Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/671

Rh her death. On the charge of taking part in a conspiracy against the crown, he was sent to the Tower, where he was kept a prisoner for thirteen years. From the tedium of his long confinement, he found relief in the composition of a History of the World. He was at last beheaded.

The close of the life of the great philosopher Francis Bacon, was scarcely less sad than that of Sir Walter Raleigh. He held the office of Lord Chancellor, and yielding to the temptations of

the corrupt times upon which he had fallen, accepted bribes from the suitors who brought cases before him. He was impeached and brought to the bar of the House of Lords, where he confessed his guilt, pathetically appealing to his judges "to be merciful to a broken reed." He lived only five years after his fall and disgrace, dying in 1626.

Bacon must be given the first place among the philosophers of the English-speaking race. His system is known as the Inductive