BOOKS.
LORD BACON.* " THE Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, including all his Occasional Works, namely, Letters, Speeches, Tracts, State Papers, Memorials, Devices, and all authentic writings not already printed among his Philosophical, Literary, and Profes- sional Works : newly collected and set forth in chronological order, with a Commentary, biographical and historical : by James Speddiug." So runs the title in full of the work of which Messrs. Triibuer and Co. here give us an "American abridgment." The editor of this abridgment remains anony- mous, but we are informed in the " Publisher's Note " that the book " may be regarded as embodying that gentleman's con- ception of what would be chosen by an American reader who should judiciously skip in his reading of the original work." We fear that the English reader will still find much that ho will be inclined, judiciously or not, to skip in this abridgment ; and as the editor and publishers appear to regard it as forming a "popular and brief Life of Bacon," we may say at once that we cannot call it brief, and do not think that it is likely to be popular. The task of condensation, it appears, was undertaken with Mr. Speddiug's permission, and when the selections had been made, he examined them with a view to their being read as a separate life, inserted what he thought wanting in the way of connection or explanation, and corrected such errors or supplied such deficiencies as he had discovered since
the publication of his original work. The text, as it stands, is wholly Mr. Spedding's, and it is to Mr. Spedding's estimate bf Bacon's works and character that our remarks will be chiefly addressed. Abridgments at the best, and as a rule, are ; poor and thankless affairs, and the abridgment before us errs, as we have hinted, on the side of pro- lixity; it also errs, though much less frequently, on the side of undue brevity. What portion of blame is respec- tively due to the author and to the condenser for this double fault is a question which we cannot stay to examine. So we will leave the latter to his American " skippers," and say what we have to say about the former.
Of the enormous services which the learned labours of Mr. Sped- ding and his coadjutors have rendered to the students of Bacon, it is quite superfluous to speak. These services are admitted on all sides to be simply invaluable. But Mr. Spedding's estimate
• An Account of the We and Times of Francis Bacon. London: TrUbnar and Co. of Bacon's works and character is not, for that reason, beyond the reach of cavil. His attitude towards the memory of England's greatest prose writer is tolerably well known, and roughly speaking, he may be said to hold a brief for Bacon, and the Princes whom Bacon served, against Lord Macaulay. Now we cannot, of course, in an article like the present, pretend to pro- nounce judgment on the much debated questions which were raised by the latter's well-known essay. An opinion seems generally prevalent that it erred nearly as much in its estimate of Bacon's philosophy, as Bacon himself erred in his estimate of Aristotle's. But the fierce and scathing rhetoric of Macau- lay's arraignment of Bacon's character is feebly and poorly answered by Mr. Spedding's pleading. We believe, indeed, that the great reviewer went a little too far, and that the respect which is due to Bacon's virtues might, not ungracefully, have made his critic a little blinder than ho was to Bacon's faults. But on the whole, Macaulay erred, if err he did, on the right side ; and we entirely agree with those who hold that the Chancellor's guilt was magnified rather than extenuated by his high and matchless endowments. It is quite another question, though, whether those endowments may not fairly claim that the sins of their possession should be allowed to rest in oblivion. The " next ages," to which he ap- pealed, answered his appeal with generosity, and we, at all -events, may justly refuse to sympathise with those who, with cold and merciless severity, would `.‘ draw his frailties from their -dread abode." Nor is it necessary, perhaps, to add that a writer should be more or less than man, who ventures to judge a culprit like Bacon in the spirit of a Jeffreys, or even of a Rhadamanthus. It may seem inconsistent, after this, that the few remarks to which we must confine ourselves should be directed against Lord Bacon, rather than in favour of him; but we have to deal with Mr. Spedding's defence, and not with Lord Macaulay's attack, and cannot help ourselves. If the reverse were the case, we should feel bound, and by no means puzzled, to take a different course.
We have said that Mr. Spedding holds a brief for the Princes whom Bacon served, as well as for Bacon him- self. It was clearly necessary that he should do so. But he manages his case rather awkwardly. It was the -curse of Bacon's life, we believe, that ho was the servant of such a mistress as Elizabeth, and such a master as James. Carlyle says of Cromwell that he was likely as Protector to bear himself as a conscientious man, and not as a hungry slave. The expression is a strong one, and hardly apposite, as applied to a man in Oliver's position. Applied conversely to Bacon, it comes unpleasantly near the truth. He would not, as a con- scientious man, hope to get much praise or pudding from the " Solomon " King and his favourites ; but as a hungry slave ho could, and as a hungry slave he did gain such praise and such pudding as those worthies had to bestow. And here we may re- mark parenthetically that we entirely agree with Lord Macaulay as regards the designation " Lord Bacon." Mr. Spedding is sorely exercised by this social solecism, and undoubtedly it is, .strictly speakitg, as wrong to speak of the Earl of Verulam as Lord Bacon, as it would be to speak of the Earl of Beaconsfield as Lord Disraeli. But we cannot sympathise with Mr. Sped- ding's querulous allusion to pork, although we are more than half inclined to doubt whether it was not mere accident, rather than any deliberate objection on the part of posterity to James's patents, that has given us Lord Bacon, instead of Lord Verulam or Lord St. Alban's. Be this as it may, there can be little doubt that Bacon touched pitch when he -toadied James and Villiers, Did he fare much better with Elizabeth and Essex P Essex was a better man all round than Villiers, and Elizabeth was a better man than James ; but it is easy to see that Bacon passed the line which separates honour- able from dishonourable service, in the advice which he gave to the unfortunate Queen's unfortunate favourite. Our own esti-
mate of Essex differs widely enough from Mr. Spedding's, but we can bring out the impression of Bacon's astute unworthiness much better if we take his estimate, in preference to our own.
And here we may remark that we cannot agree with Lord Macaulay that the advice which Bacon gave to Essex was good. Good, in one sense, no doubt, it was, and worthy of Polo- nine or Major Pendennis ; but good, in the honest meaning of the word, it clearly was not, especially if Mr. Spedding's view of Essex be the correct one :—
" That gentleman," he says, " was a man of many gifts and many vir- tues. Thefavourite of a mighty Queen, herself the favourite of a mighty nation; with a heart for all that was great, noble, and generous ; an ear open to all freest and faithfullest counsel ; an understanding to apprehend and appreciate all wisdom ; an imagination great enough to entertain new hopes for the human race; without any shadow of bigotry or narrowness ; without any fault as yet apparent, except a chivalrous impetuosity of character ; the very grace of youth, and the very ele- ment out of which, when tempered by time and experience, all moral greatness and all extraordinary and enterprising virtue derive their vital energy ; in times when the recent agitations of society had stirred men s minds to hope and dare, and exercise them in all kinds of active enterprise,—ho must have seemed, in the oyes of Bacon, like the hope of the world. We need not seek further, surely, to account for the friendship which soon sprang up between the two. The proffered friendship and confidence of such a man,—what could Bacon do but embrace it as frankly as it was offered ? Such a friend and counsellor seemed to be the one thing which such a spirit stood in need of. If Essex seemed like a man expressly made to realise the hopes of a new world, so Bacon may seem to have boon expressly made for the guardian genius of such a man as Essex."
Well, if Essex indeed were really such a paragon as Mr. Sped- ding's imagination paints him, what are we to think of the advice which was really tendered by this Prince of Mentors to this Phoenix of Telemachuses P- " I said to your Lordship," writes Bacon to his patron, "Martha, Martha, attendis ad plarinia ; unum eufitcit : win the Queen. [And this, be it noted, was written some five years after Essex had incurred her Majesty's favour of affection.'] if this be not the beginning of any other course, 1 seo no end. And I will not now speak of favour of affection, but of other correspondence and agreeableness, which, when- soever it shall be conjoined with the other of affection, I durst wager my life, let them make what prosopopoeias they will of her Majesty's nature, that in you she will come to the question of Quid fist homini quern Rex volt honovare ? Your Lordship should never be without some particulars afoot which you should seem to pursue with earnestness and affection, and then let them fall, upon taking notice of her Majesty's opposition and dislike. Of which the weightiest sort may be if your Lordship offer to labour in behalf of some that you favor for the places now void ; choosing such a subject as you think her Majesty is like to oppose unto. And if you will say that this is conjunctum cum &iota injuria, I will not answer, Haec non aliter constabunt ; but I say, commendation from so good a mouth doth not hurt a man, though you prevail not."
From a passage—though obscure enough, it is true—at the end of the letter from which this extract is taken, we think it
would be hard to show that Lingard was not right in the interpretation which he puts on Elizabeth's connection with her favourites ; and Essex may readily enough have seen through and despised the Machiavellian suggestion of his time-serving friend, without being anything like such a preux chevalier and such an " honest man " as it pleases Mr. Spedding to depict him.
The reader may form his own opinion, from this speci- men of the way in which Mr. Spedding conducts his case. We can do no more, at present, than refer him to the book itself, if he wishes to see what special-pleading, not very astutely used, can make of the defence of Bacon. We would particularly urge him to compare, as one out of many similar instances of over-statement, Mr. Spedding's assertion that Bacon " all his life had thought more of his duty than his fortune, setting an example of moderation in personal claims and pretensions," with the polite, indeed, but effectual snubbing which he received from Villiers for an importunate request. (Vol. II., 410.) But, to speak the truth, there is no need for any special reference in refutation of such a monstrous exaggeration as the above. Bacon's mind, in spite of its intel- lectual riches, was poor indeed, to retort upon him his own text, as regards that " better part " which Mary chose. But it is needless to say another word upon a point which Macaulay has made his own. We differ strongly from Mr. Spedding's view of Bacon's character, but we must again most pointedly
admit the great services which he has rendered to students of Bacon ; and if we cannot speak very highly in praise of this abridgment of his work, it is because that work, though valu- able enough, nay, invaluable in its way, is anything but the sort of work out of which a mere condenser was at all likely to produce a brief and popular life of Lord Bacon.
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