Mr.Spedding devoted nearly a lifetime, and all the resources of a fine intellect and an earnest conviction, to make us revere as well as admire Bacon.

But it is vain.

It is vain to fight against the facts of his life: his words, his letters.

"Men are made up," says a keen observer, "of professions, gifts, and talents; and also of _themselves_."[2] With all his greatness, his splendid genius, his magnificent ideas, his enthusiasm for truth, his passion to be the benefactor of his kind; with all the charm that made him loved by good and worthy friends, amiable, courteous, patient, delightful as a companion, ready to take any trouble--there was in Bacon's "self" a deep and fatal flaw.

He was a pleaser of men.