stopped. We may put aside for good the charge on which he was condemned,
and which in words he admitted--of being corrupt as a judge. His real
fault--and it was a great one--was that he did not in time open his eyes
to the wrongness and evil, patent to every one, and to himself as soon
as pointed out, of the traditional fashion in his court of eking out by
irregular gifts the salary of such an office as his.

Thus Bacon was condemned both to suffering and to dishonour; and, as has
been observed, condemned without a trial. But it must also be observed
that it was entirely owing to his own act that he had not a trial, and
with a trial the opportunity of cross-examining witnesses and of
explaining openly the matters urged against him. The proceedings in the
Lords were preliminary to the trial; when the time came, Bacon, of his
own choice, stopped them from going farther, by his confession and
submission. Considering the view which he claimed to take of his own
case, his behaviour was wanting in courage and spirit. From the moment
that the attack on him shifted from a charge of authorising illegal
monopolies to a charge of personal corruption, he never fairly met his
accusers. The distress and anxiety, no doubt, broke down his health; and
twice, when he was called upon to be in his place in the House of Lords,
he was obliged to excuse himself on the ground that he was too ill to
leave his bed. But between the time of the first charge and his
condemnation seven weeks elapsed; and though he was able to go down to
Gorhambury, he never in that time showed himself in the House of Lords.
Whether or not, while the Committees were busy in collecting the
charges, he would have been allowed to take part, to put questions to
the witnesses, or to produce his own, he never attempted to do so; and
by the course he took there was no other opportunity. To have stood his
trial could hardly have increased his danger, or aggravated his
punishment; and it would only have been worthy of his name and place, if
not to have made a fight for his character and integrity, at least to
have bravely said what he had made up his mind to admit, and what no one
could have said more nobly and pathetically, in open Parliament. But he
was cowed at the fierceness of the disapprobation manifest in both
Houses. He shrunk from looking his peers and his judges in the face. His
friends obtained for him that he should not be brought to the bar, and
that all should p