is grasp of business, and
his willing industry, ought to have entitled him. He was still a
servant, and made to feel it, though a servant in the "first form." It
was James and Buckingham who determined the policy of the country, or
settled the course to be taken in particular transactions; when this was
settled, it was Bacon's business to carry it through successfully. In
this he was like all the other servants of the Crown, and like them he
was satisfied with giving his advice, whether it were taken or not; but
unlike many of them he was zealous in executing with the utmost vigour
and skill the instructions which were given him. Thus he was required to
find the legal means for punishing Raleigh; and, as a matter of duty, he
found them. He was required to tell the Government side of the story of
Raleigh's crimes and punishment--which really was one side of the story,
only not by any means the whole; and he told it, as he had told the
Government story against Essex, with force, moderation, and good sense.
Himself, he never would have made James's miserable blunders about
Raleigh; but the blunders being made, it was his business to do his best
to help the King out of them. When Suffolk, the Lord Treasurer, was
disgraced and brought before the Star Chamber for corruption and
embezzlement in his office, Bacon thought that he was doing no more than
his duty in keeping Buckingham informed day by day how the trial was
going on; how he had taken care that Suffolk's submission should not
stop it--"for all would be but a play on the stage if justice went not
on in the right course;" how he had taken care that the evidence went
well--"I will not say I sometime holp it, as far as was fit for a
judge;" how, "a little to warm the business" ... "I spake a word, that
he that did draw or milk treasure from Ireland, did not, _emulgere_,
milk money, but blood." This, and other "little things" like it, while
he was sitting as a judge to try, if the word may be used, a personal
enemy of Buckingham, however bad the case might be against Suffolk,
sound strange indeed to us; and not less so when, in reporting the
sentence and the various opinions of the Council about it, he, for once,
praises Coke for the extravagance of his severity: "Sir Edward Coke did
his part--I have not heard him do better--and began with a fine of
L100,000; but the judges first, and most of the rest, reduced it to
L30,000. I do not dislike that thing passed moderately; an