But not contented with having pled for the condemnation of Essex, Bacon, in order to ingratiate himself farther with the Queen, published an attack upon the fallen man, regarding which the great philosopher's biographer says: "No honourable man would purchase Bacon's subsequent elevation at the price of being the author of this publication.... The base ingratitude and the slavish meanness manifested by him on this occasion, called forth the general indignation of his contemporaries.... He had before his eyes no just standard of honour, and in the race of ambition, he had lost all sense of the distinctions between right and wrong." THE TORTURE. EMPLOYED BY LORD BACON. It were a weariness to trace all the instances of Bacon's meanness in place-hunting, and his fulsome adulation of those who appeared likely to promote his views. He even went so far as to prosecute a clergyman named Peacham, for a sermon alleged to contain treason, but never either preached or published. Bacon was then Attorney-General. He tampered with the judges, says Lord Campbell, and had the unhappy man put to the torture, to wring a confession from him, without success. "He was examined before torture, between torture, and after torture. "--These are Bacon's own words, and according to the biographer of the Chancellors, there is reason to believe that he even presided at the rack. He thus outraged the law and the constitution of England to gratify James I., then upon the throne. But the Lord Chancellor of the day was aged and infirm. Lord Campbell says, "he could not much longer hold the seals, and Bacon was resolved to be his successor." That was his aim, and is not Lord Campbell right in adding, "there are stronger contrasts of light and shade in the character of Bacon, than probably of any other man who ever lived?" The instances of meanness, of subserviency, of adulation to those from whom he expected favours, as proved by his own letters, convict this philosopher and sage of conduct which would have degraded a menial; while to the whole he could add a malignity never surpassed, all under pretence of acting a Christian part. His biographer says that he poured oil of vitriol into the wounds he had inflicted, and it was in perfect keeping with this that that Attorney-General of England, in consequence of some offence which he had unwarily given, flung himself on the floor, kissed the feet of such a man as Buckingham, the profligate favourite of James, and vowed never to rise till he was forgiven. BACON'S BRIBES--