BACON, Sir NICHOLAS, the father of lord Bacon, was b. in 1510, at Chiselhurst, in Kent. Ile received an excellent education; and being gifted by nature with sound and practical abilities, he quickly prospered in the legal profession, to which he attached himself. At the age of 27, he was appointed solicitor to the court of augmentations; two years later, on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., he had the courage to present to that irascible monarch a reasonable project for applying the wealth which had been "rescued" from the church. It was this: that Henry should employ a portion of it in founding a college for the study of politics and diplomacy. Unfortunately, the king had already squandered it away in presents, and was unable to comply with the wise suggestion of the young lawyer; but probably he remembered his good sense, for, in 1546, Henry advanced him to the office of attorney of the court of wards, which he retained during the reign of Edward VI.; but his Protestantism necessarily caused him to be deprived of all public honors and emoluments after the subsequent Catholic suc cession. On the death of Mary, however, he was made a member of the Protestant part of the privy council, by queen Elizabeth; and in 1558, received at her hands the great seal. In the beginning of 1559, he opened parliament with a judicious speech on
the difficult subject of a national religion. He was also president of that assembly of ecclesiastical disputants which met in Westminster two months later, to discuss the points of controversy between Protestants and Catholics. In 1564, he suffered a tem porary eclipse of royal favor, on account of the too patriotic character of his religion ; but through the persevering efforts of his old and constant friend, sir William Cecil, he was at length restored to the sunshine in which he had been accustomed to bask. Eliza beth even went the length of paying him a visit in 1577, at his magnificent mansion of Gorhambury, in Hertfordshire. He died on the 20th of Feb., 1579. Sir Nicholas was one of those solid and stately Englishmen to whose sagacity, high principle, and firm demeanor his country owed its safety In that critical period when Elizabeth mounted the tbrone.