He certainly received a most pious education; and if his early religious impressions were for a time weakened or effaced by his intercourse with French philosophers, or his own first rash examination of the reasons of his belief, I am fully convinced that they were restored and deepened by subsequent study and reflection. I rely not merely on his "Confession of Faith," or the other direct declarations of his belief in the great truths of our religion (although I know not what right we have to question his sincerity), but I am swayed more by the devotional feelings which from time to time, without premeditation or design, break out in his writings, and the incidental indications he gives of his full conviction of the being and providence of God, and the Divine mission of our blessed Savior. His lapses from the path of honor afford no argument against the genuineness of his speculative belief. Upon the whole, we may be well assured that the difficulties which at one time perplexed him had been completely dissipated; his keen perception saw as clearly as it is ever given to man in this state to discover-the hand of the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe; and his gigantic intellect must have been satisfied with the consideration, that assuming the truth of natural and revealed religion, it is utterly inconsistent with the system of human affairs, and with the condition of man in this world, that they should have been more clearly disclosed to us. Among his good qualities it ought to be mentioned, that he had no mean jealousy of others, and he was always disposed to patronize merit. Feeling how long he himself had been unjustly depressed from unworthy motives, he never would inflict similar injustice on others, and he repeatedly cautions statesmen to guard against this propensity. "He that plots to be a figure among ciphers is the decay of a whole age." He retained through life his passion for planting and gardening, and when Chancellor, he ornamented Lincoln's Inn Fields with walks and groves, and gave the first example of an umbrageous square in a great metropolis.' Little remains except to give some account of his person. He was of a middling stature, his limbs well formed, though not robust,-his forehead high, spacious, and open, his eye lively and penetrating; there were 1 Letter to Buckingham, Nov. 12, 1618. deep lines of thinking in his face;-his smile was both intellectual and benevolent ;-the marks of age were prematurely impressed upon him;-in advanced life, his whole appearance was venerably pleasing, so that a stranger was insensibly drawn to love before knowing how much reason. there was to admire him. It is with great pain that I have found myself obliged to take an impartial view of his character and conduct;"A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'd For dignity composed and high exploits ;" but to suppress or pervert facts, to confound, for the purpose of holding him up as a pefect being, moral distinctions which should be kept well defined and far apart, -would be a vain attempt to do honor to his genius,-would not be creditable to the biographer who perceives his faults, and would tend to demoralize as far as it might be effectual. Others who really believe Bacon to be immaculate, are fully justified in proclaiming him to the world to be so. This was by no means the opinion he entertained of himself. He acknowledges to Sir Thomas Bodley his many errors, and among the rest, says he, "this great one which led the rest, that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than play a part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by pre-occupation of mind." When young, he had "vast contemplative ends and moderate civil ends." If he had inherited the patrimony intended for him by his father, if he had obtained the provision which he solicited from the minister on his father's death, it is possible that he might have sunk into indolence and obscurity; but from his native energy, and from the consciousness with which he seems to have been very early inspired of his high calling to be "the great reformer of philosophy," the probability is, that he would have left the Instauratio Magna complete, preserving a spotless reputation. Then, indeed, we should have justly honored him beyond any of his species, to whom miraculous gifts have not been directly imparted by Heaven. But without incurring any blame in the first instance, he was driven to betake himself to the profession of the law for a subsistence; hence, he was involved in the vortex of politics; intellectual glory became his secondary object; and his nature being changed and debased, to gain professional advancement, official station, and political power, there was no baseness to which he was not ready to submit, and hardly any crime which he would not have been willing to perpetrate. I still readily acknowledge him to be a great man; but can only wish he had been a good man. Transposing the words applied by Tacitus to Agricola, I may truly say, "Magnum virum facile crederes, bonum libenter." According to the directions in his will, his remains were interred in St. Michael's Church, near St. Alban's. No account has reached us of his funeral, and there is reason to fear that, on this occasion, as his connection with the Court had entirely ceased, and a party squabble was engrossing the attention of the public, the great and the noble did not attend to do honor to his memory. But then and there, no doubt, appeared as a mourner, and wept tenderly, Meautys, his faithful secretary, who, at his own expense, erected to him, in the church where he lies buried, a handsome and characteristic monument, representing him in a sitting posture with his hand supporting his head, and absorbed in contemplation-with this inscription: Franciscus Bacon Baro de Verula St Albni Vicis Scientiarum Lumen Facundiæ Lex Qui postquam omnia naturalis sapientiæ Composita solvantur Ano Dni MDCXXVI. Tanti viri Mem. Thomas Meautys Notwithstanding all the money he had received, duly and unduly, such was his love of expense, and his neglect of his affairs, that upon his death his estate appears to have been found insolvent. All the six executors whom he named in his will refused to act, and on the 13th of July, 1627, administration with the will annexed was granted to Sir Thomas Meautys and Sir Robert Rich, a Master in Chancery, as two of his creditors.-No funds were forthcoming for the foundation of his lectureships.' His wife survived him twenty years, but lived in retire ment. Bacon perhaps comforted himself for his want of offspring, by recollecting the instances from which he drew his saying, that "Great men have no continuance;" but. he seems at times to have felt a pang at the thought that he was to leave no children to close his eyes, or to weep over his grave: "They increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death." CHAPTER LVII. LIFE OF LORD KEEPER WILLIAMS FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HIS INSTALLATION AS LORD KEEPER. T HE Great Seal, having been delivered up by Lord Bacon at York House previous to sentence being pronounced upon him, was brought to the King at Whitehall,-and there he immediately ordered three Since the publication of the first edition of this Life, by the assistance of my friend, Mr. C. Monro, I have ascertained beyond all question that Bacon d.ed insolvent. It appears by the Registrar's Book that a creditors' suit was instituted for the administration of his estate. His servants were, by consent, to be paid their wages in full, and the fund arising from the sale of his property was to be divided ratably among the other creditors. A report to the Lord Chancellor, on the state of the debts and assets, contains these very curious passages: "That concerning the several debts demanded by Sir Peter Van Lord, Mr. Peacock, and Philip Holman, it is alleged that the testator was sentenced for them in parliament as bribes, and therefore not conceived reasonable that they should come in as creditors. Nevertheless, further time is given them to produce their proofs, and to hear what can be said on either side touching their said demands." Then with respect to a bond for £1,000 to secure that amount lent to him when he was AttorneyGeneral, the report, after stating the objection by the creditors, says, “I have thought fit to set down the testator's own words touching the said debt, and so leave the same to your lordship's consideration: A note of such debts as either in respect of length of tyme or the nature of the first borrowing or agreement since, need not be thought upon for repayment: viz. The farmers of the Customs £1,000, lent long since, when I was Attorney, and without interest, upon great and many pleasures don to the said farmers, and whereas I was wont to have of them yearly a new yeares guift of £100 at least-upon this money lent it was discontinued, and soe the principall worne out, for interest was never intended. "-Reg. Lib. 19 Feb. 1626. 2 Essay, "Of Parents and Children." commissions to be sealed with it in his presence,- -one addressed to Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls, and certain common-law Judges, to hear causes in the Court of Chancery,—another to Sir James Ley, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, to preside as Speaker in the House of Lords, and the third to Viscount Mandeville, the Lord Treasurer, the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Arundel, to keep the Great Seal, and to affix it to all writs and letters patent requiring to be sealed.' This arrangement continued above two months following, when, for reasons which we shall hereafter explain, the Clavis Regni, after having been held during a period of sixty-three years by six successive laymen bred to the law, was, to the dismay of Westminster Hall and the astonishment of the public, delivered to an ecclesiastical Lord Keeper, JOHN WILLIAMS, Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Lincoln elect,-a man of sharp natural intellect, of unwearied industry, of great scholastic acquirements, free from considerable vices, but not distinguished for any very high qualities of head or heart,-who, by a sort of frolic of fortune, was suddenly placed in the very situation for which Bacon, singularly well able to perform all its duties, and with many advantages from birth and connection, had so long plotted, before he could reach its slippery eminence. The principality of Wales boasts of Williams as one of the most illustrious of her children. He was of the true Cambrian race, being the son of Edmund Williams and Anne Wynne, daughter of Owen Wynne, Esquire, with genealogies reaching through Llewellyn, King Arthur, and Caractacus, to Adam. He was really of a respectable gentleman's family, who bore upon their shield three Saxons' heads, which, when he was made chief of the law, gave rise to the following distich: "Qui sublime fori potuit conscendere tignum, He was born at Aberconway, in the county of Carnarvon, on the 25th day of March, 1582. He was educated at a grammar school lately established in the town of Ruthin, and is said to have there made great proficiency 1 Rot. Cl. 19 Jac. I. p. 13. |