The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

LIFE OF BACON. cxvii
others, who,powerful whenhewas nothing, might and politics, an idol, whose golden head and
have blighted his opening fortunes forever, for- hands of base metal form a monster more hideous
getting his advocacy of the rights of the people in than the Dagon of the Philistines.
the face of the court, and the true and honest His consciousness of the wanderings of his
counsels, always given by him, in times of great mind made him run into affairs with over-acted
difficulty, both to Elizabeth and her successor. zeal and a variety of useless subtleties; and in
When was a "base sycophant" loved and ho- lending himself to matters immeasurably beneath
noured by piety such as that of Herbert, Tenison, him, he sometimes stooped too low. A man
and Rawley, by noble spirits like Hobbes, Ben often receives an unfortunate bias from an unjust
Jonson, and Selden, or followed to the grave, censure. Bacon, who was said by Elizabeth to
and beyond it, with devoted affection, such as that be without knowledge of affairs, and by Cecil and
of Sir Thomas Meautys. Burleigh to be unfit for business, affected through
Forced by the narrowness of his fortune into the whole of his life an over-refinement in trifles,
business, conscious of his own powers, aware of and a political subtlety unworthy of so great a
the peculiar quality of his mind, and disliking his mind: it is also true that he sometimes seemed
pursuits, his heart was often in his study, while conscious of the pleasure of skill, and that he
he lent his person to the robes of office; and he who possessed the dangerous power of "1 working
was culpably unmindful of the conduct of his and winding" others to his purpose, tried it upon
servants, who amassed wealth meanly and rapa- the little men whom his heart disdained; but that
ciously, while their careless, master, himself al- heart was neither," cloven nor double." There is
ways poor, with his thoughts on higher ventures, no record that he abused the influence which he
never stopped to inquire by what methods they possessed over the minds of all men. He ever gave
grew rich. No man can act thus with impunity; honest counsel to his capricious mistress, and her
he has sullied the brightness of a name which pedantic successor; to the rash, turbulent Essex,
ought never to have been heard without reverence, and to the wily, avaricious Buckingham. There is
injured his own fame, and has been himself the nothing more lamentable in the annals of mankind
victim upon the altar which he raised to true than that false position, which placed one of the
science; becoming a theme to ",point a moral or greatest minds England ever possessed at the
adorn a tae," in an attempt to unite philosophy mercy of a mean king and a base court favourite