* The Story of Lord Bacon's We. By Mr. Hepworth
Dixon.. Murray.
DIXON'S PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD BACON.* MB. DIXON'S Story of Lord Bacon's Life is a great improvement on his previous effort. He has pruned down the excrescences of his style, adopted a graver tone, extended his researches, and brought together fresh materials. Whatever industry, research, or ingenuity could do to remove the stains from Bacon's memory has been done by Mr. Dixon, if not always wisely, yet enthusiastically at least. if we must still differ from him in his estimate of Lord Bacon's personal and political career—for as to his services to science there is no dis- pute—we can afford to sympathize with Mr. Dixon's motives. If we must dissent from Mr. Dixon's conclusions, if we must question his more favourable interpretation of insinuations affecting Lord Bacon's memory, we do so with extreme reluctance. We would gladly leave his new and admiring biographer in full .possession of the field, without a wish to dispute his triumphs, or disturb his dreams of victory. But truth will not allow us to do this. We cannot acquiesce in Mr. Dixon's representation of Bacon's actions without examining the authorities on which it is based. And on a fair consideration of the evidence, and of all the fresh materials which Mr. Dixon's research has brought together, we must aver that to our minds the case is " not proven." In the limits of an article like this we can do no more than point out the main questions in debate between the new bio„,arapliers of Lord Bacon. They are these : 1st. That at the lowest ebb of his fortune, Bacon received from his friend Lord Essex an estate which he sold for a sum of money, equivalent in modern computation to 30001.; and then, when the Earl fell into disgrace, appeared as one of the public prosecutors against him. 2dly. That when he was At- torney-General to James I., he was instrumental in putting on the rack an aged clergyman of the name of Peacham, for an unprinted sermon found in his study, reflecting on the King and his adminis- tration. 3dly. That he sentenced to fine and imprisonment Oliver St. John, who had written, in 1614, a letter to the mayor of Marl- borough, attacking the mode of raising money by benevolences "as contrary to law, reason, and religion." 4thly. That he was guilty of receiving bribes in his office as Lord Chancellor.
What defence or excuse is offered for these grave charges? Mr. Spedding endeavours to invalidate the first by insisting on the treasons of Essex. We have yet to see how he will deal with the others. On the authority of official depositions he imputes to the Earl a deep-laid design to subvert the Government and murder the Queen. Oredat Judea: Mr. Dixon follows in the same line. Sup- posing it to be true, we see not what is gained by this mode of argu- ment. It might have justified Bacon in forsaking the Earl's friendship (which, strangely enough, he never did); how can it justify Bacon's appearance as witness and prosecutor against the Earl ? The Earl was not going to murder or depose Bacon. In fact, Mr. Dixon is so conscious of the weakness of this defence that he endeavours to invalidate the obligations of Bacon by boldly assuming that he owed nothing to Essex. The estate, be contends, was a repayment for services done to the Earl, who had engaged Bacon at an unsettled salary. (Story, p. 53.) There is not a tittle of evidence for these assertions ; and they are irreconcilable with Bacon's own account of the transaction. Bacon tells us it was purely a gift, and at first he declined it on that account. So far from being under no obliga- tion to the Earl, as Mr. Dixon would have his readers believe, Bacon wrote to Elizabeth : "That if she would be pleased to spare him in my Lord of Essex's cause, out of the consideration she took of his obligation towards Essex, he should reckon it for one of her greatest favours." He apologizes to the Earl of Devonshire for the part he eventually took and his manner of fulfilling it, by a distinction in- telligible enough if measured by the uniform lines of his conduct, but irreconcilable with Mr. Dixon's representations : "If, in the delivery (of my part) I did handle (the Earl) not tenderly (though no man before me did in so clear terms free my Lord from all dis- loyalty as I did), that your Lordship knoweth must be ascribed to the superior duty I did owe to the Queen's fame and honour in a public proceeding, and partly to the intention I had to uphold myself in credit and strength with the Queen, the better to be able to do my Lord good offices afterwards." If Essex had been the political apostate described by Mr. Dixon and Mr. Spedding no such defence as this would have been necessary.
In reference to the torture of Peacham, Mr. Dixon endeavours to exonerate Bacon on equally novel and ingenious grounds. He was "a despicable wretch," who had brought shame and trouble on the Church (p. 259); "a liar" and a libeller who had abused his bene- factors, and especially the family of Paulett, to whom Bacon in his youth had been under obligations (p. 266). Coke's dislike to put the old minister to the rack, or express an opinion as to the nature of his crime, was mere hypocrisy; finally, Bacon, like any other lawyer, acted only in an official. capacity; " and," argues Mr. Dixon, "will any one say the Attorney-General should have declined to act, thrown up his commission, and refired to obey the Crown ?" (p. 266). Under what circumstances judges may disobey the Crown we must leave to themselves. It is for Mr. Dixon to show that the advice of thejudges in remonstrating against putting Peacham on the rack would have been an act of disobedience to the Crown. He prints a commission from the Council Register, authorizing, but not requiring Lord Bacon, then Attorney-General, and certain others —(Coke's name, to his honour, is omitted),—to examine Peacham, and if they find him "obstinate and perverse, and not otherwise willing or ready to tell the truth, then to put him to the manacles as in your discretion you shall see occasion" (p. 264). But Mr. Dixon is abusing his unquestionable subtlety and ability when he would lead his readers to infer that no option was left to Bacon in the matter; that he could not have opposed the application of the rack had he felt inclined; or that such a commission was anything more than the echo of the judges' own sentiments. Unfortunately, there is not a shadow of doubt of Bacon's willing compliance in this matter. Five years after we find him writing to James and suggesting a reiteration of the same process (Feb. 10, 1619) : "I make no judgment yet (in the matter of Peacock), but will go on with all diligence; and if it may not be done otherwise, it is fit Peacock be put to torture. He &mermen it as well as Peacham did."
But the barbarity of the proceedings, great as it was, fades before their illegality. Peacham was condemned to suffer for a sermon found by chance in his house, full, as Mr. Dixon says, " of political ravings" (p. 262). Anxious as Mr. Dixon is to defend Bacon, lie can say no more than that these passages were not printed, " though intended for the press." Does any justice, much less that of the laws of England, construe intentions into acts ? Could the inquisition itself be guilty of a grosser perversion? There was no proof of publication, or even intended publication; no proof even of handwriting; and these Commissioners had the inhumanity, with Bacon at their head as Attorney-General—and he was the man' of most mark among them—to torture Peacham in order to wring from him a confession of authorship. " Though he be an old man" (writes Chamberlain to Carleton, 9 Feb., 1615), "and, they say, much above three score, they could wring nothing out of him more than they had at first in his papers." Once, indeed, Bacon's heart appeared to fail him in this revolting business. He wrote to James on the 21st January: "It grieveth me exceedingly that your Majesty should be so much troubled with this matter of Peacham, whose raging devil seemeth to be turned into a dumb devil. But although we are driven to make our way through questions (torture?) which I wish were otherwise, yet I hope well the end will be good. But then every man must put to his helping hand; for else I must say to your Majesty, in this and the like cases, as St. Paul said to the centurion when some of the mariners had an eye to the cockboat, ' Except these stay in the ship ye cannot be saved.' " Amon g those who would have abandoned the ship, who had been only trailed into it by the threats and subtlety of Bacon, was Sir Edward Coke, of whose conduct in these proceedings we must, at the hazard of seeming tedious, say a few words. To the memory of this great lawyer the admirers of Bacon have been in a high degree unjust ; none more so than Mr. Dixon. He has misrepresented Coke's motives, temper, and conduct with a labour and ingenuity worthy of a better cause. Coke had neither the suavity nor the phi- losophy of Bacon, but he was a better lawyer; and his very respect for the law prevented him from transgressing those principles of law and justice which Bacon was ready too frequently to sacrifice in his intense admiration for kingship. The great obstacle to James's love of arbitrary power and to Bacon's compliant and suggestive softness was the gnarled and knotty humour of Coke and his fidelity to law. Exasperated against Peacham, the King was resolved he should be tried for high treason; and he was anxious to obtain, not the opinion of the judges, as Mr. Dixon represents it, on the trea- sonable nature of Peacham's offence, but to compel, the judges to declare the offence to be treason, that Peacham might be sent down and tried on this charge, "and trussed up in Somersetshire" as an example. To manage this was not easy. The judges were divided. Crook, Houghton, Dodderidge, above all Coke, took the lenient side; Bacon, Mountague, Crew, and Yelverton the court side. Had the judges met they would have countenanced and supported each other, and Peacham would have been tried on the minor offence. We have Bacon's own letter to James detailing how the affair was managed, and no one that reads it can for a moment doubt whose head fur- nished the contrivance. The dissentient judges were to be attacked separately, and induced to give their ophuon, as if they had been de- sired by the Crown, before they could meet and advise together. Mountague has to manage Crook, Crew takes Houghton, Bacon under- took to grapple withCoke. "This done," says Bacon, "I took my fellows aside and advised that they should presently speak with the three judges before I could speak with my Lord Coke for doubt of in- fusion ; and that they should not in any case make any doubt to the judges as if they mistrusted they would deliver any opinion apart." How Bacon worked upon the fears of Coke whom he at first found refractory ; how he induced him to come over to his own interpreta- tion of Peacham's treason (for, says Bacon, " I never give it other word to him"); how he threatened him that if he presumed to doubt, "some that loved him not might make a construction that that which he had foretold he had wrought," may be seen in Bacon's own correspondence, to which we more willingly refer the reader than venture to transfer it into our own words. It was the opinion of Coke, as we think it would be of all unbiassed lawyers, "that no word of scandal and defamation reflecting on the King's government, of which Peacham had been guilty, was high treason except they disabled his title." Bacon had prostituted his abilities to bring him round to concur in a sentence disgraceful to all concerned; to make him avow that in a manuscript sermon, never published or circulated, "the King's majesty, safety, life, and authority" were disabled. Mr. Dixon is extremely indignant that Bacon's reputation should suffer from such an accusation. An odious abuse, for which no precedent could be found ! Why the law-books teem with precedents. As often as a case out of the ordinary way occurred, the Crown sought counsel, and had every right to seek counsel of the Bench." For the honour of humanity and the credit of ourjudges we should hope that there were not many precedents to be found like this one of Bacon's in Peacham's case. Mr. Dixon takes Lord Campbell to task fur asserting "that St. John's was a bad business, and that Bacon knew it to be a bad business." But he assnmes, strangely enough, that Lord Campbell "having altogether mistaken the man, easily, and perhaps inevitably, mistook the character of his offence" (p. 255). Resolved to be in- dependent of Parliament, James, among his other expedients, had recourse to "that more than half involuntary contribution miscalled a benevolence." (Hallam.) Mr. Dixon contends that "the contribu- tions were free" (p. 251), as may be seen, he says, "by any one who will walk down to Fetter-lane." Nominally, no doubt, they were;
but in such cases, as Mr. Hallam remarks, " it seems difficult to find is legal criterion by which to distinguish the effects of willing
loyalty from those of fear and shame." Free-will offerings they were if men paid them ; compulsory if they refused. At all events, the proceedings in St. John's case gave no very favourable idea of the freedom of the subject in this matter. In a letter as bilious as his own complexion, "Black Oliver," as he was called, denounced the measure. He was not single in his dislike of it, though he might be single in the mode of expressing his dislike. Whole counties stood out, as Mr. Dixon allows (p. 251); Coke was doubtful of its legality. If not contrary to the letter, it was entirely adverse to the spirit of the Constitution. Bacon's activity against the offender is shown by his own letters to the King. He admits that there were some members of the council who would gladly have "the example upon Mr. St. John stand for all," in order that Peacham, who was under censure at the same time, might have escaped. But Bacon himself was no advocate for such injudicious leniency. He was anxious for Peaciam's matter to be " first settled and put to a point," not to spare, but to secure the other offender. "Coke pronounced the sentence of the court—a fine of 50001. and imprisonment for life," in Mr. Dixon's pithy expression; but how reluctantly need not be told. His intractability, his opposition to the designs of Bacon and the King, brought him into disgrace a few months after,
and, in apaper drawn up by the former against this crabbed but upright judge in the main, we find set down to his charge as one of his innovations in the laws, that Coke had given his opinion " that the King, by his great seal, could not so Much as move any of his
subjects for benevolence. But this he retracted after in the Star Chamber ; but it marred the benevolence in the mean time." When Mr. Dixon claims for Bacon and his measures the praise of modera- tion in not enforcing the loan universally he must surely have over. looked this passage.
"We turn to the last head; the charge of bribery in his office of Chancellor. Upon this portion of his work Mr. Dixon has bestowed more than usual care. And here he has had the benefit of Mr. Hardy's "valuable aid in deciphering and abstracting the Chancery hooks" preserved at the Record Office. He adds, that he " has sought the advice and obtained the approval of some of the most eminent lawyers on the Bench." We may consider, therefore, that whatever can be said in defence of Lord Bacon from the charge of bribery has been said ; and we gladly admit that it has been well said. To whatever conclusion his readers may come they cannot but be grateful to Mr. Dixon for his indefatigable industry in placing this portion of Bacon's story in its true light. Had it been a judicial or even an archeological question, we should have hesitated before submitting the verdict of such authorities to literary criticism. The undemonstrated assertions of such a man as Mr. Hardy, and the opinion of " eminent lawyers on the Bench," would have been en- titled to all respect ; would, in fact, have settled the question in the minds of all reasonable men. But it must be remembered that this is a question of morals and of history, not of law or archmology; and except these "eminent lawyers" possess means of arriving at the facts in dispute not open to other men, or have a keener insight into their ethical importance than falls to the lot of ordinary mortals, we cannot accept their authority in the place of history. It is not the legal but the moral aspect of the question with which we are concerned.
After all efforts had failed to render James independent of Parlia- ment, he was compelled to summon and meet the two Houses in the springof 1621, one year afterthe publication of theNovum Organon had raised Bacon, now Lord Chancellor and Viscount St. Albans, to the highest pinnacle of his fame. He had continued in undisturbed favour with James I. from 1605 to that hour. From 1607 when lie was made Solicitor-General, to his fall in 1621, be had joined the Crown, if not willingly, without remonstrance, in all the acts which disgraced that "inglorious reign. Of its shameless corruption, its patents, mono-
H'es and fines, he had been a tacit, if not a ready spectator. e had applied to the King for the Solicitor's place, on the ground of his subserviency to the King's wishes in the House of Com- mons. "I can challenge to myself no sufficiency but that I was diligent and reasonably happy to execute these direc- tions, which I received either immediately from your royal mouth, or from my Lord of Salisbury ; at which time it pleased your Majesty also to promise and assure me that upon the removal of the then Attorney I should not be forgotten ; " and he adds that these services were but the beginnings of better, "when he should be better strengthened." On the death of Chief Justice Fleming he advised the King to remove Coke, then Attorney-General,, to the vacant place; but if he refused, as he seemed inclined to do, then to take himself (Bacon), as it was necessary for James to strengthen his service by having a chief justice among the judges, "who was sure to thelCni g's prerogative." A little further and we find him complaining to the King of the Attorney-General (Hobart) for being "timid and scrupulous," whereas the new Solicitor (himself) going "roundly to work, is likely to recover that strength to the King's prerogative which it bath had in times past." When there was a chance of the Chancellorship becoming vacant "he brings his pitcher to Jacob's well," in his own quaint phrase, and asked for the place for his obsequiousness to the King's wishes. " For myself, I can only present your Majesty with gloria obsequio." He desires to be made a privy councillor, for "sure I am there were never times which did more require a King's Attorney to be well armed, and as I said once to you, to wear a gauntlet and not a glove." And it must be admitted that he never belied the expectations he thus held out. It was he who advised the King "that the judges should answer it upon their knees before his Majesty, and receive a sharp admonition,"
for having acted in conformity with the laws and their conscience. It was he who, as Attorney-General, confessed he was not " worthy to be card-holder or candle-holder" to the King. What wish did. James ever express that Bacon was not willing to obey ? What corrupt and arbitrary measures did beset himself to oppose ? Whir.t means did he not employ to invalidate those who did ?
The King, Bacon, Buckingham, and the rest had taken what mea- sures they could for securing a Parliament favourable to the Crown. They had so carried the business as to avoid, if possible, all unpleasant discussion. No one expected the storm, least of all Bacon, who made sure of his popularity with the Commons. The House fell at first only on minor and more ignoble offenders. On March 7, 1621, he began to feel uneasy. Five days after a committee was appointed to. inspect the abuses of the Courts of Justice, and then the blow lighted upon Bacon. On the 19th the heads of the accusation were pre- sented by the Commons to the Lords, and on the 20th they desired Bacon to prepare his defence. As fresh charges came from the Commons, on the 21st the Lords appointed a committee to examine them. The session dragged on, the Court and Bacon equally unde- cided what course to pursue. On the 25th he wrote to the King that, however he might "be frail and partake of the abuses of the times," he hoped lie should not be found to have the troubled foun- tain of a corrupt heart. He said he had written to the Lords "that he would not trick up his innocency." As the cluirges thickened against him, on the 22nd April he sent in his submission, stating "that, having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House, but enough to inform his conscience and his memory, he found matters sufficient and full both to move him to desert his defence and to move their Lordships to condemn and censure him." The Lords refused to accept this as too general, and, on their demand- ing to know whether he would plead guilty or stand on his defence, Bacon, on the 29th April, sent that memorable confession which has troubled all his biographers, acknowledging he was "guilty of cor- ruption," renouncing all defence, and throwing himself on the mercy of their Lordships. The confession admits or explains twenty-eight articles charging him with corruption, and concludes with this remarkable acknowledgment among- others: "I do now again confess that in the points charged upon me, though they should be taken as myself have declared them, there is a great deal of corruption and neglect for which I am heartily sorry."
With such a confession as this, babes confitentem ream, it must be evident that the admirers of Bacon. have a difficult task to perform when they undertake to explain away the force of these admissions. For our part we do not see how they can be eluded unless it he shown that the confession is a forgery. Mr. Dixon strives hard to prove that the Commons did not unanimously agree in the prose- cution. How is Bacon helped by that hypothesis? He more than insinuates " that at the memorable interview between Bacon and James, held at Whitehall ou the 16th of April, his Majesty, with tears in his eyes, implored the Lord Chancellor to abandon his defence" (p. 417), and that Bacon yielded. But of this he produces no proof, nor the shadow of a proof. And surely if he could, this would be a more base submission to the prerogative of kings than any of which Bacon had all his life been-guilty. It was not merely an aban- donment of his defence, as Mr. Dixon says, but he pleaded guilty to special acts of eorniption which he never committed. That is a species of turpitude, compared to which ingratitude to Essex, or the torture of Peacham, sink into insignificance. Of what degradation as a judge, a statesman, or a man, would not such a suggestion as this of Mr. Dixon suppose Bacon capable ? There is, finally, the Last extenuation, that what Bacon confessed to be corruption was no. cor- ruption at all ; and to employ Mr. Dixon's euphuism, Bacon's confession only amounts to this—" that he was guilty of holding the great office of Lord Chancellor" (p. 443). -Against this we only oppose Lord Bacon's plain and obvious admissions. No man knew better than lie what constituted corruption ; no one was more concerned than he to deny it had it been possible. He knew the value of words better than any man. He was not surprised into the confession. And we must accept his own interpretation of his actions as the safest and the soundest until it shall be proved not to be his. That he was not the worst man on whom the Tower of Siloam fell, to use his own illustration, we freely admit; but not being the worst man, and being altogether innocent, are two very different things. Judged by that exalted standard of hero-worship, demanded by the present genera,tion, and short of which it can see nothing to admire in past excellence, Bacon's acts cannot abide the scrutiny. Judged by his own times, the temptations by which he was assailed, his generous, pliable, and gracious disposition, he may stand beside most of his contemporaries in his public and private life. We will not defend James; we cannot defend Bacon. It was the seer leading the blind; the man of genius prostituting his talents to an unworthy cause ; not consciously, perhaps ; careless only of wrong-doing. It was right that such things should come to an end—. it was right that such wrong-doing should be punished. We may regret that the stroke fell upon Bacon—we should have had infinitely greater reason for regret if it had not.
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