get: Lastly, I confess that
I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for I
have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of
two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations,
confutations and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and
auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I
hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions,
and profitable inventions and discoveries, the best state of that
province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or,
if one take it favorably, _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it
cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable
countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than a man's own; which
is the thing I do greatly affect."

Burleigh was no philosopher, though a lover of learning, and it could
not perhaps be expected that he should at once perceive how eminently
worthy was this laborer of the hire which he was reduced to solicit. He
contented himself therefore with procuring for his kinsman the reversion
of the place of register of the Star-chamber, worth about sixteen
hundred pounds per annum. Of this office however, which might amply have
satisfied the wants of a student, it was unfortunately near twenty years
before Bacon obtained possession; and during this tedious time of
expectation, he was wont to say, "that it was like another man's ground
abutting upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not
fill his barn." He made however a grateful return to the lord treasurer
for this instance of patronage, by composing an answer to a popish
libel, entitled "A Declaration of the true Causes of the late Troubles,"
in which he warmly vindicated the conduct of this minister, of his own
father, and of other members of the administration; not forgetting to
make a high eulogium on the talents and dispositions of Robert
Cecil,--now the most powerful instrument at court to serve or to injure.
Unhappily for the fortunes of Bacon, and in some respects for his moral
character also, this selfish and perfidious statesman was endowed with
sufficient reach of intellect to form some estimate of the transcendent
abilities of his kinsman; and struck with dread or envy, he seems to
have formed a systematic design of impeding by every art his favor and
advancement. Unmoved by the eloquent adulation with which Bacon sought
to propitiat