of the Chief Justice Coke, who had unhappily involved himself in a jurisdictionary dispute with the Chancery, and thereby incurred the king's displeasure. That considerable animosity had long subsisted between these distinguished contemporaries, is evidenced in a letter sent from Sir Francis to Lord Coke, during the banishment of the latter from court. There is, in this transaction, something that inevitably detracts from the general merit of the writer. Little can be offered in extenuation of him, who selects the bitter day of adversity in order to gratify himself by retaliation; who reproves, while affecting to advise; whose consolations are taunts; who exasperates, instead of assuaging; who exults over a fallen, and, apparently, defenceless adversary. If such conduct produces any effect, it can only be that of stimulating to new acts of opposition, violence, and hatred.

This state of affairs, attended with the chancellor's illness, encouraged Sir Francis to apply for the promised succession to the seals. My Lord Chancellor's sickness," writes Sir Francis to the king, "falleth out

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duro tempore your Majesty's service must not be mortal," &c. Three days afterwards he again solicits James, stating the certainty of Egerton's speedy dissolution, and makes a direct tender of himself as his successor: offering to relinquish his place of attorneygeneral, worth £6000 a year, and his register of the Star Chamber, worth £1600 a year. In the hands of Buckingham, his suit became successful; and, on Egerton's voluntary resignation, the seals were delivered to Sir Francis, with the title of lord keeper. Writing to the duke, May the 7th, 1617, he says " Yesterday I took my place in Chancery, which I hold only from the king's grace and favour, and your constant friendship. There was much ado, and a great deal of world: but this matter of pomp, which is heaven to some men, is hell to me, or purgatory at least. It is true, I was glad to see the king's choice was so generally approved." Sir Francis delivered an admirable address, on taking his seat in Chancery.

Lord Coke had not remained an indifferent spectator of these changes. Roused, instead

of humbled, by the indignities he had sustained, he seemed anxious to convince his opponents, that if his friendship was not to be courted, at least his enmity was to be dreaded. Sir John Villiers, brother to the favourite, having formerly solicited a daughter of Lord Coke's in marriage, her father attempted to regain his influence at court, by eagerly renewing this alliance, which in the first instance he had haughtily repelled: his lordship at length discovered the broad way to distinction, which he paced in a manner that must have been sufficiently mortifying to his temper, and with an assiduity that could not have been exceeded by the poorest dependant on power. Bacon, who soon discerned the net by which he was likely to be ensnared, if the project of his antagonist was permitted to take effect, not only remonstrated with Buckingham on the subject, but adopted every method in his power to prevent a connection from which he foreboded the severest consequences. His royal master he had already irritated, by his patriotic, though respectful, opposition to the match agitated between the English and Spanish courts; nor was he in the present

"that

instance more fortunate with the favourite, to whose wishes, after many intercessions and explanations, he was obliged to submit. "I did ever foresee," says he, finally apologizing to his friend Buckingham, this alliance would go near to lose me your lordship, I hold so dear; and that was the only respect particular to myself that moved me to be as I was, till I heard from you. But I will rely upon your constancy and my own deserving, and the firm tie we have in respect of the king's service." This concession must have been admitted as satisfactory, since he was made chancellor on the 4th of January, 1618; and, on the 11th of July, in the same year, Baron of Verulam. In 1620 he celebrated his sixtieth year, with great magnificence, at York House, in the Strand; a residence to which he was attached as the place of his nativity, and from which he afterwards retired, owing to his misfortunes, with deep reluctance.

In October, 1620, his lordship presented to the king his "Novum Organum," or the second part of his "Grand Instauration of the Sciences;" in which, after enumerating

deficiencies, he describes a new logic for the better conduct of the understanding. This production was annually revised and re-written during twelve years, before its author submitted it to the judgment of the world.

Dissatisfaction began at this time to be so loudly expressed against the measures of the Duke of Buckingham, that it became necessary to exercise uncommon precaution in convening the representatives of the country. Lord Verulam, from his experience and influence, was therefore selected as a person qualified to extricate the court from its present perplexities. January the 27th, 1620-1, his lordship was further ennobled with the title of Viscount St. Alban, in the county of Hertford, to which was added a pension from the customs, that he might be enabled consistently to support this augmentation of his honours. His enemies, however, had not been inactive. Much obloquy was occasioned by his reputed docility towards the favourite; though his correspondence with the minister, demonstrates that he was far from acting with the pliability then imputed to him by his adversaries. Going early into