Cooke, a man of distinguished learning the first great martyr of intellectual who had been tutor to Edward the liberty took the cup from his weeping Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid consi- gaoler. But surely these complaints derable attention to the education of have very little foundation. We would his daughters, and lived to see them all by no means disparage the ladies of splendidly and happily married. Their the sixteenth century or their pursuits. classical acquirements made them con- But we conceive that those who extol spicuous even among the women of them at the expense of the women of fashion of that age. Katherine, who our time forget one very obvious and became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin very important circumstance. In the Hexameters and Pentameters which time of Henry the Eighth and Edward would appear with credit in the Musa the Sixth, a person who did not read Etonenses. Mildred, the wife of Lord Greek and Latin could read nothing, Burleigh, was described by Roger or next to nothing. The Italian was Ascham as the best Greek scholar the only modern language which posamong the young women of England, sessed any thing that could be called a Lady Jane Grey always excepted. literature. All the valuable books then Anne, the mother of Francis Bacon, extant in all the vernacular dialects of was distinguished both as a linguist Europe would hardly have filled a and as a theologian. She corresponded single shelf. England did not yet posin Greek with Bishop Jewel, and sess Shakspeare's plays and the Fairy translated his Apologia from the Latin, Queen, nor France Montaigne's Essays, so correctly that neither he nor Arch-nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking bishop Parker could suggest a single round a well-furnished library, how alteration. She also translated a series many English or French books can we of sermons on fate and free-will from find which were extant when Lady the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. This Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth refact is the more curious, because ceived their education ? Ochino was one of that small and audacious band of Italian reformers, anathematized alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by Rome, from which the Socinian sect deduces its origin.

Chaucer,

Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated or classically educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one of the ancient languages Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of no person could then have any clear highly cultivated mind after the fashion notion of what was passing in the poliof her age. But we must not suffer tical, the literary, or the religious world. ourselves to be deluded into the belief The Latin was in the sixteenth century that she and her sisters were more all and more than all that the French accomplished women than many who was in the eighteenth. It was the are now living. On this subject there language of courts as well as of the is, we think, much misapprehension. schools. It was the language of diploWe have often heard men who wish, as macy; it was the language of theologialmost all men of sense wish, that cal and political controversy. Being a women should be highly educated, fixed language, while the living lanspeak with rapture of the English guages were in a state of fluctuation, ladies of the sixteenth century, and and being universally known to the lament that they can find no modern learned and the polite, it was employed damsel resembling those fair pupils of by almost every writer who aspired to Ascham and Aylmer who compared, a wide and durable reputation. A over their embroidery, the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding, and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes rivetted to that immortal page which tells how meekly and bravely

person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all acquaintance, not merely with Cicero and Virgil, not merely with heavy treatises on canonlaw and school divinity, but with the most interesting memoirs, state papers,

Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas, was born at York House, his father's residence in the Strand, on the twenty-second of January, 1561 The health of Francis was very delicate; and to this circumstance may be partly attributed that gravity of car riage, and that love of sedentary pursuits, which distinguished him from other boys. Every body knows how much his premature readiness of wit and sobriety of deportment amused the Queen, and how she used to call him her young Lord Keeper. We are told that, while still a mere child, he stole away from his playfellows to a vault in St. James's Fields, for the purpose of investigating the cause of a singular echo which he had observed there. It is certain that, at only twelve, he busied himself with very ingenious speculations on the art of legerdemain; a subject which, as Professor Dugald Stewart has most justly observed, merits much more attention from philosophers than it has ever received. These are trifles. But the eminence which Bacon afterwards attained makes them interesting.

and pamphlets of his own time, nay with those of an accomplished young even with the most admired poetry woman of our own time, we have no and the most popular squibs which hesitation in awarding the superiority appeared on the fleeting topics of the to the latter. We hope that our readday, with Buchanan's complimentary ers will pardon this digression. It is verses, with Erasmus's dialogues, with long; but it can hardly be called unHutten's epistles. seasonable, if it tends to convince them This is no longer the case. All that they are mistaken in thinking that political and religious controversy is the great-great-grandmothers of their now conducted in the modern lan-great-great-grandmothers were supeguages. The ancient tongues are used rior women to their sisters and their only in comments on the ancient wives. writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are indeed still what they were. But though their positive value is unchanged, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift without Edipus and Medea, while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious irony of Plato, he may find some compensation in that of Pascal. If he is shut out from Nephelococcygia, he may take refuge in Lilliput. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards those great nations to which the human race owes art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, when we say, that the stock bequeathed by them to us has been so carefully improved that the In the thirteenth year of his age he accumulated interest now exceeds the was entered at Trinity College, Camprincipal. We believe that the books bridge. That celebrated school of which have been written in the lan-learning enjoyed the peculiar favour guages of western Europe, during the last two hundred and fifty years, translations from the ancient languages of course included, are of greater value than all the books which at the beginning of that period were extant in the world. With the modern languages of Europe English women are at least as well acquainted as English When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey

men.

of the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Keeper, and acknowledged the advantages which it derived from their patronage in a public letter which bears date just a month after the admission of Francis Bacon. The master was Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, a narrow-minded, mean, and tyrannical priest, who gained power by servility and adulation, and employed it in persecuting both those

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who agreed with Calvin about Church | both, had by his vices and follies deGovernment, and those who differed graded himself so deeply that he had from Calvin touching the doctrine of no authority over either. Bacon, howReprobation. He was now in a chry- ever, made a tour through several prosalis state, putting off the worm, and vinces, and appears to have passed putting on the dragon-fly, a kind of some time at Poitiers. We have abunintermediate grub between sycophant dant proof that during his stay on the and oppressor. He was indemnifying Continent he did not neglect literary himself for the court which he found it and scientific pursuits. But his attenexpedient to pay to the Ministers by tion seems to have been chiefly directed exercising much petty tyranny within to statistics and diplomacy. It was at his own college. It would be unjust, this time that he wrote those Notes on however, to deny him the praise of the State of Europe which are printed having rendered about this time one in his works. He studied the principles important service to letters. He stood of the art of deciphering with great up manfully against those who wished interest, and invented one cipher so to make Trinity College a mere ap-ingenious, that, many years later, he pendage to Westminster school; and thought it deserving of a place in the by this act, the only good act, as far as De Augmentis. In February, 1580, we remember, of his long public life, while engaged in these pursuits, he he saved the noblest place of education received intelligence of the almost in England from the degrading fate of sudden death of his father, and inKing's College and New College. stantly returned to England.

It has often been said that Bacon, His prospects were greatly overcast while still at college, planned that by this event. He was most desirous great intellectual revolution with which to obtain a provision which might enhis name is inseparably connected. The able him to devote himself to literature evidence on this subject, however, is and politics. He applied to the Gohardly sufficient to prove what is in it-vernment; and it seems strange that self so improbable as that any definite he should have applied in vain. His scheme of that kind should have been wishes were moderate. His hereditary so early formed, even by so powerful claims on the administration were and active a mind. But it is certain great. He had himself been favourably that, after a residence of three years at noticed by the Queen. His uncle was Cambridge, Bacon departed, carrying Prime Minister. His own talents were with him a profound contempt for the such as any minister might have been course of study pursued there, a fixed eager to enlist in the public service. conviction that the system of academic But his solicitations were unsuccessful. education in England was radically The truth is that the Cecils disliked vicious, a just scorn for the trifles on him, and did all that they could dewhich the followers of Aristotle had cently do to keep him down. It has wasted their powers, and no great re-never been alleged that Bacon had done verence for Aristotle himself. any thing to merit this dislike; nor is

In his sixteenth year he visited Paris, it at all probable that a man whose and resided there for some time, under temper was naturally mild, whose manthe care of Sir Amias Paulet, Eliza-ners were courteous, who, through life, beth's minister at the French court, and nursed his fortunes with the utmost one of the ablest and most upright of the many valuable servants whom she employed. France was at that time in a deplorable state of agitation. The Huguenots and the Catholics were mustering all their force for the fiercest and most protracted of their many struggles; while the prince, whose duty it was to protect and to restrain

care, and who was fearful even to a fault of offending the powerful, would have given any just cause of displeasure to a kinsman who had the means of rendering him essential service and of doing him irreparable injury. The real explanation, we believe, is this. Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, was younger by a few months than Bacon,

He had been educated with the utmost | Francis nothing. He was forced, much care, had been initiated, while still a against his will, to betake himself to boy, in the mysterics of diplomacy and the study of the law. He was adcourt-intrigue, and was just at this time mitted at Gray's Inn; and during some about to be produced on the stage of years, he laboured there in obscurity. public life. The wish nearest to Bur- What the extent of his legal attainleigh's heart was that his own great-ments may have been it is difficult to ness might descend to this favourite say. It was not hard for a man of his child. But even Burleigh's fatherly powers to acquire that very moderate partiality could hardly prevent him portion of technical knowledge which, from perceiving that Robert, with all when joined to quickness, tact, wit, inhis abilities and acquirements, was no genuity, eloquence, and knowledge of match for his cousin Francis. This the world, is sufficient to raise an adseems to us the only rational explana-vocate to the highest professional emition of the Treasurer's conduct. Mr. nence. The general opinion appears Montagu is more charitable. He sup-to have been that which was on one poses that Burleigh was influenced occasion expressed by Elizabeth. "Bamerely by affection for his nephew, and was "little disposed to encourage him to rely on others rather than on himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics, instead of the certain profession of the law." If such were Burleigh's feelings, it seems strange that he should have suffered his son to venture on those quicksands from which he so carefully preserved his nephew. But the truth is that, if Burleigh had been so disposed, he might easily have secured to Bacon a comfortable provision which should have been exposed to no risk. And it is certain that he showed as little disposition to enable his nephew to live by a profession as to enable him to live without a profession. That Bacon himself attributed the conduct of his relatives to jealousy of his superior talents, we have not the smallest doubt. In a letter written many years later to Villiers, he expresses himself thus: "Countenance, encourage, and advance able men in all kinds, degrees, and professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the father and the son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed."

Whatever Burleigh's motives might be, his purpose was unalterable. The supplications which Francis addressed to his uncle and aunt were earnest, humble, and almost servile. He was the most promising and accomplished young man of his time. His father had been the brother-in-law, the most useful colleague, the nearest friend of the Minister. But all this availed poor

con," said she, "hath a great wit and much learning; but in law showeth to the utmost of his knowledge, and is not deep." The Cecils, we suspect, did their best to spread this opinion by whispers and insinuations. Coke openly proclaimed it with that rancorous insolence which was habitual to him. No reports are more readily believed than those which disparage genius, and soothe the envy of conscious mediocrity. It must have been inexpressibly consoling to a stupid sergeant, the forerunner of him who, a hundred and fifty years later," shook his head at Murray as a wit," to know that the most profound thinker and the most accomplished orator of the age was very imperfectly acquainted with the law touching bastard eigné and mulier puisné, and confounded the right of free fishery with that of common of piscary.

It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed during the century and a half which followed, was better acquainted than Bacon with the philosophy of law. His technical knowledge was quite sufficient, with the help of his admirable talents and of his insinuating address, to procure clients. He rose very rapidly into business, and soon entertained hopes of being called within the bar. He applied to Lord Burleigh for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. Of the grounds of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon's answer, which is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose

temper age and gout had by no means be thought childish or pedantic. It is altered for the better, and who loved to evident also that he was, as indeed mark his dislike of the showy, quick- might have been expected, perfectly witted young men of the rising genera- free from those faults which aro genetion, took this opportunity to read rally found in an advocate who, after Francis a very sharp lecture on his having risen to eminence at the bat, vanity and want of respect for his enters the House of Commons; that it betters. Francis returned a most sub- was his habit to deal with every great missive reply, thanked the Treasurer question, not in small detached porfor the admonition, and promised to tions, but as a whole; that he refined profit by it. Strangers meanwhile little, and that his reasonings were were less unjust to the young barrister those of a capacious rather than a than his nearest kinsman had been. In subtle mind. Ben Jonson, a most unhis twenty-sixth year he became a exceptionable judge, has described bencher of his Inn; and two years later Bacon's eloquence in words, which, he was appointed Lent reader. At though often quoted, will bear to be length, in 1590, he obtained for the quoted again. "There happened in first time some show of favour from the my time one noble speaker who was Court. He was sworn in Queen's full of gravity in his speaking. His Counsel extraordinary. But this mark language, where he could spare or pass of honour was not accompanied by any by a jest, was nobly censorious. No pecuniary emolument. He continued, man ever spoke more neatly, more therefore, to solicit his powerful rela- pressly, more weightily, or suffered tives for some provision which might less emptiness, less idleness, in what he enable him to live without drudging at uttered. No member of his speech but his profession. He bore, with a patience consisted of his own graces. His and serenity which, we fear, bordered hearers could not cough or look aside on meanness, the morose humours of from him without loss. He commanded his uncle, and the sneering reflections where he spoke, and had his judges which his cousin cast on speculative angry and pleased at his devotion. No men, lost in philosophical dreams, and man had their affections more in his too wise to be capable of transacting power. The fear of every man that public business. At length the Cecils heard him was lest he should make an were generous enough to procure for end." From the mention which is him the reversion of the Registrarship made of judges, it would seem that of the Star Chamber. This was a lu- Jonson had heard Bacon only at the crative place; but, as many years Bar. Indeed we imagine that the elapsed before it fell in, he was still House of Commons was then almost under the necessity of labouring for inaccessible to strangers. It is not his daily bread. probable that a man of Bacon's nice observation would speak in Parliament exactly as he spoke in the Court of Queen's Bench. But the graces of manner and language must, to a great extent, have been common between the Queen's Counsel and the Knight of the Shire.

In the Parliament which was called in 1593 he sat as member for the county of Middlesex, and soon attained eminence as a debater. It is easy to perceive from the scanty remains of his oratory that the same compactness of expression and richness of fancy which appear in his writings characterized his speeches; and that his extensive acquaintance with literature and history enabled him to entertain his audience with a vast variety of illustrations and allusions which were generally happy and apposite, but which were probably not least pleasing to the taste of that age when they were such as would now

Bacon tried to play a very difficult game in politics. He wished to be at once a favourite at Court and popular with the multitude. If any man could have succeeded in this attempt, a man of talents so rare, of judgment so prematurely ripe, of temper so calm, and of manners so plausible, might have been expected to succeed. Nor indeed