t that her fortune atoned
for her want of rank. But it never occurred to Bacon's contemporaries to
put such a construction on the announcement. Far from using the words in
an apologetic manner, the lover meant them to express concisely that
Alice Barnham was a lady of suitable condition to bear a title as well
as to become his bride. Cecil regarded them merely as an assurance that
his relative meditated a suitable and even advantageous alliance, just
as any statesman of the present day would read an announcement that a
kinsman, making his way in the law-courts, intended to marry 'an
admiral's daughter' or a 'bishop's daughter.' That it was the reverse of
a mercenary marriage, Mr. Hepworth Dixon has indisputably proved in his
eighth chapter of 'The Story of Lord Bacon's Life,' where he contrasts
Lady Bacon's modest fortune with her husband's personal acquisitions and
prospects.

[4] To readers who have no sense of humor and irony, the essay 'Of Love'
unquestionably gives countenance to the theory that Francis Bacon was
cold and passionless in all that concerned woman. Of the many strange
constructions put upon this essay, not the least amusing and perverse is
that which would make it a piece of adroit flattery to Elizabeth, who
never permitted love "to check with business," though she is represented
to have used it as a diversion in idle moments. If Sir Thomas More's
'Utopia' had been published a quarter of a century after 1518 (the date
of its appearance), a similar construction would have been put on the
passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by an indissoluble
tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied each of the
contracting parties that the other does not labor under any grave
personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage containing
this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it might then
be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct to Anne of
Cleves.

[5] When due allowance has been made for the difference between the
usages of the sixteenth century and the present time, decency was
signally violated by this marriage, which followed so soon upon Mrs.
Coke's death, and still sooner upon the death of Lady Hatton's famous
grandfather, at whose funeral the lawyer made the first overtures for
her hand. Mrs. Coke died June 27, 1598, and was buried at Huntingfield,
co. Suffolk, July 24, 1598. Lord Burleigh expired on August 4, of the
same year. Coke's