Let this sad interim like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new

Come daily to the banks, that, when they see

Return of love, more blest may be the view;

Else call it winter, which being full of care

Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.

Bacon must have been greatly enamored with his writings to promise for them, even at this early stage, when but four of the dramas had been written, such unending life. In this stanza the meaning insinuates that a suspension of work upon the dramas is likely to occur, but that after a time it will be resumed. Meantime he is anxious that his love for the work should suffer no abatement. Like the appetite, satiated "to-day" (with present labor) with like or greater eagerness, may his hunger for resuming work return to-morrow, so that "the spirit of love" (the power of delineation) may not forsake him. Like two lovers, who, separated by the ocean, their vows just plighted, go daily to the shores by agreement to meditate upon their affection for each other, so let the "sad interim" (the period of this suspension) keep the subject of future composition constantly in mind, that on "return of love, more blest may be the view" (he may exceed his former efforts). Or let the intermission be like winter with its coldness, which makes summer's warmth and beauty welcome and delightful. It will be seen hereafter that winter and summer are used to symbolize the very conditions which are here suggested by them.

SONNET 57.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of Your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till You require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, My sovereign, watch the clock for You,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When You have bid Your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with My jealous thought
Where You may be, or Your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where You are, how happy You make those.
So true a fool is love that in Your will,
Though You do anything, he thinks no ill.

This stanza and the following one are addressed to Queen Elizabeth. The following extract is taken from the first volume of the Biographia Brittanica, page 373:

"After discharging the office of reader at Gray's Inn, which he [Bacon] did, in 1588, when in the twenty-sixth year of his age, he was become so considerable, that the queen, who never overvalued any man's abilities, thought fit to call him. to her service in a way which did him very great honor, by appointing him her counsel learned in the law extraordinary; by which, though she contributed abundantly to his reputation, yet she added but very little to his fortune; and indeed, in this respect he was never very much indebted to her majesty, how much soever he might be in all others."

This appointment, which obliged him to be in daily attendance upon her majesty, was probably

the cause of his absence from his quarters at Gray's Inn, during the business hours of every day, while the office continued. It made him, as he says in the stanza, the "slave" of the queen. In the discharge of its duties he was bound to "tend upon the hours and times of her desire" (to obey her pleasure, however exacting). This gave him "no precious time at all to spend" (no time that he could devote to the composition of his dramas), "nor services to do till you require" (nor any other service except under her special direction). As a consequence, his time was for the most part unoccupied, but necessarily spent in waiting the queen's orders. He meantime dared not "chide the world-without-end hour, whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you" (how heavy soever the hours might pass with him, his fear of the queen's anger prevented him from complaining). He did not even "think the bitterness of absence sour, when you have bid your servant once adieu" (he could not complain, when she left him to await her return, of her absence, so unprofitably spent by him). "Nor dare I question with my jealous thought where you may be, or your affairs suppose" (he dared not even to inquire into the occasion of her absence). "But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought save, where you are, how happy you make those" (but he must await her return in a state of complete passivity, except as occasion might offer for

some delicate flattery, or pleasant allusion to her own powers of fascination while absent). This service made his loyalty ridiculous, and obliged him to praise in the same strain both the vices and virtues of the queen.

No historian has ever drawn with truer pen the predominant characteristics of Elizabeth than Bacon in this stanza. Proud, capricious, despotic, high-tempered, selfish, suspicious, and overbear ing, she exacted the entire submission of every one she honored, and filled the very atmosphere of her court with fear. Bacon's life at court at this time was monotonous, unoccupied, and insecure, but the hope of preferment - an ambition to shine as a great statesman and great lawyer-rendered it endurable. For this hope, ever uppermost in his thoughts, he submitted to all the "whips and spurs" of fortune, while inwardly worshipping all that was true and beautiful in nature and character. He was truly great as a philosopher and poet, but cringing and submissive as a courtier and statesman. His wonderful abilities made his faults the more conspicuous. Similar failings in some of his famous contemporaries have escaped the criticism which has so sharply assailed his memory. It had been fortunate for him and the world if his life had been devoted to those pursuits only for which, as he says when speaking of his public career, "it was better fitted."

SONNET 58.

That god forbid that made Me first Your slave,
I should in thought control Your times of pleasure,
Or at Your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being Your vassal, bound to stay Your leisure!
O, let Me suffer, being at Your beck,
The imprison'd absence of Your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing You of injury.

Be where You list, Your charter is so strong
That You Yourself may privilege Your time
To what You will; to You it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame Your pleasure, be it ill or well.

In this stanza he accepts submissively all the humiliation and abasement to which he is subjected as an attendant at court. "That god forbid that made me first your slave" (that ambition that causes him to look to the queen for preferment), that he should fail to accommodate his time to suit hers. He is her "vassal," and bound to stay at court until she can see him, though it is like a prison to him. If he feels impatient, he still must submit to suffer,- bear with all delays, from whatever cause, without complaint against her. She must occupy her time as she pleases, as it is entirely under her control, is her right,— and she need not respect his wishes at all, as she has power to pardon herself for any wrong she may do. And though the waiting, which absents him from work upon his dramas, "be hell" to him, he can find no fault with his queen, whether