English court in that country, during the extraordinary scene of political and religious commotion which preceded the introduction of the reformation into Scotland. The letters written by Sadler at this eventful period are numerous and extremely interesting. The unfortunate queen of Scotland was placed under Sir Ralph's charge at Tutbury, for eight months towards the close of her life. In this odious service he displayed a manlier and more feeling heart than any of Mary's other keepers; her misfortunes touched his sympathy, he believed her innocent of the offences laid to her charge; and he hastened to communicate the favourable opinion which he had formed of her both to Elizabeth herself, and her minister Cecil. Elizabeth immediately removed Mary from Sadler's charge, but that she did not cease to confide in him is evident from her employing him shortly afterwards in a mission to James VI. to dissuade that prince from going to war with England on his mother's account. Sir Ralph made a discreditable marriage, for on the 9th of December, 1554, an act of parliament was passed to legitimate his children by Ellen, his wife; and Matthew Barre, her former husband, is therein stated to be at that time alive. He died on the 30th of March, 1587.

Sir Nicholas Bacon.

BORN A. D. 1510.-DIED A. D. 1579.

SIR NICHOLAS BACON, lord-keeper of the great seal in the reign of Elizabeth, was descended from an ancient and honourable family of Suffolk, and was born, in 1510, at Chislehurst in Kent. At an early age he was entered of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge; and, after studying there some years, he went to France, to give the last polish to his education. On his return home he fixed himself at Gray's inn, where he applied with great assiduity to the study of the law, and, in the 38th year of Henry VIII., we find him promoted to the office of attorney in the court of wards. His patent to this honourable and lucrative office was renewed in the succeeding brief reign; but the accession of Mary threw a transient cloud over his fortunes. In the very dawn of Elizabeth's reign he received the honour of knighthood; and, on the seals being taken from Archbishop Heath, they were transferred, with the title of lord-keeper, to Sir Nicholas Bacon, on the 22d of December, 1558.

In the parliament which met in January, 1559, and in which, it was anticipated, the queen's title to the crown, and her marriage, would come under discussion, the lord-keeper afforded his royal mistress the most prudent and judicious advice, counselling her not to press the repeal of those acts of her father's reign, which had declared his marriage with her mother null, and herself illegitimate; but to repose in the maxim of law-that the crown, once worn, takes away all defects in blood. He also opened the parliament in the queen's presence, and afterwards headed the deputation from the commons in the special matter of her majesty's marriage. But the principal business of the session was the settlement of the ecclesiastical affairs of the nation, and in this delicate and important task Sir Nicholas acquitted himself with

great prudence and moderation. When, in order to dissolve or neutralize the opposition to the new measures, five bishops and three doctors, on the one side, and eight reformed divines on the other, received the royal command to hold a public disputation on certain controverted points, the lord-keeper was commissioned to act as moderator, and acquitted himself with perfect fairness, although some Catholic writers have attempted to fasten a charge of partiality upon him.

In 1564, his favour with the queen was somewhat endangered by the appearance of a treatise in favour of the claims of the Suffolk line to the English crown, and against the title of the queen of Scots, which greatly excited Elizabeth's displeasure, but which the lord-keeper was suspected of secretly approving and circulating. This storm, however, soon passed over, and, in 1568, Bacon was placed at the head of the commission for hearing and determining the differences between the queen of Scots and her rebellious subjects.

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Sir Nicholas died on the 20th of February, 1579. Camden has thus sketched his character: "Vir præpinguis, ingenio acerrimo, singulari prudentiâ, summa eloquentiâ, tenaci memoriâ, et sacris conciliis alterum columen;" that is, "a man of a gross body, but most subtle wit, of singular prudence, of high eloquence, of a retentive memory, and, for judgment, the other pillar of the state." His son's character of him is more striking. "He was," says the great Lord Bacon, speaking of his father, a plain man, direct and constant, without all finesse and doubleness, and one that was of a mind, that a man, in his private proceedings and estate, and in the proceedings of state, should rest upon the soundness and strength of his own causes, and not upon practice to circumvent others, according to the sentence of Solomon, vir prudens advertit ad gressus suos ; stultus autem divertit ad dolorem ;' insomuch that the bishop of Rosse, a subtle and observing man, said of him, that he could fasten no words upon him, and that it was impossible to come within him, because he offered no play; and the queen-mother of France, a very polite princess, said of him, that he should have been of the council of Spain, because he despised the occurrents, and rested upon the first plot." Sir Nicholas was an acute, and, what was rarer in his days, a cautious statesman. His great skill lay in balancing factions,—a secret which he probably imparted to his royal mistress, who proved no unapt pupil in his hands. As lord-keeper, he distinguished himself by the very moderate use which he made of his powers, and by the respect which he manifested on all occasions for the common law. He had not been many months in office, as keeper of the great seal, before he began to entertain some doubts as to the precise extent of his authority in that capacity, owing perhaps to the very general terms used upon the delivery of the great seals. Upon this he applied to her majesty, from whom he procured a patent, declaring him to have as full powers as if he were chancellor of England. But this did not fully satisfy him, and, four years afterwards, an act of parliament was passed, which declares that "the common law always was, the keeper of the great seal always had, as of right belonging to his office, the same authority, jurisdiction, execution of laws, and all other customs, as the lord-chancellor of England lawfully used." Bishop Tanner has enrolled Sir Nicholas

1 See Rymer's Fœdera, passim.

Bacon among the writers of his country, on account of numerous pieces of his, chiefly speeches in council and parliament, which are still preserved in manuscript collections. Mr Masters also notices a comment of his on the twelve minor prophets.

Sir Thomas Gresham.

BORN A. D. 1519.-DIED A. D. 1579.

SIR THOMAS GRESHAM was the younger son of Sir Richard Gresham, who died, February, 1548. Sir Richard was a wealthy merchant, -a man of considerable public spirit, which is evinced by his successively filling the offices of alderman, sheriff, and lord-mayor of the city of London. His brother, Sir John Gresham, was also an opulent merchant, and attained the same honours. He died of a malignant fever in 1556. He was known by many acts of munificence, but by none more splendid than the endowing of the free school of Holt, in Norfolk, with the government of which he invested the fish-mongers' company in London. Thomas, the subject of the present sketch, was born in London, 1519. When young, he was bound apprentice to a mercer there. He did not long remain in this situation, but was sent to Caius college, Cambridge, then called Gonville hall, that he might receive an education worthy of his fortune. He here made such progress that he acquired the name of Doctissimus mercator.' The commercial spirit within him, however, was too strong for the spirit of literature, and the splendid prospects which trade opened at this period induced him to engage in it. He was admitted member of the merchants' company in 1543, soon after which he married Ann, the daughter of William Fernely, Esq., of West Creting, Suffolk; and during the remainder of his father's life, prosecuted his mercantile pursuits with distinguished diligence. He was in hopes, at his father's death, of obtaining his situation, namely, as money-agent for the king at Antwerp. In this he was disappointed; this disappointment, however, was the means of a more rapid rise of fortune eventually. For the successful candidate for the office, having, by his mismanagement, involved the king's affairs in all but inextricable confusion, Gresham was chosen to the arduous duty of retrieving them. This difficult task he performed with the most distinguished ability. He found the affairs of his sovereign in a most embarrassed state, and the general method of transacting them such as must perpetually add to those embarrassments. It appears that money had been borrowed for the English monarch at an enormous interest, and that, when not taken up at the specified period, an extension of time was to be purchased only by several humiliating and embarrassing conditions. This mode of transacting business neither suited the commercial habits of Gresham, nor comported, as he thought, with the dignity of the British crown. And so effectual was the system he adopted in its stead, that, in the course of two years, he paid off the whole of a large loan, though shackled with a large accumulation of interest, and of course raised the king's credit to an unprecedented height. His plan for effecting this object was so ingenious that we cannot allow it to pass unmentioned. He secretly procured

from England a weekly sum of £1300 or £1400, and, with this supply, he took up about £200 sterling daily, or £73,000 a-year. These small daily sums, exciting no suspicion, caused no fall of the exchange. He also advised the king to take into his own hands all the lead in his dominions, and then, after forbidding its exportation for four or five years, dole it out at Antwerp, at the extravagant price to which such a monopoly could not fail to raise it. So much was Gresham in request, and that too for the management of political as well as pecuniary matters, that it is supposed that, during the short reign of Edward VI., he made not less than forty journeys to Antwerp; services for which that monarch gave him the most flattering tokens of his regard. At the accession of Queen Mary, he was deprived of his agency, a piece of injustice which elicited from him a memorial of his past services, the statement of which induced the queen to reinstate him in all his former employments. After Queen Mary's death, he remained in office under Elizabeth, who employed him in several most important and difficult money transactions in this eventful reign. Honour and wealth now flowed in upon him apace. He was knighted, and appointed general-agent to her majesty for foreign parts. He justly thought that this elevation in rank and accession of wealth warranted his adopting a superior style of living, and he therefore built a magnificent mansion in Bishopsgate-street, afterwards called Gresham college. In the midst of all this prosperity, however, he was reminded how easily it might be marred, and how slight is the tenure by which it is held, by the sudden death of an only son, in 1564, at sixteen.

To divert his mind and soothe his grief, this princely merchant strove to forget the desolation of his own hearth, by turning his thoughts abroad, and devising schemes of public utility. Prosperity had not rendered him selfish.

The London merchants, at this period, used to meet in Lombardstreet, in the open air, exposed to all the inclemency of the weather. Sir Thomas's father had proposed the building of a house or exchange, in imitation of that of Antwerp, but died without doing any thing towards the accomplishment of his object. His son undertook it with greater spirit and a better prospect of success. He promised the citizens of London, that if they would. provide a piece of ground, of the necessary size, and in a suitable situation, he would erect an exchange at his private expense. This munificent offer was gladly accepted, and eighty houses occupying the alleys known by the name of Swan-alley, New-alley and St Christopher's alley, were purchased for this object for the sum of £3,532. This was in 1566. In June he laid the foundation stone; and in November of 1567 the shell was finished and the roof slated; and the building was completed in three years.

The exchange at Antwerp was the model of this structure; in shape it was an oblong; it was surrounded by a portico of marble pillars, under which were shops. In 1570, Elizabeth paid this magnificent building a visit and conferred on it the name of the Royal exchange: the name still possessed by its successor. This noble building was consumed in the great fire of London. While engaged in this grand design, all his skill was required in the transaction of certain important money affairs of her majesty. Owing to the quarrel between Elizabeth and the king of Spain, the English merchants had been compelled to

ship their goods for Hamburgh, on which Duke Alva, governor of the Netherlands, prohibited all commerce with England. The secretary Cecil was extremely fearful lest the queen, by the defalcation in the revenues consequent on this interrupted state of commerce, should be unable to pay her foreign creditors. The sagacity of Sir Thomas Gresham, however, helped him through all his difficulties. At the same time, to prevent in future the queen's being placed in such precarious circumstances, he strongly advised that she should borrow of her own subjects in preference to foreigners. But when this project was first explained to the merchants, it met with their decided opposition and was negatived in the common-hall. Upon more mature consideration, however, and something like a menace from the privy-council, they acceded to the proposal, and had no cause to repent it. This was the humble origin of those vast sums which the merchant-body have since advanced to the state.

In 1572, the queen did Gresham the honour of appointing him -together with the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and others-assistant to the lord-mayor in the government of the city during her summer-progress. About this time Sir Thomas added to the numerous purchases he had before made in various parts of the kingdom, that of Osterly-park, near Brentford, as a ready retreat from the cares of business and the bustle of the city. Here he built a magnificent residence, and laid out vast sums in improving and adorning the estate; at the same time, never forgetting the useful in the elegant, nor the character of a prudent merchant in that of an opulent citizen, he built several mills on the river Brent. An amusing anecdote is told in connection with his residence at Osterly-park. It is said that Queen Elizabeth, when on a visit to him at that place, having suggested that some alteration would be a great improvement, the gallant merchant sent to London for workmen that very night, and by dawn of day, to the unspeakable surprise of the queen, the work was completed. A witty courtier remarked on the occasion that it was not to be wondered at that he who had "so soon built a change," should as "easily change a building."

Our princely merchant now began to entertain another magnificent project, namely, that of turning his mansion in Bishopsgate-street into a seat of learning and of science, and endowing it for the benefit of future generations. The education Sir Thomas Gresham had received at Caius college, had freed him from many of the low and illiberal prejudices against knowledge and science too often cherished by men of business. He saw that literature was by no means incompatible with commercial shrewdness and sagacity, and that the more enlarged a man's views are, the greater is his power in whatever situation he may be placed. The great monopolists of learning-Oxford and Cambridge— endeavoured to dissuade him from his design, but in vain; and Sir Thomas's mansion was henceforth destined for lecturers and professors of the seven liberal sciences, all of whom were to be salaried from the revenues of the Royal exchange. It was called Gresham college; it is now transformed into the excise office.

In addition to these public acts of munificence, the private charities of our merchant were most liberal. His will provides for the erection and support of eight alms houses, and £10 yearly to several prisons and