Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND RIS SECRET SOCIETY. 155
and to foreign nations, and to the next ages. "
He desired to be
laid near the mother he so dearly loved and so closely resembled,
in St Michael's Church, near Gorhambury. Sir John Constable,
his brother-in-law, was to have the chief care of his books. 1
Bequests were made to tbe poor of all tbe parishes in which he
An ample income, beyond the terms of her
had chiefly resided.
marriage settlement, was secured to bis wife; though, for reasons
only darkly hinted in his will, a subsequent clause or
codicil revoked these bequests, and left the Viscountess to
legal rights. Legacies were left to his friends and servants;
to the Marquis d'Effiat "my book of orisons, curiously
rhymed;" to the Earl of Dorset "my ring with the crushed
diamond, which the King gave me when Prince;" to Lord Cavendish
" my casting bottle of gold."
Where are these relics? Surely the recipients must bave
valued such gifts, and handed them down to their posterity as
curiosities, if not as precious treasures. The book of orisons,
especially, we should expect to find carefully preserved. Can
no one produce this most interesting prayer-book?
The lease of Bacon's rooms in Gray's Inn, valued at three
hundred pounds, was to be sold, and the money given to poor
scholars. The residue of his estate, he believed, would be sufficient
to found two lectureships on natural history and the
physical sciences at the universities. " It was a beautiful,
beneficent dream," but not to be realized, for the property ami
personalty left by Bacon hardly sufficed to pay his debts;
her
yet in
the last clause, which has just been quoted, we see a repetition
of the earnest expression of his opinion as to the " great want"
of foundations for the perpetuating of lectures, which he mentioned
in his letter to Buckingham. As usual, he endeavours,
poor as he now is, to supply the necessary funds, which the
King had "denied." Probably, had the grant been denied to
Alleyn, Bacon intended himself to raise the money for the completion
of Dulwich College and its alms-houses.
The winter of 1625-6 was the most dismal he had known;
l Another copy of his will consigns the charge of his "cabinet and presses
full of papers" to three trustees, Constable, Selden, and Herbert.