stair of the royal seat. For all which will be responsible to you the child of Israel who among the Gentiles is called

"SIDONIA."

I know not whether gentlemen of Sidonia's way of thinking, when corresponding in Hebrew, always carry on business in what we Nazarenes would call this rather loose, although undoubtedly grand, manner, but whether they do or do not do so, in conducting their private affairs, the method is surely quite inapplicable when they are dealing with other people's money,

very

The nation will awake one of these days from its dream about the Suez shares. It will then see that although they may turn out all well as an investment, if such investments are proper for nations, and although it might be worth paying something more than their market value, with a view to intimate to the world that we considered ourselves to be deeply interested in Egypt, the operation of buying them was badly carried into effect, and was connected quite unnecessarily with discreditable things. When this comes about there will be one more item added to the unpleasant account which is running against the present possessors of power.

"Tra i salmi dell' Uffizio

C'é anco il Dies ira:
O che non ha a venire
Il giorno del giudizio?"

I allude to these things, however, in the present connection merely as an example of the infinite number of incidents, arising from the pursuit of this or that by-end, which may at any moment throw into confusion a whole system of policy; but after all it cannot be an irrational course for any country to throw its influence into keeping things pretty much as they are in another country, until it sees clearly in what direction to apply the great power which it can exert.

To sum up then in a few sentences my conclusions with respect to the present state of Europe I would say:

Еторе (There are local maladies in various parts of it, but the true cause of the heightened pulse is the state of the Eastern Peninsula. With this state you should deal by sedatives, submitting meantime that part of the European body politic to a most minute and long-continued series of observations, for you may rest assured that your present knowledge is not sufficient to enable you to deal with the malady; and if you use the knife, or adopt any other heroic remedy, you may well bring about results which it makes one tremble to think of.

M. E. GRANT DUFF.

6.

THE

HERE is no part of Bacon's life in which he seems to me to have been truer to all his duties than in his dealings with the Earl of Essex; nor have I any reason to suspect my judgment of error in that more than in other things: for there was nothing to influence it either way: nothing to gain or lose; nobody that I knew of to whom my opinion would give either pleasure or pain; no end that I was pursuing, besides the satisfaction of my own mind, which would be either helped or hindered by one conclusion more than the other. If I started with any bias, it must have worked the other way; for this was always the most unpopular of my heresies, in which I found sympathy most rare and antipathy most vehement. But as in entering upon the inquiry I had nothing to do with sympathies or antipathies, but merely wanted to find out what a man, whose book I had been reading with interest, was like, and what he had done, I do not believe that I did start with any bias. And as the opinion which I arrived at then, upon such information as then lay within easy reach, has survived not only the assaults of friends and foes, but the much severer test of a very close and careful examination of all the evidence I have been able to meet with which bears upon the question, I cannot doubt that it is my real opinion, which others may value as they please, but which I am myself bound to respect. In so far as it is a question of moral taste and feeling, our opinions will of course vary with our various

moral constitutions; but in these historical matters, where anybody may, without fear of contradiction, say anything, feelings are apt to make facts. Now an ill-made fact may sometimes be detected and removed. It will be seen presently that the theory of Bacon's relation to Essex which finds, in both stages of it-the loyal no less than the disloyal period-a proof that he prized Court-favour above friendship and gratitude, depends for much of its plausibility upon facts misstated or misinterpreted. It will be seen also, I think, that the adoption of these statements and interpretations by the reviewer is not itself a fact of much weight, because it is evident that in this, as in the instances I have already examined, his information was both scanty and loose.

The evidence in this case is in two parts, which must be treated separately. Bacon attached himself to Essex in the opening of his career. He acted as counsel against him at the close. In both cases, we are told, it was "for these objects "--namely, "wealth, precedence, titles," &c. "For these he joined, for these he forsook, Lord Essex."

First for the first. That Bacon joined Essex from unworthy motives was a new suggestion, I think, of the reviewer's own. But as Essex was not a man whom nobody joined from good motives, why are we to suspect Bacon of bad ones? Was there anything unworthy in the circumstances which brought them together, or in the nature of the mutual attraction which united them? Looking back, as before, for the reviewer's own account of the origin of the alliance, all I find is, that Essex's "mind, ardent, susceptible, naturally disposed to admiration of all that is great and beautiful, was fascinated by the genius and accomplishments of Bacon," and that "a close friendship was soon formed between them." Of the origin of this friendship, and the history of its formation, this is absolutely all he tells us. Was there any reason, then, why Bacon should have rejected the friendship so offered, or so offering itself? Was Essex, however naturally disposed to admire good things, a man whose real character ought to have forbidden Bacon to enter into such relations with him? Look back again at the reviewer's own description of him-"a new favourite, young, noble, wealthy, accomplished, eloquent, brave, generous, aspiring who was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol of the city; who was the common patron of men of letters and of men of the sword; who was the common refuge of the persecuted Catholic and the persecuted Puritan." The fact that Bacon became the close friend of such a man being the only fact adduced to prove an unworthy motive in "joining' him, the charge might be dismissed without more words, were it not that the very introduction of such a count into such an indictment by a man of sense and virtue requires explanation. The

reviewer must have been thinking, surely, of something which he has neglected or avoided to express; and, with the help of Mr. Montagu, we may partly guess what it was. He found it stated in Montagu's "Life," that "this intimacy could not fail to excite the jealousy of Lord Burghley ;" and that "in after-life Bacon was himself sensible that he had acted unwisely, and that his noble kinsmen had some right to complain of the readiness with which he and his brother had embraced the views of their powerful rival."* What authority Mr. Montagu had for such a statement I do not know. The letter which he refers to in his note, apparently by way of authority, contains no hint of any such thing, and I think it was a mistake. The reviewer, however, concluded on the strength of it that in joining Essex Bacon had deserted his party-an offence, in a modern politician's eyes, not to be excused in any man without special reason; and though "joined Essex" was all he said, what he saw in his mind while he said it was Bacon forsaking Burghley. Having, however, in the last sentence but one, charged him with the same offence of meanness and low ambition for not forsaking Burghley six years before, he could not bring in the name here with good effect. If his persevering loyalty to his uncle, in spite of "morose humours," "sharp lectures," and "unjust and ungracious repulses," during the last six years, "bordered on meanness,"t it would have been difficult to contrive that the transfer of his services from one whom he had served so much too long to one who deserved of him in every way so much better, should tell as a fresh example of the same kind of meanness. The rhetorical instinct of the reviewer therefore suppressed all allusion to the political desertion of which he was (I suppose) accusing him in his mind. But in so doing, while he threw a veil over one difficulty, he exposed another; for if the joining of Essex was not the desertion of anybody else, what business has it in a catalogue of offences which are to prove that Bacon's only object in life was Court-favour?

This, however, is only a speculation of my own, and may or may not be right. The material fact is that (whatever may have been the inward motions which led to the conclusion) the conclusion itself was wrong. Knowing that Bacon had spoken against a proposition of Burghley's in the Parliament of 1593, and that immediately after the dissolution he was set up by Essex as a candidate for the Attorney-Generalship, the reviewer inferred that Bacon, having by that speech put an end to all hopes from Burghley, had transferred his services and political allegiance to Essex. But the fact is that his alliance with Essex had been

* Life of Bacon, p. xxvi.

Essays, ii. p. 301.

formed long before-formed at a time when he had least reason to despair of help from Burghley-and upon conditions which did not involve any sacrifice of his interest in him, or any alienation of feeling. I do not know that the reviewer had the means at hand of determining the date of it. He knew, or might have known, that it had ripened into intimacy before Anthony Bacon returned from abroad; but without access to Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth (which is not likely to have been among the books taken out to India) he could not have ascertained precisely when that was. I made out myself, however, from such evidence as was then accessible, that the beginning could not be dated later than July, 1591;* and I have learned since that there are traces of it still earlier-as early as 1588.† Now it was in 1589 that Burghley obtained for Bacon the reversion of the clerkship of the Star Chamber, and in 1592 that Bacon wrote the spirited and affectionate vindication of Burghley's character, both personal and political, which forms a separate chapter in his "Observations on a Libel." Nor is there to be found in any of the communications which passed between them after the Parliament of 1593 the least trace of any change in their feelings towards each other. Upon the first part of the charge therefore-that Bacon's only object in joining Essex was the prospect of "wealth, precedence, titles," &c.-I think I may conclude that the case breaks down like the others, and may be dismissed, not only as unproved, but as proved to have no substance in it whatever.

The second part will require a longer discussion. That "for these objects" Bacon "forsook Lord Essex," is a short statement involving several assumptions. The act of forsaking a friend may be one thing or another, according to the circumstances and conditions. The motives may be of many kinds, insufficient or sufficient. We must look back for the particulars.

According to the reviewer, Essex's fortunes reached their height in 1596 with the Cadiz expedition, and began to decline immediately after.§ But it was not till the autumn of 1599, after his return "in disgrace" from Ireland, that Bacon prepared to "forsake him." Up to that time,--and after that time, until he found that "while he was trying to prop the fortunes of another he was in danger of shaking his own," it is admitted that he "honestly employed all his address for the purpose of mediating between his friend and the Queen;" and the date of the supposed resolution to forsake him happens to fix itself with an accuracy which is

* L. & L. i. 104.

† In a letter from Bacon to the Earl of Leicester, asking his furtherance of some suit in his behalf, which the Earl of Essex had moved. Mr. John Bruce, who told me of this letter in March, 1869, informed me at the same time that there was nothing else in it of any importance.

"Certain true general notes upon the actions of Lord Burghley." L. & L. i. 198. § Essays, ii. p. 310. Ibid. p. 312.