In 1576 he was entered as a Student in the Society of Gray’s Inn, with the view of keeping his terms for the bar. Before, however, he commenced his legal studies, his father sent him to France, in the suite of the Queen’s Ambassador, Sir Amias Paulet. During his residence abroad he wrote his first work, which was not intended originally for publication, but was improved and printed after some years. It is called, A short View of the Present State of Europe. It derives its chief interest from having been written at the early age of nineteen; but the civil and political views are sound, and the composition graceful. In 1579 Sir Nicholas Bacon died, leaving Francis but a small share of his fortune, in consequence of family circumstances, which we need not here relate. Finding his private means insufficient for his support, he returned to England, and commenced the study of the Law, to which he applied himself with great diligence. He did not, however, suffer the demands of his profession to interfere with those pursuits, in which he was fully persuaded that his great strength lay. Between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight he produced a work, which he called the Greatest Birth of Time. It was never published, and is lost in its separate form, but the substance of it remains in his Instauration. In 1582 Bacon was called to the bar, and in 1588 was chosen Reader or Lecturer by the Society of which he was a member, and the same year he received the only mark of honour conferred upon him in the reign of Elizabeth, in the title of Counsel Learned in the Law Extraordinary. It seems strange that Bacon, who was the nephew of the Lord High Treasurer Burleigh, and cousin of the principal Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil, should never have been able to obtain any office in the Court of Elizabeth. The reason possibly was that he had early attached himself to the faction of the Earl of Essex, who, though the Queen’s greatest favourite, was in constant opposition to her ministers. This unfortunate nobleman exerted himself to the utmost, at the extreme risk of offending: his testy mistress, to secure for Bacon the place of Solicitor General, as the first step of legal advancement; but he was unsuccessful. The ministers declared their belief that Bacon was merely a theorist, and that his talents were not of a nature fitted for practical purposes: perhaps there was no small mixture of jealousy in this declaration. To make some amends to his friend for this disappointment, Essex gave him an estate (which he afterwards sold at an under price for 1300_l._) out of his private fortune: one of many kindnesses which Bacon too ill requited.