What was this rare and unaccustomed suit of which the Queen could have had no experience and which, according to Spedding, would make it unnecessary for Bacon to follow "ordinary practice at the bar"? Historians and biographers have founded on this suit the allegation that from his earliest years Bacon was a place hunter, entirely ignoring the fact, which is made clear from the letter to Walsingham written four years after the application was first made, that he had resolved on a course of action which, if her Majesty liked not his suit, by the leave of God he must and would follow, not for any necessity of estate, but for his credit sake. Here was a young man of twenty years of age, earnestly urging the adoption of a scheme which he had conceived, and which he feared Burghley might consider indiscreet and unadvised. Failing in obtaining his object, as will be proved by definite evidence, undertaking at the cost of Thomas Bodley and other friends a course of travel to better fit him for the task he had mapped out as his life's work--returning to England and, four years after his first request had been made, renewing his suit--grimly in earnest and determined to carry the scheme through at all costs, with or without the Queen's aid. This is not the conduct of a mere place hunter. If these letters be read aright and the reasonable theory which will be advanced of the nature of the suit be accepted--all efforts to suggest any explanation having hitherto, as Spedding admits, proved futile--a fresh light will be thrown upon the character of Francis Bacon, and the heavy obligation under which he has placed his countrymen for all ages will for the first time be recognised. In the seven volumes of "Bacon's Life and Letters" there is nothing to justify the eulogy on his character to which Spedding gave utterance in the following words:--"But in him the gift of seeing in prophetic vision what might be and ought to be was united with the practical talent of devising means and handling minute details. He could at once imagine like a poet and execute like a clerk of the works. Upon the conviction _This must be done_ followed at once _How_ may it be done? Upon that question answered followed the resolution to try and do it." But although Spedding fails to produce any evidence to justify his statement, it is nevertheless correct. More than that, the actual achievement followed with unerring certainty, but Spedding restricts Bacon's life's work to the establishment of a system of inductive philosophy, and records the failure of the system.