than that between the chancellor and the philosopher, or, as Macaulay has well termed it, “Bacon seeking for truth, and Bacon seeking for the Seals—Bacon in speculation, and Bacon in action.” From amidst clouds and darkness we emerge into the full blaze and splendor of midday light.
We now find Bacon wholly devoting himself to the pursuits for which nature adapted him, and from which no extent of occupation could entirely detach him. The author redeemed the man; in the philosopher and the poet there was no weakness, no corruption.
Here the writer yielded not to vitia temporis; but combated them with might and main, with heart and soul.
In 1623, he published the Life of Henry VII. In a letter addressed to the Queen of Bohemia with a copy, he says pathetically: “’Time was I had honor without leisure, and now I have leisure without honor.” But his honor without leisure had precipitated him into “bottomless perdition;” his leisure without honor retrieved his name, and raised him again to an unattainable height.