The improvement in status brought little personal satisfaction to Francis. He showed evidence of this in his private memoranda, written during July the following year and never intended to be seen by any eye but his own—the memoranda were not discovered until 1848—where a brief note refers to his mood after becoming Solicitor-General. ‘I have now twice, upon amendment of my fortune, disposition to melancholy and distaste, specially the same happening against the long vacation when company failed and business both, for upon my Solicitor’s place I grew indisposed and inclined to superstition.’
He mentions ‘old symptoms as I was wont to have it many years ago, as after sleeps; strife at meats, strangeness, clouds, etc.’ A tendency to hypochondria, which had been so strong in his brother Anthony, was now growing upon him too, and the memoranda have many jottings of remedies for indigestion, bowel troubles and ‘vicious humours’—indeed, for almost every ailment likely to attack the inner man.
One of the habits he found it almost impossible to break was the tendency to fall asleep in the afternoon, or immediately after dinner, which induced ‘languishing and distaste and feverish disposition’ more than any other. He would awake with pains in his side or in the belly under the navel, pains which could only be relieved with castor oil, or a change of position. Evidently the presence of his young wife at such times did nothing to improve matters, but must have increased his nervous irritation. Fortunately Alice’s sister Dorothy, a year or so younger than herself, had also found herself a husband, one John Constable, a young barrister of Gray’s Inn and therefore known personally to Francis. They were married some time during 1607, and his Majesty, apparently at the request of his new Solicitor-General, knighted the bridegroom in October. What John Constable had done to deserve the honour is unrecorded, but the sisters and brothers-in-law being friends eased the conscience of Francis where his own wife was concerned. When he himself was out of sorts, and Alice asked for entertainment, the Constables would oblige.
He had an added anxiety in that his young friend Tobie Matthew, who had turned Catholic while in Italy—a closely guarded confidence until now—returned to England in August 1607. As he was the son of the present Archbishop of York, his Catholicism was something that could not be kept secret for long; and it became the Solicitor-General’s painful duty to inform the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Bancroft, that the young man was not only in London but determined to hold firmly to the Catholic faith. Tobie, handsome, witty, something of a dilettante until the present, had been wandering about the continent against his parents’ wishes, visiting Florence, Siena, Rome; and he spoke fluent Italian. His travels, and possibly the influence of the Jesuits, had matured him, and although Francis could not condone his Catholicism here was just the intellect he needed to probe him out of his own seasonable melancholy into discussing Cogitata et Visa de Interpretatione Naturae (Thoughts and Conclusions on the Interpretation of Nature), the Latin treatise he had been writing, and to inspire him further to plan in outline the great work which lay ahead, and which at this stage he liked to call his Instauratio Magna.
Unfortunately, all attempts by the learned divines, including the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, to persuade Tobie to abjure his new faith failed, and he found himself in the Fleet prison. Francis was able to see him, however, as the gossips discovered. ‘Tobie Matthew hath leave to go as often as he will with his keeper to Sir Francis Bacon, and is put in good hope of further liberty.’ Thus Dudley Carleton to his correspondent John Chamberlain. Tobie was thirty years old on October 3rd 1607, and, with the anniversary of the Powder Plot coming up in a month’s time, Francis was well aware how the association of ideas might harm his young friend in the eyes of authority. A letter to Tobie, undated, must have been written about this time, in which Francis says, ‘Do not think me forgetful or altered towards you. But if I should say I could do you any good, I should make my power more than it is. I do hear that which I am right sorry for; that you grow more impatient and busy than at first; which maketh me exceedingly fear the issue of that which seemeth not to stand at a stay. I myself am out of doubt, that you have been miserably abused, when you were first seduced; but that which I take in compassion, others may take in severity… And I entreat you much, sometimes to meditate upon the extreme superstition in this last Powder Treason; fit to be tabled and pictured in the chambers of meditation, as another hell above the ground: and well justifying the censure of the heathen, that superstition is far worse than atheism; by how much it is less evil to have no opinion of God at all, than such as is impious towards his divine majesty and goodness. Good Mr. Matthew, receive yourself back from these courses of perdition.’
By these ‘courses of perdition’ Francis meant Tobie’s refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the King, a most dangerous course, which might have cost him his life.
Tobie was still in the Fleet at the new year, which came in bitterly cold, with the Thames frozen over, and the Archbishop of Canterbury travelled to Court across the ice from Lambeth Palace, which was hardly likely to improve his temper. The usual festivities were held, with a Masque of Beauty devised by Ben Jonson on January 10th, Queen Anne performing with her ladies, as was her custom, Lady Elizabeth Hatton amongst them. Everything went smoothly, and this time there was no break in decorum, no stumbling upon the floor. It is to be hoped that Francis allowed his lady to be present, in the company of her sister, Lady Constable, for once again he found himself involved in her family affairs. This time it was Lady Packington who was putting them all to trial. There was apparently some difficulty over Dorothy Constable’s marriage settlement, and Francis, who seems to have been a trustee, became exasperated.
‘Madam, you shall with right good will be made acquainted with anything which concerneth your daughters, if you bear a mind of love and concord; otherwise you must be content to be a stranger unto us. For I may not be so unwise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your daughters and their husbands, having seen so much misery of that kind in yourself. And above all things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say you will receive my wife if she be cast off. For it is much more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to make an end of these follies. And you shall at this time pardon me this one fault of writing to you. For I mean to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you ought.’
And please God, he might have added, that she does not take it into her head to come and live with us, whether at Gorhambury or elsewhere. It is evident from his private memoranda later that year that the Bacons were living at some period during 1608 at a house called Fullwoods, which does not suggest an address in town, but by July they were installed at Bath House off the Strand. It is likely that their London quarters were shared with the Constables, giving Francis opportunity to escape to Gray’s Inn whenever possible. This would have been particularly convenient in early February, as owing to an outbreak of plague Tobie Matthew was allowed out on parole. On February 7th he was called before the Council, and told by the Earl of Salisbury that he could go free but under the surveillance of ‘some friend of good account’ for a period of six weeks, after which he ‘must depart the realm’. Tobie chose a Mr. Jones to watch over him, who may have been the Mr. Edward Jones known well to Francis Bacon—one-time secretary to the late Earl of Essex, an acquaintance of both Francis and his brother Anthony, and ‘a great translator of books’. Certainly it must have been possible for Solicitor-General Sir Francis and his protégé Tobie Matthew to meet at Gray’s Inn without further obstacle or embarrassment. Tobie’s actual date of departure is uncertain, but it seems to have been within the next two months. He was to remain abroad for ten years, during which time letters passed continually between the two friends.
The year 1608 was to be one of intense literary activity for Francis. Despite his position as Solicitor-General there was little official business for him to do, and Parliament itself was not called for the whole of the year, the excuse in January having been fear of ‘the sickness’, or plague. King James could spend plenty of time at his favourite sport, hunting. He had persuaded his Secretary of State, Lord Salisbury, to give him his estate Theobalds as a hunting lodge, in exchange for his own palace at Hatfield.
Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, had one taste in common with his cousin Francis Bacon, a passion for building. The old palace, where Princess Elizabeth had learnt of her accession to the throne in 1558, would not do; it must be rebuilt. He engaged the best designers and architects, and the project, which took over five years to complete, is said to have cost more than £38,000. Just as their fathers had engaged in friendly competition in the building of Theobalds and Gorhambury some forty years previously, now Francis and Robert Cecil, on equable terms—for ill-feeling between them seems to have mellowed during recent months—exchanged advice about design.
‘To give directions of a plot to be made to turn the pondyard into a place of pleasure, and to speak of them to my L. of Salisbury,’ says a note in the private memoranda. And Francis writes of his plans for the grounds round about Gorhambury, ‘to be enclosed square with a brick wall, and fruit-trees plashed upon it’, but then continues with far more grandiose ideas, of walks on various levels, and ‘all the ground within this walk to be cast into a lake, with a fair rail with images gilt round about it and some low flowers specially violets and strawberries. In the middle of the lake where the house now stands to make an island of 100 broad; and in the middle thereof to build a house for freshness with an upper gallery open upon the water, a terrace about that, and a supping room open under that; a dining-room, a bed-chamber, a cabinet, and a room for music, a garden; in this ground to make one walk between trees; the galleries to cast northwards; nothing to be planted here but of choice.’
Some of these plans were to be put into operation during the coming years, and may well have been begun during the summer of 1608—discussions about it would keep Alice and the Constables employed—but Francis had so many projects in mind at this time, which he jotted down in his memoranda, that it is a wonder he kept pace with half of them. His Advancement of Learning having made little impact in 1605, he wondered whether his arguments for the spread of knowledge would have more success if he could become head of some school or college. A note on July 26th says, ‘Laying for a place to command wits and pens. Westminster, Eton, Winchester, Trinity College, Cambridge, St. John’s in Camb, Maudlin in Oxford.’ Later there is a suggestion for founding a college for inventors, with libraries and laboratories, and allowances for students to make experiments.
His interest in things scientific was increasing all the time, and he made a list of persons who might be of use, ‘my Lord of Northumberland’ (in the Tower of London for suspected if doubtful complicity in the Powder Treason), ‘Ralegh, and therefore Harriot’, the latter a great mathematician, intimate with Ralegh, whom he instructed in mathematics. ‘Making much of Russell that depends upon Sir David Murray’ (Thomas Russell was experimenting in separating silver from lead ore, and Sir David Murray was Keeper of the Privy Purse), ‘and by that means drawing Sir Dav. and by him and Sir Th. Chal. in time the prince.’
Sir Thomas Challoner, old friend of brother Anthony, was now Governor to the Household of Prince Henry, whose investiture would take place in two years’ time, and it was to the future Prince of Wales that Francis looked for real encouragement in the spread of learning. His Majesty was all very well, but he mistrusted scientific experiment, especially after the Powder Treason, and these days spent much of his leisure time in hunting rather than in reading, with his new young Scottish favourite Robert Carr, who had replaced the Earl of Montgomery in his affections.
The future Prince of Wales had a respect for tradition as well as for future experiment, and would be one of those to read another Latin work Francis was engaged upon that summer of 1608, In felicem memoriam Elizabethae, a treatise in praise of his former Sovereign. Cogitata et Visa had meanwhile been laid aside for Redargutio Philosophiarum (A Refutation of Philosophies), both of which would have been discussed with Tobie Matthew before his friend went overseas. It was in Cogitata et Visa that Francis retold the legend of Scylla, the maiden ‘whose loins were girt about with yelping hounds’ (no disrespect intended towards his young wife). The work, written in the third person—‘Francis Bacon thought thus, etc., etc.’—was a further development of his ideas and arguments.
For instance, in the opening section: ‘The human discoveries we now enjoy should rank as quite imperfect and undeveloped. In the present state of the sciences new discoveries can be expected only after the lapse of centuries. The discoveries men have up to now achieved cannot be credited to philosophy.’
He has one of his familiar digs at academies of learning. ‘Far the greater number of persons there are concerned primarily with lecturing and in the next place with making a living; and the lectures and other exercises are so managed that the last thing anyone would be likely to entertain is an unfamiliar thought. Anyone who allows himself freedom of enquiry or independence of judgement finds himself isolated. In the arts and sciences, as in mining for minerals, there ought everywhere to be the bustle of new works and further progress.’
(How Francis would have been welcomed by the students in universities some three and a half centuries later!)
He also tilted at his former target in The Masculine Birth of Time, the Greek philosophers. ‘The opinions and theories of the Greeks are like the arguments of so many stage plays, devised to give an illusion of reality, with greater or less elegance, carelessness or frigidity. They have what is proper to a stage-play, a neat roundness foreign to a narration of fact.’
In chapter 14 something of his own personality can be glimpsed between the lines. ‘Speaking generally, the human mind is so uneven a mirror as to distort the rays which fall upon it by its angularities. It is not a smooth flat surface. Furthermore, every individual, in consequence of his education, interests, and constitution is attended by a delusive power, his own familiar demon, which mocks his mind and troubles it with unsubstantial spectres.’ Was Francis’s own ‘familiar demon’ one that led him into ‘melancholy and distaste’, and ‘inclined [him] to superstition, strangeness, clouds’ as described in his memoranda? Later in the same chapter we have another revelation. ‘Bacon [always the third person] found himself in disagreement with both the ancients and moderns. A wine-drinker and a water-drinker, says the familiar jest, cannot hold the same opinion; and while they drink an intellectual beverage… Bacon prefers a draught prepared from innumerable grapes, grapes matured and plucked in due season from selected clusters, crushed in the press, purged and clarified in the vat: a draught moreover which has been so treated as to qualify its powers of inebriating, since he is resolved to owe nothing to the heady fumes of vain imaginings.’ Surely here is an echo from the second book of his Advancement of Learning, where, in the brief chapter on poetry, he concluded, ‘But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre’.
The remaining chapters of Cogitata et Visa concentrate on improving Man’s lot, and the benefits that inventions confer on the whole human race.
‘It is this glory of discovery that is the true ornament of mankind,’ he wrote, and gave illustrations in three inventions unknown to antiquity, ‘To wit, printing, gunpowder, and the nautical needle. These have changed the face and status of the world of men… The human mind and its management is ours to improve. There are no insuperable objects in the way; simply it lies in a direction untrodden by the feet of men. It may frighten us a little by its loneliness; it offers no threat. A new world beckons. The trial should be made. Not to try is a greater hazard than to fail.’
Inspiring words to all creative men in his own day and in succeeding ages, whether scientists, inventors, explorers or writers.
Francis showed Cogitata et Visa to certain friends apart from Tobie Matthew, one being Sir Thomas Bodley at Oxford, who he hoped would show warm appreciation, but the reception was guarded, the great scholar seeming to have found the ideas expressed too advanced for academic approval.
So the work remained unpublished, as did its successor Redargutio Philosophiarum, The Refutation of Philosophies, until after the writer’s death. In this latter book, as might be expected from the title, Francis repeated and developed much of what he had already said in The Masculine Birth of Time and Cogitata et Visa. This time, however, he wrote as if he were a philosopher addressing a gathering of learned men of mature age. Perhaps in fantasy he already saw himself chancellor of a university speaking before a gathering of dons.
The opening words are in forthright style. ‘We are agreed, my sons, that you are men. This means, as I think, that you are not animals on their hind legs, but mortal gods. God, the creator of the universe and of you, gave you souls capable of understanding the world but not to be satisfied with it alone. He reserved for himself your faith, but gave the world over to your senses… He did not give you reliable and trustworthy senses in order that you might study the writings of a few men… Nay, from the moment you learn to speak you are under the necessity of drinking in and assimilating what I may be allowed to call a hotch-potch of errors. Errors sanctioned by the institutions of academies, colleges, orders, and even states themselves… I do not ask you to renounce them in a moment. I do not wish to hurry you into isolation. Use your philosophy. Adorn your conversation with its jewels. Use it when convenient. Keep one to deal with nature and the other to deal with the populace. Every man of superior understanding in contact with inferiors wears a mask…’
Here is a revealing line from Francis Bacon in the summer of 1608, forty-seven years old, his curling brown hair greying, as were his moustache and beard, his face more lined, his frame fuller, more set, but the hazel eyes as lively as ever, the smile—when it came—something between compassion for those who heard him, and contempt. ‘Every man of superior understanding in contact with inferiors wears a mask.’ Here is the essence of the man at last, the boy who believed himself, as brother Anthony might have told him, ‘capable de tout’. Who might have founded an English Pleiades, groomed a successful leader, had the attentive ear of two monarchs, helped to frame new laws and a union of kingdoms, composed anything from the lightest of trifles to the most profound of discourses, and who now, in middle age, married to a girl just turned sixteen who was more like a daughter than a wife, had the attention of few save his closest friends; and even with these, as with his superiors in rank and status, and with his servants too, he wore a mask.
Concealment, like the ‘worm in the bud’ in a different context, affected the many facets of his personality, and never more, perhaps, than at this period when sovereign and state made small demand upon him, and he had all the time in the world at his disposal; time to explore the many motives that drove man—including himself—to triumph or despair, which, by examining them closely, he came to recognise and understand better, and himself as well.
‘My time is running out, sons, and I am tempted by my love of you and of the business in hand, to take up one topic after another. I yearn for some secret of initiation which, like the coming of April or of spring, might avail to thaw and loosen your fixed and frozen minds… Shake off the chains which oppress you and be masters of yourselves… I only give you this advice, that you do not promise yourself such great things from my discoveries as not to expect better from your own. I foresee for myself a destiny like that of Alexander—now pray, do not accuse me of vanity till you have heard me out. While his memory was fresh his exploits were regarded as portents. But when admiration had cooled and men looked more closely into the matter, note the sober judgement passed upon him by the Roman historian: “All Alexander did was dare to despise shams”. Something like this later generations will say of me.’