"For my burial, I desire it may be in St. Michael's Church near St. Albans. There was my mother buried, and it is the parish church of my mansion house at Gorhambury, and it is the only Christian church within the walls of Old Verulam. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next ages." SIR NICHOLAS BACON. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal during the greater part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst, in Kent, in 1510. Few men have enjoyed during a long and brilliant career a more unblemished reputation for probity, or have conducted themselves in troubled and dangerous times with more prudence and good discretion than this celebrated statesman and judge. He received his first rudiments of learning at home, and at a small village school in the neighbourhood of his father's house; but when still very young he was sent to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Here he made great progress in all branches of useful knowledge, and then travelled over France, making some stay in Paris, in order, as an old chronicler remarks, "to give the last polish to his education." Either this last polish or his natural gifts enabled him to turn his speeches with singular aptitude and felicity. Though resolute in proposing and carrying out any measure he deemed advisable, he spoke with so much prudence and tact, that he ever succeeded in retaining the good will even of his opponents. This is all the more remarkable, for never, perhaps, did party feeling run so high, never was party animosity more bitter, both with regard to politics and also on religious subjects, than during this period, when England was convulsed by the tremendous changes that were taking place in the Church, and by the savage persecutions that had been endured and inflicted both by Protestants and by Roman Catholics. Alas! that men, while calling themselves Christians, should so distort and make of none effect the first principles of our Divine Teacher! When Bacon returned from Paris he settled in Gray's Inn, and applied himself with such assiduity to the study of the law, that he speedily became of note amongst the learned in that profession. His profound knowledge of many difficult points of law enabled him to be useful not only to the Government but also to the King (Henry VIII.), insomuch that, on the dissolution of the Monastery of Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk, King Henry conferred upon him several manors in that county. Two years afterwards he was promoted to the office of Attorney of Wards, an appointment of both honour and profit. Edward VI. confirmed him in this post, and in the last year of that King's reign Bacon was elected treasurer of Gray's Inn. His great moderation and his consummate prudence preserved him safely during the dangerous reign of Queen Mary, although he was well known to be a staunch Protestant.