Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/97

 who named the innocent as well as the guilty;" he contrived lo praise Buckingham, and to turn the charge itself into a dexterous commendation both of his favourite and the prince.

The parliament was then adjourned to the 17th of April, with the hope that, during the recess, the favourite or his master might contrive some expedient to delay or defeat investigation; and that time might mitigate the displeasure which, in both Houses, seemed strong against the chancellor.

The proceedings within the House were suspended, but the chancellor's opponents, unchecked or secretly encouraged by his pretended friends, continued their exertions, actuated either by virtuous indignation at the supposition of his guilt, or by motives less pure,—the hope of gaining by his fall, or envy of the greatness which overshadowed them.

The state of the chancellor's mind during this storm has been variously represented; by some of his contemporaries he is said to have been depressed: by others that he was merry, and not doubting that he should be able to ride safely through the tempest. His playfulness of spirit never forsook him. When, upon the charge being first made, his servants rose as he passed through the hall, "Sit down, my friends," he said, "your rise has been my fall;" and when one of his friends said, "You must look around you," he replied, "I look above me." Playfulness in affliction is, however, only an equivocal test of cheerfulness; in a powerful mind grief rests itself in the exercise of the antagonist feelings, and, by a convulsive effort, throws off the load of despair.

Difficult as it may be to discover the real state of his mind, it cannot be supposed, accustomed as he was to active life, and well aware of the intrigues of courts, that, in this moment of peril, his sagacity slumbered, or that he was so little attentive to his own interests, as to be sheltered in the shades of Gorhambury, all meaner things forgotten, watching the progress of some chymical experiment, or wandering with Hobbes in the mazes of metaphysics.

His enemies, who were compassing his ruin, might imagine that be was thus indulging in the day-dreams of philosophy, but, so imagining, they were ignorant of his favourite doctrine, that "Learning is not like some small bird, as the lark, that can mount and sing, and please herself, and nothing else, but that she holds as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and at the right moment can stoop and seize upon her prey." The chancellor retired to prepare for his defence, to view the nature of the attack, and the strength of his assailants.

The charges, which were at first confined to Aubrey and Egerton, were now accumulated to twenty-three in number, by raking up every instance of an offering, even to the case of Wraynham, who had been punished for his scurrilous libel against the chancellor and the master of the rolls.

Of this virulence the chancellor thus complained to Buckingham: "Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am now in it; but my mind is in a calm; for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him, as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark, and accusation is the game. And if this be to be a chancellor, I think if the great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up. But the king and your lordship will I hope put an end to these my straits, one way or other." And in a subsequent letter he said, "I perceive, by some speech that passed between your lordship and Mr. Meautys, that some wretched detractor hath told you, that it were strange I should be in debt; for that I could not but have received a hundred thousand pounds gifts since I had the seal, which is an abominable falsehood. Such tales as these made St. James say that the tongue is a fire, and itself fired from hell, whither when these tongues shall return, they will beg a drop of water to cool them. I praise God for it, I never took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living; I never took penny for releasing any thing I stopped at the seal; I never took penny for any commission, or things of that nature: I never shared with any servant for any second or inferior profit." About the same period he thus wrote to the king, in a letter which he intrusted to the discretion of Buckingham to withhold or deliver:

It may please your most excellent majesty,—Time hath been when I have brought unto you "Gemitum Columbæ" from others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your majesty with the wings of a dove, which, once within these seven days, I thought would have carried me a higher flight. When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is come upon me I have been (as your majesty knoweth best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things carried "suavibus modis." I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man in my conversation or carriage: I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should this be; for these are the things that use to raise dislikes abroad.

I For the House of Commons, I began my credit there, and now it must be the place of the sepulture thereof. And yet this parliament, upon the message touching religion, the old love revived,