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 Bacon to watch the rise and fall of favourites. To do so soon became a habit with him, but there is nothing to show that it was ever repulsive to him. The breadth of his intellect left little room for any strength of emotional nature. In the 'Letter of Advice' there is a singular want of enthusiasm where enthusiasm would be expected in so young a writer.

In the parliament which met on 29 Oct. 1586 Bacon sat for Taunton. In the course of this year he became a bencher of Gray's Inn, and was thus enabled to plead in the courts of Westminster. In the parliament which was opened on 4 Feb. 1589 Bacon was member for Liverpool. He had by this time caught the ear of the house, and was frequently employed on committees. He was aware, however, of the importance of gaining the queen to his views. The execution of Mary and the defeat of the Armada, indeed, had made the question of the treatment of catholics less pressing; but the appearance of the Marprelate libels had brought into greater prominence the question of the conduct to be pursued towards the puritans. In 'An Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England,' a paper written in 1589 though not printed till 1640, Bacon amplified the opinion which he had expressed in the 'Letter of Advice,' deprecating the factious temper of the puritans on the one hand, and the rigid insistence on conformity by the government on the other.

It was Bacon's fate through life to give good advice only to be rejected, and yet to impress those who received it with a sufficiently good opinion of his intellectual capacity to gain employment in work which hundreds of other men could have done as well. At the end of 1589 or the beginning of 1590 Bacon wrote a letter in the name of Sir Francis Walsingham in defence of the queen's proceedings in ecclesiastical causes. He must have longed to get an opportunity of doing more than this, and now that opportunity seemed to have arrived at last.

At some time, probably not later than July 1591, Bacon made the acquaintance of the young Earl of Essex. In this way began the first of Bacon's so-called friendships. That the earl soon became warmly attached to Bacon is beyond doubt. The intelligent, but impulsive and passionate nobleman of twenty-three found in the cool and wary adviser, who was in years his senior, those qualities so different from his own which were likely to rivet his affection. It was Bacon's misfortime that he never passed through the stage of admiration which goes far to develope a complete character. The author of the 'Letter of Advice' knew himself to be capable of giving lessons in politics to Burghley, and, if he did not expect intellectual assistance from Essex, he failed to perceive that the young nobleman's generosity of temper was at least as admirable as any power of brain could possibly be. In his intercourse with men there was none of that intellectual give-and-take which is the foundation of the highest friendship. "What he gave was advice, the best that he had at his disposal. What he hoped to receive, as he looked back upon the past after fourteen years, may be given in his own words: 'I held at that time,' he wrote, 'my lord to be the fittest instrument to do good to the state; and therefore I applied myself to him in a manner which I think happeneth rarely among men.' In 1596 he put it in another way, in asking Essex 'to look about, even jealously a little if you will, and to consider whether I have not reason to think that your fortune comprehendeth mine' (, ii. 40 ; see also Bacon and Essex, 36). It is not necessary to suppose that Bacon meant to refer merely to his personal fortune. That would no doubt be included, but the allusion must in fairness be understood to imply that he looked to Essex to carry through to success all that Bacon was, the political reformer as well as the aspirant after promotion.

Of the nature of the advice given to Essex by Bacon during the early years of their intimacy we have no direct evidence. In November 1592 he AA'rote a set of discourses to be used in a 'device' prepared by Essex (A Conference of Pleasure, edited by Spedding), and shortly afterwards he enlarged one of these discourses into an argumentative defence of the queen's government, under the title of 'Certain Observations made upon a Libel published this present year, 1592,' and which therefore must have been composed before 25 March 1593, according to our present reckoning. Before that date, on 19 Feb., a new parliament met, in which Bacon sat for the county of Middlesex.

The circumstances under which this parliament met were critical. A Spanish intrigue in Scotland had been discovered, and the queen stood in need of supply to enable her to defeat it. The committee of the lower house appointed to consider the amount reported in favour of granting two subsidies with their accompanying four-fifteenths and tenths, in spite of the prevalent feeling against giving more than one subsidy at a time. Upon this. however, the commons were sent for to the upper house, and were informed by Burghley not only that the lords would not consent to a bill granting less than three subsidies, but