BACON, FliANCIS, Lord \Terulam, and Viscount • St Albans, a philosopher, whose writings form a new epoch in the history of science, was born at York-house, London, on the 22d day of ,January 1560-1. He was the youngest son of Sir.Nicolas Bacon, by his second wife Anne, daughter of Sin Antony Cook, tutor to Edward VI.
In his childish years, Francis Bacon displayed an uncommon precocity of talent ; and the early prcsa- ges of his superiority were amply verified by the fruits of his maturer studies. The gravity and pro priety Ins demeanour, when.a boy, recomMended him to the good graces of Queen Elizabeth, who. often admi:-ed the neatness and felicity with which. lie replied to her questions. In his thirteenth year, he was committed to the care of Dr Whitgift, then master of Trinity College, Cambridge, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury ; and at the age of six teen, according to his own account, he began to be dis satisfied with the philosophy of Aristotle, which had long formed the basis,,or rather the whole substance, of academical instruction. His father having destined . him to the service of the state, found means to ini tiate him into the mysteries of the diplomatic life, by sending him to France, in his seventeenth year, with Sir A inias Powlet, the ambassador. In this situa tion he enjoyed the entire confidence and approba tion of his patron, by whom he was, in one instance, charged with a very important commission to the queen, in which he acquitted himself with great abi lity, About this time also lie wrote an inquiry into the state of Europe, which afterwards gained him considerable applause in the political world. When •he was nineteen years of age, a gloom was thrown over his future prospects by the sudden death of his father, from whom he inherited a very small patri mony, as the youngest of five brothers.
Returning from France, he determined -to study -law ; and, with, this view, entered the honourable society of Gray's Inn, where he soon rose to great eminence, and, at the age of twenty-eight, was cho sen their Lent reader. Two years afterwards he was made one of the clerks of the council. About this pe riod his time was divided between the studies of law and philosophy ; but his most ardent affections were set on the high offices of state ; and to the at tainment favourite objects, he seized every opportunity of applying. He long and anxiously courted the good graces of Lord Essex, and had also frequent access to the queen, who gave him great reason to believe that she was favourably dis posed towards him. Her majesty, however, bestow ed upon him no substantial mark of her regard, ex • cept the reversion of a lucrative office, that of regis ter to the star-chamber, which became vacant about twenty years afterwards. It is alleged, that the
antipathy or jealousy of Cecil, then secretary of state, obstructed his preferment, partly because the secre tary disliked his attachment to the fortunes of Es • sex, and partly because he dreaded the ascendancy of his talents. Cecil is said to have been at great pains to impress on the queen's mind a conviction, that Bacon, being always immersed in abstract specula tion, was ill 442alified for the activity of public busi ness; and it is to be regretted, that these insinuations, however questionable the motives which dictated them, did not operate as a permanent obstacle to his elevation. ^ If he had been content with a private station, his philosophical inquiries might have been more successfully conducted ; and those temptations might -have been escaped, which afterwards had power to corrupt. his integrity. The subsequent conduct of Bacon to his benefactor, the unfortunate Earl of Essex, who had not only strained every nerve to ingratiate him with the queen, but aug mented his fortune by some munificent donations, drew down on the most unqualified expressions of public reprobation, and affixed a stain to his me mory which the lustre of his talents serves only to render more conspicuous. The obsequious candi date for courtly favour, prostituted his abilities by pleading against the man who had protected and en riched him, and violated the holy bonds of friendship, by extracting evidences of his patron's guilt from private letters which he spontaneously produced. As if all this had been too little, lie was selected as the fittest instrument for attacking the posthumous fame of his sacrificed friend, and condescended to Tatiff the queen and the ministry, by publishing an elaborate Declaration of the Treasons of Robert Earl of Essex. His miserable Apolog,q for his con duct, tended, in the opinion of the nation, rather to aggravate than to extenuate the baseness of deserting the man on whom he had long fawned ; and thirst ing for the infamy of one, whose blood might have satiated the hireling retainers of power. Elizabeth 'never requited Bacon for the execution of his odious task ; and the ministry had no great encouragement to be lavish of their gifts to a man, who had proved -himself capable of inflicting the deepest wounds on the object of his former adulation. Before this time, , he had incurred the queen's displeasure, in conse •quence of the freedom with which he expressed his opinions in parliament, of which he became a mem ber in 1592.