t man at James's Court; and to the last
there was one thing that Bacon would not appear to believe--he did not
choose to believe that it was Cecil who kept him back from employment
and honour. To the last he persisted in assuming that Cecil was the
person who would help, if he could, a kinsman devoted to his interests
and profoundly conscious of his worth. To the last he commended his
cause to Cecil in terms of unstinted affection and confiding hope. It is
difficult to judge of the sincerity of such language. The mere customary
language of compliment employed by every one at this time was of a kind
which to us sounds intolerable. It seems as if nothing that ingenuity
could devise was too extravagant for an honest man to use, and for a man
who respected himself to accept. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that
conventionalities, as well as insincerity, differ in their forms in
different times; and that insincerity may lurk behind frank and clear
words, when they are the fashion, as much as in what is like mere
fulsome adulation. But words mean something, in spite of forms and
fashions. When a man of great genius writes his private letters, we wish
generally to believe on the whole what he says; and there are no limits
to the esteem, the honour, the confidence, which Bacon continued to the
end to express towards Cecil. Bacon appeared to trust him--appeared, in
spite of continued disappointments, to rely on his good-will and good
offices. But for one reason or another Bacon still remained in the
shade. He was left to employ his time as he would, and to work his way
by himself.

He was not idle. He prepared papers which he meant should come before
the King, on the pressing subjects of the day. The Hampton Court
conference between the Bishops and the Puritan leaders was at hand, and
he drew up a moderating paper on the _Pacification of the Church_. The
feeling against him for his conduct towards Essex had not died away, and
he addressed to Lord Mountjoy that _Apology concerning the Earl of
Essex_, so full of interest, so skilfully and forcibly written, so vivid
a picture of the Queen's ways with her servants, which has every merit
except that of clearing Bacon from the charge of disloyalty to his best
friend. The various questions arising out of the relations of the two
kingdoms, now united under James, were presenting themselves. They were
not of easy solution, and great mischief would follow if they were
solved wrongly. Ba