Bacon | Page 4

his fundamental quarrel with Aristotle had begun with the
first efforts of thought, and that this is the one recollection remaining of
his early tendency in speculation. The other is more trustworthy, and
exhibits that inventiveness which was characteristic of his mind. He
tells us in the De Augmentis that when he was in France he occupied
himself with devising an improved system of cypher-writing--a thing of
daily and indispensable use for rival statesmen and rival intriguers. But
the investigation, with its call on the calculating and combining
faculties, would also interest him, as an example of the discovery of
new powers by the human mind.
In the beginning of 1579 Bacon, at eighteen, was called home by his
father's death. This was a great blow to his prospects. His father had not
accomplished what he had intended for him, and Francis Bacon was
left with only a younger son's "narrow portion." What was worse, he
lost one whose credit would have served him in high places. He entered
on life, not as he might have expected, independent and with court
favour on his side, but with his very livelihood to gain--a competitor at
the bottom of the ladder for patronage and countenance. This great
change in his fortunes told very unfavourably on his happiness, his
usefulness, and, it must be added, on his character. He accepted it,
indeed, manfully, and at once threw himself into the study of the law as
the profession by which he was to live. But the law, though it was the
only path open to him, was not the one which suited his genius, or his
object in life. To the last he worked hard and faithfully, but with
doubtful reputation as to his success, and certainly against the grain.
And this was not the worst. To make up for the loss of that start in life
of which his father's untimely death had deprived him, he became, for
almost the rest of his life, the most importunate and most untiring of
suitors.
In 1579 or 1580 Bacon took up his abode at Gray's Inn, which for a
long time was his home. He went through the various steps of his
profession. He began, what he never discontinued, his earnest and
humble appeals to his relative the great Lord Burghley, to employ him
in the Queen's service, or to put him in some place of independence:
through Lord Burghley's favour he seems to have been pushed on at his

Inn, where, in 1586, he was a Bencher; and in 1584 he came into
Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He took some small part in Parliament;
but the only record of his speeches is contained in a surly note of
Recorder Fleetwood, who writes as an old member might do of a young
one talking nonsense. He sat again for Liverpool in the year of the
Armada (1588), and his name begins to appear in the proceedings.
These early years, we know, were busy ones. In them Bacon laid the
foundation of his observations and judgments on men and affairs; and
in them the great purpose and work of his life was conceived and
shaped. But they are more obscure years than might have been
expected in the case of a man of Bacon's genius and family, and of such
eager and unconcealed desire to rise and be at work. No doubt he was
often pinched in his means; his health was weak, and he was delicate
and fastidious in his care of it. Plunged in work, he lived very much as
a recluse in his chambers, and was thought to be reserved, and what
those who disliked him called arrogant. But Bacon was
ambitious--ambitious, in the first place, of the Queen's notice and
favour. He was versatile, brilliant, courtly, besides being his father's
son; and considering how rapidly bold and brilliant men were able to
push their way and take the Queen's favour by storm, it seems strange
that Bacon should have remained fixedly in the shade. Something must
have kept him back. Burghley was not the man to neglect a useful
instrument with such good will to serve him. But all that Mr.
Spedding's industry and profound interest in the subject has brought
together throws but an uncertain light on Bacon's long disappointment.
Was it the rooted misgiving of a man of affairs like Burghley at that
passionate contempt of all existing knowledge, and that undoubting
confidence in his own power to make men know, as they never had
known, which Bacon was even now professing? Or was it something
soft and over-obsequious in character which made the uncle, who knew
well what men he wanted, disinclined to encourage and employ the
nephew? Was Francis not hard enough, not narrow enough, too full of
ideas,