replied: "He
has indeed great wit and much learning, but in law, my lord, he is not
deeply read,"--an opinion perhaps put into her head by his rival Coke,
who did indeed know law but scarcely anything else, or by that class of
old-fashioned functionaries who could not conceive how a man could
master more than one thing. We should however remember that Bacon had
not reached the age when great offices were usually conferred in the
professions, and that his efforts to be made solicitor-general at the
age of thirty-one, and even earlier, would now seem unreasonable and
importunate, whatever might be his attainments. Disappointed in not
receiving high office, he meditated a retreat to Cambridge; but his
friend Essex gave him a villa in Twickenham, which he soon mortgaged,
for he was in debt all his life, although in receipt of sums which would
have supported him in comfort and dignity were it not for his habits of
extravagance,--the greatest flaw in his character, and which was the
indirect cause of his disgrace and fall. He was even arrested for debt
when he enjoyed a lucrative practice at the courts. But nothing
prevented him from pursuing his literary and scientific studies, amid
great distractions,--for he was both a leader at the bar and a leader of
the House of Commons; and if he did not receive the rewards to which he
felt entitled, he was always consulted by Elizabeth in great legal
difficulties.

It was not until the Queen died, and Bacon was forty-seven years old,
that he became solicitor-general (1607), in the fourth year of the reign
of James, one year after his marriage with Alice Barnham, an alderman's
daughter, "a handsome maiden," and "to his liking." Besides this office,
which brought him L1000 a year, he about this time had a windfall as
clerk of the Star Chamber, which added L2000 to his income, at that time
from all sources about L4500 a year,--a very large sum for those times,
and making him really a rich man. Six years afterward he was made
attorney-general, and in the year 1617 he was made Lord Keeper, and the
following year he was raised to the highest position in the realm, next
to that of Archbishop of Canterbury, as Lord Chancellor, at the age of
fifty-seven, and soon after was created Lord Verulam. That is his title,
but the world persists in calling him Lord Bacon. In 1620, two years
after the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh, which Bacon advised, he was
in the zenith of his fortunes and fame, hav