The suit was submitted to the Queen, but without result. Probably it was not urged with a determination to obtain its acceptance in spite of any objections which might be raised by the Queen. Five years after, Bacon, still a suppliant, wrote to Walsingham: "I think the objection to my years will wear away with the length of my suit." Cautious Lord Burghley would give full weight to the force of this objection if it were advanced by the Queen. He loved this boy, with his extraordinary abilities, but he had such novel and far-reaching ideas. He appeared to have no adequate reverence for his inferior superiors. On leaving Cambridge he had arrogantly condemned its cherished methods of imparting knowledge. Before power was placed in his hands the use he might make of it must be well weighed and considered. What effect might the advancement of Francis Bacon have on Robert Cecil's career? Granted that the contentions of the former were sound, and the object desirable, should not this work be carried out by the Universities? Never leap until you know where you are going to alight was a proverb the soundness of which had been proved in Lord Burghley's experience. What might be the outcome if this rare and unaccustomed suit were granted? Better for the Queen, who, though slow to bestow favours, was always ready to encourage hopes, to follow her usual course. She might entertain the motion graciously and return a favourable answer and let it rest there. And so it did. Then there was a happening which has remained unknown until now. CHAPTER XI. BACON'S SECOND VISIT TO THE CONTINENT AND AFTER. In the "Reliquiæ Bodleianæ," published in 1703, is a letter written without date by Thomas Bodley to Francis Bacon. This letter does not appear to have been known to Mallett, Montague, Dixon, Spedding, or any of Bacon's biographers. It had been lost sight of until the writer noticed it and reproduced it in _Baconiana_. This is the letter:--