CHAPTER VII.
BACON'S LAST YEARS.
[1621-1626.] The tremendous sentences of those days, with their crushing fines, were often worse in sound than in reality.

They meant that for the moment a man was defeated and disgraced.

But it was quite understood that it did not necessarily follow that they would be enforced in all their severity.

The fine might be remitted, the imprisonment shortened, the ban of exclusion taken off.

At another turn of events or caprice the man himself might return to favour, and take his place in Parliament or the Council as if nothing had happened.