te Trials'; and in these early days he studied some of the famous
cases, such as those of Palmer and Dove, with a professional as well as
a literary interest. In later life he avoided such stories; but at this
period he occasionally made a text of them for newspaper articles, and
was, perhaps, tempted to adopt theories of the case too rapidly. This
was thought to be the case in regard to one Bacon, who was tried in
Lincoln in the summer of 1857. The case was one to which Fitzjames
certainly attached great importance, and I will briefly mention it
before passing to his literary career.

Bacon and his wife were tried at London in the spring of 1857 for the
murder of their two young children. It was sufficiently proved upon that
occasion that Mrs. Bacon (who had already been in a madhouse) committed
the crime in a fit of insanity. Bacon, however, had endeavoured to
manufacture some evidence in order to give countenance to a theory that
the murder had been committed by housebreakers during his absence. He
thus incurred suspicion, and was placed upon trial with his wife. It
also came out that he had been tried (and acquitted) a year before for
setting fire to his own house, and reasons appeared for suspecting him
of an attempt to poison his mother at Stamford three years previously.
Upon these facts Fitzjames wrote an article in the 'Saturday
Review.'[65] He declared that the crime was as interesting, except for
the want of dignity of the actors, as the events which gave the plot of
some of the tragedies of Aeschylus. It reminded him, too, of the terrible
story of 'Jane Eyre.' For we had to suppose either that Bacon suffered
by his marriage to a mad woman who had poisoned his mother, burnt his
house, and cut his children's throats; or else that the wife's last
outbreak had been the incidental cause of the discovery of his own
previous crimes. In the last case we had an instance of that
'retributive vengeance' which, though it cannot be 'reduced to a very
logical form, speaks in tones of thunder to the imaginations of
mankind.'

The case came, as it happened, to the Midland Circuit. Bacon was tried
in Lincoln on July 25 for poisoning his mother. Fitzjames writes from
the court, where he is waiting in the hope that he may be asked by the
judge to defend the prisoner. While he writes, the request comes
accordingly, and he feels that if he is successful he may make the first
step to fortune. He was never cooler or calmer, he sa