"In my first Parliament," said James, "I was a Chancellor's jackals to make his Lordship a present of novice. In my next, there was a kind of beasts called four hundred pounds; and that, nevertheless, he had not undertakers,”—and so forth. In the third Parliament he could hardly be called a novice, and those beasts, the undertakers, did not exist. Yet his third Parliament gave him more trouble than either the first or the second.

been able to obtain a decree in his favor. The evidence to these facts was overwhelming. Bacon's friends could only entreat the house to suspend its judgment, and to send up the case to the Lords, in a form less offensive than an impeachment.

The Parliament had no sooner met than the House On the 19th of March the King sent a message to the of Commons proceeded, in a temperate and respectful, Commons, expressing his deep regret that so eminent a but most determined manner, to discuss the public person as the Chancellor should be suspected of misgrievances. Their first attacks were directed against conduct. His Majesty declared that he had no wish to those odious patents, under cover of which Bucking-screen the guilty from justice, and proposed to appoint ham and his creatures had pillaged and oppressed the a new kind of tribunal, consisting of eighteen commisnation. The vigor with which these proceedings were sioners, who might be chosen from among the members conducted spread dismay through the Court. Buck- of the two houses, to investigate the matter. The ingham thought himself in danger, and, in his alarm, Commons were not disposed to depart from the regular had recourse to an adviser who had lately acquired course of proceeding. On the same day they held a considerable influence over him,-Williams, Dean of conference with the Lords, and delivered in the heads of Westminster. He advised the favorite to abandon all the accusation against the Chancellor. At this conferthoughts of defending the monopolies-to find some ence Bacon was not present. Overwhelmed with shame foreign embassy for his brother Sir Edward, who was and remorse, and abondoned by all those in whom he deeply implicated in the villanies of Mompesson-and had weakly put his trust, he shut himself up in his to leave the other offenders to the justice of Parlia-chamber from the eyes of men. The dejection of his ment. Buckingham received this advice with the warm-mind soon disordered his body. Buckingham, who visitest expressions of gratitude, and declared that a loaded him by the King's order, "found his Lordship very had been lifted from his heart. He then repaired with sick and heavy." It appears from a pathetic letter which Williams to the royal presence. They found the King the unhappy man addressed to the Peers on the day of engaged in earnest consultation with Prince Charles. the conference, that he neither expected nor wished to The plan of operations proposed by the Dean was fully survive his disgrace. During several days he remained discussed, and approved in all its parts. in his bed, refusing to see any human being. He passionately told his attendants to leave him,--to forget him, -never again to name his name,--never to remember that there had been such a man in the world. In the mean time, fresh instances of corruption were every day brought to the knowledge of his accusers. The number of charges rapidly increased from two to twenty-three. The Lords entered on the investigation of the case with laudable alacrity. Some witnesses were examined at the bar of the house. A select committee was appointed to take the depositions of others; and the inquiry was rapidly proceeding, when, on the 26h of March, the King adjourned the Parliament for three weeks.

The first victims whom the Court abandoned to the vengeance of the Commons, were Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell. It was some time before Bacon began to entertain any apprehensions. His talents and his address gave him great influence in the house, of which he had lately become a member,-as indeed they must have done in any assembly. In the House of Commons he had many personal friends and many warm admirers. But at length, about six weeks after the meeting of Parliament, the storm burst.

A committee of the lower house had been appointed to inquire into the state of the Courts of Justice. On the 15th of March, the chairman of that committee, Sir This measure revived Bacon's hopes. He made the Robert Philips, member for Bath, reported that great most of his short respite. He attemped to work on the abuses had been discovered. "The person," said he, feeble mind of the King. He appealed to all the strong"against whom these things are alleged is no less than est feelings of James,-to his fears, to his vanity, to his the Lord Chancellor,—a man so endued with all parts, high notions of prerogative. Would the Solomon of the both of nature and art, as that I will say no more of age commit so gross an error as to encourage the enhim, being not able to say enough." Sir Robert then croaching spirit of Parliament? Would God's annointproceeded to state, in the most temperate manner, the ed, accountable to God alone, pay homage to the clamornature of the charges. A person of the name of Au- ous multitude? "Those," he exclaimed, "who now brey had a case depending in Chancery. He had been strike at the Chancellor will soon stike at the Crown. I almost ruined by law expenses, and his patience had am the first sacrifice. I wish I may be the last." But been exhausted by the delays of the court. He re-all his eloquence and address were employed in vain. ceived a hint from some of the hangers-on of the Chancellor, that a present of one hundred pounds would expedite matters. The poor man had not the sum required. However, having found out a usurer who accommodated him with it at a high interest, he carried it to York House. The Chancellor took the money, and his dependants assured the suitor that all would go right. Aubrey was, however, disappointed; for, after considerable delay, "a killing decree" was pronounced against him. Another suitor of the name of Egerton complained that he had been induced by two of the

Indeed, whatever Mr. Montagu may say, we are firmly convinced that it was not in the King's power to save Bacon, without having recourse to measures which would have convulsed the realm. The crown had not sufficient influence in Parliament to procure an acquittal, in so clear a case of guilt. And to dissolve a Parliament which is universally allowed to have been one of the best Parliaments that ever sat,--which had acted liberally and respectfully towards the Sovereign, and which enjoyed in the highest degree the favor of the people, only in order to stop a grave, temperate, and constitu

tional inquiry into the personal integrity of the first | ice moderated, but not unnerved, by compassion,—— judge in the kingdom,-would have been a measure which appeared in every part of the transaction, would more scandalous and absurd than any of those which do honor to the most respectable public men of our own were the ruin of the House of Stuart. Such a measure, times. The accusers, while they discharged their duty while it would have been as fatal to the Chancellor's to their constituents by bringing the misdeeds of the honor as a conviction, would have endangered the very existence of the monarchy. The King, acting by the advice of Williams, very properly refused to engage in a dangerous struggle with his people, for the purpose of saving from legal condemnation a minister whom it was impossible to save from dishonor. He advised Bacon to plead guilty, and promised to do all in his power to mitigate the punishment.

On the 17th of April the houses reassembled, and the Lords resumed their inquiries into the abuse of the Court of Chancery. On the 22d, Bacon addressed to the Peers a letter, which Prince Charles condescended to deliver. In this artful and pathetic composition, the Chancellor acknowledged his guilt in guarded and general terms, and, while acknowledging, endeavored to palliate it. This, however, was not thought sufficient by his judges. They required a more particular confession, and sent him a copy of the charges. On the 30th, he delivered a paper, in which he admitted, with few and unimportant reservations, the truth of the accusations brought against him, and threw himself entirely on the mercy of his peers. "Upon advised consideration of the charges," said he, "descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess, that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence."

Chancellor to light, spoke with admiration of his many eminent qualities. The Lords, while condemning him, complimented him on the ingenuousness of his confession, and spared him the humiliation of a public appearance at their bar. So strong was the contagion of good feeling, that even Sir Edward Coke, for the first time in his life, behaved like a gentleman. No criminal ever had more temperate prosecutors than Bacon. No criminal ever had more favorable judges. If he was convicted, it was because it was impossible to acquit him without offering the grossest outrage to justice and common sense.

The sentence of Bacon had scarcely been pronounced when it was mitigated. He was indeed sent to the Tower. But this was merely a form. In two days he was set at liberty, and soon after he retired to Gorhambury. His fine was speedily released by the Crown. He was next suffered to present himself at Court; and at length, in 1624, the rest of his punishment was remitted. He was now at liberty to resume his seat in the House of Lords, and he was actually summoned to the next Parliament. But age, infirmity, and perhaps shame, prevented him from attending. The Government allowed him a pension of one thousand two hundred pounds a year; and his whole annual income is estimated by Mr. Montagu at The Lords came to a resolution that the Chancellor's two thousand five hundred pounds,-a sum which confession appeared to be full and ingenuous, and sent was probably above the average income of a nobleman a committee to inquire of him whether it was really of that generation, and which was certainly sufficient subscribed by himself. The deputies, among whom for comfort and even for splendor. Unhappily, Bacon was Southampton, the common friend many years be- was fond of display, and unused to pay minute attenfore of Bacon and Essex, performed this duty with tion to domestic affairs. He was not easily persuaded great delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a mind, and to give up any part of the magnificence to which he the degradation of such a name, night well have soft- had been accustomed in the time of his power and ened the most obdurate natures. My lords," said prosperity. No pressure of distress could induce him Bacon, "it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech to part with the woods of Gorhambury. “I will not," your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." They he said, "be stripped of my feathers." He travelled withdrew and he again retired to his chamber in the with so splendid an equipage, and so large a retinue, deepest dejection. The next day, the sergeant-at-arms that Prince Charles, who once fell in with him on the and usher of the House of Lords came to conduct him | road, exclaimed with surprise,—“Well! do what we to Westminster Hall, where sentence was to be pro- can, this man scorns to go out in snuff." This carenounced. But they found him so unwell that he could lessness and ostentation reduced him to frequent disnot leave his bed; and this excuse for his absence was tress. He was under the necessity of parting with readily accepted. In no quarter does there appear to York House, and of taking up his residence, during have been the smallest desire to add to his humiliation. his visits to London, at his old chambers in Gray's Inn. The sentence was, however severe,--the more severe, He had other vexations, the exact nature of which is unno doubt, because the lords knew that it would not be known. It is evident from his will, that some part of his executed, and that they had an excellent opportunity wife's conduct had greatly disturbed and irritated him. of exhibiting at small cost, the inflexibility of their justice, and their abhorrence of corruption. Bacon was condemned to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was declared incapable of holding any office in the State, or of sitting in parliament, and he was banished for life, from the verge of the court. In such misery and shame ended that long career of worldly wisdom and worldly prosperity!

No State-Trial in our history is more creditable to all who took part in it, either as prosecutors or judges. The decency, the gravity, the public spirit,-the just

But whatever might be his pecuniary difficulties or his conjugal discomforts, the powers of his intellect still remained undiminished. Those noble studies for which he had found leisure in the midst of professional drudgery and of courtly intrigues, gave to this last sad stage of his life a dignity beyond what power or titles could bestow. Impeached, convicted, sentenced,— driven with ignominy from the presence of his Sovereign, shut out from the deliberations of his fellow nobles, loaded with debt, branded with dishonor, sinking under the weight of years, sorrow and disease,-Bacon was Bacon still.

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My conceit of his person," says Ben Johson very | mankind. So at least we understand those striking finely, “was never increased towards him by his place words which have been often quoted, but which we or honors; but I have and do reverence him for the must quote once more—“For my name and memory, I greatness that was only proper to himself; in that he leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest nations, and to the next age." men and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want."

The services which he rendered to letters during the last five years of his life, amidst ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase the regret, with which we think on the many years which he had wasted,-to use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley,-" on such study as was not worthy such a student." He commenced a Digest of the Laws of England,—a History of England under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of Natural History, a Philosophical Romance. He made extensive and valuable additions to his essays. He published the inestimable Treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum. The very trifles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor bore the mark of his mind. The best Jest-Book in the world is that which he dictated from memory, without referring to any book, on a day on which illness had rendered him incapable of serious study.

The great apostle of experimental philosophy was destined to be its martyr. It had occurred to him that snow might be used with advantage for the purpose of preventing animal substances from putrefying. On a very cold day, early in the spring of the year 1626, he alighted from his coach near Highgate, in order to try the experiment. He went into a cottage, bought a fowl, and with his own hands stuffed it with snow. While thus engaged he felt a sudden chill, and was soon so much indisposed that it was impossible for him to return to Gray's Ian. The Earl of Arundel, with whom he was well acquainted, had a house at Highgate. To that house Bacon was carried. The Earl was absent; but the servants who were in charge of the place showed great respect and attention to the illustrious guest. Here, after an illness of about a week, he expired early on the morning of Easter-day, 1626. His mind appears to have retained its strength and liveliness to the end. He did not forget the fowl which had caused his death. In the last letter that he ever wrote, with fingers which, as he said, could not steadily hold a pen, he did not omit to mention that the experiment of the snow had succeeded "excellently well."

Our opinion of the moral character of this great man has already been sufficiently explained. Had his life been passed in literary retirement, he would, in all probability, have deserved to be considered, not only as a great philosopher, but as a worthy and good natured member of society. But neither his principles nor his spirit were such as could be trusted, when strong temptations were to be resisted, and serious dangers to be braved. In his will, he expressed with singular brevity, energy, dignity, and pathos, a mournful consciousness that his actions had not been such as to entitle him to the esteem of those under whose observation his life had been passed; and, at the same time, a proud confidence that his writings had secured for him a high and permanent place among the benefactors of

His confidence was just. From the day of his death his fame has been constantly and steadily progressive; and we have no doubt that his name will be named with reverence to the latest ages, and to the remotest ends of the civilized world.

EVE OF THE BATTLE OF GILBOA.

Night came, and drew her jewel'd drapery
Over the promised land, with still and soft
And quiet gracefulness, as though beneath
Were spread the weary couch of holy ones
Who rested from their labors; or, as there
Innocent creatures, over whose fair frames
Soft slumber and the rosy twilight stole
In their joy's noon, were sleeping, balmily,
Upon the violet's breast.

The gentle Heavens
Shed blessings down on Hermon, and Gilboa
Bath'd his bright verdure, all unwither'd yet
By the prophetical anathema

Of the seer-bard, in the pure dews.

Yet there were sleepless eyes
And trembling hearts that night in Palestine.
The lovely check of many a Hebrew maid
Lay, blanch'd and cold, on her supporting hand,
While her dim'd eye gaz'd on the lovely moon
And all the glorious garniture of Heav'n,
Unconscious of their beauty. By the light
Of the dull taper, many a matron glanced
On the untumbled pillow at her side
With sinking heart, and kiss'd the baby-face
That press'd her arm,-sleeping, as roses do,
In purity and sweetness,--with the love-
The deep, deep love-the nameless tenderness,
That swells the heart, when the heart's love is mix'd
With dread solicitude.

Philistia's King

And warlike bands-'midst revelry and mirth,
And joke and jeer, and blasphemy and threat-
Harness'd, and panting for to-morrow's fight,
Lay pitched at Shunem.

To repel the foe-
Proud, vengeful, and malignant--Israel's bands,
With Abner, gallant captain of their host,
Encamp'd at Mount Gilboa. Yet among
That host-the stay and pride, the flower and hope
Of all the tribes of Israel-were fears,-
Those fears, those mystic bodings of the heart
Of coming ill, uncertain, undefin'd,
That fill its throbbings with intenser pain
Than suffering of keen but certain evil.

And there was cause, not vague nor dubious:-
He whose paternal voice, in days now gone,
Had been to Israel like an Oracle,-
Sure to predict, and powerful to restrain,
And wise to guide,--ceas'd from his care, and slept,
Aye, as Earth's faithful ones all shall at last,
Slept a sweet sleep untroubled by a dream.
'Twas as the setting of thy polar star,
Poor storm-toss'd Israel!

Sing Philistia, sing, For thou shalt triumph-shout, for who shall help

same moment motioning to me to replace the and in her averted glance, I read a sentence of passport, and courteously bowing to my departure. contempt and abhorrence! I was again in Virginia!—and as we ascended The pantomime was now commenced; and in the wizard stream of the James river, the stillness the first act, the cottage of Baptist the robber of its sleeping banks excited the passion, without was illuminated by a large chandelier, which the repulsive feeling, of solitude. There it lay oscillated fearfully over the stage. When the before us, an earth-born giant! The midnight curtain fell, at the conclusion of the first act, this moon rode joyously through the sapphire sky. chandelier was lifted among the scenery which Her massy, cold and silvery light spread itself over was suspended to the ceiling. The fatal lamp the deepening chasms of the woods, and her flick- was not extinguished! and it was carelessly sufering beams danced among the shadowy vistas of fered to remain among the canvass paintings and the leafless forest. An eagle perched on a tow- paper scenery which were deposited in the roof ering oak, the diadem of the woods, mingled his of the house. At the opening of the second act, wild scream with the freshening breeze, while every impulse of soul and sense conspired to strew ever and anon that solitary cry gently died away with flowers that path of pleasure which was fast in the mazy shade of cloud and forest. A holy and leading to the grave! subdued stillness brooded over the slumbering earth. In that solemn hour, I forgot for one moment the treasured hate of my life, and the gushing sympathies of father-land hushed the fierce whisper of revenge.

The gloom-the sorrows-the despair-the brooding passions of our nature, were hushed in that swelling torrent of joyous mirth. The barque of life, its pennons gaily floating in the breeze, disported itself on the sunlight bosom of a summer's sea. Full of spirit, harmony and hope, it paused on the verge of the gaping sepulchre which awaited it—and in a moment, it was dashed headlong into an abyss of irretrievable woe and wretchedness.

When I reached Richmond, I took lodgings at the old and venerable "Swan," under the hope of meeting my uncle at that place. He had not yet left home; for he still believed that I had not embarked at France. I lounged in the porch; and while in that situation, a play-bill, with the The second act had now commenced; and, turnusual garniture of ink, attracted my listless eye. ing my eyes towards the stage, I observed several The theatre-a crowd-and Ellen Pilton rushed sparks of fire fall on the floor, and each second on my fancy, and the idle hope of meeting her they increased with frightful velocity. A broad, there instantly occurred to me. My toilet was steady and unwavering flame gleamed from the top soon made, and I walked to the theatre; but of the stage, casting a huge column of muddy light did not reach it until the play was nearly on the horror-stricken countenances of the multiperformed. The beauty, the intelligence, the tude below. Suddenly, a mass of fire, about the size chivalry of Virginia, were gathered in a dense of a man's hand, fell from the burning roof. It mass on that fatal Thursday. Old age, smiling caught for a moment, on a part of the disjointed youth, and blooming infancy filled the tier of scenery, which quickly blazed up, and, with the boxes and crowded the rude benches of the pit; rapidity of the serpent, the ball sped its hissing and as I gazed on that brilliant assembly of genius course, until it descended on the stage, and burst and of beauty, I forgot the glare of Parisian so- into a thousand fragments of fierce and uncontrolciety, in the gems and flowers of my own native lable fire. A player came forward, earnestly land. With much difficulty I forced my way to gesticulating to the audience to leave the house. the centre of the pit; and, turning around, I saw The flame increased rapidly behind him; and in Elien Pilton. Her face was pale, and sadness a voice whose electric tone penetrated the heart had set a funereal seal on that brow where genius of every human being in that assembly, he exwas wont to hold his proudest festival of thought. claimed, “the theatre is on fire!" In a moment the Her wavy hair was bound loosely with a tress of whole roof was a sheet of living flame. It burst its own, and a sickly flower languished amid her with irresistible force through the windows. Fed dishevelled locks. The box in which she sat by the vast columns of air in the hollows and paswas full of glee, spirit and joy. She alone was sages of the theatre-increased by the inflammasilent; and though her eye wandered, it yet failed ble pannels of the boxes, by the dome of the pit, to catch my ardent gaze. The curtain dropped, and by the canvass ceiling of the lower seats-like and the pantomime of the "Bleeding Nun" was a demon of wrath it converged its hundred arms announced as the concluding piece. Placing my- to the centre of human life. A wild and heartself directly before her, the curtain had no sooner rending shriek burst from the devoted multitude. risen, than her large and lustreless eyes fell on me. Women, frantic with terror, screaming for help, A sudden flush athwart her cheek-a tremulous and tossing their arms and dishevelled hair amid movement of her snowy hand-and the quivering the curling flame--fathers and mothers shrieking of her coral lips, declared the stormy memory of out for their children, brothers for their sisters, her heart. She looked on me but for a moment; and husbands for their wives, while the plaintive