jection was, that he had had but little or no practice in the courts; and to obviate this, he began to appear more frequently in court in the spring of 1594, arguing a number of causes with great learning and eloquence, so that Mr. Gosnold, who heard him, observing how he "spangled his speech" with "unusual words," was persuaded that the "Bacon would be too hard for the Cook"; but Coke, as Speaker of the House, had bowed to her Majesty's prerogative, taking care on nearly all occasions to give satisfaction, and not offence, and was made Attorney-General, the "Cook" proving too hard for the Bacon. The Solicitorship still remained. Essex, Egerton, Burghley, Cecil, Greville, and a host of friends, continued to press his suit for this "second place," from March, 1594, until November, 1595; but the Queen was in "no haste to determine of the place." Bacon, whose "nature can take no evil ply," having been "voiced with great expectation," and "with the wishes of most men to the higher place," cannot but conclude with himself "that no man ever read a more exquisite disgrace."1 He nearly resolves, "with this disgrace" of his fortune, to retire "with a couple of men to Cambridge," and there spend his life in "studies and contemplations, without looking back." Essex still presses the matter upon every opportunity. When the Queen visits him, she answers that "she did not come for that," and "stops his mouth ;" and when he visits her, she acknowledges he had a great wit, and an excellent gift of speech, and much other good learning, but in law she rather thought he could show to the uttermost of his knowledge, and was not deep; and she shows "her mislike of the suit" as well as he his "affection in it," and thinks, "if there were a yielding, it was

1 Letter to Essex (1594), Works (Mont.), XII. 170. Here I prefer the reading of Montagu. Mr. Spedding, taking the word read to be the abbreviation rec'd, writes received; but it is more probably the same Baconian idiom, which appears again in the Henry VIII. thus: "and read the perfect ways of honour." - Letters and Life, by Spedding, I. 291.

fitter to be" of his side.1 After July, however, he is employed as Queen's counsel, but when the Solicitorship is named (says Essex), "she did fly the tilt," and would not see him. The unfortunate Subsidy Speech could not be forgiven, and the matter hangs for a long time undetermined. Bacon keeps his terms at Gray's Inn, but spends the greater part of his time at Twickenham Park, or at Essex's house, where he is rapt in secret studies and philosophic contemplations; and at the same time, both Essex and himself are busy in all suitable ways, plying their arts to regain the Queen's favor. Though deeply in debt, at this time, Bacon offers her the present of a rich and costly jewel, which she declines to accept; thus, thinks Greville, almost pronouncing sentence of despair. In December, 1594, the Christmas Revels at Gray's Inn come on. They are gotten up with extraordinary magnificence, this year, and the whole Court are most sumptuously and splendidly entertained with plays, masques, triumphs, and dumb shows. Lady Ann Bacon writes to Anthony, that she "trusts they will not mum, nor mask, nor sinfully revel"; but Francis, as before in 1587, and on other later occasions, takes a leading part in the preparations, writing a Masque, for one thing, which Mr. Spedding finds to be undoubtedly his work, and certain humorous Regulations for "the Heroical Order of the Helmet," and other pieces, which Mr. Spedding rather thinks not his work; and upon this same occasion, the Shakespearean "Comedy of Errors" makes its first appearance upon any stage, pretty certainly also the work of Francis Bacon (as I will endeavor to show). In this year 1594, the "Titus Andronicus" is first entered at Stationers' Hall, and the second part of the "Henry VI." (then styled the "Contention of the Two Houses of York and Lancaster") is first printed, and the third part (then styled the "True Tragedy of the Duke of York") follows in 1595; but they had been written long before.

1 Essex to Bacon, (18 May, 1594).—Letters and Life, by Spedding, I. 297.

Bacon continues to be assiduously engaged with his public avocations and his private studies. Whether from the mortification of disappointment or the effect of midnight musings when he should be asleep, the good mother observes, again, that "inward secret grief hindereth his health," and "everybody saith he looks thin and pale." Moreover, when her ladyship is applied to for assistance in the way of meeting his pecuniary obligations, she breaks out furiously upon "that bloody Percy," and "that Jones," as "proud, profane, costly fellows, whose being about him," she verily believes, "the Lord God doth mislike." This was his servant Henry Percy, in whose charge he left his manuscripts by his will. The particular ground of Lady Ann's dislike of his men, more than that they were expensive, does not appear; but she insinuates that "he hath nourished most sinful proud villains wilfully."

During the year 1595, he lives for the most part in the shady retirement of Twickenham Park, amidst his books. and flower-gardens, abandoning the Court altogether. At length he concludes that he was taking "duty too exactly," and not "according to the dregs of this age," and fearing lest his unwonted seclusion should be interpreted to his prejudice at the palace, he addresses a letter to the LordKeeper Puckering, on the 25th of May, 1595, desiring him to apologize to her Majesty for the "nine days' wonder" of his absence; for, as the letter proceeds, "it may be, when her Majesty hath tried others, she will think of him that she hath cast aside. For I will take it upon that which her Majesty hath often said, that she doth reserve me, and not reject me."1 And in July, the Queen, as if to keep his courage up, or in recognition of his professional services, bestows on him the estate of Pitts; but as to the Solicitorship, it is probable that the Cecils and the LordKeeper Puckering, having at their service any number of Brograves, Branthwaytes, and black-letter Flemings, not 1 Letters and Life, by Spedding, I. 360.

connected with a rival party, have fixed all that, and she will hear no more of it. The jealousy of the Cecils, or Essex, or the Subsidy Speech which Burghley thinks to be the chief difficulty, and which Bacon still justifies rather than retracts, finally mars all, and it is decided, at last, that Sergeant Fleming, whose best qualification seems to have been the negative one of standing in nobody's way, though admitted by Bacon himself not to be any such "insufficient obscure idole man," as that his appointment could justly be taken as a personal affront, shall be made Solicitor; and again, "no man ever read a more exquisite disgrace" than Francis Bacon. He cannot refrain from uttering a little indignation against the Lord Keeper for "failing him and crossing him now in the conclusion, when friends are best tried"; but he takes care to give no offence to the Queen. In October, he writes to the Lord Keeper again: "I am now at Twicknam Park, where I think to stay; for her Majesty placing a Solicitor, my travail shall not need in her causes; though whensoever her Majesty shall like to employ me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service."1 Again he is almost persuaded to abandon a public life, to sell his inheritance, to spend some time in travels abroad, and finally to become a sorry book-maker, or a pioneer in Anaxagoras' deep mine. "For to be as I told you," he writes to Greville, "like a child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum, I am weary of it,"

"Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,

Still losing when I saw myself to win." - Sonnet cxix.

Among the objections urged against him, it was represented that he was a man given to "speculations" rather than business, and that he had not devoted himself to the practice of law, and he himself believed that her Majesty's impression against him was due less to her remembrance of

1 Letter (11 Oct. 1595); Letters and Life, by Spedding, I. 368.

his Subsidy Speech than to "her conceit otherwise" of his "insufficiency: "1

"then no more remains

But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,

And let them work."- Measure for Measure, Act I. Sc. 1.

It is plain that his time and attention were mainly given to philosophical and literary studies. In this same letter he admits to Burghley, "It is true, my life hath been so private as I have had no means to do your Lordship service." And in October, again, he writes in a letter to Essex, touching this matter of his promotion in the State: "For means I value that most; and the rather because I am purposed not to follow the practice of the law: (If her Majesty command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do her willing service :) and my reason is only, because it drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to better purposes. But even for that point of estate and means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion, That a philosopher may be rich if he will." 2

On the 5th of November 1595, Fleming receives his commission as Solicitor-General, and, some twelve days afterwards, the Queen further solaces the disappointment of Bacon with the grant of the reversion of Twickenham Park itself. He becomes fully reconciled to her favor, and his hopes revive. During the same month, Essex prepares a magnificent entertainment for her Majesty at his own house, and Bacon writes a Masque for the occasion. It is not far from this time that Essex bestows upon Bacon, in requital of his friendship and his personal services, an estate worth £1800, including, says Nichols, "a highly ornamented mansion, particularly celebrated for its pleasuregrounds, which were called the Garden of Paradise." And it was not long before this time that Southampton, according to a tradition handed down by Rowe from Sir

1 Letter to Burghley (7 June, 1595); Letters and Life, by Spedding, I. 362. 2 Spedding's Letters and Life, I. 372.

8 Prog. Q. Eliz., III. 191.