Page:The Advancement of Learning (Wright, 5th ed).pdf/47
serving of turns, be they of great ones or small ones.’ In his Essay ‘Of Great Place,’ first published in 1612, and reissued in 1625, he says: ‘For corruption: Do not only bind thine own hands, or thy servants’ hands, from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also: from offering.’ In confessing himself guilty of corruption, therefore, does he admit that the whole practice of his life had been a falsification of his principles? Let us see. Of the twenty-two cases of bribery with which he was charged, and which we may safely assume were all that the malice of his enemies could discover against him, there are but four in which he allows that he had in any way received presents before the causes were ended; and even in these, though technically the presents were made pendente lite, there is no hint that they affected his decision. During the four years of his Chancellorship he had made orders and decrees to the number of two thousand a year, as he himself wrote to the Lords, and of the charges brought against him there was scarcely one that was not two years old. The witnesses to some of the most important were Churchill, a registrar of the Court of Chancery, who had been discharged for fraud; and Hastings, who contradicted himself so much that his testimony is worthless, But we are more concerned with Bacon’s confession of guilt than with the evidence by which the charge was supported. In a paper of memoranda which he drew up at the time, and which has been printed by Mr. Montagu (Bacon’s Works, xvi. pt 1. p. cccxlv), he writes: ‘There be three degrees or cases, as I conceive, of gifts or rewards given to a judge. The first is of bargain, contract, or promise of reward, pendente lite. And of this my heart tells me I am innocent; that I had no bribe or reward in my eye or thought when I pronounced any sentence or order. The second is a neglect in the judge to inform himself whether the cause be fully at an end, or no, what time he receives the gift; but takes it upon the credit of the party that all is done, or otherwise omits to inquire. And the third is, when it is received sine fraude, after the cause ended; which it seems, by the opinions of