A true remembrance of the abuse I received of Mr. Attorney General publicly in the Exchequer the first day of term; for the truth whereof I refer myself to all that were present.

I moved to have a reseizure of the lands of Geo. Moore, a relapsed recusant, a fugitive, and a practising tray tor; and shewed better matter for the Queen against the discharge by plea, which is ever with a salvo jure. And this I did in as gentle and reasonable terms as might be.

Mr. Attorney kindled at it, and said, "Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against me, pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good." I answered coldly in these very words; "Mr. Attorney, I respect you: I fear you not: and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it."

He replied, "I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, who are less than little; less than the least;" and other such strange light terms he gave me, with that insulting which cannot be expressed.

Herewith stirred, yet I said no more but this: "Mr. Attorney, do not depress me so far; for I have been your better, and may be again, when it please the Queen."

With this he spake, neither I nor himself could tell what, as if he had been born Attorney General; and in the end bade me not meddle with the Queen's business, but with mine own; and that I was unsworn, &c. I told him, sworn or unsworn was all one to an honest man; and that I ever set my service first, and myself second; and wished to God, that he would do the like.

Then he said, it were good to clap a cap. utlegatum upon my back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at a fault; for he hunted upon an old scent.

He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides; which I answered with silence, and shewing that I was not moved with them.

The threat of the capias utlegatum was probably in reference to the arrest of Bacon for debt in September, 1598. See Vol. II. p. 106. What the "further request" may have been, or what the issue of it, we have no information. But it appears from an undated letter printed by Dr. Rawley in the 'Resuscitatio' from Bacon's own register, and suiting this occasion very well though usually placed later,

that Bacon thought it worth while to address some words of expostulation to Coke himself. It is true that this letter, as printed in the Resuscitatio,' contains the words "my master's service," which would imply that it was written after the accession of King James. But in the manuscript collection in the British Museum (Add. 5503), which I take to be a better authority than Rawley's copies (see Vol. I. p. 233, note 1), the word is clearly written Mris; and in the Remains, where the letter in question was first published, it is printed "Mrs." And therefore the same reason which led Birch to date it some time between March, 1603, and June, 1606,-that is, between the accession of James and the promotion of Coke to the Bench,— requires us to date it between November, 1595, and March, 1603,that is, between the appointment of Fleming as solicitor, and the death of Elizabeth; during which period, though other occasions have occurred to provoke it, this is the only one which we know did occur. This therefore is undoubtedly its proper place in this collection, and if we suppose it to have been written on the 29th or 30th of April, 1601, we shall not be far wrong.

may

A LETTER OF EXPOSTULATION TO THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, SIR EDWARD COKE.1

Mr. Attorney,

I thought best, once for all, to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me. You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion. What it pleaseth3 you, I pray, think of me: I am one that knows both mine own wants and other men's; and it may be, perchance, that mine mend, and others stand at a stay. And surely I may not endure in public place to be wronged, without repelling the same to my best advantage to right myself. You are great, and therefore have the more enviers, which would be glad to have you paid at another's cost. Since the time I missed the Solicitor's place (the rather I think by your means) I cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together: but either to serve with another upon your remove, or to step into some other course; so as I am more free than ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming myself to you, more than general good manners or your particular good usage shall provoke. And if you had not 1 Addl. MSS. 5503, fo. 36.

2 So Res. The MS. has with.

3 So R. The MS. reads "my discretion; what it please you. I praye thinke of mee, that I am that know," etc.

been shortsighted in your own fortune (as I think) you might have had more use of me. But that tide is passed. I write not this to show my friends what a brave letter I have written1 to Mr. Attorney; I have none of those humours. But that I have written is to a good end, that is to the more decent carriage of my mistress' service, and to our particular better understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall be answered by you in deed, and not in word, I suppose it will not be worse for us both. Else it is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. So this being but to yourself, I for myself rest.

Bacon had many grave objections, no doubt, to Coke's way of doing his business, and on a fit occasion would have been ready to state them; but there is no reason for thinking that he ever provoked this kind of treatment by speaking of him either publicly or privately with disrespect. Among the greatest admirers of Coke in modern times there is none who has not admitted more to his disadvantage, both morally and intellectually, (out of his own particular domain) than Bacon ever alleged or insinuated, and within that domain Bacon never questioned his preeminence; although he hoped, in the course of time, to do something in it himself that would raise the question with posterity. In the meantime the tone in which he ordinarily spoke of him as a lawyer may be inferred from a joke preserved in Dr. Rawley's common-place book; which being too light to have a section to itself, I insert here; though a little before its true date. In January 1602-3, the Queen made eleven new sergeants-at-law, the last being one Barker, "for whose preferment (says Chamberlain) the world finds no other reason but that he is Mr. Attorney's brotherin-law." "Nay, if he be Mr. Attorney's brother in law, he may well be a sergeant," said Bacon, who, according to Rawley's story, was standing by.5

2.

2 end om. MS.

66

3 but om. Resusc.

It was about this time that Bacon lost his brother. Anthony Bacon," says Chamberlain to Carleton, writing on the 27th of May, 1601, "died not long since, but so far in debt that I think his brother 1 wrote MS., writ Remains. 4 Chamberlain's Letters, temp. Eliz. (Camb. Soc.), p. 177. 5 Lambeth MSS. 1034. Rawley writes "Lo. Coke" instead of "Mr. Attorney:" not knowing the date. But there can be no doubt that this was the time. Rawley's story begins, "When Sergeant Barker was made Sergeant, my Lo. said there were 11 Biters and one Barker." Chamberlain's ends, "or else (as one said) that among so many biters there should be one barker:" which sounds like the truer

version.

is little the better by him." He had been suffering so long and so severely from gout and stone that his early death requires no other explanation, though the shock of mind which he must have felt from the last proceedings of the Earl of Essex, and the disclosures consequent upon them, would no doubt hasten the natural work of disease.

This is not the place for an enquiry into his life and character, which would indeed involve a review of great part of the foreign policy of England during the last twenty years of the sixteenth century; for he was so entirely a man of business that to understand his life it would be necessary to understand the business first. But being one of the very few persons who have looked into the voluminous collection of his correspondence preserved at Lambeth, having examined much of it carefully and turned over the leaves of all, and come from the perusal with a tolerably clear impression of his personal character, though that was not the immediate object of my enquiry,— I may as well record it here: the rather because under Dr. Birch's treatment the touches which disclose temper, humour, and character are mostly lost in the process of translation from the first person into the third, and from the living language of passion into the proprieties of historical narrative. But the correspondence in its original shape is fresh and lively, contains letters from both parties, and ranges over fifteen or sixteen years. It is of the most various and miscellaneous kind: and though the collection (never perhaps complete) has suffered from the hand of time while it lay packed out of the way in bundles, it has evidently suffered nothing from the hand of selection. Everything seems to have been kept that was not lost or mislaid. Letters from his mother with directions that they should be burned immediately for fear his men should see them; letters from his steward, with details of receipt and payment; letters from intelligencers abroad full of political secrets; letters from pressing creditors, from wary purchasers, from Popish fugitives, and Protestant preachers; from attached patron, great acquaintance, familiar friends, kinsmen more or less familiar, grateful dependants, lawyers, statesmen, doctors, money-lenders;-together with his own rough drafts, written to dictation;-all appear to have been preserved and docketed, and are now bound up together, not indeed in perfect order,-for the arranger has not attended to the division of the civil year-but in such order that with a little trouble they may be read consecutively. On the authority of this correspondence, in which it would be hard for any salient feature of the character to hide itself, Anthony Bacon may be confidently described as a grave, assiduous, energetic, religious man, with decided opinions, quick feelings, warm attach

ments, and remarkable power of attaching others; a gentleman of high strain, open handed and generous beyond his means; but sensitive and irritable; a little too apt to suspect, feel, and resent an injury; a little too hasty to speak of it; and occasionally, I dare say, driven by the perplexities of pecuniary embarrassment into unreasonableness and injustice; but generally fair, tolerant, and liberal.

How far he was justly charged with extravagance it is not so easy to judge. He spent more than his income; but he spent it in public service, and though I dare say he spent it freely, there is no evidence to show that it was either unworthily spent or unwisely. The acquaintance of many people, and of great people, was of real importance to a man who aspired to supply England with intelligence from France; but it was necessarily expensive. The art of setting many instruments in motion, and gathering the fruits of many men's industry, was an art of great value; but it could not be carried on without liberal rewards. And though it may be truly said that if expenses were incurred in the service of the government, the government ought to have repaid him; it may be as truly answered that that was not the fashion in Elizabeth's days. Besides, his capacity for service had first to be proved. He may have hoped that when the value and the cost of his work should be known the loss would be in some way made good, his future services accepted at their worth, and his fortunes established. But his business at present was to show what he could do, and a determination to keep his expenditure within his income may have been a determination to forego important opportunities. In a letter to his brother written in the fifth year of his residence abroad, which would be in 1584 or 1585, after speaking of a sum of £500 which he had sent for, and "which I know," he adds, "will give occasion to my mother and you of marvel, perhaps of suspicion," and after directing him to send certain jewels, he goes on to say, "How I mean to employ them you shall understand hereafter, and neither you nor any able to dislike, no more than the rest of mine expenses; if you knew as well as myself, as by God's grace one day you shall, the times, places, manner, and end of their spending." And that the business in which he was engaged was really of public importance, and therefore worth risks. and sacrifices, appears from the terms in which his services were acknowledged by the man who was of all others in the best position to appreciate them. The following letter from Sir Francis Walsingham was written about the same time as the letter to Francis Bacon just quoted, and refers, if not to the same services, at least to services of the same kind :

1 From a letter-book of A. B.'s belonging to Mr. E. Cole.