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Hereditary Genius
201
was the first Lord Keeper who ranked as a Lord Chancellor. He was a grave
stately man, fond of science, gardening, and house-building. In all this, his son
was just like him. Married twice.
f. Anne Cooke, a member of a most gifted family, and herself a scholar of no mean
order. Eminent for piety, virtue, and learning. Exquisitely skilled in Latin and
Greek.
[4 u.] The four sisters of his mother are all spoken of in terms of the highest praise.
g. Sir Anthony Cooke is described by Camden as “vir antiqua serenitate.” Lloyd
(State Worthies) says, “Contemplation was his soul, privacy his life, and
discourse his element.” Lord Seymour standing by when he chid his son,
remarked, “Some men govern families with more skill than others do
kingdoms,” and thereupon recommended, him to the government of his young
nephew Edward VI. “Such the majesty of his looks and gait, that awe
governed,—such the reason and sweetness, that love obliged all his family: a
family equally afraid to displease so good a head, and to offend so great.” He
taught his daughters all the learning of the day. I greatly regret I have been
unable to obtain any information about Sir Anthony's ancestry or collateral
relations.
uS. Cecil, 1st E. of Salisbury, eminent minister under Elizabeth and James I. His
father was the great Lord Burleigh.
B. Anthony; had weak health, but a considerable share of the intellectual power
which distinguished this remarkable family.
B. (but by a different mother). Sir Nathaniel, Bart., a man of rare parts and
generous disposition. He was a very good painter. Walpole considered him to
have “really attained the perfection of a master.” Peacham in his “Graphicae”
says, “None in my opinion deserveth more respect and admiration for his skill
and practice in painting, than Master Nathaniel Bacon of Brome, in Suffolk,
not inferior, in my judgment, to our skilfullest masters.”
B. (by the same parents as the above). Sir Nathaniel of Stivekey. His father
remarks of him, aet. 22 (when Lord Bacon was aet. 7), “Indeed of all my
children he is of best hope in learning.”
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