The Proficience and Advancement of Learning | Page 2

He was member afterwards for Liverpool; and he was one
of those who petitioned for the speedy execution of Mary Queen of
Scots. In October, 1589, he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk
of the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth 1,600 pounds or
2,000 pounds a year; but for the succession to this office he had to wait
until 1608. It had not yet fallen to him when he wrote his "Two Books
of the Advancement of Learning." In the Parliament that met in
February, 1593, Bacon sat as member for Middlesex. He raised
difficulties of procedure in the way of the grant of a treble subsidy, by
just objection to the joining of the Lords with the Commons in a money
grant, and a desire to extend the time allowed for payment from three
years to six; it was, in fact, extended to four years. The Queen was
offended. Francis Bacon and his brother Antony had attached
themselves to the young Earl of Essex, who was their friend and patron.
The office of Attorney- General became vacant. Essex asked the Queen
to appoint Francis Bacon. The Queen gave the office to Sir Edward
Coke, who was already Solicitor-General, and by nine years Bacon's
senior. The office of Solicitor-General thus became vacant, and that
was sought for Francis Bacon. The Queen, after delay and hesitation,
gave it, in November, 1595, to Serjeant Fleming. The Earl of Essex
consoled his friend by giving him "a piece of land"--Twickenham
Park--which Bacon afterwards sold for 1,800 pounds--equal, say, to
12,000 pounds in present buying power. In 1597 Bacon was returned to
Parliament as member for Ipswich, and in that year he was hoping to
marry the rich widow of Sir William Hatton, Essex helping; but the
lady married, in the next year, Sir Edward Coke. It was in 1597 that
Bacon published the First Edition of his Essays. That was a little book
containing only ten essays in English, with twelve "Meditationes
Sacrae," which were essays in Latin on religious subjects. From 1597
onward to the end of his life, Bacon's Essays were subject to
continuous addition and revision. The author's Second Edition, in
which the number of the Essays was increased from ten to thirty-eight,
did not appear until November or December, 1612, seven years later
than these two books on the "Advancement of Learning;" and the final
edition of the Essays, in which their number was increased from
thirty-eight to fifty-eight, appeared only in 1625; and Bacon died on the
9th of April, 1626. The edition of the Essays published in 1597, under

Elizabeth, marked only the beginning of a course of thought that
afterwards flowed in one stream with his teachings in philosophy.
In February, 1601, there was the rebellion of Essex. Francis Bacon had
separated himself from his patron after giving him advice that was
disregarded. Bacon, now Queen's Counsel, not only appeared against
his old friend, but with excess of zeal, by which, perhaps, he hoped to
win back the Queen's favour, he twice obtruded violent attacks upon
Essex when he was not called upon to speak. On the 25th of February,
1601, Essex was beheaded. The genius of Bacon was next employed to
justify that act by "A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons
attempted and committed by Robert late Earle of Essex and his
Complices." But James of Scotland, on whose behalf Essex had
intervened, came to the throne by the death of Elizabeth on the 24th of
March, 1603. Bacon was among the crowd of men who were made
knights by James I., and he had to justify himself under the new order
of things by writing "Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie in certain
Imputations concerning the late Earle of Essex." He was returned to the
first Parliament of James I. by Ipswich and St. Albans, and he was
confirmed in his office of King's Counsel in August, 1604; but he was
not appointed to the office of Solicitor- General when it became vacant
in that year.
That was the position of Francis Bacon in 1605, when he published this
work, where in his First Book he pointed out the discredits of learning
from human defects of the learned, and emptiness of many of the
studies chosen, or the way of dealing with them. This came, he said,
especially by the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of
knowledge, as if there were sought in it "a couch whereupon to rest a
searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable
mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a
proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for
strife and contention; or