have been jealous of him, or suspected him as a friend of Essex; he
certainly gave Bacon good reason to think that his words meant nothing.
Except Essex, and perhaps his brother Antony--the most affectionate and
devoted of brothers--no one had yet recognised all that Bacon was.
Meanwhile time was passing. The vastness, the difficulties, the
attractions of that conquest of all knowledge which he dreamed of, were
becoming greater every day to his thoughts. The law, without which he
could not live, took up time and brought in little. Attendance on the
Court was expensive, yet indispensable, if he wished for place. His
mother was never very friendly, and thought him absurd and extravagant.
Debts increased and creditors grumbled. The outlook was discouraging,
when his friendship with Essex opened to him a more hopeful prospect.

In the year 1593 the Attorney-General's place was vacant, and Essex, who
in that year became a Privy Councillor, determined that Bacon should be
Attorney-General. Bacon's reputation as a lawyer was overshadowed by his
philosophical and literary pursuits. He was thought young for the
office, and he had not yet served in any subordinate place. And there
was another man, who was supposed to carry all English law in his head,
full of rude force and endless precedents, hard of heart and voluble of
tongue, who also wanted it. An Attorney-General was one who would bring
all the resources and hidden subtleties of English law to the service of
the Crown, and use them with thorough-going and unflinching resolution
against those whom the Crown accused of treason, sedition, or invasion
of the prerogative. It is no wonder that the Cecils, and the Queen
herself, thought Coke likely to be a more useful public servant than
Bacon: it is certain what Coke himself thought about it, and what his
estimate was of the man whom Essex was pushing against him. But Essex
did not take up his friend's cause in the lukewarm fashion in which
Burghley had patronised his nephew. There was nothing that Essex pursued