part in the preparation of one of the masques." This was the

joint masque presented by the gentlemen of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple, " written by Francis Beaumont," and printed shortly after with the following dedication : —
" to the worthy slr francis bacon, his majesty's solicitor- General, and the grave and learned Bench of the
ANCIENTLY ALLIED HOUSES OP Gray's Inn AND THE INNER
Temple, the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.
uYe that spared no pain or travail in the setting forth, ordering, and furnishing of this masque (being the first fruits of honour in this kind which these two societies have offered to His Majesty), will not think much now to look back upon the effects of your own care and work; for that, whereof the success was then doubtful, is now happily per- formed, and graciously accepted ; and that which you were then to think of in straits of time, you may now peruse at leisure. And you, Sir Francis Bacon, especially, as you did then by your countenance and loving affections advance it, so let your good word grace it and defend it, which is able to add value to the greatest and least matters."
There we perceive that the gentlemen (exclusive of Bacon) who had taken so much pains in the setting forth of this important and almost national tribute of respect to the royal family are thanked for their aid in the "ordering and furnishing" of a masque with which, clearly, they were not as a whole well acquainted. They helped, as modern phrase has it, to " get up " the masque, but of its drift they had so little knowledge that what they could only think of in "straits of time," perhaps during the performance, they could now enjoy by reading it at leisure. None of these busy helpers, then, had contributed to the writing of the masque, and the wording of the dedication, although it does not say that Bacon was the author, yet seems to indicate as much ; for it skilfully brings him to the front, and entirely ignores Beaumont, who, however, doubtless did " write " the masque — fair, with a pen and ink.
" It is easy to believe," says the biographer, " that if Bacon took an active part in the preparations of a thing of this kind, in the success of which he felt an interest, he would have a good deal to say about all the arrangements. But as we have no means
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 133
of knowing what he did say, and thereby learning something as to his taste in this department,* it will be well to give a general account of the performance as described by an eye-witness."
"On Tuesday/' writes Chamberlain, February 18, 1612-13, " it came to Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple's turn to come with their masque, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver; and because the former came on horseback and in open chariots, they made choice to come by water from Winchester Place, in Southwark ; which suited well with their device, which was the marriage of the River Thames to the Rhine ; and their show by water was very gallant, by reason of infinite store of lights, very curiously set and placed, and many boats and barges with devices of lights and lamps, with three peals of ordnance, one at their taking water, another in the Temple Garden, and the last at their landing; which passage by water cost them better than £300. They were received at the privy stairs, and great expectation there was that they should every way excel their competitors that went before them, both in device, dainti- ness of apparel, and above all in dancing, wherein they are held excellent, and esteemed for the properer men.
" But by what ill planet it fell out I know not, they came home as they went, without doing anything ; the reason whereof I cannot yet learn thoroughly, but only that the hall was so full that it was not possible to avoid f it, or make room for them ; besides that, most of the ladies were in the galleries to see them land, and could not get in. But the worst of all was that the King was so wearied and sleepy with sitting almost two whole nights before, that he had no edge to it. Whereupon Sir Francis Bacon adventured to entreat of his Majesty that by this difference he would not, as it were, bury them quick ; $ and I hear the King should answer that then they must bury him quick, for he could last no longer ; but withal gave them very good words, and appointed them to come again on Saturday.
* Why the writer should say this we know not, for two pages farther on he says : " For ivhat Bacon had to say about such things, see his essay of Masques and Triumphs, which was very likely suggested by the considera- tion he had to bestow on this." This essay was never published until one year before Bacon's death, i.e., 1625. It shows us that Bacon's love of the stage and of masquing was as keen in his old age as in his youth. In the posthumous edition of the Essays, published in 1638, the essay is suppressed.
t " Clear it." jj: "Alive"
134 FRANCIS BACON
" But the grace of their masque is quite gone, when their apparel hath been already showed, and their devices vented, so that how it will fall out, God knows, for they are much dis- couraged and out of countenance, and the world says, it comes to pass after the old proverb, the properer man, the worse luck." *
Their devices, however, went much beyond the mere exhibition of themselves and their apparel, and there was novelty enough behind the curtain to make a sufficient entertainment by itself, without the water business for overture. Chamberlain writes again on the 25th :
" Our Gray's Inn men and the Inner Templars were nothing discouraged for all the first dodge, but on Saturday last per- formed their part exceeding well, and with great applause and approbation, both from the King and all the company. The next night the King invited the masquers, with their assistants, to the number of forty, to a solemn supper in the new marriage- room, where they were well treated, and much graced with kissing his majesty's hand, and everyone having a particular accoglienza with him." f
None of Bacon's biographers or critics have expressed the smallest surprise that, in days when Shakspere and Ben Jonson were at the height of their fame, it was neither the one nor the other of them, but the Solicitor-General, who was employed to " contrive," and ultimately to manage, the first masque which had been "presented" to the King. Under similar circum- stances we should expect that Mr. Beerbohm Tree or Mr. Irving would be invited to undertake such a management ; it would not have occurred to us to apply for help to Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., M.P.
In 1613 Francis Bacon was appointed Attorney-General. This happened just before the marriage of the Earl of Somerset with Lady Essex, on December 26th. There were very unpleasant circumstances connected with this marriage, which are now known to historians, but which it is unnecessary here to enter upon. As Spedding says, it is but fair to the world of rank, wealth, fashion, and business, which hastened to congratulate the bride and bridegroom with gifts unprecedented in number
* Court and Times of James I. i. 227. f lb. 229.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 135
and value, to remember that it does not follow that they would have done the same if they had known what we know. * It was proposed that during the week of festivities which celebrated this marriage the four Inns of Court (the Middle and Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn) should join in getting up a masque, but they could not manage it, and once more we find Bacon called upon to supply their dramatic deficiencies.
Apparently Bacon considered that he owed Somerset some complimentary offering, because Somerset claimed (though Bacon doubted it) to have used his influence with the King to secure Bacon's promotion. The approaching marriage gave the desired opportunity for discharging an obligation to a man for whom he had no esteem, whom, indeed, he disliked too much to be willing to owe him even a seeming and pretended obligation.
The offering was well chosen for this purpose, although, as Spedding allows, it was " so peculiar and so costly (consider- ing how little he owed to Rochester, and how superficial their intercourse had been), that it requires explanation." f Whilst all the world were making presents — one of plate, another of furniture, a third of horses, a fourth of gold — he chose a masque, for which an accident supplied him with an excellent opportunity. When the united efforts of the four inns of court failed to produce the required entertainment, Bacon offered, on the part of Gray's Inn, to supply the place of it by a masque of their own.
The letter, in Bacon's own hand, which was at first supposed to be addressed to Burghley, but which, upon close examination, Spedding believed to be written to Somerset, acquires a new value and significance from the latter circumstance, giving fresh evidence both as to the tone of Bacon's intercourse with the favourite, and as to the style in which he did this kind of thing. " The fly-leaf being gone, the address is lost, and the docket does not supply it; there is no date." (Just as we should expect when the record has anything to connect Bacon with plays or masques.) "The catalogue assumes that it is addressed to Lord Burghley," and this erroneous assumption adds one more little
* Letters and Life, IV. 392. The following passages are nearly all extracted from this volume of Spedding. | Let. and Life, IV. 392.
136 FRANCIS BACON
obstruction to the discovery or recognition of the letter, which is a single leaf, and contains only the following words :
" It may please your good L. :
" I am sorry the masque from the four Inns of Court faileth ; wherein I conceive there is no other ground of that event but impossibility. Nevertheless, because it faileth out that at this time Gray's Inn is well furnished of gallant young gentlemen, your L. may be pleased to know that, rather than this occasion shall pass without some demonstration of affection from the four Inns of Court, there are a dozen gentlemen that, out of the honour which they bear to your Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain (to whom at their last masque they were so bounden), will be ready to furnish a masque ; wishing it were in their powers to perform it according to their minds. And so for the present I humbly take my leave, resting
" Your L.'s very humbly
" and much bounden
" Fr. Bacon.'1
The Lord Chamberlain was the Earl of Suffolk, who was the bride's father; so that everything seems to fit. But though Bacon speaks of it as a compliment from Gray's Inn, Gray's Inn was in reality to furnish only the performers. The com- position, the care and the charges were to be undertaken by himself, as we learn from a news letter of Chamberlain's, whose information is almost always to be relied upon. Writing on the 23rd of December, 1613, he says :
" Sir Francis Bacon prepares a masque to honour this marriage, which will stand him in above £2,000; and though he have been offered some help by the House, and especially by Mr. Solicitor, Sir Henry Yelverton, who would have sent him £500, yet he would not accept it, but offers them the whole charge with the honour. Marry ! his obligations are such, as well to his Majesty as to the great Lord, and to the whole house of Howards, as he can admit no partner."
The nature of the obligation considered, there was judgment as well as magnificence in the choice of the retribution. The obligation (whether real or not) being for assistance in obtain- ing an office, to repay it by any present which could be turned into money would have been objectionable, as tending to coun- tenance the great abuse of the times (from which Bacon stands
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 137
clear) — the sale of offices for money. There was no such objection to a masque. As a compliment, it was splendid, according to the taste and magnificence of the time ; costly to the giver, not negotiable to the receiver ; valuable as a compliment, but as nothing else. Nor was its value in that kind limited to the parties in whose honour it was given. It conferred great distinction upon Gray's Inn, in a field in which Gray's Inn was ambitious and accustomed to shine.
The piece performed was published shortly after, with a dedi- cation to Bacon, as " the principal, and in effect the only person that doth encourage and warrant the gentlemen to shew their good affection in a time of such magnificence ; wherein " they add) " we conceive, without giving you false attributes, which little need where so many are true, that you have graced in general the societies of the Inns of Court, in continuing them still as third persons with the nobility and court, in doing the King honour ; and particularly Gray's Inn, which, as you have formerly brought to flourish, both in the ancienter and younger sort, by countenancing virtue in every quality, so now you have made a notable demonstration thereof in the lighter and less serious kind, by this, that one Inn of Court by itself, in time of a vacation, and in the space of three weeks, could perform that which hath been performed ; which could not have been done but that every man's exceeding love and respect to you gave him wings to overtake time, which is the swiftest of things."
The words which we print in italics seem to show that the true object of this celebrated masque was to do the King honour ; and, probably, we shall one day find that it was at some expressed desire or regret of his that Francis Bacon was moved to undertake this work, which had proved (as he said in his letters to Rochester) an " impossibility " when attempted by the whole of the four Inns of Court in conjunction.
Observe, too, the unexplained debt which Gray's Inn is said to owe to Bacon for its flourishing condition, and the exceeding love which the members bore to him, and which alone enabled them to carry out his elaborate devices in the short space of three weeks. We would like to ascertain who were J. G., W. D., and T. B., who signed the dedication. Spedding says that, from an allusion to their " graver studies," they appear to have been members of the society. The allusion, coupled with the
138 FRANCIS BACON
description of the masque as a show or " demonstration, in the lighter and less serious kind," made to please the King, again carries our minds to the opening words of the Essay of Masques : " These things are but toys to come amongst such serious matters ; out since princes will have them," etc., they should be properly done.
This piece, entitled The Masque of Flowers, may be seen at full length in Nichol's Progresses : "A very splendid trifle, and answering very well to the description in Bacon's Essays of what a masque should be, — with its loud and cheerful music, abundance of light and colour, graceful motions and forms, and such things as do naturally take the sense, but having no personal reference to the occasion beyond being an entertain- ment given in honour of a marriage, and ending with an offering of flowers to the bride and bridegroom." *
In March, 1617, Bacon was installed as Lord Chancellor upon the death of Egerton. On May 7th he rode from Gray's Inn to Westminster Hall to open the courts in state. " All London turned out to do him honour, and every one who could borrow a horse and a foot-cloth fell into the train ; so that more than two hundred horsemen rode behind him. Through crowds of citizens . . . of players from Bankside, of the Puritan hearers of Burgess, of the Roman Catholic friends of Danvers and Armstrong, he rode, as popular in the streets as he had been in the House of Commons, down Chancery Lane and the Strand, past Charing Cross, through the open courts of Whitehall, and by King Street into Palace yard."|
The Bankside players, then, came in a bevy, sufficiently numerous to be conspicuous and registered in history, and all the way from Southwark, in order to do honour to the newly made Chancellor. " My friends, chew upon this."
The Essay of Masques and Triumphs would suffice to show any unbiased reader that the author was intimately acquainted with the practical management of a theatre. There is something peculiarly graphic in this little Essay, which we commend to the consideration of those who interest themselves in private theatricals. It should be remembered that Bacon would not
* Spedding, Letters and Life, IV. 394-5. | Story of Bacon's Life, 317.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 139
insert amongst his most polished and well filed Essays two pages of small particulars with which everyone was acquainted. He is clearly instructing those who do not know so much of the matter as he does.
True, he takes high ground, and prefaces his remarks with the reflection that " these tjxings are but toys to come amongst such serious considerations ; but yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost," and he tells us how to ensure this, giving many suggestions which have been adopted until this day. " Acting in song hath an extreme good grace ; I say acting, not dancing, for that is a mean and vulgar thing." The things he sets down are such as " take the sense, not petty wonderments," though he considers that change of scene, so it be quietly and without noise, is a thing of beauty. The scenes are to abound with light, but varied and coloured — the masquers when appear- ing on the scene from above are to " make motions " which will draw the eye strangely and excite desire to see that which it cannot perfectly discern. The songs are to be loud and cheer- ful, " not chirpings and pulings," and the music sharp and well- placed. The colours that show best by candle-light are " white, carnation, and a kind of seawater-green." Short and pithy as this Essay is, we wonder that it had never struck Shakspereans how wonderfully well Mrs. Page, in her little device to frighten and confuse Falstaff, carried out the instructions here conveyed. The music placed in the sawT-pit ; the many rounds of waxen tapers on the heads of the fairies ; the rash out of the saw-pit with songs and rattles " to take the sense " ; the fairies in green and white, singing a scornful rhyme as they trip and pinch Falstaff. Although the masque is intended to frighten him, there is in it nothing frightful, for " anything that is hideous, as devils and giants, is unfit." Satires, antics, sprites and pig- mies Bacon allows ; so Mrs. Page introduces " my little son and those of the same growth," dressed " like urchins, ouphes and fairies."
Even the " diffused " song which they sing seems to be arranged with care and intention, for, says Bacon, " I under- stand it, that the song he in quire, with some broken music." But he concludes, " Enough of these toys," and perhaps when the Bankside players came to see him ride in state as Chancel-
140 FRANCIS BACON
lor, there may have been some amongst them who knew that indeed he would no more be able to indulge in openly meddling with such frivolities.
Public and political business now increased with Bacon so that (without taking into consideration other enterprises) no one will find it strange that from this time no more is heard of him as stage-manager or Master of the Revels on any occasion later than that of the marriage of the King's favourite. Probably, however, want of time had very little to do with the matter, for Bacon seems always to have found time for doing all that it was desirable to do. It is more likely that he felt the incongruity which would appear between the trivialities of such "toys" and the dignity of his position as Attorney-General and prospective Chancellor. Nevertheless, even in the published records of his later years hints drop out here and there of his continued devotion to theatrical performances, and his unfading interest in playwights and all concerning them. He knew that the stage was a great engine for good, and for teaching and moving the masses, who would never read books or hear lectures.
In January, 1617, Bacon " dined at Gray's Inn to give counte- nance to their Lord and Prince of Purpoole, and to see their revels." * At this time, according to a letter from Buckingham to the King, a masque was performed ; but we know not what it was. A masque appears also to have been in preparation for Shrove Tuesday, though it could not be performed till Tuesday, owing to the occupation of the banqueting hall by an improved edition of the "Prince's Masque " — a piece of Ben Jonson's, which had been acted on Twelfth Night with little applause. " The poet," says Nathaniel Brent, " is grown dull, that his device is not thought worth the relating, much less the copying out. Divers think fit he should return to his old trade of bricklaying again."f Nevertheless, " their fashion and device were well approved " on the second occasion, when the "dull " device must have under- gone a good deal of alteration, since Chamberlain adds, " I can- not call it a masque, seeing they were not disguised nor had vizards."
"Ben Jonson^: had seen something of Bacon off the stage,
* Chamberlain to Carleton. f To Carleton, February 7, 1617—18. X It is worthy of note that Jonson and his family all spelt their
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 141
though we do not know how much," says Spedding, writing of the last years of Bacon's life. Tradition is persistent in repeat- ing that Ben Jonson was one of Bacon's " able pens," an assistant in his writings, superior to an ordinary amanuensis. Drummond of Hawthornden records that Ben Jonson mentioned having written an "apology" for the play of Bartholomew Fair, "m my Lord St. Auhanie's house" in 1604.
Jonson " bursts into song," says one biographer, when politics or events favour Bacon's view, and in 1620 he " celebrates his birthday," says another, " in words breathing nothing but reverence and honour." Since these lines, often alluded to, are little known, it may be worth while to quote them here :
" Hail, happy genius of this ancient pile ! How comes it all things so about thee smile ? The fire, the wine, the men ! and in the midst Thou stand'st as if a mystery thou didst !
Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day
For whose returns, and many, all these pray ;
And so do I. This is the sixtieth year
Since Bacon and thy lord was born, and here ;
Son to the grave, wise keeper of the seal,
Fame and foundation of the English weal.
What then his father was, that since is he,
Now with a little more to the degree ;
England's High Chancellor, the destin'd heir
In his soft cradle to his father's chair :
Whose even threads the Fates spun round and full
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.
'Tis a brave cause of joy, let it be known,
For 'twere a narrow gladness, kept thine own.
Give me a deep-bowl'd crown, that I may sing,
In raising him, the wisdom of my King."
However much or little Bacon may have known of Ben Jonson " off the stage," it is certain that Ben Jonson formed a very accurate estimate of Bacon's abilities as a writer and a poet. It is impossible so to wrest the ordinary and accepted meaning of words as to insist that Ben Jonson did not mean what he so plainly says (and in connection with the poetic writings of Greece and Rome, as in the eulogy of Shakespeare), namely,
name with an h— Johnson— only the works and the brief epitaph, 0 rare Ben Jonson, are thus spelt. Was not this a pseudonym — a hint ?
142 FRANCIS BACON
that he " filled up all numbers" or wrote poetry in all styles and metres. Enumerating the learned and eloquent men of the early days of Elizabeth, when " Sir Nicholas Bacon was singular and almost alone, he mentions Sir Philip Sydney, Master Richard Hooker, Robert, Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Henry Savile, Sir Edwin Sandys, and Sir Thomas Egerton, " a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked. But his learned and able, though unfortunate successor, is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred to insolent Greece and haughty Homer
It will be observed that Shakespeare and the whole of the Elizabethan poets and dramatists, excepting Sir Philip Sydney, are here omitted, and that Jonson considers that with Bacon's death the main prop of learning, wit, eloquence, and poetry had been taken away.
" In short, within his view, and about his time, were all the wits born that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits go backward ; so that he may be named and stand as the mark or dxM of our language."
Jonson is not here speaking of Bacon's scientific works. He comes to them in a subsequent paragraph, wherein he again shows his intimate knowledge of Bacon's powers, aims, and character. " The Novum Organum" he says, is a book "which, though by the most superficial of men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book,
Qui longem noto scriptori proroget cevum." *
In connection with Bacon's acquaintance with actors and his interest in the theatre, we must add a few words about one distinguished member of the profession. Edward Allen, or Alleyn, was the founder of Dulwich College, a munificent endowment which has been the subject of much wonder and of a considerable amount of unrewarded inquiry. How Alleyn became possessed of the means to enter upon and carry through so large and costly an enterprise has not yet been satisfactorily explained to the public at large, but the facts are clear that in
* Horat. de Art. Poetica.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 143
1606 he began to acquire land at Dulwich, and the most important of the valuable estates which now collectively form the endowment of the college ; that in 1613 he contracted with a certain John Benson for the erection of a school-house and twelve alms-houses, and that in the course of the years of 1616 and 1617 the first members of his foundation were admitted to the college. Alleyn now endeavoured to obtain from the King a patent for the permanent establishment of his college by its endowment by the King of lands to the value of £800. Bacon opposed this, not because he objected to the charity, in which he was interested, but because he considered that the crown property would suffer if the King once began the system of 11 amortizing his tenures " for charitable purposes. Moreover, alms-houses, he thought, were not unmixed blessings, whereas endowments for educational purposes were much needed. The King had lately rejected the applications of Sir Henry Savile and Sir Edward Sandys for grants of money for such purposes ; why, then, should he give such a large sum to Alleyn ?
Bacon's good judgment in preferring educational institutions to alms-houses has been vindicated by the action of the Charity Commission. By an act of Parliament passed in 1857 the alms- men of the " hospital " were all pensioned off, and the foundation completely reconstructed, simply as a collegiate institution, with upper and lower schools.
Since, even in this matter, it has been attempted to put Bacon in the wrong, by representing that "the impediments which Alleyn experienced proceeded from the Lord Chancellor," and by the implication that these impediments were needlessly vexatious. Here is the letter which Bacon wrote on this occasion to the Marquis of Buckingham. It has been truly described as characteristic in point and quaintness :
" My Very Good Lord :
" I thank your lordship for your last loving letter. I now write to give the King an account of a patent I have stayed at the seal. It is of licence to give in mortmain eight hundred pound land, though it be of tenure in chief, to Allen, that was the player, for an hospital.
" I like well that Allen playeth the last act of his life so well ; but if his Majesty give way thus to amortize his tenures, his courts of wards shall decay, which I had well hoped should improve.
144 FRANCIS BACON
" But that which moveth me chiefly is, that his Majesty did now lately absolutely deny Sir Henry Savile for £200, and Sir Edwin Sandys for £100 to the perpetuating of two lectures, the one in Oxford, the other in Cambridge, foundations of singular honour to his Majesty (the best of learned kings), and of which there is a great want ; whereas hospitals abound, and beggars abound never a whit the less.
" If his Majesty do like to pass the book at all ; yet if he would be pleased to abridge the £800 to £500, and then give way to the other two books for the university, it were a princely work. And I make an humble suit to the king, and desire your lordship to join in it, that it mought be so. God ever preserve and prosper you.
" Your lordship's most obliged friend
" and faithful servant,
" Fr. Verulam, Cane. " York House, this 18th of August, 1616."
Whether or no the money for the lectures at the university was granted by the King, deponents say not, but on June 21st, 1619, Bacon affixed the great seal of England to letters patent from James I. giving license to Edward Allen " to found and establish a college in Dulwich, to endure and remain for ever, and to be called The College of God's Gift in Dulwich, in the County of Surrey."
On September 13th of the same year the college was com- pleted, " and so, in the quaint words of Fuller " * — words which strangely echo those in Bacon's letter to the Duke of Buckingham — " he who out-acted others in his life, outdid himself before his death.'1
Amongst the distinguished guests at the opening of the college Bacon and his friends are conspicuous. Alleyn gives a list of them, beginning with " The Lord Chancellor (Bacon), the Lord of Arondell, Lord Ciecill (Cecil), Sir John Howland, High Shreve, and Inigo Jones, the King's Surveyor."
Perhaps the latest, as it is the greatest tribute openly paid by Bacon to the value of the theatre as a means of popular educa- tion, is the passage which he omitted from the Advancement of Learning in its early form, but inserted in the Be Augmentis in
* Old and New London, VI., 298.
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 145
1623, when that work, the crowning work of his scientific and philosophical labours, appeared simultaneously with the first collected edition of the Shakespeare plays. The passage was not intended to be read by the " profane vulgar," who might have scorned the Chancellor for praising the much-despised stage. It was, therefore, reservedjor the Latin, and thus rendered, for the time, accessible only to the learned — for the most part Bacon's friends :
" Dramatic poesy, which has the theatre for its world, would be of excellent use if well directed. For the stage is capable of no small influence, both of discipline and of corruption. Now, of corruptions in this kind we have enough ; but the discipline has, in our times, been plainly neglected. And though in modern states play-acting is esteemed but as a toy, except when it is too satirical and biting, yet among the ancients it was used as a means of educating men's minds to virtue. Nay, it has been regarded by learned men and great philosophers as a kind of musician's bow, by which men's minds may be played upon. And certainly it is most true, and one of the greatest secrets of nature, that the minds of men are more open to impressions and affections when many are gathered together, than when they are alone." *
The brief records which are published of Bacon's last days show him, still in sickness and poverty, possessing the same sweet, gentle, patient, and generous spirit which had been with him in the brilliant and exciting days of prosperity ; even in his misfortune and ruin making himself happy with his books and his experiments, trying to leave his work in such a condition that others could readily take up and complete that which life was too short and fortune too adverse for him to accomplish before his death.
His will is brief, but touching in its thought for everybody connected with him, and for the sanguine spirit which it displays. f " My name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next ages." He desired to be laid near the mother he so dearly loved and so closely resembled, in St. Michael's Church, near Gorhambury. Sir John Constable, his brother-in-law, was to have the chief
♦DeAug. II. 13. f The following is from Hepworth Dixon's Story, p. 479.
146 FRANCIS BACON
care of his books. * Bequests were made to the poor of all the parishes in which he had chiefly resided. An ample income, beyond the terms of her marriage settlement, was secured to his wife ; though, for reasons only darkly hinted in his will, a subsequent clause or codicil revoked these bequests, and left the Viscountess to her legal rights. Legacies were left to his friends and servants ; to the Marquis d'Effiat " my book of orisons, curiously rhymed ; " to the Earl of Dorset " my ring with the crushed diamond, which the King gave me when Prince ; " to Lord Cavendish " my casting bottle of gold."
Where, are these relics? Surely the recipients must have valued such gifts, and handed them down to their posterity as curiosities, if not as precious treasures. The booh of orisons, especially, we should expect to find carefully preserved. Can no one produce this most interesting prayer-book ?
The lease of Bacon's rooms in Gray's Inn, valued at three hundred pounds, was to be sold, and the money given to poor scholars. The residue of his estate, he believed, would be sufficient to found two lectureships on natural history and the physical sciences at the universities. "It was a beautiful, beneficent dream," but not to be realized, for the property and personality left by Bacon hardly sufficed to pay his debts ; yet in the last clause, which has just been quoted, we see a repetition of the earnest expression of his opinion as to the " great want " of foundations for the perpetuating of lectures, which he men- tioned in his letter to Buckingham. As usual, he endeavoured, poor as he was, to supply the necessary funds, which the King had " denied." Probably, had the grant been denied to Alleyn, Bacon intended himself to raise the money for the completion of Dulwich College and its alms-houses.
The winter of 1625-6 was the most dismal he had known; the cold intense, the city blighted with plague, the war abroad disastrous. Bacon remained at Gorhambury, " hard at work on his Sylva Sylvarum" But that work is merely a newly-arranged collection of old notes, and its construction would not have been nearly sufficient occupation for such a mind. More probably Bacon was now engaged in putting together, arranging, or
♦Another copy of his will consigns the charge of his "cabinet and presses full of papers " to three trustees, Constable, Selden, and Herbert, ,
AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 147
polishing the works which he was about to leave behind, to be brought out in due season by the faithful friends to whom he entrusted them, and to whom he must, at this time, have given instructions as to their future disposition and publication.
A Parliament was called at Westminster, for February, to which he received the usual summons, for he had been restored to his legal rights, and reinstated amongst his peers. But he was too ill to obey the writ. He rode once to Gray's Inn, but it was in April, and the severity of the winter had not yet passed. He caught the cold of which he died.* Taking the air one day with his physician, Dr. Witherbourne, towards Highgate, the snow lying deep, it occurred to Bacon to inquire if flesh might not be preserved in snow f as well as in salt. Pulling up at a small cottage near the foot of Highgate Hill, he bought a hen from an old woman, plucked and drew it ; gathered up snow in his hands, and stuffed it into the fowl. Smitten with a sudden chill, but doubting the nature of his attack, Bacon drove to the house of his friend Lord Arundel, close by, where Witherbourne had him put into the bed from whence he rose no more.
It is hardly possible to keep patient on reading that the sheets between which the invalid was laid " were damp, as no one had slept in them for a year," and, although the servants warmed the bed Avith a pan of coals, the damp inflamed his cold.
From the first a gentle fever set in ; he lingered just a week ; and then, on the 9th of April, 1626, expired of congestion of the lungs. {
He was buried, as directed, near his mother, in the parish church of St. Michael, near St. Albans. This picturesque and lonely little church became a place of pilgrimage, and will, we believe, become so once more. The obligations of the world are, as his biographer says, of a kind not to be overlooked. There is no department in literature or science or philanthropy, no
♦The following, with three other accounts of Bacon's death, the writer now has reason to believe are mere blinds, " puzzolan powder " or puzzling dust contrived to conceal the fact that Bacon now retired and died to the world, spending (under many names and disguises) a very long life in writing and adding to the standard literature of his country.
| This idea was the original thought which has since given rise to the various systems of preserving and transporting frozen meat from distant countries.
X H. Dixon, from Court and Times of Charles, I. 74 ; Lord's Journal, III. 492 ; Aubrey, II. 227. See Ante-Preface.
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organization for the promulgation of religious knowledge, which does not owe something to Francis Bacon.
To him the patriot, the statesman, the law reformer, the scientific jurist, the historian, are also indebted, and, apart from all debatable works, the collector of anecdote, the lover of good wit, of humorous wisdom, and of noble writing, must all find that he has laid them under obligations far greater than they may be aware of. It is hard, indeed, to say who amongst us is not the easier in circumstances, the brighter in intellect, the purer in morals, the worthier in conduct, through the teachings and the labours of Francis Bacon. The principles of his philosophy are of universal application, and they will endure as long as the world itself.
To this conclusion must those come who contemplate his life and works from the standpoint which we have been occupying. But not all will care to take the same view. Let us, therefore, shift our position and take a more particular observation of some circumstances connected with Bacon which seem to be mysterious, or at least not thoroughly explained.
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