AMONG the many great names which England boasts of, few have such claims to her gratitude as that of FRANCIS BACON. For besides the unparalleled services which science received from him, to his original genius we may indirectly ascribe many, if not most, of those large improvements in the arts of life which have raised this nation to the highest place among the countries of the world.

Francis Bacon was the second son, by a second marriage, of Sir Nicholas Bacon, twenty years Keeper of the Great Seal in the reign of Elizabeth, and Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, the preceptor of Edward the Sixth. He was born at York House or Place, in the Strand, January 22, 1561. In 1573 he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he speedily acquired more than the ordinary learning of the age, becoming deeply versed in classical literature. Although taught to look up to Aristotle as to a writer whom it was almost heresy to question, yet at that early age he began to perceive where his philosophy failed, and to conceive the reorganization of a purer and better system. "His exceptions against that great philosopher not being founded on the worthlessness of the author, to whom he would ascribe all high attributes, but for the unfruitfulness of the way; being a philosophy only for disputations and contentions, but barren in the production of works for the benefit of the life of man, in which mind he continued to his dying day."(Dr. Rawley's Life of Bacon.) His intellectual efforts were ever after bent on working out and declaring these novel views, of which, through many modifying and expanding minds, we now reap the fruits.

In 1576 he was entered as a Student in the Society of Gray's Inn,

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with the view of keeping his terms for the bar. Before, however, he commenced his legal studies, his father sent him to France, in the suite of the Queen's Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. During his residence abroad he wrote his first work, which was not intended originally for publication, but was improved and printed after some years. It is called, A short View of the Present State of Europe. It derives its chief interest from having been written at the early age of nineteen; but the civil and political views are sound, and the composition graceful.

In 1579 Sir Nicholas Bacon died, leaving Francis but a small share of his fortune, in consequence of family circumstances, which we need not here relate. Finding his private means insufficient for his support, he returned to England, and commenced the study of the Law, to which he applied himself with great diligence.

He did not, however, suffer the demands of his profession to interfere with those pursuits, in which he was fully persuaded that his great strength lay. Between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight he produced a work, which he called the Greatest Birth of Time. It was never published, and is lost in its separate form, but the substance of it remains in his Instauration.

In 1582 Bacon was called to the bar, and in 1588 was chosen Reader or Lecturer by the Society of which he was a member, and the same year he received the only mark of honour conferred upon him in the reign of Elizabeth, in the title of Counsel Learned in the Law Extraordinary. It seems strange that Bacon, who was the nephew of the Lord High Treasurer Burleigh, and cousin of the principal Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil, should never have been able to obtain any office in the Court of Elizabeth. The reason possibly was that he had early attached himself to the faction of the Earl of Essex, who, though the Queen's greatest favourite, was in constant opposition to her ministers. This unfortunate nobleman exerted himself to the utmost, at the extreme risk of offending his testy mistress, to secure for Bacon the place of Solicitor General, as the first step of legal advancement; but he was unsuccessful. The ministers declared their belief that Bacon was merely a theorist, and that his talents were not of a nature fitted for practical purposes: perhaps there was no small mixture of jealousy in this declaration. To make some amends to his friend for this disappointment, Essex gave him an estate (which he afterwards sold at an under price for 13007) out of his private fortune: one of many kindnesses which Bacon too ill requited.

In 1592 Bacon published a defence of the government, in answer to a libel, in consequence of which he received the reversion of the register's office to the Star-chamber, which he did not enjoy till twenty years after. In the Parliament of 1593 he was chosen member for the county of Middlesex, a proof that his public talents were not unappreciated by his countrymen. In the House he shone as an orator of the first class, his speeches were extremely elegant and forcible, and his wit so well blended with good sense and winning manners, as to secure to him the favourable attention of that assembly. He was frequently employed by the government to defend their measures in Parliament, which he did with consummate prudence, but he still went unrewarded.

In 1596 Bacon composed, but did not then print, his Maxims of the Law; and in the year following he published his first edition of Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral; the work by which he is best known to the general reader. In the trial of the Earl of Essex for high treason (1601) Bacon appeared as counsel for the Crown; and after the execution of that unfortunate nobleman, the Queen directed him to compose and publish An Account of the Earl of Essex's Treasons. His apparent zeal on this occasion excited the indignation of the people, among whom Essex was much beloved, and he was obliged to apologize for his conduct, by a letter to the Earl of Devonshire, one of the firm partisans of Essex.

The death of Elizabeth, which soon followed that of her favourite, revived Bacon's hopes of advancement. He applied himself early to obtain the favour of the new king; and a proclamation, which he drew up on James's arrival, though never published, did him great service. He was introduced to the King at Whitehall, and was knighted, July 23, 1603. In the following year his services to the court in Parliament, and elsewhere, were rewarded by the title of King's Counsel, with a stipend of forty, and an additional pension of sixty pounds.

But though he seemed in the high road to preferment, Bacon had powerful enemies to obstruct his advancement. Sir Robert Cecil, son of Lord Burleigh, created Earl of Salisbury by James I., though Bacon's cousin by the maternal side, had always shown himself averse to his kinsman's preferment, apparently from jealousy of his uncommon talents. Between Bacon and the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, there existed a more violent hostility, arising from various causes. Sir Edward was successful early, Bacon late, and the power which Coke obtained, he used to depress his antagonist. They

had both been suitors of the rich Lady Hatton, Lord Burleigh's grand-daughter, whom Coke married; and, as a farther exasperation of their enmity, in that celebrated dispute, which occurred in 1616, between the courts of King's Bench and Chancery, "Whether the Chancery, after judgment given in the Courts of Law, was prohibited from giving relief upon matters arising in equity, which the judges at law could not determine or relieve," Bacon had a leading share in obtaining that decision in favour of the privileges of the Court of Chancery, which has had so great an influence upon the jurisdiction of courts.

In 1605 Bacon published his first specimen of The Advancement of Learning. His view of the service he was doing to science, is shewn in a letter to Lord Salisbury, sent with a copy of this work, where he says, that" in this book he was contented to awake better spirits, being himself like a bell-ringer, who is the first to call others to church."

The following year he married Alice, the daughter of Benedict Barnham, alderman, a lady of large fortune, who outlived him many years, and by whom he had no children. The year 1607 produced him his first solid success. Lord Salisbury had arisen to such power and confidence with his master, that he no longer feared the talents of Bacon, and with his concurrence, if not by his means, Bacon was at length appointed Solicitor-General, which, besides its future promise, was an office worth 5000l. or 6000l. a-year to him in private practice. Though now a busy man, and constantly engaged in affairs of the Crown, he nevertheless found time to write and publish his Wisdom of the Ancients, a work of great elegance and profound learning, but not one to which the present age owes much. In 1611 he was appointed joint judge of the Marshal's court, and immediately afterwards Attorney-General, on the promotion of Lord Coke to the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Bacon did not attach himself to the fortunes of the reigning favourite Somerset, and when that lord and his countess were brought to trial for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, he had the management of the case for the Crown, which he so conducted as to keep himself out of the disgrace into which Coke and others fell with the King, on account of this critical affair.

He was farther advanced to the office of Lord Keeper in March, 1617, on the resignation of the Lord Chancellor Viscount Brackley, and the same year sat at the head of the council-board, as manager of the King's affairs, during the absence of the monarch and his new fa