The charge of corruption was as completely a surprise to Bacon as it was to the rest of the world.  And yet, as soon as the blot was hit, he saw in a moment that his position was hopeless—­he knew that he had been doing wrong; though all the time he had never apparently given it a thought, and he insisted, what there is every reason to believe, that no present had induced him to give an unjust decision.  It was the power of custom over a character naturally and by habit too pliant to circumstances.  Custom made him insensible to the evil of receiving recommendations from Buckingham in favour of suitors.  Custom made him insensible to the evil of what it seems every one took for granted—­receiving gifts from suitors.  In the Court of James I. the atmosphere which a man in office breathed was loaded with the taint of gifts and bribes.  Presents were as much the rule, as indispensable for those who hoped to get on, as they are now in Turkey.  Even in Elizabeth’s days, when Bacon was struggling to win her favour, and was in the greatest straits for money, he borrowed L500 to buy a jewel for the Queen.  When he was James’s servant the giving of gifts became a necessity.  New Year’s Day brought round its tribute of gold vases and gold pieces to the King and Buckingham.  And this was the least.  Money was raised by the sale of officers and titles.  For L20,000, having previously offered L10,000 in vain, the Chief-Justice of England, Montague, became Lord Mandeville and Treasurer.  The bribe was sometimes disguised:  a man became a Privy Councillor, like Cranfield, or a Chief-Justice, like Ley (afterwards “the good Earl,” “unstained with gold or fee,” of Milton’s Sonnet), by marrying a cousin or a niece of Buckingham.  When Bacon was made a Peer, he had also given him “the making of a Baron;” that is to say, he might raise money by bargaining with some one who wanted a peerage; when, however, later on, he asked Buckingham for a repetition of the favour, Buckingham gave him a lecture on the impropriety of prodigality, which should make it seem that “while the King was asking money of Parliament with one hand he was giving with the other.”  How things were in Chancery in the days of the Queen, and of Bacon’s predecessors, we know little; but Bacon himself implies that there was nothing new in what he did.  “All my lawyers,” said James, “are so bred and nursed in corruption that they cannot leave it.”  Bacon’s Chancellorship coincided with the full bloom of Buckingham’s favour; and Buckingham set the fashion, beyond all before him, of extravagance in receiving and spending.  Encompassed by such assumptions and such customs, Bacon administered the Chancery.  Suitors did there what people did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they gave, or the benefit they gained.  It may be that Bacon’s known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this