BACON (Sir Nicholas), lord keeper of the great seal in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst in Kent in 1510, and educated at the university of Cambridge; after which he travelled into France, and made some stay at Paris. On his return, he settled in Gray's-inn, and applied himself with such assiduity to the study of the law, that he quickly distinguished him-
himself so, that on the dissolution of the monastery of St. Edmund's Bury in Suffolk, he had a grant from King Henry VIII. in the 36th year of his reign, of several manors. In the 38th of the same king, he was promoted to the office of attorney in the court of Wards, which was a place both of honour and profit. In this office he was continued by King Edward VI.; and in 1552 he was elected treasurer of Gray's-inn. His great moderation and consummate prudence preserved him through the dangerous reign of Queen Mary. In the very dawn of that of Elizabeth he was knighted; and on the 22d of December 1558, the great seal of England being taken from Nicholas Heath archbishop of York, was delivered to him with the title of lord keeper, and he was also made one of the Queen's privy council. He had a considerable share in the settling of religion. As a statesman, he was remarkable for a clear head and deep counsels: but his great parts and high preferment were far from raising him in his own opinion, as appears from the modest answer he gave Queen Elizabeth, when she told him his house at Redgrave was too little for him: "Not so, madam, (returned he); but your majesty has made me too great for my house." After having had the great seal more than 20 years, this able statesman and faithful counsellor was suddenly removed from this life, as Mr. Mallet informs us, by the following accident: he was under the hands of the barber, and thinking the weather warm, had ordered a window before him to be thrown open; but fell asleep as the current of fresh air was blowing in upon him, and awakened some time after distempered all over. He was immediately removed into his bed-chamber, where he died a few days after, on the 26th of February 1578-9, equally lamented by the Queen and her subjects. He was buried in St. Paul's, where a monument was erected to him, which was destroyed by the fire of London in 1666. Mr. Granger observes, that he was the first lord keeper that ranked as lord chancellor; and that he had much of that penetrating genius, solidity, and judgment, persuasive eloquence, and comprehensive knowledge of law and equity, which afterwards shone forth with so great a lustre in his son, who was as much inferior to his father in point of prudence and integrity as his father was to him in literary accomplishments.