[35] Ibid. vii. 242-244; "It resteth therefore that, without fig-leaves, I do ingenuously confess and acknowledge, that having understood the particulars of the charge, not formally from the House but enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter sufficient and full, both to move me to desert the defence, and to move your lordships to condemn and censure me."
[36] Ibid. vii. 252-262.
[37] Ibid. vii. 261.
[38] Ibid. vii. 270.
[39] Letters and Life, vii. 235-236: "The first, of bargain and contract for reward to pervert justice, pendente lite. The second, where the judge conceives the cause to be at an end, by the information of the party or otherwise, and useth not such diligence as he ought to inquire of it. And the third, where the cause is really ended, and it is sine fraude without relation to any precedent promise.... For the first of them I take myself to be as innocent as any born upon St Innocent's Day, in my heart. For the second, I doubt on some particulars I may be faulty. And for the last, I conceived it to be no fault, but therein I desire to be better informed, that I may be twice penitent, once for the fact and again for the error."
[40] Ibid. vii. 242.
[41] Ibid. vii. 244: "Neither will your lordships forget that there are vitia temporis as well as vitia hominis, and that the beginning of reformations hath the contrary power to the pool of Bethesda, for that had strength to cure only him that was first cast in, and this hath commonly strength to hurt him only that is first cast in."
[42] See, among many other passages, Essays, "Of Great Place ": "For corruptions do not only bind thine own hands or thy servant's hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering; for integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault but the suspicion."
[43] Cf. Letters and Life, vii. 560: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure in Parliament that was these two hundred years."
[44] Or on the ground that there was a distinct rule forbidding chancellors and the like officials to take presents. This does not seem to have been the case, if we may judge from what Bacon says Letters and Life, vii. 233.