he intellect of Burleigh
was more versatile and acute, that of Bacon more profound; and their
parts in the great drama of public life were cast accordingly: Burleigh
had most of the alertness of observation, the fertility of expedient,
the rapid calculation of contingencies, required in the minister of
state; Bacon, of the gravity and steadfastness which clothe with
reverence and authority the counsellor and judge. "He was a plain man,"
says Francis Bacon of his father, "direct and constant, without all
finesse and doubleness, and one that was of a mind that a man in his
private proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of state, should
rest upon the soundness and strength of his own courses, and not upon
practice to circumvent others."

After Elizabeth had forgiven his interference respecting the succession,
no one was held by her in greater honor and esteem than her lord keeper;
she visited him frequently, conversed with him familiarly; took pleasure
in the flashes of wit which often relieved the seriousness of his
wisdom; and flattered with kind condescension his parental feelings by
the extraordinary notice which she bestowed on his son Francis, whose
brightness and solidity of parts early manifested themselves to her
discerning eye, and caused her to predict that her "little lord keeper"
would one day prove an eminent man.

Great interest was excited by the arrival in Plymouth harbour, in
November 1580, of the celebrated Francis Drake from his circumnavigation
of the globe. National vanity was flattered by the idea that this
Englishman should have been the first commander-in-chief by whom this
great and novel enterprise had been successfully achieved; and both
himself and his ship became in an eminent degree the objects of public
curiosity and wonder. The courage, skill and perseverance of this great
navigator were deservedly extolled; the wealth which he had brought
home, from the plunder of the Spanish settlements, awakened the cupidity
which in that age was a constant attendant on the daring spirit of
maritime adventure, and half the youth of the country were on fire to
embark in expeditions of pillage and discovery.

But the court was not so easily induced to second the ardor of the
nation. Drake's captures from the Spaniards had been made, under some
vague notion of reprisals, whilst no open war was subsisting between the
nations; and the Spanish ambassador, not, it must be confessed, without
some reas