CHAPTER IV.

" All is not in years to me ; somewhat is in hours well spent." — Promus.
" Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name, Made use and fair advantage of his days ; His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe."
— Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. 4.
MANY and various opinions have been expressed in modern times concerning Francis Bacon, and the motives and aims supposed to have influenced his course and actions in public capacities. We may safely pass by these phases of his wonderful career, so carefully and devotedly recorded in the calm pages of James Spedding,* and will for the present consider the personality and life of Bacon from two different aspects : first, as the poet ; secondly, as the most ardent promoter, if not the founder, of a vast secret society destined to create a complete reformation in learning, science, literature, and religion itself, throughout the whole wide world. In the lively works of Hepworth Dixon, and in scattered episodes in Spedding's Life of Bacon, we get occasional peeps behind the scene. But, in the last named work especially, it appears as if we were not meant to do so. That Bacon in his youth " masked and mummed," and led the revels at Gray's Inn — that throughout his life he was appealed to on all great occasions to write witty speeches for others to deliver at the gorgeous " entertainments '' which were the fashion of the day (and in which, doubtless, he took a leading part, in the bach- gound) — that he and his brother Anthony, who was living with him in 1594, actually removed from their lodgings in Gray's Inn to a house in Bishopsgate Street, in the immediate neigh- bourhood of The Bull Inn, where plays and interludes were
* See " Letters and Life of Bacon," seven vols., 8vo, or the abridgment of them, " Life and Times of Bacon,1 ' and especially " Evenings with a Reviewer/' two volumes, 8vo. — James Spedding.
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acted — these and many such important factors in his private history are slipped over, or altogether omitted in most accounts of him. They should not be so passed by, for Bacon's theatrical proclivities were no mere boyish or youthful taste ; they grew with him and formed a very important part of his " method of discourse," a means by which he could inform those who could not read, instilling through the eyes and ears of the body sound teaching on all sorts of subjects. The stern morality which was often thus inculcated would not for one instant have been listened to, with patience, from the pulpit or the professed teacher by the class of persons for whose benefit we believe that Francis Bacon wrote his earliest (and unacknowledged) plays. It will be seen that this love and respect for the theatre was with him to the end of his life. Nearly fifty metaphors and figures based upon stage-playing are to be found in his grave scientific works, and in the Latin edition of the Advancement of Learning, published simultaneously with the collected edition or " Folio " of the Shakespeare plays in 1623, he inserts a brave defence of stage-playing and a lament for the degradation of the theatre in his day.
Most persons who peruse these pages are probably acquainted with the outlines of Bacon's life. We therefore merely piece together particulars extracted from the works of his most pains- taking and sympathetic biographer, James Spedding, and from the shorter " lives " and biographies of his secretary, Dr. Rawley, Hepworth Dixon, Prof. Fowler, and others.
Francis Bacon was born on the 22nd January, 1561, at York House, in the Strand. His father, Sir Nicholas (counsellor to Queen Elizabeth, and second prop in the kingdom), was a lord of known prudence, sufficiency, moderation and integrity. His mother, Lady Anne Cooke, a choice lady, was eminent for piety and learning, being exquisitely skilled, for a woman, in the Greek and Latin languages. " These being the parents," says Dr. Rawley, " you may easily imagine what the issue was like to be, having had whatsoever nature or breeding could put in him."
Sir Nicholas is described as " a stout, easy man, full of con- trivance, with an original and projective mind." The grounds laid out by him at Gorhambury suggested to his son those ideas of gardening which he himself afterwards put into practice,
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and which, developed in his essays and other writings,0 have led to the foundation of an English style of gardening.! So with regard to cultivation of another kind. The scheme which Sir Nicholas presented to Henry VIII. for the endowment of a school of law and languages in London, is thought to have been, perhaps, the original germ of the New Atlantis, the idea being transferred from statecrarft to nature. In politics the Lord Keeper held to the English party; that party which set its face against Rome, and those who represented Rome; against the Jesuits, the Spaniards, and the Queen of Scots. If he felt warm against any one it was against the latter, whom he detested, not only as a wicked woman, but as a political tool in the hands of France and Spain. By the help of his clear head and resolute tongue, the great change of religion, which had recently taken place, had been accomplished, and it may easily be believed that " Burghley himself was scarcely more honoured by invec- tive from Jesuit pens." But on the bench he had neither an equal nor an enemy. Calm, slow, cautious in his dealings, he was at the same time merry, witty, and overflowing with humour and repartee ; qualities which recommended him very highly to the irritable, clever Queen, who loved a jest as well as he, and who seems to have appreciated the value of a faithful minister imbued with so much strong common sense, and with no dangerous qualities. Francis Bacon records a saying con- cerning his father, which was, doubtless, to the point, or he would not have entered it amongst his apophthegms : " Some men look wiser than they are, — the Lord Keeper is wiser than he looks."
So many circumstances and little particulars crop up as these things are looked into, allusions and hints about Sir Nicholas as well as doubts and obscurities concerning his early life and doings, and such particulars all tend toward making us regard with more attention, and to attach more importance to this note of Francis Bacon. The thought suggests itself, Was it, perhaps, this wise, witty, cautious man, " full of contrivance, and with an original, projective mind," who first contrived and projected a
* There seem to be many books of gardening and kindred subjects which will some day be traced to Bacon.
J Hepworth Dixon's " Story of Bacon's Life," p. 17, from which we shall make large extracts, the book being out of print.
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scheme for the accumulation, transmission, and advancement of learning, which it was left to his two sons, Anthony and Francis, to develop and perfect ?
This is amongst the problems which at present we cannot answer, because so little is known — or perhaps it should be said, so little is published — concerning Sir Nicholas and Anthony. Later on we hope to contribute to the general stock all the information about Anthony which we have been able to collect from unprinted MSS., and to show that there can be no doubt of his having been a poet and a considerable author, as well as an active propagandist for the secret society of which he seems always to acknowledge his still more talented and versatile brother, Francis, to have been the head.
For the full and satisfactory elucidation of many difficulties and obscurities which will arise in the course of this study, it is of imperative importance that the histories and private life of Sir Nicholas and Anthony Bacon shall be submitted to a searching and exhaustive investigation;* for the present we must pass on.
The mother of Anthony and Francis was an important and interesting personage. She was the second wife of Sir Nicholas. The first wife seems to have been a quiet, ordinary woman, of whom there is little or nothing to say excepting that she left three sons and three daughters. Of these half-brothers and sisters, not one appears to have been in any way " brotherly," kind, or useful to Francis, excepting the second son, Nathaniel, who took to the arts, and painted a portrait of his mother standing in a pantry, habited as a cook. It is probable that
* The notices of Anthony in ordinary books, such as Spedding, Hep- worth Dixon, etc., are quite brief and imperfect. A good summary of all these is to be found in the Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen (Smith, Elder & Co., 1885). See Vol. II., Nicholas Bacon and Anthony Bacon. See also Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Vols. I. and II. (A. Miller, Strand, 1754), and Historical View of the Negotiations between the Courts of England, France, and Brussels from the year 1592—1617 (London, 1749). Both of these by Thomas Birch. They are out of print and should be republished. The hard worker will also find plenty of material in the sixteen folio vols, of Anthony Bacon's unpublished correspondence — Tenison MSS., Lambeth Palace, and in the British Museum the following : Harleian MSS. No. 286, Art. 144, 145, 146, 147, 148. Cotton Lib., Calig. E, VII. 205 ; Nero, B, VI. 290, 291, 293—303, 337, 371, 380, 383—395, 398, 403, 413 b. Lansdown MSS. Nos. 38, 53, 87; 29, 44, 74, 87, 107; 11, 12.
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Nathaniel assisted his younger brother by making some of the designs and pictures which will be explained further on.
Lady Anne Bacon was a woman of higher birth, of loftier character, than her husband. If the three life-like terra-cotta busts at Gorhambury and other existing portraits are compared, it will be seen that it is from the mother that the boy derived the chiselled features and: the fine development of the brow. From the father came the softer expression, the side-long look, the humorous twinkle in the eye. Lady Anne, though we know her to have been a tender mother and a woman of strong affections, was yet a somewhat stern, masterful and managing head of the house, and so she appears in her portraits. The daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Geddy Hall, in Essex, scholar and tutor to Edward VI. , she inherited the whole of her father's religious creed, and not a little of his accomplishments in Greek. That religion was to fear God and hate the Pope. For a Papist she had no tolerance, for this indiscriminating repugnance had been born in her blood and bred in her bone.
The importance of these particulars can hardly be over- estimated when taken in connection with what we know of the development of Francis Bacon's character, and with the aims and aspirations which he set up for himself. There never was a period in his life when judgment seems to have been lacking to him. His earliest and most childish recorded speeches are as wise, witty, and judgmatical in their way as his latest. "His first and childish years/' says Dr. Rawley, " were not without some mark of eminency ; at which time he was enslaved with that pregnancy and towardness of wit, as they were presages of that deep and universal apprehension which was manifest in him afterwards."
Having, then, this excellent gift of discernment or "judgment," Francis Bacon was never intolerant, for intolerance is a sign of want of judgment, of that power or desire to grasp both sides of a question and to judge between them which was a pre- eminent faculty and characteristic of Bacon's mind. The tendency to turn every question inside out, hind-side before and wrong side upwards, is perceptible, not only in his argu- ments, theories, and beliefs, but it pervades the whole of his language, and is the cause of that antithetical style which is so peculiarly characteristic in his writings.
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Although he must, from his earliest infancy, have been influenced by the mother whom he esteemed as a " saint of God," with a deep interest in the condition of the Church, Francis Bacon never allowed fervour to degenerate into the " over-weening zeal or extremes" in religion which " do dissolve and deface the laws of charity and of human society." Lady Anne perfectly believed that the cause of the Non-Conformists was the whole cause of Christ.* Francis never believed that ; and it seems to be a reasonable explanation of much that took place between mother and son, that he was forever putting in practice his own injunctions regarding the necessity for great tenderness and delicacy in matters of religion, and urging that unity could only be hoped for in the Church when men should learn that " fundamental points are to be truly discerned and distinguished from matters not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention." On fundamental points, on all that is " of substance," they were of one accord ; but Francis Bacon's religion was built upon a far wider and broader basis than that of his pious, Calvinistic mother, or of many of her relations. For the Greys, | the Burleighs, Eussells, Hobys, and Nevilles, in short, the whole kindred of Francis Bacon by the male and female lines, professed the severest principles of the Reforma- tion. Some of them had been exiled (amongst them Lady Anne's father, Sir Anthony Cooke), some even sent to the block in the time of Queen Mary. " In her own fierce repugnance to the Italian creed she trained her sons," says Hepworth Dixon. She may have made them intolerant to the errors of the Roman creed, but she certainly did not make them so to the believers themselves ; for in after years Francis Bacon's intercourse with and kindness to members of the Roman Catholic Church was a great cause of anxiety to his mother, yet his intimacy and correspondence with these friends continued to the end of his life.
Little Francis was ten years old when he attracted the atten- tion of the Queen, and paid her his pretty compliment : " How old are you, my child ? " "I am just two years younger than your Majesty's happy reign." We see him in these early days,
* Spedding, Let. and L. I. 3.
f The wife of William Cooke (Lady Anne's brother) was cousin to Lady Jane Grey.
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a man amongst boys ; now playing with the daisies and speed- wells, and now with the mace and seals ; cutting posies with the gardener, or crowing after the pigeons, of which, his mother tells us, he was fond, roast or in a pie. Every tale told of him wins upon the imagination, whether he hunts for the echo in St. James' Park, or eyes the jugglers and detects their tricks, or lisps wise words to the Queen.*
" At twelve years of age he was sent to Cambridge and entered with his brother Anthony as fellow-commoner of Trinity College, of which John Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was then master. Repeated entries in Whitgift's accounts prove the brothers to have been delicate children, and the state of their health a continual cause of anxiety to their mother, Lady Anne. Many of her letters are extant, and show her, even to the end of her life, feeding them from her cellars and her poultry yard, looking sharp after their pills and ' con- fections,' sending them game from her own larder, and beer from her own vats, lecturing them soundly on what they should eat and drink, on their physic and blood-lettings, on how far they might ride or walk, when safely take supper, and at what hour of the morning rise from bed. From notices, scant but clear, of the Lord Keeper's household, we may see the two boys growing up together ; both gentle and susceptible in genius ; as strong in character as they were frail in health.! One sees Francis by the light of Hilyard's portrait, as he strolled along the lawn or reclined under the elms, with his fat round face, his blue-grey eyes, his fall of brown curls, and his ripe, jesting mouth; in his face a thought for the bird on the tree, the fragrance in the air, the insect in the stream ; a mind susceptible to all impressions." J
" Brief and barren as the record of his childhood appears, it may yet help us," says Spedding, "when studied in the light which his subsequent history throws back upon it, to under- stand in what manner, and in what degree, the accidents of his birth had prepared him for the scene on which he was
* Rawley's Life of Bacon. Hepworth Dixon's Story of Bacons Life.
1 16. From Whitgift's Accounts, in Brit. Mag. XXXII. 365. Heywood's University Transactions, I. 123 — 156. Athenae Cantabrigiensis, II. 314. Lambeth MSS. 650, fol. 54.
X Dixon. Spedding, Letters and Life, 1, 2, 3.
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entering. When the temperament is quick and sensitive, the desire of knowledge strong, and the faculties so vigorous, obedient, and equally developed, that they find almost all things easy, the mind will commonly fasten upon the first object of interest that presents itself, with the ardour of a first love." The same sympathetic writer goes on to describe the learned, eloquent, religious mother trying to imbue her little son with her own Puritanic fervour in Church matters ; the affectionate father, the Lord Keeper, taking him to see and hear the open- ing of Parliament, and instilling into him a reverence for the mysteries of statesmanship, and a deep sense of the dignity, responsibility, and importance of the statesman's calling. Everything that he saw and heard, — the alarms, the hopes, the triumphs of the time, the magnitude of the interests that depended upon the Queen's government ; the high flow of loyalty which buoyed her up and urged her forward ; the imposing character of her council, — must have contributed to excite in the boy's heart a devotion for her person and cause, and aspirations after the civil dignities in the midst of which he was bred up. For the present, however, his field of ambition was in the school-room and library, where, perhaps, from the delicacy of his constitution, but still more from the bent of his genius, he was more at home than in the playground. His career there was victorious ; new prospects of boundless extent opening on every side,* until at length, just about the age at which an intellect of quick growth begins to be conscious of original power, he was sent to the University, where he hoped to learn all that men knew. By the time, however, that he had gone through the usual course, he was conscious of a disappoint- ment, and came out of college at fifteen, by his own desire, apparently, and, without waiting to take a degree, in precisely the same opinion as Montaigne when he left college, as he says, " having run through my whole course, as they call it, and, in truth, without any advantage that I can honestly brag of."
Francis stayed at Cambridge only for three years, being more
* It seems probable that in these early days the ideas and schemes of Sir Nicholas regarding an improved system of education and learning- were discoursed of to his little son, and that the germs of his own great plans were thus planted.
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than once driven away by outbreaks of the plague ; once for so long as eight or nine months. Yet he had made such progress in his studies that he seems to have begged his father to remove him, because he had already found that the academical course which he was pursuing was " barren of the production of fruits for the life of man." Leaving the University before he was sixteen and without taking a degree, he yet carried with him the germs of his plan for reconstituting the whole round of the arts and sciences, a plan from which he never departed, and upon which he was still working at the time of his death.
That this should have been possible, argues an unusually extensive reading, and an acquaintance with branches of learning far beyond the subjects prescribed by the University authorities, and taking together all the facts concerning his great schemes, and the indications which he gives as to the origin of one of them, it is probable that during his sixteenth year, and perhaps earlier, he embarked in the study of the Indian, Arabian, Egyptian, and other ancient philosophers and religious writers, who gained such an influence over his imagi- nation, and from whom he seems to have derived many hints for the symbolism employed in the teaching of his secret society.
However this may be, it is certain that Francis Bacon was, in very early childhood, possessed with an extraordinary clear- headedness, and with a maturity of judgment which caused him to form, when he was but a mere boy, those "fixed and unalterable and universal opinions " upon which the whole of his after life-work and philosophy were based — opinions as characteristic as they were in advance of his age ; theories and ideas which we shall presently find claimed for others, but which, wherever they make themselves heard, echo to our ears the voice of the " Great Master."
During his three years' stay at the University, Francis fell, says Dr. Rawley, "into the dislike of the philosophy of Aristotle, not for the unworthiness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way, being a philosophy (his lordship used to say) only strong for disputa- tions and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man, in which mind he continued to his dying day."
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It seems not a little strange that this "dislike" of Bacon,, which, has been even made the subject of reproach to him, and which is decidedly treated as an unreasonable prejudice, pecu- liar to himself, should not have been equally observed in the writings of nearly every contemporary author who makes men- tion of Aristotle. Let this point be noted. To cite passages would fill too much space, but readers are invited to observe for themselves, and to say if it is not true that every distinguished " author " of Bacon's day, and for some years afterwards, even whilst ascribing to Aristotle " all high attributes," decries his system of philosophy, and for the same reasons which Bacon gives, namely, that it was " fruitless " — that it consisted more of words than of matter, and that it did not enable followers of Aristotle to rise above the level of Aristotle. Yet this had not hitherto been the general opinion.
"It seemed that toward the end of the sixteenth century, men neither knew nor desired to know more than was to be learned from Aristotle ; a strange thing at any time ; more strange than ever just then when the heavens themselves seemed to be taking up the argument on their behalf, and by suddenly lighting up within the region of ' the unchangeable and incor- ruptible,' and presently extinguishing a fixed star * as bright as Jupiter, to be protesting by signs and wonders against the cardinal doctrine of the Aristotelian philosophy.
"It ivas then that a thought struck him, the date of which deserves to he recorded, not for anything extraordinary in the thought itself, which had perhaps occurred to others before him, hut for its influence upon his after life. If our study of nature be thus barren, he thought, our method of study must be wrong : might not a better method be found ? The suggestion was simple and obvious, and the singularity was in the way he took hold of it. With most men such a thought would have come and gone
* The new star in Cassiopeia which shone with full lustre on the youth- ful Bacon's freshmanship (and to which he is said to have attached great importance as an augury of his own future) was the same star — or, as some think, comet — which guided the wise men of the East, the Chaldean astrono- mers and astrologers to the birth-place of our blessed Saviour. This star of Bethlehem has since appeared thrice, at intervals varying slightly in length. According to astronomical calculations, it might have re-entered Cassiopeia in 1887, but its uninterrupted movements will correspond with those previously recorded if it appears again in 1891. We should then say truly that Bacon's star is still in the ascendant.
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in a passing regret. . . . But with him the gift of seeing in ■prophetic vision what might be and ought to be was united with the practical talent of devising means and handling minute details. He could at once imagine like a poet, and execute like a. clerk of the works. Upon the conviction, This may be done, followed at once the question, How may it be done? Upon that question answered, •followed the resolution to try to do it." *
We earnestly request the reader to observe that the subject of this paragraph is a little boy twelve or thirteen years old. The biographer continues :
"Of the degrees by which the suggestion ripened into a project, the project into an undertaking, and the undertaking unfolded itself into distinct proportions and the full grandeur of its total dimensions, I can say nothing. But that the thought first occurred to him at Cambridge, therefore before he had com- pleted 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."
This passage seems, at first sight, rather to contradict the former, which says that the thought came to Bacon when first he went to Cambridge. But the discrepancy appears to have been caused by the difficulty experienced, as well by biographer as reader, in conceiving that such thoughts, such practical schemes, could have been the product of a child's mind.
All evidence which we shall have to bring forward goes to confirm the original statement that Francis conceived his plan of reformation soon after going up to the university ; that he matured and organised a system of working it by means of a secret society, before he was fifteen years old, by which time he had already written much which he afterwards disdained as poor stuff, but which was published, and which has all found a respectable or distinguished place in literature.
It is not difficult to imagine what would have been the effect upon such a mind as this of grafting on to the teaching received
* Let. and Life, I. 4. Again we would remind the reader of the great probability that Sir Nicholas Bacon had implanted this idea in the mind of his brilliant little son.
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in a strict Puritan home the study, by turns, of every kind of ancient and pagan philosophy. And it is clear that Francis Bacon plunged with delight into these occult branches of learning, his poetic mind finding a strong attraction in the figurative language and curious erudition of the old alchemists and mystics. Did such studies for awhile unsettle his religious ideas, and prepare him to shake off the bands of a narrow sectarianism ? If so, they certainly never shook his faith in God, or in the Bible as the expression of " God's will.'' Such researches only increased his anxiety and aspiration after light and truth. He never wrote without some reference to the Divine Wisdom and Goodness, some " laud and thanks to God for His marvellous works, with prayers imploring His ayde and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them to good and holy uses."
Bright, witty, and humorous as Francis naturally was, san- guine and hopeful as was his disposition, there is yet a strain of melancholy in most of his writings. " A gravity beyond his years " in youth — in mature age a look " as though he pitied men." And he did pity them ; he grieved and was oppressed at the thought that " man, the most excellent and noble, the prin- cipal and mighty work of God, wonder of nature, created in God's image, put into paradise to know Him and glorify Him, and to do His will — that this most noble creature, O pitiful change ! is fallen from his first estate, and must eat his meat in sorrow, subject to death and all manner of infirmities, all kinds of calamities which befall him in this life, and peradventure eternal misery in the life to come." *
The more he cogitated, the more he was assured that the cause of all this sin and misery is ignorance. " Ignorance is the curse of God, but knowledge is the wing by which we fly to heaven." f
He reflected that " God created man in His own image, in a reasonable soul, in innocency, in free-will, in sovereignty. That He gave him a law and commandment which was in his power to keep, but he kept it not ; but made a total defection from God. . . . That upon the fall of man, death and vanity entered by the justice of God, and the image of God was defaced, and heaven and earth, which were made for man's use, were
* Anatomy of Melancholy, I. 174. f 3 Henry VI. iv. 7.
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subdued to corruption by his fall, . . . but that the law of nature was first imprinted in that remnant of light of nature which was left after the fall ; . . . that the sufferings and merits of Christ, as they are sufficient to do away the sins of the whole world, so they are only effectual to those who are regenerate by the Holy Ghost, who breatheth where He will, of free grace whiclr quickeneth the spirit of a man. That the work of the Spirit, though it be not tied to any means in heaven or earth, yet is ordinarily dispensed by the preaching of the Word, . . . prayer and reading, by God's benefits, His judgments and the contemplation of His creatures/'
Since most of these means are cut off from those who are plunged in dark, gross ignorance, an improved method of study must precede the universal reformation which Bacon contem- plated in literature, science, philosophy, and in religion itself. To bring about such a reformation would be the greatest boon which could be conferred upon suffering humanity. By God's help he could and would bring it about.
It would be almost unreasonable to suppose that the boy- philosopher did not communicate the germs of such thoughts and aspirations to the father to whom he was deeply attached, and whose ideas are known to have been in close sympathy with those of his favourite son. Dr. Eawley says, significantly : " Though he was the youngest son in years, he was not the lowest in his father's affection ; " and, as has been said in a previous chapter, the visions of Francis seem to have been in some degree foreshadowed by or based upon earlier plans of the old Treasurer. At all events, the sagacious father seconded the plans, and perceived the growing genius of his favourite son, and when Francis complained that he was being taught at Cam- bridge mere words and not matter, Sir Nicholas allowed him to quit the university, and Francis, after lingering a year or more at home, at his own desire, and, most probably, in accordance with a conviction which he afterwards expressed, that " travel is in the younger sort a part of education," was sent in the train of Sir Amias Paulet, the Queen's Ambassador to France, " to see the wonders of the world abroad."
Hitherto we have scarcely mentioned Anthony Bacon, the elder of the two sons of Sir Nicholas by his second wife, Lady Anne ;
96 FEANCIS BACOxNF
and, indeed, very little is known to the world in general of this man, who yet, we have reason to believe, was a very remarkable person, and who, although he rarely appeared upon the scene, yet played a very important part behind the curtain, where by and by we will try to peep. Anthony was two years older than Francis, and the brothers were deeply attached to each other. They never address or speak of each other but in words of devoted affection — " my dearest brother," " Antonie my com- forte." As they went together to Cambridge, so probably they left at the same time, but even of this we are not sure. What next befell Anthony is unknown to his biographers, and there is a strange obscurity and mystery about the life of this young man, who, nevertheless, is described by Dr. Eawley as " a gentle- man of as high a wit, though not of such profound learning, as his brother." That he was a generous, unselfish, and admiring- brother, who thought no sacrifice great which could be made for the benefit of Francis, and for the forwarding of his enterprises, we know, and there is abundant proof of the affection and reverence which he had for his younger and more gifted brother. The mystery connected with Anthony appears to be consequent upon his having acted as the propagandist on the continent of Francis Bacon's secret society and new philosophy. He con- ducted an enormous correspondence with people of all kinds who could be useful to the cause for which the brothers were labouring. He seems to have received and answered the large proportion of letters connected with the business part of the society; he collected and forwarded to Francis all important books and intelligence which could be of use, and devoted to his service not only his life, but all his worldly wealth, which we see mysteriously melting away, but which, no doubt, went, like that of Francis, into the common fund which was destined, as one of the correspondents expresses it, to " keep alight this fire " so recently kindled.
Sixteen folio volumes of Anthony Bacon's letters lie, almost unknown, in the library at Lambeth Palace. These leave no loophole for doubt as to his real mission and purpose in living abroad. We hope to return to them by and by, in a chapter devoted to these letters alone. For the present they are only mentioned to indicate the source of much of our information as to Anthony's life and aims.
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Neither of the brothers was strong in health. Anthony, especially, soon became a martyr to gout and other ailments which were supposed to explain the fact of the comparative re- tirement in which he lived at home and abroad. Francis seems chiefly to have suffered from those nervous disorders — toothache, sleeplessness, and " vapours,' ' " clouds and melancholy," — which too often beset the body wkere the spirit over-crows it. In later life, looking back, he speaks of having had good health in his youth ; so the " puddering with the potigarie " was probably entailed by the overstrain of such unremitting and exciting work as he undertook. His natural constitution must have been singu- larly good, and his strength unusual, for to the labours of Hercules he added those of Atlas, cleansing and restoring the world, and bearing the weight of the whole tremendous work upon his own shoulders.
But for the present we may look on Francis Bacon as free from care or anxiety. " We must picture him as in the season of all-embracing hope, dreaming on things to come, and rehearsing his life to himself in that imaginary theatre where all things go right ; for such was his case when — hopeful, sensitive, bashful, amiable, wise and well-informed for his age, and glowing with noble aspirations — he put forth into the world with happy auspices in his sixteenth year." *
What a change of scene, what a revulsion of ideas, what an upsetting of habits, opinions and prejudices, for a boy to be sent forth from the quiet college life under the supervision of Whitgift, and from the still more strict routine of a Puritan home, into the gaiety, frivolity, dissipation of the life of courts and camps! True, Sir Amias and Lady Margaret Paulet, in whose suite Francis was to travel, were kind and good, and, if young in years, Francis was old in judgment. But all the more, let us picture to ourselves the effect on that lively imagination, and keenly observant mind, of the scenes into which he was now precipitated. For the English Ambassador was going on a mis- sion to the court of Henri III. at Paris, and from thence with the throng of nobles who attended the King of France and the Queen
* Spedding, Letters and Life, I. 6. This account will doubtless have to be revised. Further research induces the belief that Francis was already deeply engaged in framing his Secret Fraternity, and that as he says he had " travelled " (in books) " one year in the East."
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Mother. The English embassy, with Francis in its train, went in royal progress down to Blois, Tours and Poictiers, in the midst of alarms, intrigues, and disturbances, intermixed with festivities and licence, such as he could never have dreamed of. The French historian of the war, though a witness of and actor in this comedy, turned from it in disgust.* " When two courts which rivalled each other in gallantry were brought together the consequence may be guessed. Every one gave himself up to pleasure ; feasts and ballets followed each other, and love became the serious business of life." f
At Poictiers, which he reached in 1577, Francis Bacon set up headquarters for three years. Yet we are quite sure, from remarks dropped here and there, that, during these three years, he made various excursions into Spain and Italy, learning to speak, or, at least, to understand, both Spanish and Italian. He also made acquaintance with Michel de Montaigne, then Mayor of Bordeaux, and perhaps he travelled with him, and kept his little record of the travels 4 For during the time of Francis Bacon's sojourn in France we still hear of him as study- ing and writing. Plunged for the first time into the midst of riotous courtly dissipation, the record of him still is, that he was observing, drawing up a paper on the state of Europe — and what else ? We think also that he was writing Essays on the society which was spread out before him, and which he regarded as a scene in a play. He wrote as the throughts ran into his pen, with never-failing judgment and perception, with the naivete of youth, with much enjoyment, but with mistrust of himself, and with profound dissatisfaction, not only with the state of society, but with his own enjoyment. Society, he knew, would neither relish nor be improved by essays which were known to be written by a youth of eighteen or nineteen ; he would, therefore, borrow the robe of respected eld, and the Essays should come forth with authority, fathered by no less a person than the Mayor of Bordeaux. §
* Hepworth Dixon. f Sully's Memoirs.
X The Journal du Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse et l'Allemagne, 1579 (Old Style), is written in the third person : " He, M. de Montaigne, reported," etc.
§ Of course it will be understood that the first edition only of the Essays is supposed to have been written at this time. The large and unexplained additions and alterations are of a much later period and the enlarged edition did not appear in England till long afterwards.
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These are by no means the only works which were (in our opinion) products of those light-hearted, exciting days, when with youth, health, genius, keen powers of enjoyment, of observation, and of imagination, with endless energy and in- dustry, and ample means at his disposal, — "Wealth, honour, troops of friends," — he caught the first glimpses of a dazzling phase of life, and of ther" brave new world that hath such people in it." We may judge of the impression made by his conversation upon those who heard it from the inscription on a miniature painted by Hilliard in 1578. There is his face, as it appeared in his eighteenth year, and round it may be read the graphic words— the natural ejaculation, we may pre- sume, of the artist's own emotion : Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem ; if one could but paint his mind !
He was still at Paris, and wishing to be at home again, when, on February 17, 1579, Francis dreamed that his father's country house, Gorhambury, was plastered over with black mortar. About that time, Sir Nicholas, having accidentally fallen asleep at an open window, during the thaw which followed a great fall of snow, was seized with a sudden and fatal illness of which he died in two days. The question whether in future Francis " might live to study " or must " study to live," was then trembling in the balance. This accident turned the scale against him. Sir Nicholas, having provided for the rest of his family, had laid by a considerable sum of money, which he meant to employ in purchasing an estate for his youngest son. His sudden death prevented the purchase, and left Francis with only a fraction of the fortune intended for him, the remainder being divided amongst his brothers and sisters.
Thenceforward, for several years, we find him making strenuous efforts to avoid the necessity of following the law as a profession, and endeavouring to procure some service under the Queen, more fitted to his tastes and abilities. But the Cecils, now in power, not only refused to help their kinsman (of whom it is said they were jealous), but, that he might receive no effectual assistance from higher quarters, they spread reports that he was a vain speculator, unfit for real business. Bacon was thus driven, " against the bent of his genius," to the law as his only resource. Meanwhile he lived with his mother at Gorhambury, St. Albans.
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Anyone who will be at the pains to study the Shakespeare plays, in the order in which Dr. Delius has arranged them (and which he considered to be the most correct chronological order), will see that they agree curiously with the leading events of Bacon's external life. So closely indeed do the events coincide with the plots of the plays, that a complete story of Bacon's true life has been drawn from them. The following notes may be suggestive : —
1st Henry VI. The plot is laid in France, and the scenes occur in the very provinces and districts of Maine, Anjou, Orleans, Poictiers, etc., through which Bacon travelled in the wake of the French court.
2nd Henry VI. The battle of St. Albans. The incident recorded on the tomb of Duke Humphrey, in an epitaph 'written circa 1621 (when Bacon was living at St. Albans), of the impostor who pretended to have recovered his sight at St. Alban's shrine, is the same as in the play. See 2 Henry VI. ii. 1.
The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, etc., Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice, all reflecting Francis Bacon's studies as a lawyer, combined with his corre- spondence with his brother Anthony, then living in Italy. When Francis fell into great poverty and debt, he was forced to get help from the Jews and Lombards, and was actually cast into a sponging-house by a "hard Jew," on account of a bond which was not to fall due for two months. Meanwhile Anthony, returning from abroad, mortgaged his property to pay his brother's debts, taking his own credit and that of his friends, in order to relieve Francis, precisely as the generous and unselfish Antonio is represented to do in The Merchant of Venice. This play appeared in the following year, and the hard Jew was immortalised as Shylock. The brothers spent the summer and autumn of 1592 at Twickenham.
The Midsummer Night's Dream appears shortly afterwards. In this piece Bacon seems, whilst creating his fairies, to have called to his help his new researches into the history of the winds, and of heat and cold.
The plays and their various editions and additions enable us to trace Bacon's progress in science and ethical and
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 101
metaphysical studies. The politics of the time also make their mark.
Richard II. was a cause of dire offence to the Queen, since it alluded to troubles in Ireland, and Elizabeth considered that it conveyed rebukes to herself, of which Essex made use to stir up sedition. The whole history of this matter is very curious, and intimately connected with JBacon, but it is too long for repetition here.*
Hamlet and Lear contain graphic descriptions of melancholia and raving madness. They appeared after Lady Anne Bacon died, having lost the use of her faculties, and " being," said Bishop Goodman, " little better than frantic in her age." She
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness, and by this declension Into the madness wherein,
like Hamlet, she raved, and " which her children wailed for."
The particulars of the death of Queen Elizabeth, which Bacon learned from her physician, bear a striking resemblance to passages in King Lear.
Macbeth appears to reflect a combination of circumstances connected with Bacon. About 1605-6 an act of Parliament was passed against witches, James implicitly believing in their existence and power, and Bacon, in part, at least, sharing that belief. James, too, had been much offended by the remarks passed upon his book on demonology, and by the contemptuous jokes in which the players had indulged against the Scots. Mixed up with Bacon's legal and scientific inquiries into witch- craft, we find, in Macbeth, much that exhibits his acquaintance with the History of the Winds, of his experiments on Dense and Rare, and his observations on the Union of Mind and Body.
A Winter's Tale is notably full of Bacon's observations on horticulture, hybridising, grafting, etc., and on the virtues of plants medicinal, and other matters connected with his notes on the Regimen of Health.
Cymbeline, and Antony and Cleopatra, show him studying vivisection, and the effects of various poisons on the human body. The effects of mineral and vegetable poisons are also
* See Bacon's Apophthegms, Devey, p. 166, and the Apologia of Essex.
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illustrated in Hamlet, and if these plays were written so early as some commentators suppose, then we may believe that certain portions were interpolated after Bacon's investigations into the great poisoning cases which he was, later on, called upon to conduct.*
The Tempest describes a wreck on the Bermudas, and Caliban, the man-monster or devil. It was published soon after the loss of the ship Admiral, in which Bacon had embarked money to aid Southampton, Pembroke, and Montgomery in the colonisation of Virginia. The ship was wrecked on the Bermudas, the " Isle of Divils." About this time the History of the Winds and of the Sailing of Ships was said to be written.
Timon of Athens, showing the folly of a large-hearted and over-generous patron in trusting to " time's flies " and " mouth- friends," who desert him in the time of need, seems to have been written by Bacon after his fall and retirement, to satirise his own too sanguine trust in parasites, who lived upon him so long as he was prosperous, but who, on his reverse of fortune, deserted, and left him to the kindness of the few true friends and followers on whom he was absolutely dependent.
Henry VIII. completes the picture. In a letter from Bacon to the King, in 1622, he quotes (in the original draft) the words which Wolsey utters in the play of Henry VIII., III. ii., 454 — 457, though Bacon adds : " My conscience says no such thing ; for I know not but in serving you I have served God in one. But it may be if I had pleased men as I have pleased you, it would have been better with me." This passage was cut out of the fair copy of the letter ; its original idea appeared next year in the play of Henry VIII.
Ben Jonson describes, in well-known lines, the labour and artistic skill necessary for the production of mighty verse so richly spun and woven so fit as Shakespeare' s. To a profound study of Nature, which is exalted by, "made proud of his designs," must be added the art which arrays Nature in " lines so richly spun and woven so fit " :
" For though the poet's matter Nature be, His art must give the fashion ; and that he
* See Did Francis Bacon Write Shakespeare, Part II., p. 26, and Bacon's Apologia and Apophthegms.
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Who casts to write a living line must sweat (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same And himself with it, that he thinks to frame ; Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn ; For a good poet's made as well as born. And such wert thou."
But, as a mere child, fie seems to have written, not words without matter, but matter without art, and we can well imagine him saying to himself in after years :
" Why did I write ? What sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own ? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisped in numbers, and the numbers came."
There is not one, not even the poorest, amongst the Shake- speare plays, which could possibly have been the first or nearly the earliest of its author's efforts in that kind. A careless perusal of some of the " mysteries " or play interludes which were in favour previous to the year 1579 will enable anyone to perceive the wide chasm which lies between such pieces and — say — Titus Andronicus and the plays of Henry VI. There are passages in these plays which no tyro in the arts of poetry and of playwriting could have penned, and for our own part we look, not backward, but forward, to the crowd of " minor Elizabethan dramatists " in order to find the crude, juvenile effusions which, we believe, will prove to have been struck off by Francis Bacon * at the first heat upon the Muses' anvil. These light and unlaboured pieces were probably written, at first, chiefly for his own amusement, or to be played (as they often were) in the Inns of Court, or by the private " servants " of his friends, and in their own houses.
Later on, we know that he took a serious view of the important influence for good or for bad which is easily produced by shows and "stage-plays," set before the eyes of the public. As has been said, he always, and from the first, regarded the stage, not as a mere " toy," but as a powerful means of good — as a glass in which the whole world should be reflected — " a mirror held up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own
* Again we add a saving clause in favour of the little-known Anthony, also " a concealed poet."
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image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
"Men," he said, "had too long 'adored the deceiving and deformed imagery which the unequal mirrors of their own minds had presented to them,' " the " deformities " of ignorance, superstition, affectation, and coarseness. They should see these deformities of vice and ignorance reflected so truly, so life-like, that virtue should charm, whilst vice should appear so repulsive that men should shrink from it with loathing.
Many of the plays which we attribute to Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony treat of low life, and contain not a few coarse passages. But the age was coarse and gross, and it must be observed that, even in such passages, vice is never attractive ; on the contrary, it is invariably made repelling and contemptible, sometimes disgusting, and in every case Good and the Right are triumphant. It is a matter for serious consideration whether the pieces which are exhibited before our lower and middle classes possess any of the merits which are conspicuous in the plays (taken as a whole) of the time of Elizabeth. We see them, we admire or laugh, and we come away, for the most part, with- out having heard a single phrase worthy of repetition or record. We remember little of the play twenty-four hours after we have seen it, and we are no whit the wiser, though at the time we may have been the merrier, and that is not a bad thing.
Bacon perceived, doubtless by his own youthful experience, that men are far more readily impressed by what they see than by what they hear or read. That, moreover, they must be amused, and that the manner and means of their recreation are matters of no slight importance. For the bow cannot always be bent, and to make times of leisure truly recreative and profitable to mind as well as body, was, he thought, a thing much to be wished, and too long neglected. The lowest and poorest, as well as the most dissipated or the most cultivated, love shows and stage plays. He loved them himself. Would it not be possible to make the drama a complete (though unrecognised) school of instruction in morals, manners, and politics, and at the same time so highly entertaining and attractive that men should unconsciously be receiving good and wholesome doctrines, whilst they sought merely to amuse themselves ?
There is no question that such things were to him true
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recreation and delight. Sports and pastimes have for one object " to drive away the heavy thoughts of care," and to refresh the spirits dulled by overwork, and by harping on one string. Idle- ness, especially enforced idleness, is no rest to such a mind as Bacon's ; and we know that he was always weariest and least well in " the dead long vacation." So we are sure that he often exclaimed, like Theseus, in the Midsummer Night's Dream :
" Come, now ; what masques, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bedtime ? Where is our usual manager of mirth ? What revels are in hand ? Is there no play To ease the anguish of a torturing hour ? Say, what abridgment have you for this evening ? What masque ? what music ? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight ? "
Like Theseus and his friends, he finds little satisfaction in the performance of the ancient play which is proposed, and which he knows by heart, or in the modern one, in which " there is not one word apt or one word fitted." He mourns, the degradation of the stage — in ancient times so noble, and even in the hands of the Jesuits wisely used, as a discipline for the actor, and a means of wide instruction for the spectators.
There is reason to think that Francis, in childhood, showed great talent for acting, and that he took leading parts in the Latin plays which were performed at college. At home, such doings were checked by Lady Anne's Puritan prejudices. The strong tendency which Anthony and Francis evinced for the theatre, and for " mumming and masquing " with their com- panions, was a source of great anxiety and displeasure to this- good lady. She bewailed it as a falling-off from grace, and prayed yet that it might not be accounted a sin that she should permit her dear son Francis to amuse himself at home in getting up such entertainments, with the help of the domestics. All this, renders it improbable that he ever had the opportunity of going to a public theatre until he went abroad, and perhaps the very coarseness and stupidity of what he then saw put on the stage may have disgusted him, acting as an incentive to him to attempt something better.
At all events, hardly had he settled down in Gray's Inn, before
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106 FRANCIS BACON
the plays began to appear. From this time there are frequent allusions, in the records of the Gray's Inn Revels, to the assist- ance which he gave, and which seems, in most cases, to have consisted in writing, as well as managing, the whole entertain- ment. If any names are mentioned in connection with such revels, or with the masques and devices which were performed at court, these names almost always include that of Francis Bacon. Sometimes he is the only person named in connection with these festivities.
All this might be taken as a matter of course, so long as Bacon was but a youth, though even at that time the fact of his being a playwright, or stage-manager, would seem to be remarkable, considering the horror with which his mother, and no doubt many others of his near and dear Puritan relatives, regarded the performance of stage-plays and masques.
Lady Anne, in a letter written to Anthony, just before the Revels and the first performance of the Comedy of Errors, at Gray's Inn, in 1594, exhorts him and Francis that they may " not mum, nor mask, nor sinfully revel. Who were sometime counted first, God grant they wane not daily, and deserve to be named last." *
Considering the low estimation in which the degraded stage of that date was held by all respectable people, it is not astonish- ing that during Bacon's lifetime (if there were no more potent motive than this) his friends should combine to screen his repu- tation from the terrible accusation of being concerned with such base and despised matters. But this feeling against the stage passed away ; and, in some cases, we find Bacon actually instru- mental in producing the works of " Shakespeare.1' It is, there- fore, not a little surprising that particulars and records, which would have been reckoned as of the greatest interest and importance, if they had concerned Shakspere or Ben Jonson, should be hushed up, or passed over, when they are found closely to connect Francis Bacon with theatrical topics. As an illustration of our meaning, it may be mentioned that in the voluminous " Life " of Spedding the index, at the end of each of the Hve volumes, does not enable the uninitiated reader to
* Lambeth MSS. 650, 222, quoted by Dixon. So here again we see Anthony also mixed up with play-writing.
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trace the fact that Bacon wrote either devices, masques, inter- ludes, entertainments, or sonnets ; none of these words appear in any index. Moreover, although the device of the Order of the Helmet, and the Masques of the Indian Boy, and the Conference of Pleasure, are partly printed and all described in that work, we seek in vain for the pieces under these or any other titles, and they are^only to be found by looking under Gray's Inn Revels. Evidently there has been no great desire to enlighten the world in general as to Bacon's connection with the theatrical world of his day — perhaps it was thought that such a connection was derogatory to his position and reputation as a great philosopher — perhaps there are other reasons ?
Hep worth Dixon goes into opposite extremes when he speaks of Lady Anne, in letters written as late as 1592, " loving and counselling her two careless boys." Francis was at that date thirty, and Anthony thirty-two years of age. A year later Francis wrote to his uncle, Lord Burleigh : "I wax somewhat ancient. One and thirty years is a good deal of sand in a man's hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed ; and I do not fear that action shall impair it, because I account my ordinary course of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action are.1' He goes on to say that he always hoped to take some " middle place " in which he could serve her Majesty, not for the love either of honour or business, " for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly," but because it was his duty to devote his abilities to his sovereign, and also necessary for him to earn money, because, though he could not excuse himself of sloth or extravagance, " yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get." Then he makes that remark- able declaration which further explains his perpetual need of money : "I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends ; for I have taken all knowledge to be my province." This, whether it be curiosity or vainglory, or, if one may take it favourably, philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind that it cannot be removed."
That the biographer should have thought fit to use such an expression as " careless boy " in regard to the indefatigable philosopher, " the most prodigious wit," who in childhood had a gravity beyond his years, and who at thirty felt "ancient," speaks volumes as to the impressson made on the mind of a
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sympathetic reader by the various small particulars which shed light on the gay and sprightly side of Francis Bacon's many- sided character.
In the letter to his uncle Bacon goes on to say, "I do easily see that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring com- mandment of more wits than a man's own, which is the thing I greatly affect." Here is a reason, the only reason, why he desired to gain a good position in the world. With place and wealth would come power to carry out his vast contemplative ends. Without money or position he could have no such hope, and he adds, " If your lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty ; but this I will do : I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth which he said lay so deep. This which I have writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts than words, being set down without art,* disguising, or reservation, wherein I have done honour, both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging that that will best be believed by your Lordship which is truest, and to your Lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing from you."
Bacon wrote this letter from his lodging at Gray's Inn at the beginning of the year 1592. He was now just entering his thirty-second year, and, on the surface, little had appeared of his real life and action. But still waters run deep. He had already accomplished enough to have filled the measure of a dozen ordinary lives, and apart from his own actual writings we have now abundant evidence to show how his vast plans for universal culture and reformation were spreading — more abroad than at home, but everywhere, manifesting themselves in the revival, the " renaissance " of literature and science.
The rearing of the new " Solomon's House " was begun. Poor as he was, almost solitary on the heights of thought, but yet with many willing minds struggling to approach and relieve him, he knew with prophetic prescience that his work was growing, im- perishable, neither " subject to Time's love nor to Time's hate."
* Spedding, L. L., I. 109. Comp. Hamlet, II. ii., 95—99, etc.
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No, it was builded far from accident ;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls "Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls : It feels not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours ; But all alone stands hugely politic. * •~ To witness this he calls the fools of time. What was it to him that he had " borne the canopy, with his exteme the outward honouring " ? Whilst living thus externally, as fortune forced him to do, as mere servant to greatness, a brilliant but reluctant hanger-on at the court, he was meanwhile collecting materials, digging the foundations, calling in helpers to " lay great bases for eternity."
♦Sonnets CXXIV., CXXV.
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