Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/74

 up and ride in. Saving this one, perhaps it would take a long day to find another. Our laws are the wisdom of many ages, consisting of a world of customs, maxims, intricate decisions, which are responsa prudentum. Tully could never have boasted, if he had lived amongst us, Si mihi vehementer occupato stomachum moverint, triduo me jurisconsultum profitebor. He is altogether deceived, that thinks he is fit for the exercise of our judicature, because he is a great rabbi in some academical authors; for this hath little or no copulation with our encyclopedia of arts and sciences. Quintilian might judge right upon the branches of oratory and philosophy, Omnes disciplinas inter se conjunciionem rerum, et communionem habere. But our law is a plant that grew alone, and is not entwined into the hedge of other professions; yet the small insight that some have into deep matters, cause them to think that it is no insuperable task for an unexpert man to be the chief arbiter in a court of equity. Bring reason and conscience with you, the good stock of nature, and the thing is done. Æquitas optimo cuique notissima est, is a trivial saying, a very good man cannot be ignorant of equity; and who knows not that extreme right is extreme injury? But they that look no further than so, are short-sighted: for there is no strain of wisdom more sublime, than upon all complaints to measure the just distance between law and equity; because in this high place, it is not equity at lust and pleasure that is moved for, but equity according to decrees and precedents foregoing, as the dew-beaters have trod the way for those that come after them." Of Bacon's fitness for this office, some estimate may be formed by a consideration of the four principal qualifications of a chancellor, as

As a Lawyer he had for a series of years been engaged in professional life. He had been solicitor and attorney-general; had published upon different parts of the law; had deeply meditated upon the principles of equity, and had availed himself of every opportunity to assist in improvement of the law, in obedience to his favourite maxim, "that every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course seek countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament."

As a Judge, he, from his infancy, had seen the different modes in which judicial duties were discharged, had meditated deeply and published his opinions upon the perfection of these duties "to the suitors, to the advocates, to the officers of justice underneath them, and to the sovereign or state above them:" and in his addresses to the judges upon their appointment or promotion, he availed himself of every opportunity to explain them.

As a Statesman, we have seen that he was cradled in politics; that his works abound with notices of his political exertions; that his advice to Sir George Villiers is an essay upon all the various duties of a statesman, with respect to religion, justice, the council table, foreign negotiations, peace and war, trade, the colonies, and the court; and of his parliamentary eloquence his friend Ben Jonson says, "There happened in my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end." As a Patron, he considered preferment a sacred trust, to preserve and promote high feeling, encourage merit, and counteract the tendency of learning to dispose men to leisure and privateness.

In his advice to Villiers, as to the patrimony of the church, he says, "You will be often solicited, and perhaps importuned to prefer scholars to church livings; you may further your friends in that way, 'cæteris paribus'; otherwise remember, I pray, that these are not places merely of favour; the charge of souls lies upon them, the greatest account whereof will be required at their own hands; but they will share deeply in their faults who are the instruments of their preferment." A few weeks after he was appointed lord keeper, he thus writes to a clergyman of Trinity College, Cambridge: "After my hearty commendations, I have heard of you, as a man well deserving, and of able gifts to become profitable in the church; and there being fallen within my gift the rectory of Frome St. Quintin, with the chapel of Evershot, in Dorsetshire, which seems to be a thing of good value, eighteen pounds in the king's books, and in a good country, I have thought good to make offer of it to you: the rather for that you are of Trinity College, whereof myself was some time: and my purpose is to make choice of men rather by care and inquiry, than by their own suits and commendatory letters. So I bid you farewell.

From your loving friend,

"

From Dorset House, 23d April. 1617