"All my lawyers," said James, "are so bred and nursed in corruption that they cannot leave it." Bacon's Chancellorship coincided with the full bloom of Buckingham's favour; and Buckingham set the fashion, beyond all before him, of extravagance in receiving and spending.

Encompassed by such assumptions and such customs, Bacon administered the Chancery.

Suitors did there what people did everywhere else; they acknowledged by a present the trouble they gave, or the benefit they gained.

It may be that Bacon's known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this profuseness of giving.

And Bacon let it be.