During the previous autumn, Oct.

12, 1620, the _Novum Organum_, the first instalment of his vast design, was published, the result of the work of thirty years; and copies were distributed to great people, among others to Coke.

He apprehended no evil; he had nothing to fear, and much to hope from the times.
His sudden and unexpected fall, so astonishing and so irreparably complete, is one of the strangest events of that still imperfectly comprehended time.

There had been, and were still to be, plenty of instances of the downfall of power, as ruinous and even more tragic, though scarcely any one more pathetic in its surprise and its shame.

But it is hard to find one of which so little warning was given, and the causes of which are at once in part so clear, and in part so obscure and unintelligible.