There is more of the same kind; though whether it is quite fair to take the testimony of this Edward Spencer without hearing what Lady Bacon could report of _him_, is worth a thought. He must have been a surly fellow, from his offering so readily to pull off the hawk’s head. Our next quotation brings us back to Francis, and the unhappy subject of his debts: we have hints, too, of the influence under which she suspects these debts to be incurred, which the modern biographer is unable to follow out; and which, from the different manners of a former age, it is difficult entirely to understand. But we are confirmed by these extracts in our previous convictions, that the loss which Francis is said to have sustained by the sudden death of his father (who thus failed to make the full provision for him he intended) cannot be represented as the real cause of his embarrassments. Mr Spedding represents this fact “as perplexing the problem of his life with a new and inconvenient addition.” But it could not have materially perplexed the problem of his life, unless it disabled him from living upon his private fortune. It made him a poorer gentleman; but if he had been a richer, he would still have been a suitor at the Court, and still, in all probability, have incurred debts. He and Anthony live together, and we find them alternately assisting each other. There is no evidence of a great disparity in their fortunes. What share Francis had in the “coach” we know not, but we hear of him purchasing horses; and certainly the mother does not look upon the embarrassments of Francis as some inevitable consequence of his position. She is applied to, in the present case, to assist him in the payment of his debts, by joining in the sale of an estate which belongs to him, but in which she has some legal right. Anthony makes the request, and receives the following reply:— “For your brotherly care of your brother Francis’s estate you are to be well liked, and so I do as a Christian mother that loveth you both as the children of God; but, as I wrote but in a few words yesterday by my neighbour, the state of you both doth much disquiet me, as in Greek words I signified shortly.