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Lordship shall be sure to have.’ Five years later he reiterated in the same tone, ‘I humbly pray you to believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of bonus civis, which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen, and next of bonus vir, that is, an honest man.’ But of this anon. The result of the present negotiation was that Essex presented Bacon with a piece of land, which he afterwards sold to Reynold Nicholas for 1800l.

At what precise time Bacon was appointed by the Queen one of her counsel learned in the law, is not quite certain. It has been supposed that the appointment was made as early as the beginning of 1592, and he is certainly described by this title in a lease of sixty acres of land in Zelwood Forest, Somersetshire, which was granted him by the Crown, July 14, 1596. From the fact that he is not so described in the grant of the reversion of the lease of Twickenham Park, dated Nov. 17, 1595, it would seem that he had been made Qucen’s counsel in the interval. Meanwhile he consoled himself for his professional disappointments by increased devotion to his favourite studies, and early in 1597 published, in a small volume, the first instalment of his Essays, which had been written some time before, and were already circulated in manuscript. From an expression in the dedication to his brother Anthony, he evidently regarded the publication as premature. ‘I doe nowe,’ he says, ‘like some that have an orcharde ill neighbored, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing.’ The same volume contained the Colours of Good and Evil, and the Meditationes Sacræ. Traces of his hand are also to be found in the ‘Advice to the Earl of Rutland on his Travels,’ and to ‘Sir Fulke Greville on his Studies,’ which appear in the name of Essex, and belong to the beginning of 1596.

On the 30th of April, 1596, the Mastership of the Rolls became vacant by the death of Lord Keeper Puckering, and the promotion of Egerton to his place. For this post Bacon was again a candidate, Essex as before supported his claim, and with the same result, suspense and ultimate disappointment. Burghley’s influence was exerted with no better success. He