Bacon's history, as read in his letters, is not an agreeable one; after every allowance made for the fashions of language and the necessities of a suitor, there is too much of insincere profession of disinterestedness, too much of exaggerated profession of admiration and devoted service, too much of disparagement and insinuation against others, for a man who respected himself.

He submitted too much to the miserable conditions of rising which he found.
But, nevertheless, it must be said that it was for no mean object, for no mere private selfishness or vanity, that he endured all this.

He strove hard to be a great man and a rich man.

But it was that he might have his hands free and strong and well furnished to carry forward the double task of overthrowing ignorance and building up the new and solid knowledge on which his heart was set--that immense conquest of nature on behalf of man which he believed to be possible, and of which he believed himself to have the key.
The letter to Lord Burghley did not help him much.

He received the reversion of a place, the Clerkship of the Council, which did not become vacant for twenty years.