to be content with restraining.  Whatever he thought of the “Great Contract,” he did what was expected of him in trying to gain for it fair play.  But he made time for other things also.  He advised, and advised soundly, on the plantation and finance of Ireland.  It was a subject in which he took deep interest.  A few years later, with only too sure a foresight, he gave the warning, “lest Ireland civil become more dangerous to us than Ireland savage.”  He advised—­not soundly in point of law, but curiously in accordance with modern notions—­about endowments; though, in this instance, in the famous will case of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House, his argument probably covered the scheme of a monstrous job in favour of the needy Court.  And his own work went on in spite of the pressure of the Solicitor’s place.  To the first years of his official life belong three very interesting fragments, intended to find a provisional place in the plan of the “Great Instauration.”  To his friend Toby Matthews, at Florence, he sent in manuscript the great attack on the old teachers of knowledge, which is perhaps the most brilliant, and also the most insolently unjust and unthinking piece of rhetoric ever composed by him—­the Redargutio Philosophiarum.

“I send you at this time the only part which hath any harshness; and yet I framed to myself an opinion, that whosoever allowed well of that preface which you so much commend, will not dislike, or at least ought not to dislike, this other speech of preparation; for it is written out of the same spirit, and out of the same necessity.  Nay it doth more fully lay open that the question between me and the ancients is not of the virtue of the race, but of the rightness of the way.  And to speak truth, it is to the other but as palma to pugnus, part of the same thing more large....  Myself am like the miller of Huntingdon, that was wont to pray for peace amongst the willows; for while the winds blew, the wind-mills wrought, and the water-mill was less customed.  So I see that controversies of religion must hinder the advancement of sciences.  Let me conclude with my perpetual wish towards yourself, that the approbation of yourself by your own discreet and temperate carriage, may restore you to your country, and your friends to your society.  And so I commend you to God’s goodness.

     “Gray’s Inn, this 10th of October, 1609.”

To Bishop Andrewes he sent, also in manuscript, another piece, belonging to the same plan—­the deeply impressive treatise called Visa et Cogitata—­what Francis Bacon had seen of nature and knowledge, and what he had come by meditation to think of what he had seen.  The letter is not less interesting than the last, in respect to the writer’s purposes, his manner of writing, and his relations to his correspondent.