CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TESTIMONY OF BACON'S CONTEMPORARIES.

A distinguished member of the Bench in a recent post-prandial address referred to Bacon as "a shady lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper correspondents, when attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets of this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a position so responsible as that of an English judge should, either through ignorance or with a desire to be considered a wit, make use of such a term.

Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one fact must stand unchallenged--that amongst those of his contemporaries who knew him there was a consensus of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any failings to which he might be subject.

The following testimonies establish this fact:--

Let BEN JONSON speak first:

"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech, but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end," and, after referring to Lord Ellesmere, Jonson continues:--

"But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor, (_i.e._, Bacon) is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born, that could honour a language, or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and [Greek: akoe] of our language.

"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place, or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."

SIR TOBY MATTHEW describes Francis Bacon as

"A friend unalterable to his friends; A man most sweet in his conversation and ways";

and adds:

"It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue."

THOMAS BUSHEL, his servant, in a letter to Mr. John Eliot, printed in 1628, in a volume called "The First Part of Youth's Errors," says:

"Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might extenuate the good opinion you had of his worth and merit, I must ingenuously confess that my selfe and others of his servants were the occasion of exhaling his vertues into a darke exlipse; which God knowes would have long endured both for the honour of his King and the good of the Commonaltie; had not we whom his bountie nursed, laid on his guiltlesse shoulders our base and execrable deeds to be scand and censured by the whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence was given, but most of us forsoke him, which makes us bear the badge of Jewes to this day. Yet I am confident there were some Godly Daniels amongst us.... As for myselfe, with shame I must acquit the title, and pleade guilty; which grieves my very soule, that so matchlesse a Peer should be lost by such insinuating caterpillars, who in his owne nature scorn'd the least thought of any base, unworthy, or ignoble act, though subject to infirmites as ordained to the wisest."

In FULLER'S "Worthies" it is written:

"He was a rich Cabinet filled with Judgment, Wit, Fancy and Memory, and had the golden Key, Elocution, to open it. He was singular in singulis, in every Science and Art, and being In-at-all came off with Credit. He was too Bountifull to his Servants, and either too confident of their Honesty, or too conniving at their Falsehood. 'Tis said he had 2 Servants, one in all Causes Patron to the Plaintiff, the other to the Defendant, but taking bribes of both, with this Condition, to restore the Mony received, if the Cause went against them. Such practices, tho' unknown to their Master, cost him the loss of his Office."

In "The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of Elizabeth's Reign" it is said:--

"His religion was rational and sober, his spirit publick, his love to relations tender, to Friends faithful, to the hopeful liberal, to men universal, to his very Enemies civil. He left the best pattern of Government in his actions under one king and the best principles of it in the Life of the other."

The following is a translation from the discourse on the life of Mr. Francis Bacon which is prefixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," by PIERE AMBOISE, published in Paris in 1631:

"Among so many virtues that made this great man commendable, prudence, as the first of all the moral virtues, and that most necessary to those of his profession, was that which shone in him the most brightly. His profound wisdom can be most readily seen in his books, and his matchless fidelity in the signal services that he continuously rendered to his Prince. Never was there man who so loved equity, or so enthusiastically worked for the public good as he; so that I may aver that he would have been much better suited to a Republic than to a Monarchy, where frequently the convenience of the Prince is more thought of than that of his people. And I do not doubt that had he lived in a Republic he would have acquired as much glory from the citizens as formerly did Aristides and Cato, the one in Athens, the other in Rome. Innocence oppressed found always in his protection a sure refuge, and the position of the great gave them no vantage ground before the Chancellor when suing for justice.

"Vanity, avarice, and ambition, vices that too often attach themselves to great honours, were to him quite unknown, and if he did a good action it was not from the desire of fame, but simply because he could not do otherwise. His good qualities were entirely pure, without being clouded by the admixture of any imperfections, and the passions that form usually the defects in great men in him only served to bring out his virtues; if he felt hatred and rage it was only against evil-doers, to shew his detestation of their crimes, and success or failure in the affairs of his country brought to him the greater part of his joys or his sorrows. He was as truly a good man as he was an upright judge, and by the example of his life corrected vice and bad living as much as by pains and penalties. And, in a word, it seemed that Nature had exempted from the ordinary frailities of men him whom she had marked out to deal with their crimes. All these good qualities made him the darling of the people and prized by the great ones of the State. But when it seemed that nothing could destroy his position, Fortune made clear that she did not yet wish to abandon her character for instability, and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long prosperous. It thus came about that amongst the great number of officials such as a man of his position must have in his house, there was one who was accused before Parliament of exaction, and of having sold the influence that he might have with his master. And though the probity of Mr. Bacon was entirely exempt from censure, nevertheless he was declared guilty of the crime of his servant and was deprived of the power that he had so long exercised with so much honour and glory. In this I see the working of monstrous ingratitude and unparalleled cruelty--to say that a man who could mark the years of his life rather by the signal services that he had rendered to the State than by times or seasons, should have received such hard usage for the punishment of a crime which he never committed; England, indeed, teaches us by this that the sea that surrounds her shores imparts to her inhabitants somewhat of its restless inconstancy. This storm did not at all surprise him, and he received the news of his disgrace with a countenance so undisturbed that it was easy to see that he thought but little of the sweets of life since the loss of them caused him discomfort so slight." Thus ended this great man whom England could place alone as the equal of the best of all the previous centuries."

PETER BOENER, who was private apothecary to Bacon for a time, wrote in 1647 a Life, of portions of which the following are translations:--

"But how runneth man's future. He who seemed to occupy the highest rank is alas! by envious tongues near King and Parliament deposed from all his offices and chancellorship, little considering what treasure was being cast in the mire, as afterwards the issue and result thereof have shown in that country. But he always comforted himself with the words of Scripture--nihil est novi; that means 'there is nothing new.' Because so is Cicero by Octavianus; Calisthenes by Alexander; Seneca (all his former teachers) by Nero; yea, Ovid, Lucanus, Statius (together with many others), for a small cause very unthankfully the one banished, the other killed, the third thrown to the lions. But even as for such men banishment is freedom--death their life, so is for this author his deposition a memory to greater honour and fame, and to such a sage no harm can come.

* * * * *

"Whilst his fortunes were so changed, I never saw him--either in mien, word or acts--changed or disturbed towards whomsoever; _ira enim hominis non implet justitiam Dei_, he was ever one and the same, both in sorrow and in joy, as becometh a philosopher; always with a benevolent allocution--_manus nostrae sunt oculatae, credunt quod vident_.... A noteworthy example and pattern for everyone of all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness, and patience."

FRANCIS OSBORN, in his "Advice to a Son," writes:--

"And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible ever) can direct me towards an example more splendid in this kind, than the Lord Bacon Earl of St. Albans, who in all companies did appear a good Proficient, if not a Master in those Arts entertained for the Subject of every ones discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the least affectation of Flattery or Hyperbole, That his most casual talk deserveth to be written, As I have been told his first or foulest Copys required no great Labour to render them competent for the nicest judgments. A high perfection, attainable only by use, and treating with every man in his respective profession, and what he was most vers'd in. So as I have heard him entertain a Country Lord in the proper terms relating to Hawks and Dogs. And at another time out-Cant a London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself, but gratifie such as taught him; who looked upon their Callings as honoured through his Notice; Nor did an easie falling into Arguments (not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament in Him: The ears of the hearers receiving more gratification, than trouble; And (so) no less sorry when he came to conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt him. Now this general Knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his wit, and dignifi'd by so Majestical a carriage he was known to own, strook such an awful reverence in those he question'd, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsick part of their Mysteries from him, for fear of appearing Ignorant, or Saucy. All which rendered him no less Necessary, than admirable at the Council Table, where in reference to Impositions, Monopolies, &c. the meanest Manufacturers were an usual Argument: And, as I have heard, did in this Baffle, the Earl of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen &c. Yet without any great (if at all) interrupting his other Studies, as is not hard to be Imagined of a quick Apprehension, in which he was Admirable."