he was none of the Reptilia; intimating, that he could not creepe on the ground, and that the court was not his element, for indeed as he was a great souldier, so he was of a suitable magnanimitie, and could not brooke the obsequiousnesse and assiduitie of the court, and as he was then somewhat descending from youth, happily he had an animam revertendi, and to make a safe

retreate.

Nicholas Bacon.

AND now I come to another of the Togati, Sir Nicholas Bacon,* an arch-peece of wit, and of wisdome, he was a gentleman and a man of law, and of a great knowledge therein, whereby together with his after part of learning, and dexteritie, he was promoted to be Keeper of the Great

Sir Nicholas Bacon, was born at Chislehurst in Kent, and educated at Corpus-Christi College, in Cambridge, which he afterwards endowed with six scholarships. He studied the law at Gray's-Inn, and the 38th year of Henry VIII. was made Attorney of the Court of Wards, and had his patent renewed by Edward VI. He had the honour of knighthood conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth, in the first year of her reign, and was made Lord keeper of the great Seal of England, which office in his time was by Act of Parliament made equal in authority with that of the Chancellor. He died 1579, and was interred in the south side of the choir in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a noble monument was erected to his memory. He was father to the celebrated Lord Bacon; and at Gorhambury, is preserved the portraits of both, and great part of the furniture which belonged to the Lord Keeper.

Seale, and being of kin to the Treasurer Burleigh, and also the helpe of his hand to bring him to the Queenes great favor, for he was aboundantly factious, which tooke much with the Queene, when it suited with the season, as he was well able to judge of the times: he had a very quaint saying, and he used it often to good purpose, that he loved the jest well, but not the losse of his friend, and that though he knew that verus quisque sua fortune faber, was a true and a good principle, yet the most in number were those that numbered themselves, but I will never forgive that man that looseth himself to be rid of his jests.

He was father to that refined wit which since hath acted a disasterous part on the publique stage, and of late sat in his fathers roome, as Lord Chancellor: those that lived in his age, and from whence I have taken this little modell of him, gives him a lively character, and they decipher him to be another Solon, and the Synon of those times, such a one as Oedipus was in dissolving of riddles, doubtless he was an able instrument, and it was his commendations that his head was the mallet, for it was a very great one, and therein kept a wedge, that entered all knotty peeces that came to the table.