not only to yield the surplus on which he had counted, but to pay their full shares to the creditors. The debts amounted to £22,371 1s. 3d., the assets apparently to little more than £7000; the lands producing £6000. What became of his books, which were left to Sir John Constable and must have contained traces of his reading, we do not know; but very few appear to have survived. His manuscripts fared better, the greater portion having been entrusted to Dr. Rawley; by whom they were edited-too long indeed after date to be justly appreciated by a new generation in an altered world, and not before many had gone abroad in imperfect shapesbut carefully and conscientiously, and from authentic copies. Others which had been left to Sir William Boswell and were by him committed to Isaac Gruter, were less fortunate; and some (including as I suspect all the corrected copies of his legal works which he had selected for preservation) appear to have been lost altogether or to have survived only in the rough drafts. But upon the whole," that durable part of his memory which consisted in his works and writings" may be said to have been well provided for, and to have descended to posterity in sound and good condition; with the great advantage of a popular reputation which has given a certain value in common opinion to everything which bears his name. For he was a famous man already, and his fame has never fallen into the shadow: his name has always been known to everybody as that of one whom everybody is bound to hold in high esteem as a philosopher, a scholar, a writer, a speaker, a thinker, and altogether a great and wise man, whose opinions (where you can be sure you have his real opinions) are always worth knowing and quoting. And so well has this reputation endured, that though his right to it has been called in question by men of great ability in more than one department, the questioners have never made any impression upon the popular judgment; not so much because people know how to answer as because they are not disposed to listen to them; Bacon's pre-eminence in matters intellectual being held to be one of the settled questions in the world, insomuch that any man who calls it in dispute commits a kind of contempt of court-the court of popu lar opinion, which has jurisdiction in such cases. For as we believe in the judgments of the Courts of Law though we do not hear and could not understand the evidence and arguments, so we believe in niel; and after his death was purchased by Sir Harbottle Grimstone, who married his widow. But Verulam House, in the construction and decoration of which Bacon had indulged all his tastes without care for the cost-and it was said to have cost him nine or ten thousand pounds-was sold 40 or 50 years after "to two carpenters for four hundred "- the value of the materials. See Aubrey's

Lives.

1 See the Schedule, printed in Blackbourne's edition, vol. ii. p. 565.

the judgments which are passed upon dead men by popular acclamation, though we are not ourselves in a condition to justify them. This is fame, and (so far) it cannot be denied that we have done our best to show gratitude for what he has left us.

It is in respect to that other part of his name and memory which he bequeathed to "men's charitable speeches and foreign nations, and the next ages," that he would have been most painfully disappointed if to his other misfortunes had been added the misfortune of seeing far into the future. Up to the day when the charge of corruption was brought against him, I fancy that he had thought himself, in his dealings with other men, not only unimpeachable but exemplary: a faithful and diligent servant; a considerate and indulgent master; a serviceable friend; a sound patriot, always meditating projects for the improvement and advancement of his country; an enthusiast of humanity, passionately ambitious to enlarge the powers, heal the diseases, and purify the condition of the human. race; in debate, fair and courteous; in council, free, careful, candid; anxious that all things should be carried with due consideration for the just interests of all parties and without just offence to any; seeking for himself scarcely anything except work and the wages of work which he was well able to do and which he did well; receiving for himself nothing but what was freely offered, and giving more freely than he received; an honourable opponent, an indulgent censor, a faithful reporter, a laborious worker, an honest and unselfish adviser, an impartial and scrupulous judge, and filled (as himself could best witness) with tender consideration for all sentient creatures ;such being the ideal to which he had aspired, and, as he imagined, not wholly without success, meanness (in its modern sense) was probably the very last word with which he expected his name to be associated. And to have foreseen that the next ages while they regarded him as the meanest would nevertheless honour him as the wisest and brightest of mankind, would have been to him the very reverse of consolation. To have been forgotten altogether would have been nothing; to be honoured in that way was to be perpetually infanous; and (what was still worse) it could not but degrade the character of the very virtues for which the honour was to be awarded. The wisdom and brightness which could live for half a century in friendly relations with meanness in the superlative degree, must have been themselves mean. And though the currency of a quotable line by a popular poet cannot be taken as evidence of the serious judgment of posterity, the case is changed when it comes to be adopted, expounded, amplified, and justified by popular historians and biographers. Pope was merely preaching morality

in sparkling couplets; he wanted a name to point his moral with ; and if he could have thought of another that would have helped him to a better rhyme, he would no doubt have preferred it. But when Lord Macaulay, as the result of an elaborate historical and biographical inquiry, described Bacon as a man who, being entrusted with the highest gifts of Heaven, habitually abused them for the poorest purposes of earth,-hired them out for guineas, places, and titles in the service of injustice, covetousness, and oppression1-adding that he (Lord Macaulay) had nevertheless "no doubt that his name would be named with reverence to the latest ages and to the remotest ends of the civilized world," we must accept the responsibility of the opinion if we allow it to pass without a protest. If the later ages believe his description of the man to be correct, I hope for my own part that they will not name the name of that man with reverence: it would be a gross abuse either of the word or the thing. But it is still possible that they may adopt a different interpretation of the character.

The other actions on which Lord Macaulay's interpretation is founded have been fully and I believe correctly related; and (the evidence being now within anybody's reach) they must be left to produce their own impression. To me, so far from seeming to justify his theory of the character, they do not seem to be reconcileable with it if Bacon had been such a man as he takes him for, he would have acted differently at almost every crisis which offered him a choice. Nor do I believe that they would have suggested such a theory to anybody, were it not for the discredit which the transactions revealed by his impeachment threw back upon all the passages of his life. It must nevertheless be admitted that those transactions alone,-if Lord Macaulay's interpretation of them be accepted in its full extent,-would deprive his name of all title to anything that could be properly called "reverence, "-his services in the field of philosophy and literature notwithstanding. And as all turns upon the question whether his offence implied the perversion of justice for the sake of reward, it is necessary to discuss the grounds of that interpretation more particularly.

10.

Bacon admitted that he had more than once received a present from a suitor whose cause was not concluded that the act could

:

1 He goes so far as to insinuate that if the defence of the schoolmen could have been rewarded by "fees," or "peerages," or "rich reversions," Bacon would not have been a reformer in philosophy.

not be defended; that it amounted to corruption; and deserved punishment. But he denied that he had ever received such present upon any bargain or contract, or had ever had any "bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order." The Parliamentary sentence he allowed to be both just and fit; but he affirmed at the same time that he had been the justest judge that had sate in Chancery for half a century.

Lord Macaulay on the contrary represents him as "practising corruption on a large scale;" as "having many agents looking out in different quarters for prey;" as employing in this service "jackals" and "decoys;" as making "private bargains" with suitors as to the amount of their presents: and in fact as selling judgments by the hundred.1

The difference is not only large but vital; the question is, which are we to believe?

On the principle of giving the accused party the benefit of the doubt, it would be enough perhaps to say that before we believe such a charge we ought to be able to show some ground for it. Bacon, as we have seen, privately denied it: and if he did not deny it publicly, that may be sufficiently accounted for by the fact it was never publicly made. No accusation to that effect is implied in any of the articles which he was required to answer. They state merely that the presents had been taken, but say nothing of any contract, condition, or unjust judgment. That no evidence can be produced from which we should be obliged to conclude that some of these presents must have been given and received with an understanding that the cause should go in favour of the giver, it is indeed impossible to say. But until it is produced, I do not see why we should believe it.

But I am myself prepared to go a little further. I think I see reasons why we should not believe it. The absence of all evidence that Bacon's decrees were unjust, coupled with the consideration that evidence could hardly have been wanting if they were, makes it in my opinion extremely improbable that they were bought. It would be absurd to suppose that the only suitors who attempted to gain their causes by bribery were those whose causes were good. If many decrees were bought, some must have been unjust. Now by every unjust decree, if one man "got what he had paid for," another lost what he was entitled to. Every man so aggrieved had some means of redress, and after Bacon's conviction he must have had every encouragement and advantage in pursuing it; for the

1 "The hundreds who have got what they paid for, are quiet.” 'Lord Bacon,' by Thomas Babington Macaulay. Travellers' Library, p. 84.

If

6

practice of corruption being admitted, the presumption would be against the judgment. How many, then, of Bacon's decrees were appealed against? and of these how many were reversed? If none or few, how can we believe that he had sold them by the hundred ? many, where are they? Reversals of decrees in Chancery must be recorded somewhere; and yet (except a somewhat loose assertion in a manuscript of Lord Chief Justice Hale's, published by Hargrave) I can find no mention of any such reversals anywhere. Lord Hale, it is true, in tracing the origin of the jurisdiction of the Lords in reversing equity decrees, mentions the censure of Bacon' for many decrees made upon most gross bribery and corruption,'-words sufficiently justified by the terms of the sentence and submission, and grounded probably upon nothing more,- and this,' he adds, 'gave such a discredit and brand to the decrees thus obtained, that they were easily set aside, and made way in the Parliament of 3 Car. for the like attempts against decrees made by other Chancellors.' Now that the decrees made by Bacon upon the cases in which presents were admitted to have been received, were thereby discredited, we may safely conclude: the presumption, as I said, would of course be against them; and if by easily set aside' be meant only that, their authority being lost, the right of appeal against them was easily admitted,―(and such may very well be the meaning, for this is the point which Hale was considering),—I can easily believe that also. But if he means that they were easily reversed on appeal; that is, that many of them were reversed; I still ask where the evidence is. Hale is so great an authority, that-though manuscripts not published or left for publication by the writer are to be received with caution, as probably containing some loose suggestions which he intended to verify at more leisure,-any assertion of his is well worth inquiry. But he was a boy when these things happened. He was writing, it would seem, after the Restoration. His information, so far as it rests upon his personal knowledge and judgment, must have been derived from documents which were then, and should be still, accessible. Where are we to look for these documents? From the passage I have quoted, I should have been led to look in the records of the proceedings of the House of Lords; for he is obviously speaking of reversals of decrees in Chancery 'by an inherent original jurisdiction' in that house; which jurisdiction, he tells us, had its rise upon three occasions; the first being this case of Bacon; whose decrees being made upon bribery and corruption were easily set aside' and made way for 'the like attempts' seven or eight years after; and this would certainly lead one to suppose that Bacon's decrees were set aside by the House of Lords in virtue of this sup