Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 95
hour of the morning rise from bed. From notices, scant but clear,
of the Lord Keeper's household, we may see the two boys growing
up together; both gentle and susceptible in genius; as strong
in character as they were frail in health. 1 One sees Francis by
the light of Hilyard's portrait, as he strolled
along the lawn or
reclined under ths elms, with his fat round face, his blue-grey
eyes, his fall of brown curls, and his ripe, jesting mouth; in his
face a thought for the bird on the tree, the fragance in the air, the
insect in the stream; a mind susceptible to all impressions." 2
" Brief and barren as the record of his childhood appears, it
may yet help us," says Spedding, "when studied in the light
which his subsequent history throws back upon it, to understand
in what manner, and in what degree, the accidents of his
birth had prepared him for the scene on which he was entering.
When the temperament is quick and sensitive, the desire of
knowledge strong, and the faculties so vigorous, obedient, and
equally developed, that they find almost all things easy, the
mind will commonly fasten upon the first object of interest that
presents itself, with the ardour of a first love. " The same sympathetic
writer goes on to describe the learned, eloquent,
religious mother trying to imbue her little son with her own
Puritanic fervour in church matters ; the affectionate father, the
Lord Keeper, taking him to see and hear the opening of Parliament,
and instilling into him a reverence for the mysteries of
statesmanship, and a deep sense of the dignity, responsibility,
and importance of the statesman's calling. Everything that he
saw and heard,— the alarms, the hopes, the triumphs of the
time, the magnitude of the interests that depended upon the
Queen's government ; the high flow of loyalty which buoyed
her up and urged her forward ; the imposing character of her
council,— must have contributed to excite in the boy's heart a
devotion for her person and cause, and aspirations after the
civil dignities in the midst of which he was bred up. For the
1 lb. From Whitgifl'.i Accounts, in Brit. Mag. xxxii. 365. Heywood*s University
Transactions, i. 123-156. Athenae Cantabrigienses, ii. 314. Lambeth MSS.
650, fol. 54.
2 Dixon. Spedding, Letters and Life, 1, 2, 3.