some form, to beg, to sue-will be tempted to sordid actions-will lose his independence, his upright attitude amongst men. There is no greater slavery than debt. It bred in Bacon that "itching palm," and that perpetual suing, which disgrace

his career.

He begins to sue from his very first entry into life. He puts his trust in the Lord Treasurer. And what is remarkable, the very nature of the first suit he makes is unknown. It was some office, not of a legal character, as we should conjecture. Writing to Walsingham about it, he says that the delay in answering it "hinders me from taking a course of practice which, by the leave of God, if her Majesty like not of my suit, I must and will follow not for any necessity of estate, but for my credit sake, which I know by living out of action will wear." At this date, 25th August 1585, he does not plead absolute inability to live on his private fortune. Subsequently, when his debts have increased, he writes upon this subject in a very different strain. He is embarrassed by usurers; he is arrested; debt comes upon him, as he says, like an armed

man.

Of the earliest years of Bacon few memorials remain. But Mr Spedding brings together two conspicuous facts. The first is, that Bacon, at the age of fifteen, conceives his project of a reformation in philosophy; and the second is, that immediately on leaving college he accompanies Sir Amias Paulet on his embassy to France. Thus philosophy and diplomacy, speculation and state-craft, study and the world, take at once joint possession of Francis Bacon.

Of the first of these facts, and the most important in his life, Mr Spedding speaks in a passage of much eloquence, glowing and chastened withal:

"That the thought first occurred to him during his residence at Cambridge,

therefore before he had completed his fifteenth year, we know upon the best authority his own statement to Dr Rawley. I believe it ought to be regarded as the most important event of his life-the event which had a greater influence than any other upon his character and future course. From that moment there was awakened within his

breast the appetite which cannot be satiated, and the passion which cannot commit excess. From that moment he had a vocation which employed and stimulated all the energies of his mind, gave a value to every vacant interval of time, an interest and significance to every random thought and casual accession of knowledge-an object to live for as wide as humanity, as immortal as the human race-an idea to live in vast and lofty enough to fill the soul for ever with religious and heroic aspirations. From that moment, though still subject to interruptions, disappointments, errors, and regrets, he could never be without either work or hope or consolation."

But this young philosopher is son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the late Lord Chancellor; the Queen has laid her hand upon his head while yet a boy, and called him her young Lord Keeper; he is nephew to the Prime Minister; he dreams of courts, of place, of power. He must unite his lofty speculations with the great affairs of State; he must survey human knowledge from the high places of society. enters Gray's Inn, is a student of the law, and his heart aches after office and promotion.

He

There is one person very intimately connected with Bacon, whom Mr Spedding has brought before us with a novel distinctness-his mother, Lady Bacon. We are not aware that her presence will throw much light on the character of her son, but henceforth, we are sure, no biography of the son will be written in which this lady will not be a conspicuous figure. She is one of those strongly - marked characters that always please the imagination; dogmatic, perverse, full of maternal anxiety, pious and splenetic, with marvellous shrewd sense and a very ungovernable temper. The knowledge of her character would enable us to answer one question.

Presuming that any one should think fit to ask why Bacon did not seek the retirement of Gorhambury, the answer is quite ready. There would have been no peace for him under the roof of his lady mother. Puritan and termagant, his philosophy would have been "suspect" to her; and his retirement would have been certainly denounced as unpardonable sloth. She is a learned lady, mingles scraps of Latin and Greek in her epistles, and she can write, when the occasion demands, in a very stately English style-stately, but straightforward withal. Her son's epistolary style is often involved and verbose. He does not often come so directly to the point as Lady Bacon does in the following letter, written to Lord Burghley, in the interest of the Nonconformist clergy, or Preachers, as they were then called. In a conference which had lately taken place at Lambeth between them and the bishops, she thinks they had not fair-play; she appeals, in their name, to her Majesty and the Council::

"They would most humbly crave, both of God in heaven, whose cause it is, and of their Majesty, their most excellent sovereign here on earth, that they might obtain quiet and convenient audience rather before her Majesty herself, whose heart is in God his hand to touch and to turn, or before your Honours of the Council, whose wisdom they greatly reverence; and if they cannot strongly prove before you out of the word of God that reformation which they so long have called and cried for to be according to Christ his own ordinance, then to let them be rejected with shame out of the Church for ever. .. And therefore, for such weighty conference they appeal to her Majesty and her honourable wise Council, whom God has placed in highest authority for the advancement of His kingdom; and refuse the bishops for judges, who are parties partial in their own defence, because they seek more worldly ambition than the glory of Jesus Christ."

Mr Spedding next introduces to us the same lady under the agitations, as he says, of maternal anxiety. Anthony Bacon, the elder

brother of Francis, has been long upon the Continent collecting intelligence, and otherwise amusing or occupying himself. He sends over one Lawson, a confidential servant, to Lord Burghley with some important communication. Lawson is a Catholic. That her son Anthony should be so long in Popish parts is a dire grievance to Lady Bacon; that he should have in his confidence a Papist servant, is not to be borne. She prevails upon Burghley to have this Lawson arrested and retained in England. One snake is, at all events, caught, and shall be held firm. Anthony writes to his friend, Francis Allen, to obtain for him the liberation of Lawson. Allen, furnished with a letter from Lord Burghley (who seems, for his own part, to be willing to release the man), proceeds to Gorhambury. His intercession with Lady Bacon he tells himself in a letter to Anthony :

"Upon my arrival at Godombery my lady used me courteously until such time I began to move her for Mr Lawson, and, to say the truth, for yourself ;-being so much transported with your abode there that she let not to say that you are a traitor to God and your country: you have undone her; you seek her death; and when you have that you seek for, you shall have but a hundred pounds more than you have now.

"She is resolved to procure her Majesty's letter to force you to return; and when that shall be, if her Majesty gave you your right or desert, she should clap you up in prison.

"I am sorry to write it, considering his deserts and your love towards him; but the truth will be known at the last, and better late than never it is vain to look for Mr Lawson's return, for these are her ladyship's own words-'No, no,' saith she, I have learned not to employ ill to good; and if there were no more men in England, and although you should never come home, he shall never come to you.'

"It is as unpossible to persuade my lady to send him, as for myself to send you Paul's steeple.

"When you have received your prolest you be a means to shorten her days, vision, make your repair home again, for she told me the grief of mind received daily by your stay will be her end; also

saith her jewels be spent for you, and that she borrowed the last money of seven several persons.

"Thus much I must confess unto you for a conclusion, that I have never seen and never shall see a wise lady, an honourable woman, a mother more perplexed for her son's absence, than I have seen that honourable dame for yours. Therefore lay your hand on your heart, look not for Mr Lawson; here he hath, as a man may say, heaven and earth against him and his return."

Soon after this Anthony does return home, and Lady Bacon addresses him a letter, in which there are some allusions to Francis, which will be read with interest :

"This one chiefest counsel your Christian and natural mother doth give you even before the Lord, that above

all worldly respects you carry yourself ever at your first coming as one that doth unfeignedly profess the true religion of Christ, and hath the love of the truth now, by long continuance, fast settled in your heart, and that with judgment, wisdom, and discretion; and are not afraid or ashamed to testify the same by hearing and delighting in those religious exercises of the sincerer sort, be they French or English. In hoc noli adhibere fratrem tuum ad consilium aut exemplum.

"I trust you, with your servants, use prayer twice in a day, having been where reformation is. Omit it not for any. It will be your best credit to serve the Lord duly and reverently, and you will be observed at first now. Your brother is too negligent herein, but do you well and zealously; it will be looked for of the best-learned sort, and that is best."

Full of prudence, full of zeal, suspecting her sons themselves and every one about them, anxious to manage them on all points, whether in their diet or their religion, such is Lady Bacon. She is writing still to Anthony.

"Gratia et salus. That you increase in amending I am glad. God continue it every way. When you cease of your prescribed diet, you had need, I think, to be very wary both of your sudden change of quantity and of season of your feeding-especially suppers late or full. Procure rest in convenient time; it helpeth much to digestion. Iverily think your brother's weak stomach to digest hath

been much caused and confirmed by untimely going to bed, and then musing nescio quid when he should sleep, and then, in consequent, by late rising and long lying in bed, whereby his men are made slothful, and himself continueth sickly. But my sons haste not to hearken to their mother's good counsel in time to prevent. The Lord, our heavenly Father, heal and bless you both as His sons in Christ Jesus. I promise you, touching your coach, if it be so to your contentation, it was not wisdom to have it seen or known at the Court; you shall be so much pressed to lend, and your man, for gain, so ready to agree, that the discommodity thereof will be as much as the commodity. Let not your men see my letter. I write to you, and not to them."

And again, a few days later:

amendment. But my man said he heard "I am glad, and thank God of your you rose at three of the clock. I thought that was not well, so suddenly from bedding much to rise so early-newly out of your diet. I like not your lady. If you once begin, you shall hardly lending your coach yet to my lord and end. It was not well it was so soon sent into the Court to make talk, and at last be promised and misliked. Tell your brother I counsel you to send it no more. What had my Lady Shriefess to borrow your coach?"

Any comment of ours would only weaken the effect of such graphic letters as these. We are enabled even to follow our zealous, dogmatic, yet motherly woman, into her own household. Edward Spencer was a servant of Anthony's, but was left for some reason at Gorhambury. He writes to his master:

"My humble duty remembered to your good worship. I thought good to write to you to satisfy you how unquiet my lady is with all her household." [Then he enters into a long story how my lady had said of a certain "grænen bitch," whatever that may be, that it should be hanged; and how, when Edward Spencer obeys her command, and hangs the dog, my lady breaks out into a “fransey.”]—“My lady do not speak to me as yet. I will give none offence to make her angry; but nobody can please her long together."

And again

"My humble duty first remembered