"Some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters Point to rich ends." (Tempest, iii. 1.)
"Bacon's leading thought was the good of humanity. He held that study, instead of employing itself in wearisome and sterile speculations, should be engaged in mastering the secrets of nature and life, and in applying them to human use. His method, in the attainment of this end, was rigid and pure observation, aided by experiment and fructified by induction.... He clearly invented a thermometer; he instituted ingenious experiments on the compressibility of bodies, and on the density and weight of air; he suggested chemical processes; he suggested the law of universal gravitation, afterward demonstrated by Newton; he foresaw the true explication of the tides, and the cause of colors." ["American Cyclopedia." Vol. II., p. 204.]
This great work, the "Novum Organum," as often happens, was received by the majority of readers of his time with laughter and ridicule. Coke wrote on the title-page of a presentation copy:
"It deserveth not to be read in schools, But to be freighted in the ship of fools."
The ill-fortune which had so shrouded Bacon's struggling youth, and which had given way to such a magnificent sun-burst of splendid prosperity, was again massing its clouds and determined to cover his old age with shame, gloom and sorrow. He had been Lord Chancellor but three years, when, on March 15, 1621, a committee of the House of Commons reported two cases of bribery or corruption against him. Twenty-two other cases were also soon after presented. The House of Lords proceeded to investigate these charges, and Bacon defended himself. It was shown that fourteen of the twenty-four cases were presents given long after the suits were terminated; three more were sums of money loaned in the ordinary course of business; another case was an arbitration where compensation was due him; in another case the gift was sent back; another present, a piece of furniture, had never been accepted; another case was a New Year's gift, and in other cases the money was openly paid to the officers of his court. "Thus," says Hepworth Dixon, "after the most rigid scrutiny into his official acts, and into the official acts of his servants, not a single fee or remembrance, traced to the chancellor, can, by any fair construction, be called a bribe. Not one appears to have been given on a promise; not one appears to have been given in secret; not one is alleged to have corrupted justice."