the year, besides caps and courtesies. Two things I may assure your
Lordship. The one, that I shall lead such a course of life as whatsoever
the King doth for me shall rather sort to his Majesty's and your
Lordship's honour than to envy; the other, that whatsoever men talk, I
can play the good husband, and the King's bounty shall not be lost."

It might be supposed from the tone of these applications that Bacon's
mind was bowed down and crushed by the extremity of his misfortune.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. In his behaviour during his
accusation there was little trace of that high spirit and fortitude
shown by far inferior men under like disasters. But the moment the
tremendous strain of his misfortunes was taken off, the vigour of his
mind recovered itself. The buoyancy of his hopefulness, the elasticity
of his energy, are as remarkable as his profound depression. When the
end was approaching, his thoughts turned at once to other work to be
done, ready in plan, ready to be taken up and finished. At the close of
his last desperate letter to the King he cannot resist finishing at once
with a jest, and with the prospect of two great literary undertakings--

"This is my last suit which I shall make to your Majesty in this
business, prostrating myself at your mercy seat, after fifteen
years service, wherein I have served your Majesty in my poor
endeavours with an entire heart, and, as I presumed to say unto
your Majesty, am still a virgin for matters that concern your
person and crown; and now only craving that after eight steps of
honour I be not precipitated altogether. But because he that hath
taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go furder, and present
your Majesty with a bribe. For if your Majesty will give me peace
and leisure, and God give me life, I will present your Majesty with
a good history of England, and a better digest of your laws."

The Tower did, indeed, to use a word of the time, "mate" him. But the
moment he was out of it, his quick and fertile mind was immediately at
work in all directions, reaching after all kinds of plans, making proof
of all kinds of expedients to retrieve the past, arranging all kinds of
work according as events might point out the way. His projects for
history, for law, for philosophy, for letters, occupy quite as much of
his thoughts as his pardon and his debts; and they, we have seen,
occupied a good deal.