But all that Mr.
Spedding's industry and profound interest in the subject has brought together throws but an uncertain light on Bacon's long disappointment.
Was it the rooted misgiving of a man of affairs like Burghley at that passionate contempt of all existing knowledge, and that undoubting confidence in his own power to make men know, as they never had known, which Bacon was even now professing?
Or was it something soft and over-obsequious in character which made the uncle, who knew well what men he wanted, disinclined to encourage and employ the nephew?
Was Francis not hard enough, not narrow enough, too full of ideas, too much alive to the shakiness of current doctrines and arguments on religion and policy?
Was he too open to new impressions, made by objections or rival views?
Or did he show signs of wanting backbone to stand amid difficulties and threatening prospects?
Did Burghley see something in him of the pliability which he could remember as the serviceable quality of his own young days--which suited those days of rapid change, but not days when change was supposed to be over, and when the qualities which were wanted were those which resist and defy it?
The only thing that is clear is that Burghley, in spite of Bacon's continual applications, abstained to the last from advancing his fortunes.
Whether employed by government or not, Bacon began at this time to prepare those carefully-written papers on the public affairs of the day, of which he has left a good many.

In our day they would have been pamphlets or magazine articles.

In his they were circulated in manuscript, and only occasionally printed.

The first of any importance is a letter of advice to the Queen, about the year 1585, on the policy to be followed with a view to keeping in check the Roman Catholic interest at home and abroad.

It is calm, sagacious, and, according to the fashion of the age, slightly Machiavellian.