r most
bounden and devoted friend and servant of all men living,

"March 7, 1616 (_i.e._ 1616/1617).
FR. BACON, C.S."

He himself believed the appointment to be a popular one. "I know I am
come in," he writes to the King soon after, "with as strong an envy of
some particulars as with the love of the general." On the 7th of May,
1617, he took his seat in Chancery with unusual pomp and magnificence,
and set forth, in an opening speech, with all his dignity and force, the
duties of his great office and his sense of their obligation. But there
was a curious hesitation in treating him as other men were treated in
like cases. He was only "Lord Keeper." It was not till the following
January (1617/18) that he received the office of Lord Chancellor. It was
not till half a year afterwards that he was made a Peer. Then he became
Baron Verulam (July, 1618), and in January, 1620/21, Viscount St.
Alban's.

From this time Bacon must be thought of, first and foremost, as a Judge
in the great seat which he had so earnestly sought. It was the place not
merely of law, which often tied the judge's hands painfully, but of true
justice, when law failed to give it. Bacon's ideas of the duties of a
judge were clear and strong, as he showed in various admirable speeches
and charges: his duties as regards his own conduct and reputation; his
duties in keeping his subordinates free from the taint of corruption. He
was not ignorant of the subtle and unacknowledged ways in which unlawful
gains may be covered by custom, and an abuse goes on because men will
not choose to look at it. He entered on his office with the full purpose
of doing its work better than it had ever been done. He saw where it
wanted reforming, and set himself at once to reform. The accumulation
and delay of suits had become grievous; at once he threw his whole
energy into the task of wiping out the arrears which the bad health of
his predecessor and the traditional sluggishness of the court had heaped
up. In exactly three months from his appointment he was able to report
that these arrears had been cleared off. "This day" (June 8, 1617), he
writes to Buckingham, "I have made even with the business of the kingdom
for common justice. Not one cause unheard. The lawyers drawn dry of all
the motions they were to make. Not one petition unheard. And this I
think could not be said in our time before."

The performance was splendid, and there is no reason to think that