I meant well self well, and had an evident applause.* Your majesty's most humble Subject, April 29, 1615. FR. BACON. Sir Francis Bacon to King James.† It may please your most excellent Majesty, It pleased your majesty to commit to my care and trust for Westminster Hall three particulars; that of the rege inconsulto, which concerneth Murray; that of the commendams, which concerneth the Bishop of Lincoln; and that of the habeas corpus, which concerneth the Chancery. These causes, although I gave them private additions, yet they are merely, or at least chiefly, yours; and the die runneth upon your royal prerogatives diminution, or entire conservation. Of these it is my duty to give your majesty a short account. For that of the rege inconsulto, I argued the same in the King's Bench on Thursday last. There argued on the other part Mr. George Crook, the judge's brother, an able book-man, and one that was manned forth with all the furniture that the bar could give him, I will not say the bench, and with the study of a long vacation. I was to William, Earl of Pembroke, son to Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord President of the Council in the marches of Wales, by Mary his wife, a lady in whom the muses and graces seemed to meet; whose very letters, in the judgment of one who saw many of them, declared her to be mistress of a pen not inferior to that of her brother, the admirable Sir Philip Sidney, and to whom he addressed his Arcadia. Nor did this gentleman degenerate from their wit and spirit, as his poems, his great patronage of learned men, and resolute opposition to the Spanish match, did, among other instances, fully prove. In the year 1616, he was made lord chamberlain, and chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford. He died suddenly on the 10th of April, 1630, having just completed fifty years. But his only son deceasing, a child, before him, his estate and honours descended upon his younger brother, Philip, Earl of Montgomery, the lineal ancestor of the present noble and learned earl.—Stephens. ↑ Sir David Dalrymple's Memorials and Letters, p. 46. VOL. XIII. F answer, which hath a mixture of the sudden; and of myself I will not, nor cannot say any thing, but that my voice served me well for two hours and a half; and that those that understood nothing could tell me that I lost not one auditor that was present in the beginning, but staid till the latter end. If I should say more, there were too many witnesses, for I never saw the court more full, that might disprove me. My Lord Coke was pleased to say, that it was a famous argument; but withal, he asked me a politic and tempting question: for, taking occasion by a notable precedent I had cited, where, upon the like writ brought, all the judges in England assembled, and that privately, lest they should seem to dispute the King's commandment, and, upon conference, with one mind agreed, that the writ must be obeyed. Upon this hold, my lord asked me, whether I would have all the rest of the judges called to it. I was not caught; but knowing well that the judges of the Common Pleas were most of all others interested in respect of the prothonotaries, I answered, civilly, that I could advise of it; but that I did not distrust the court; and, besides, I thought the case so clear, as it needed not. Sir, I do perceive, that I have not only stopped, but almost turned the stream; and I see how things cool by this, that the judges that were wont to call so hotly upon the business, when they had heard, of themselves, took a fortnight day to advise what they will do, by which time the term will be near at an end; and I know they little expected to have the matter so beaten down with book-law, upon which my argument wholly went; so that every mean student was satisfied. Yet, because the times are as they are, I could wish, in all humbleness, that your majesty would remember and renew your former commandment which you gave my Lord Chief Justice in Michaelmas term, which was, that after he had heard your attorney, which is now done, he should forbear further proceeding till he had spoke with your majesty. It concerneth your majesty threefold. First, in this particular of Murray; next, in the consequence of fourteen several patents, part in Queen Elizabeth's time, some in your majesty's time, which depend upon the like question; but chiefly because this writ is a mean provided by the ancient law of England, to bring any case that may concern your majesty, in profit or power, from the ordinary benches, to be tried and judged before your Chancellor of England, by the ordinary and legal part of his power: and your majesty knoweth your Chancellor is ever a principal counsellor, and instrument of monarchy, of immediate dependence upon the King: and therefore like to be a safe and tender guardian of the royal rights. For the case of the commendams, a matter likewise of great consequence, though nothing near the first, this day was prepared to have argued it before all the judges; but, by reason of the sickness of the serjeant which was provided to argue on the other side, although I pressed to have had some other day appointed this term; yet it pleased divers of the judges to do me the honour, as to say it was not fit any should argue against me, upon so small time of warning, it is adjourned to the first Saturday next term. For the matter of the habeas corpus, I perceive this common employment of my Lord Chancellor, and my Lord Chief Justice, in these examinations, is such a vinculum, as they will not square while these matters are in hand, so that there is altum silentium of that matter. God ever preserve your majesty. Your Majesty's most humble Jan. 27, 1615. and bounden Subject and Servant, To Sir George Villiers, on sending his Bill for Sir, Viscount.* I send you the bill for his majesty's signature, reformed according to his majesty's amendments, both in the two places, which, I assure you, were both altered with great judgment, and in the third place, which his majesty termed a question only. But he is an idle body that thinks his majesty asks an idle question; and therefore his majesty's questions are to be answered by taking away the cause of the question, and not by replying. For the name, his majesty's will, is law in those things; and to speak truth, it is a well sounding and noble name, both here and abroad; and being your proper name, I will take it for a good sign that you shall give honour to your dignity, and not your dignity to you. Therefore I have made it Viscount Villiers: and for your barony, I will keep it for an earldom; for though the other had been more orderly, yet that is as usual, and both alike good in law. Stephens's second Collection, p. 10. For Roper's place,* I would have it by all means despatched; and therefore I marvel it lingereth. It were no good manners to take the business out of my Lord Treasurer's hands; and therefore I purpose to write to his lordship, if I hear not from him first by Mr. Deccomb. But if I hear of any delay, you will give me leave, especially since the King named me, to deal with Sir John Roper myself; for neither I nor my Lord Treasurer can deserve any great thanks of you in this business, considering the King hath spoken to Sir John Roper, and he hath promised; and, besides, the thing itself is so reasonable as it ought to be as soon done as said. I am now gotten into the country to my house, where I have some little liberty to think of that I would think of, and not of that which other men hourly break my head withal, as it was at London. Upon this you may conclude, that most of my thoughts are of his majesty; and then you cannot be far off. God ever keep you, and prosper you. I rest always Your true and most devoted Servant, Aug. 5, one of the happiest days, 1616. FR. BACON. †To Father Redempt. Baranzan.‡ Domine Baranzane, Literas tuas legi libenter: cumque inter veritatis amatores ardor etiam candorem generet, ad ea, quæ ingenue petiisti, ingenue respondebo. Non est meum abdicare in totum syllogismum. Res est Sir John Roper, who had for many years enjoyed the place of the chief clerk for enrolling of pleas in the court of King's Bench, esteemed to be worth about four thousand pounds per annum, being grown old, was prevailed with to surrender it upon being created Lord Teynham, with a reservation of the profits thereof to himself during life. Upon which surrender Sir George Villiers was to have the office granted to two of his trustees for their lives, as Carr, Earl of Somerset, was to have had before. But the Lord Chief Justice Coke not being very forward to accept of the surrender, or make a new grant of it upon those terms, he was, upon the 3d of October, 1616, commanded to desist from the service of this place, and at last removed from it upon the 15th of November following. His successor Sir Henry Montagu, third son of Sir Edward Montagu, of Boughton in Northamptonshire, recorder of London, and king's serjeant, being more complaisant, Sir John Roper resigned towards the latter end of the same month; and Mr. Shute, and Mr. Heath, who was afterwards the king's solicitor general, being the deputies and trustees of Sir George Villiers, were admitted. Stephens's Introduct. p. 37. + From Niceron, tom. iii. p. 45. He was a Barnabite monk at Annecy in Savoy, who in his Lectures on Philosophy, began to discard the authority of Aristotle. He died the 23d of December, 1622, at the age of 33. syllogismus magis inhabilis ad præcipua, quam inutilis ad plurima. Ad mathematica quidni adhibeatur? Cum fluxus materiæ et inconstantia corporis physici illud sit, quod inductionem desideret; ut per eam veluti figatur, atque inde eruantur notiones bene terminatæ. De metaphysica ne sis sollicitus. Nulla enim erit post veram physicam inventam; ultra quam nihil præter divina. In physica prudenter notas, et idem tecum sentio, post notiones primæ classis, et axiomata super ipsas, per inductionem bene eruta et terminata, tuto adhiberi syllogismum, modo inhibeatur saltus ad generalissima, et fiat progressus per scalam convenientem. De multitudine instantiarum, quæ homines deterrere possit, hæc respondeo: Primo, quid opus est dissimulatione? Aut copia instantiarum comparanda, aut negotium deserendum. Áliæ omnes viæ, utcunque blandiantur, imperviæ. Secundo (quod et ipse notas) prærogativæ instantiarum, et modus experimentandi circa experimenta lucifera (quem aliquando trademus) de multitudine ipsarum plurimum detrahent. Tertio, quid magni foret, rogo, si in describendis instantiis impleantur volumina, quæ historiam C. Plinii sextuplicent? In qua tamen ipsa plurima philologica, fabulosa, antiquitatis, non naturæ. Etenim veram historiam naturalem nihil aliud ingreditur præter instantias, connexiones, observationes, canones. Cogita altera ex parte immensa volumina philosophica; facile perspicies maxime solida esse maxime finita. Postremo, ex nostra philosophandi methodo excipietur in via plurimorum operum utilium messis, quæ ex speculationibus aut disputationibus sterilis aut nulla est. Historiam naturalem ad condendam philosophiam (ut et tu mones) ante omnia præopto; neque huic rei deero, quantum in me est. Utinam habeam et adjutores idoneos. Neque in hac parte mihi quidpiam accidere poterit felicius, quam si tu, talis vir, primitias huic operi præbeas conscribendo historiam cœlestium, in qua ipsa tantum phænomena, atque una instrumenta astronomica, eorumque genera et usum; dein hypotheses præcipuas et maxime illustres, tam antiquas quam modernas, atque simul exactas restitutionum. calculationes, et alia hujusmodi sincere proponas, absque omni dogmate et themate. Quod si huic cœlestium historiæ historiam cometarum adjeceris (de qua conficienda ecce tibi articulos quosdam et quasi topica particularia) |