A History of English Literature

his personal ambition was often stronger than his conscience; that he
believed that public success could be gained only by conformity to the low
standards of the age; that he fell into the fatal error of supposing that
his own preeminent endowments and the services which they might enable him
to render justified him in the use of unworthy means; that his sense of
real as distinguished from apparent personal dignity was distressingly
inadequate; and that, in general, like many men of great intellect, he was
deficient in greatness of character, emotion, fine feeling, sympathy, and
even in comprehension of the highest spiritual principles. He certainly
shared to the full in the usual courtier's ambition for great place and
wealth, and in the worldling's inclination to ostentatious display.
Having offended Queen Elizabeth by his boldness in successfully opposing an
encroachment on the rights of the House of Commons, Bacon connected himself
with the Earl of Essex and received from him many favors; but when Essex
attempted a treasonable insurrection in 1601, Bacon, as one of the Queen's
lawyers, displayed against him a subservient zeal which on theoretical
grounds of patriotism might appear praiseworthy, but which in view of his
personal obligations was grossly indecent. For the worldly prosperity which
he sought, however, Bacon was obliged to wait until the accession of King
James, after which his rise was rapid. The King appreciated his ability and
often consulted him, and he frequently gave the wisest advice, whose
acceptance might perhaps have averted the worst national disasters of the
next fifty years. The advice was above the courage of both the King and the
age; but Bacon was advanced through various legal offices, until in 1613 he
was made Attorney-General and in 1618 (two years after Shakspere's death)
Lord High Chancellor of England, at the same time being raised to the
peerage as Baron Verulam. During all this period, in spite of his better
knowledge, he truckled with sorry servility to the King and his unworthy
favorites and lent himself as an agent in their most arbitrary acts.
Retribution overtook him in 1621, within a few days after his elevation to
the dignity of Viscount St. Albans. The House of Commons, balked in an
attack on the King and the Duke of Buckingham, suddenly turned on Bacon and
impeached him for having received bribes in connection with his legal
decisions as Lord Chancellor. Bacon admitted the taking of presents
(against which in one of his essays he had directly cautioned judges), and
threw himself on the mercy of the House of Lords, with whom the sentence
lay. He appears to have been sincere in protesting later that the presents
had not influenced his decisions and that he was the justest judge whom
England had had for fifty years; it seems that the giving of presents by
the parties to a suit was a customary abuse. But he had technically laid
himself open to the malice of his enemies and was condemned to very heavy
penalties, of which two were enforced, namely, perpetual incapacitation
from holding public office, and banishment from Court. Even after this he
continued, with an astonishing lack of good taste, to live extravagantly
and beyond his means (again in disregard of his own precepts), so that
Prince Charles observed that he 'scorned to go out in a snuff.' He died in
1626 from a cold caught in the prosecution of his scientific researches,
namely in an experiment on the power of snow to preserve meat.
Bacon's splendid mind and unique intellectual vision produced, perhaps
inevitably, considering his public activity, only fragmentary concrete
achievements. The only one of his books still commonly read is the series
of 'Essays,' which consist of brief and comparatively informal jottings on
various subjects. In their earliest form, in 1597, the essays were ten in
number, but by additions from time to time they had increased at last in
1625 to fifty-eight. They deal with a great variety of topics, whatever
Bacon happened to be interested in, from friendship to the arrangement of a
house, and in their condensation they are more like bare synopses than