And yet, that man so gifted and transcendant, was guilty of actions which equal in turpitude aught that is recorded in the history of human weakness. Whether we are to ascribe it to the discipline of his profession, fostering some inborn tendencies to what is disreputable and degrading, we do not tarry to inquire; but looking at the fact which history renders too unquestionable, we have in this illustrious philosopher but unscrupulous man, a painful exhibition of man's native weakness when the heavenly lamp is shaded or extinguished. Some have explained the low morality of Bacon by supposing that he was an infidel, and some of his reputed works rather favour the supposition.[35] But his productions as a whole forbid us to adopt that solution, and we are consequently left with an example of a most painful kind, to prove the worthlessness of powers the most colossal, of learning and originality unsurpassed, of gifts the most varied and transcendent to keep man in the path of virtue, when the heavenly guide is abandoned. We can only enumerate in a catalogue some of the incidents in the life of Bacon which establish these conclusions. "MEN OF HIGH DEGREE ARE A LIE." At a critical period, he received from the Earl of Essex, when that nobleman was in favour with Queen Elizabeth, a gift of land which was worth at least £1800. Yet against his benefactor, Bacon afterwards enlisted his great powers, to convict him of high-treason; and that merely to purchase the Queen's favour, and promote the philosopher's advancement. "Bacon spent the ten days which elapsed between the commitment of Essex to the Tower and his arraignment, shut up in his chambers in Gray's Inn, studying the law of treason; looking out for parallel cases of an aggravated nature in the history of other countries, and considering how he might paint the unpardonable guilt of the accused in even blacker colours than could be employed by the ferocious Coke, famous for insulting his victims."[36] The man whom Bacon thus laboured to condemn had heaped favour after favour upon him, and been meanly fawned upon in return, yet during the trial, Lord Campbell says, Bacon "most artfully and inhumanly compared Essex to the Duke of Guise," and adds, in regard to the Earl after he was condemned, and an interview which Bacon had with the Queen upon the subject, "Why did he not throw himself on his knees before her and pray for a pardon? Because, while it was possible that he might have melted her, it was possible that he might have offended her, and that, a vacancy in the office of Solicitor-General occurring, (for which Bacon was a suitor) he might be again passed over."