Bacon and Essex: A Sketch of Bacon's Earlier Life (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Bacon and Essex: A Sketch of Bacon's Earlier Life

Having lately had occasion to examine some of the original authorities which supply the materials for the biographies of Francis Bacon, I was impressed with the conviction that, although not many new facts could be brought forward, many old facts might be placed in a very new light.

The notes made in the course of these investigations I have accordingly thrown into the form of the follow ing sketch of Bacon's earlier life. To attempt anything more than a sketch would have been a task far exceed ing the little leisure at my disposal but sketch though it is (full of imperfections, and probably not without some minor inaccuracies), it will, I think, prevent any impartial person who may read it, from ever again disputing the truth of the three following propositions.

The first proposition is, that Essex, though guilty of treasonable conduct, was not so deliberate and hypo? Critical a traitor as he was represented by Francis I Bacon, and as of late years he has been supposed to be by Bacon's most eminent biographer.

The second is, that Bacon's Declaration of the Treasons of Essex, instead of being a strictly and scrupulously veracious narrative, has been far more accurately described by Lord Clarendon as a pestilent libel.

My third proposition is, that Bacon himself is not (as he has been painted by his most recent biographer) a man who all his life long thought more of his duty than of his fortune, and all his life long had been studying to know and speak the truth, but - a man whose character still awaits a careful, consistent, and impartial analysis. Towards that future analysis, the following sketch is intended as a slight contribution.

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