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followed the partial failure of the Island voyage, the total failure of the Irish expedition, his hasty return, the Queen’s displeasure, and then the final catastrophe.

But we must go back for a while to see in what matters Bacon was occupied. In 1595 the question of Star-Chamber Fees was undergoing investigation, and in consequence, certain fees hitherto claimed by the Clerk had been restrained by the Lord Keeper. Bacon, who was immediately interested, addressed a paper to Egerton on the subject in July 1597. His estate at this time, as he confesses in another letter, was ‘weak and indebted,’ a condition which he attributed in part to the slender provision made for him by his father, and greatly also to the plan of his own life, in which he ‘rather referred and aspired to virtue than to gain.’ Want was stealing upon him. But he was not disheartened. There were three means of preventing it: his practice, in which he was conscious of not playing his best; the prospect of a place under government; and the reversion of the clerkship of the Star-Chamber. The last of these he proposed to give up to the Lord Keeper’s son, if Egerton would obtain the Mastership of the Rolls for him; but once more he failed, and the office was not filled up till the next reign.

The ninth Parliament of Elizabeth met on the 24th of October, 1597, and Bacon sat as member for Ipswich. His first speech was on a motion which he brought forward ‘against depopulation of towns and houses of husbandry, and for the maintenance of husbandry and tillage,’ a question which in after years possessed his mind, and was discussed in his Essay ‘Of the true Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,’ first published in 1612, and again in his History of Henry VII. in Template:Old style!1622, An examination of D’Ewes’s Journal of the House of Commons shows that his name is to be found on committees for the consideration of every question of importance during this session, and that though the Queen had not yet forgiven his conduct on a former occasion, his position in the House was as high as ever.

But if his reputation was increasing his debts were in-