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O my lords, spare a broken reed!"
It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
sentenced to pay a fine of L40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
L1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of L2,500, this
"meanest of mankind" set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
he could also be the "wisest and brightest;"[33] a duality of fame
approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
philosopher.


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