e his regard, he took all occasions to represent him to the
queen, and with some degree of justice though more of malice, as a man
of too speculative a turn to apply in earnest to the practical details
of business; one moreover whose head was so filled with abstract and
philosophical notions, that he would not fail to perplex any public
affairs in which he might be permitted to take a lead. The effect of
these suggestions on the mind of Elizabeth was greatly aggravated by the
conduct of Bacon in the parliament of 1593, in consequence of which her
majesty for a considerable time denied him that access to her person
with which he had hitherto been freely and graciously indulged.

Some years before this period, Francis Bacon had become known to the
earl of Essex, whose genuine love of merit induced him to offer him his
friendship and protection. The eagerness with which these were accepted
had deeply offended the Cecils; and their displeasure was about this
time increased, on seeing Anthony Bacon, by his brother's persuasion,
enlist himself under the banner of the same political leader.

Anthony, whose singular history is on many accounts worthy of notice,
was a man of an inquisitive and crafty turn of mind, and seemingly born
for a politician. He, like his brother, had been induced to pay a visit
to France, as the completion of a liberal education; and not finding
himself involved in the same pecuniary difficulties, he had been enabled
to make his abode in that country of much longer duration. From Paris,
which he first visited in 1579, he proceeded to Bourges, Geneva,
Montpelier, Marseilles, Montauban and Bordeaux, in each of which cities
he resided for a considerable length of time. At the latter place he
rendered some services to the protestant inhabitants at great personal
hazard. In 1584 he visited Henry IV., then king of Navarre, at Bearn,
and in 1586 he contracted at Montauban an intimacy with the celebrated
Hugonot leader, du Plessis de Mornay. As Anthony Bacon was invested with
no public character, his continued and voluntary abode in a catholic
country began at length to excite a suspicion in the mind of his mother,
his friends, and the queen herself, that his conduct was influenced by
some secret bias towards the Romish faith;--an impression which received
confirmation from the intimacies which he cultivated with several
English exiles and pensioners of the king of Spain. This idea appears,
however, to have bee