To Sir T.Bodley he writes: "I think no man may more truly say with the Psalm, _Multum incola fuit anima mea_ [Ps.

120] than myself.

For I do confess since I was of any understanding, my mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done; and in absence are many errors which I willingly acknowledge; and among them, this great one which led the rest: that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which I was not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my mind.

Therefore, calling myself home, I have now enjoyed myself; whereof likewise I desire to make the world partaker." To Lord Salisbury, in a note of elaborate compliment, he describes his purpose by an image which he repeats more than once.

"I shall content myself to awake better spirits, _like a bell-ringer, which is first up to call others to church_." But the two friends whose judgment he chiefly valued, and who, as on other occasions, were taken into his most intimate literary confidence, were Bishop Andrewes, his "inquisitor," and Toby Matthews, a son of the Archbishop of York, who had become a Roman Catholic, and lived in Italy, seeing a good deal of learned men there, apparently the most trusted of all Bacon's friends.
When Parliament met again in November, 1605, the Gunpowder Plot and its consequences filled all minds.