their own defence, though very reluctantly.  His ordinary bribes were L300, L400, and even L1000....  The Lords admit no evidence except on oath.  One Churchill, who was dismissed from the Chancery Court for extortion, is the chief cause of the Chancellor’s ruin."[3] Bacon was greatly alarmed.  He wrote to Buckingham, who was “his anchor in these floods.”  He wrote to the King; he was at a loss to account for the “tempest that had come on him;” he could not understand what he had done to offend the country or Parliament; he had never “taken rewards to pervert justice, however he might be frail, and partake of the abuse of the time.”

“Time hath been when I have brought unto you genitum columbae, from others.  Now I bring it from myself.  I fly unto your Majesty with the wings of a dove, which once within these seven days I thought would have carried me a higher flight.

“When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is comen upon me.  I have been (as your Majesty knoweth best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things carried suavibus modis.  I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people.  I have been no haughty or intolerable or hateful man, in my conversation or carriage.  I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born.  Whence should this be?  For these are the things that use to raise dislikes abroad.”

And he ended by entreating the King to help him: 

“That which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is that I may know by my matchless friend [Buckingham] that presenteth to you this letter, your Majesty’s heart (which is an abyssus of goodness, as I am an abyssus of misery) towards me.  I have been ever your man, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, the property being yours; and now making myself an oblation to do with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as

     “Clay in your Majesty’s gracious hands,
     “Fr. St. Aldan, Canc. 
     “March 25, 1621.”

To the world he kept up an undismayed countenance:  he went down to Gorhambury, attended by troops of friends.  “This man,” said Prince Charles, when he met his company, “scorns to go out like a snuff.”  But at Gorhambury he made his will, leaving “his name to the next ages and to foreign nations;” and he wrote a prayer, which is a touching evidence of his state of mind—­

“Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father, from my youth up, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Comforter.  Thou (O Lord) soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all hearts; thou knowledgest the upright of heart, thou judgest the hypocrite, thou ponderest men’s thoughts and doings as in a balance, thou measurest their intentions as with a line, vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid