Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/35

Rh Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, (where hee could spare, or passe by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what hee utter'd. No member of his speech but consisted of the owne graces. His hearers could not cough, or looke aside from him, without losse. Hee commanded where hee spoke, and had his Judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affection more in his power. The feare of every man that heard him, was, lest hee should make an end."

That Bacon was not naturally a good speaker, but studiously labored to acquire a pleasing address, is clear from a note in a paper of counsels and rules drawn up for the guidance of his own conduct, and called in his ready Latin—Custumae aptae ad Individuum, 'Fit Habits for the Individual,' that individual being Francis Bacon,—"To suppress at once my speaking, with panting and labour of breath and voice. Not to fall upon the main too sudden, but to induce and intermingle speech of good fashion."

The House of Commons was Bacon's school of life. It was there that he acquired his vast knowledge of men and affairs. He began almost at once the excellent practice of recording his experiences, summing up for himself his thoughts on the various matters of business that came before Parliament. The earliest of these state papers, with characteristic boldness, is a Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth, written at the close of 1584 or the beginning Rh