the disappointment of seeing men like Coke and Fleming and Doddridge and Hobart pass before him; he could not, if he had been only a lawyer, have coveted more eagerly the places, refused to him, which they got; only, he had besides a whole train of purposes, an inner and supreme ambition, of which they knew nothing.  And with all this there is no apparent consciousness of these manifold and varied interests.  He never affected to conceal from himself his superiority to other men in his aims and in the grasp of his intelligence.  But there is no trace that he prided himself on the variety and versatility of these powers, or that he even distinctly realized to himself that it was anything remarkable that he should have so many dissimilar objects and be able so readily to pursue them in such different directions.

It is doubtful whether, as long as Elizabeth lived, Bacon could ever have risen above his position among the “Learned Counsel,” an office without patent or salary or regular employment.  She used, him, and he was willing to be used; but he plainly did not appear in her eyes to be the kind of man who would suit her in the more prominent posts of her Government.  Unusual and original ability is apt, till it is generally recognised, to carry with it suspicion and mistrust as to its being really all that it seems to be.  Perhaps she thought of the possibility of his flying out unexpectedly at some inconvenient pinch, and attempting to serve her interests, not in her way, but in his own; perhaps she distrusted in business and state affairs so brilliant a discourser, whose heart was known, first and above all, to be set on great dreams of knowledge; perhaps those interviews with her in which he describes the counsels which he laid before her, and in which his shrewdness and foresight are conspicuous, may not have been so welcome to her as he imagined; perhaps, it is not impossible, that he may have been too compliant for her capricious taste, and too visibly anxious to please.  Perhaps, too, she could not forget, in spite of what had happened, that he had been the friend, and not the very generous friend, of Essex.  But, except as to a share of the forfeitures, with which he was not satisfied, his fortunes did not rise under Elizabeth.

Whatever may have been the Queen’s feelings towards him, there is no doubt that one powerful influence, which lasted into the reign of James, was steadily adverse to his advancement.  Burghley had been strangely niggardly in what he did to help his brilliant nephew; he was going off the scene, and probably did not care to trouble himself about a younger and uncongenial aspirant to service.  But his place was taken by his son, Robert Cecil; and Cecil might naturally have been expected to welcome the co-operation of one of his own family who was foremost among the rising men of Cecil’s own generation, and who certainly was most desirous to do him service.  But it is plain that he early made up his mind to keep Bacon