Languages & literature > Bacon's essays, and Goldsmith's essays

XVI HISTORICAL AND
general, but submitted to the degrading servi¬
tude of acting as steward to the estates bestow¬
ed upon him by the king. In order to secure
bis favourite object, when the expected death
of the lord chancellor promised him an oppor¬
tunity of succeeding, Bacon did not choose
wholly to rely upon the interest which his
faithful services to the crown might have
created for him in the breast of his royal
master, but wrote a letter to his majesty-
in which he endeavoured to depreciate the
merit of those men who might probably be
thought of as proper to fill this high office, and
rested his own claim on his ready obedience,
and his power of influencing the lower house
of parliament. The letter so fully lays open
the mind of Bacon in this affair, that it will not
be improper to make an extract from it of con¬
siderable length.
“ I beseech your majesty, let me put
you the present case truly. If you take my Lord
Coke, this will follow: first, your majesty shall
put an over-ruling nature into an over-ruling
place, which may breed an extreme; next, you
shall blunt his industry in matter of finances,
which seemeth to aim at another place; and
lastly, popular men are no sure mounters for