Chapter XXIII: The Testimony of Bacon's Contemporaries

A distinguished member of the Bench in a recent post-prandial address referred to Bacon as "a shady lawyer." Irresponsible newspaper correspondents, when attacking the Baconian theory, indulge in epithets of this kind, but it is amazing that any man occupying a position so responsible as that of an English judge should, either through ignorance or with a desire to be considered a wit, make use of such a term.

Whatever may have been Francis Bacon's faults, one fact must stand unchallenged--that amongst those of his contemporaries who knew him there was a consensus of opinion that his virtues overshadowed any failings to which he might be subject.

The following testimonies establish this fact:--

Let BEN JONSON speak first:

"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of
gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass
a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more
pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness,
in what he uttered. No member of his speech, but consisted of his
own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him,
without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry
and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his
power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make
an end," and, after referring to Lord Ellesmere, Jonson
continues:--

"But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor, (_i.e._,
Bacon) is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in
our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent
Greece, or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his
times, were all the wits born, that could honour a language, or help
study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence
grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and
[Greek: akoe] of our language.

"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his
place, or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the
greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me
ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of
admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever
prayed God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.
Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no
accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it
manifest."

SIR TOBY MATTHEW describes Francis Bacon as

"A friend unalterable to his friends;
A man most sweet in his conversation and ways";

and adds:

"It is not his greatness that I admire, but his virtue."

THOMAS BUSHEL, his servant, in a letter to Mr. John Eliot, printed in 1628, in a volume called "The First Part of Youth's Errors," says:

"Yet lest the calumnious tongues of men might extenuate the good
opinion you had of his worth and merit, I must ingenuously confess
that my selfe and others of his servants were the occasion of
exhaling his vertues into a darke exlipse; which God knowes would
have long endured both for the honour of his King and the good of
the Commonaltie; had not we whom his bountie nursed, laid on his
guiltlesse shoulders our base and execrable deeds to be scand and
censured by the whole senate of a state, where no sooner sentence
was given, but most of us forsoke him, which makes us bear the badge
of Jewes to this day. Yet I am confident there were some Godly
Daniels amongst us.... As for myselfe, with shame I must acquit the
title, and pleade guilty; which grieves my very soule, that so
matchlesse a Peer should be lost by such insinuating caterpillars,
who in his owne nature scorn'd the least thought of any base,
unworthy, or ignoble act, though subject to infirmites as ordained
to the wisest."

In FULLER'S "Worthies" it is written:

"He was a rich Cabinet filled with Judgment, Wit, Fancy and Memory,
and had the golden Key, Elocution, to open it. He was singular in
singulis, in every Science and Art, and being In-at-all came off
with Credit. He was too Bountifull to his Servants, and either too
confident of their Honesty, or too conniving at their Falsehood.
'Tis said he had 2 Servants, one in all Causes Patron to the
Plaintiff, the other to the Defendant, but taking bribes of both,
with this Condition, to restore the Mony received, if the Cause went
against them. Such practices, tho' unknown to their Master, cost him
the loss of his Office."

In "The Lives of Statesmen and Favourites of Elizabeth's Reign" it is said:--

"His religion was rational and sober, his spirit publick, his love
to relations tender, to Friends faithful, to the hopeful liberal, to
men universal, to his very Enemies civil. He left the best pattern
of Government in his actions under one king and the best principles
of it in the Life of the other."

The following is a translation from the discourse on the life of Mr. Francis Bacon which is prefixed to the "Histoire Naturelle," by PIERE AMBOISE, published in Paris in 1631:

"Among so many virtues that made this great man commendable,
prudence, as the first of all the moral virtues, and that most
necessary to those of his profession, was that which shone in him
the most brightly. His profound wisdom can be most readily seen in
his books, and his matchless fidelity in the signal services that he
continuously rendered to his Prince. Never was there man who so
loved equity, or so enthusiastically worked for the public good as
he; so that I may aver that he would have been much better suited to
a Republic than to a Monarchy, where frequently the convenience of
the Prince is more thought of than that of his people. And I do not
doubt that had he lived in a Republic he would have acquired as much
glory from the citizens as formerly did Aristides and Cato, the one
in Athens, the other in Rome. Innocence oppressed found always in
his protection a sure refuge, and the position of the great gave
them no vantage ground before the Chancellor when suing for justice.

"Vanity, avarice, and ambition, vices that too often attach
themselves to great honours, were to him quite unknown, and if he
did a good action it was not from the desire of fame, but simply
because he could not do otherwise. His good qualities were entirely
pure, without being clouded by the admixture of any imperfections,
and the passions that form usually the defects in great men in him
only served to bring out his virtues; if he felt hatred and rage it
was only against evil-doers, to shew his detestation of their
crimes, and success or failure in the affairs of his country brought
to him the greater part of his joys or his sorrows. He was as truly
a good man as he was an upright judge, and by the example of his
life corrected vice and bad living as much as by pains and
penalties. And, in a word, it seemed that Nature had exempted from
the ordinary frailities of men him whom she had marked out to deal
with their crimes. All these good qualities made him the darling of
the people and prized by the great ones of the State. But when it
seemed that nothing could destroy his position, Fortune made clear
that she did not yet wish to abandon her character for instability,
and that Bacon had too much worth to remain so long prosperous. It
thus came about that amongst the great number of officials such as a
man of his position must have in his house, there was one who was
accused before Parliament of exaction, and of having sold the
influence that he might have with his master. And though the probity
of Mr. Bacon was entirely exempt from censure, nevertheless he was
declared guilty of the crime of his servant and was deprived of the
power that he had so long exercised with so much honour and glory.
In this I see the working of monstrous ingratitude and unparalleled
cruelty--to say that a man who could mark the years of his life
rather by the signal services that he had rendered to the State than
by times or seasons, should have received such hard usage for the
punishment of a crime which he never committed; England, indeed,
teaches us by this that the sea that surrounds her shores imparts to
her inhabitants somewhat of its restless inconstancy. This storm did
not at all surprise him, and he received the news of his disgrace
with a countenance so undisturbed that it was easy to see that he
thought but little of the sweets of life since the loss of them
caused him discomfort so slight." Thus ended this great man whom
England could place alone as the equal of the best of all the
previous centuries."

PETER BOENER, who was private apothecary to Bacon for a time, wrote in 1647 a Life, of portions of which the following are translations:--

"But how runneth man's future. He who seemed to occupy the highest
rank is alas! by envious tongues near King and Parliament deposed
from all his offices and chancellorship, little considering what
treasure was being cast in the mire, as afterwards the issue and
result thereof have shown in that country. But he always comforted
himself with the words of Scripture--nihil est novi; that means
'there is nothing new.' Because so is Cicero by Octavianus;
Calisthenes by Alexander; Seneca (all his former teachers) by Nero;
yea, Ovid, Lucanus, Statius (together with many others), for a small
cause very unthankfully the one banished, the other killed, the
third thrown to the lions. But even as for such men banishment is
freedom--death their life, so is for this author his deposition a
memory to greater honour and fame, and to such a sage no harm can
come.

* * * * *

"Whilst his fortunes were so changed, I never saw him--either in
mien, word or acts--changed or disturbed towards whomsoever; _ira
enim hominis non implet justitiam Dei_, he was ever one and the
same, both in sorrow and in joy, as becometh a philosopher; always
with a benevolent allocution--_manus nostrae sunt oculatae, credunt
quod vident_.... A noteworthy example and pattern for everyone of
all virtue, gentleness, peacefulness, and patience."

FRANCIS OSBORN, in his "Advice to a Son," writes:--

"And my memory neither doth nor (I believe possible ever) can direct
me towards an example more splendid in this kind, than the Lord
Bacon Earl of St. Albans, who in all companies did appear a good
Proficient, if not a Master in those Arts entertained for the
Subject of every ones discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the
least affectation of Flattery or Hyperbole, That his most casual
talk deserveth to be written, As I have been told his first or
foulest Copys required no great Labour to render them competent for
the nicest judgments. A high perfection, attainable only by use, and
treating with every man in his respective profession, and what he
was most vers'd in. So as I have heard him entertain a Country Lord
in the proper terms relating to Hawks and Dogs. And at another time
out-Cant a London Chirurgeon. Thus he did not only learn himself,
but gratifie such as taught him; who looked upon their Callings as
honoured through his Notice; Nor did an easie falling into Arguments
(not unjustly taken for a blemish in the most) appear less than an
ornament in Him: The ears of the hearers receiving more
gratification, than trouble; And (so) no less sorry when he came to
conclude, than displeased with any did interrupt him. Now this
general Knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his wit, and
dignifi'd by so Majestical a carriage he was known to own, strook
such an awful reverence in those he question'd, that they durst not
conceal the most intrinsick part of their Mysteries from him, for
fear of appearing Ignorant, or Saucy. All which rendered him no less
Necessary, than admirable at the Council Table, where in reference
to Impositions, Monopolies, &c. the meanest Manufacturers were an
usual Argument: And, as I have heard, did in this Baffle, the Earl
of Middlesex, that was born and bred a Citizen &c. Yet without any
great (if at all) interrupting his other Studies, as is not hard to
be Imagined of a quick Apprehension, in which he was Admirable."