myself, wherein, though your servant insisted | thereof, that you may no longer hang upon the further than, I am sure, would ever enter into treaty, which hath been between your lordship your thoughts, I cannot but take it as a part of a and me, touching York House; in which I assure faithful servant in him. But if your lordship, or your lordship I never desired to put you to the your lady, find it inconvenient for you to part with least inconvenience. So I rest the house, I would rather provide myself otherwise than any way incommodate you, but will never slack any thing of my affection to do you service; whereof, if I have not yet given good proof, I will desire nothing more than the fittest occasion to show how much I am Your lordship's faithful servant, October, 1621. TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. MY VERY GOOD Lord, An unexpected accident maketh me hasten this letter to your lordship, before I could despatch Mr. Meautys; it is that my lord keeper hath stayed my pardon at the seal. But it is with good respect; for he saith it shall be private, and then he would forthwith write to your lordship, and would pass it if he received your pleasure; and doth also show his reason of stay, which is, that he doubteth the exception of the sentence of Parliament is not well drawn, nor strong enough, which, if it be doubtful, my lord hath great reason. But sure I am, both myself, and the king, and your lordship, and Mr. Attorney meant clearly, and I think Mr. Attorney's pen hath gone well. My humble request to your lordship is, that, for my lord's satisfaction, Mr. Solicitor may be joined with Mr. Attorney, and if it be safe enough, it may go on; if not it may be amended. I ever rest Your lordship's most obliged friend, Your lordship's servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. MY LORD,—I am glad your lordship understands me so rightly in my last letter. I continue still in the same mind, for, I thank God, I am settled to my contentment; and so I hope you shall enjoy yours with the more, because I am so well pleased in mine. And, my lord, I shall be very far from taking it ill, if you part with it to any else, judg ing it alike unreasonableness to desire that which is another man's, and to bind him by promise or otherwise not to let it to another. My lord, I will move his majesty to take commiseration of your long imprisonment,* which, in some respects, both you and I have reason to think harder than the Tower; you for the help of physic, your parley with your creditors, your conference for your writings and studies, dealing with friends about your business; and I for this advantage, to be sometimes happy in visiting and conversing with your lordship, whose company I am much desirous to enjoy, as being tied by ancient acquaintance to rest Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. These main and real favours which I have lately received from your good lordship in procuring my liberty, and a reference of the consideration of my release, are such as I now find, that in building upon your lordship's noble nature and friendship, I have built upon the rock where neither winds or waves can cause overthrow. I humbly pray your lordship to accept from me such thanks as ought to come from him whom you have much com forted in fortune, and much more comforted in showing your love and affection to him, of which I have heard by my Lord of Faulkland, Sir Edward Sackville, Mr. Matthew, and otherwise. I have written, as my duty was, to his majesty, thanks, touching the same, by the letter I here put into your noble hands. I have made also, in that letter, an offer to his majesty, of my service, for bringing into better order and frame the laws of England. The declaration whereof I have left with Sir Ed *Restraint from coming within the verge of the court. 2 ward Sackville, because it were no good manners | farther, if it stand with your majesty's good pleato clog his majesty, at this time of triumph and sure, since now my study is my exchange, and recreation, with a business of this nature, so as my pen my factor for the use of my talent, that your lordship may be pleased to call for it to Sir your majesty, who is a great master in these Edward Sackville, when you think the time things, would be pleased to appoint me some reasonable. task to write, and that I should take for an oracle. And because my Instauration, which I esteem my great work, and do still go on with in silence, was dedicated to your majesty, and this History of King Henry VII., to your lively and excellent image the prince, if now your majesty will be pleased to give me a theme to dedicate to my Lord of Buckingham, whom I have so much reason to honour, I should with more alacrity embrace your majesty's direction than my own choice. Your majesty will pardon me for troubling you thus long. God evermore preserve and prosper you. I am bold likewise to present your lordship with a book of my History of King Henry VII., and now that, in summer was twelve months, I dedicated a book to his majesty, and this last summer, this book to the prince, your lordship's turn is next; and this summer that cometh, if I live to it, shall be yours. I have desired his majesty to appoint me the task, otherwise I shall use my own choice, for this is the best retribution I can make to your lordship. God prosper you. I rest Your lordship's most obliged friend FR. ST. ALBAN. Gorhambury, this 20th of March, 1621. Endorsed, To the Right Honourable his very good lord, the Lord Marquis of Buckingham, High Admiral of England. Your majesty's poor beadsman most devoted, Gorhambury, this 20th March, 1621. TO THE LORD DIGBY. MY VERY GOOD LORD, TO THE KING. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. MY LORD, I have despatched the business your lordship recommended to me, which I send your lordship here enclosed, signed by his majesty, and have likewise moved him for your coming to kiss his hand, which he is pleased you shall do at Whitehall when he returneth next thither. In the mean time I rest I now only send my best wishes, to follow you at sea and land, with due thanks for your late great favours. God knows, whether the length I acknowledge myself in all humbleness infi- of your voyage will not exceed the size of my nitely bounden to your majesty's grace and good-hour-glass. But whilst I live, my affection to do ness, for that, at the intercession of my noble and you service shall remain quick under the ashes constant friend, my lord marquis, your majesty of my fortune. hath been pleased to grant me that which the civilians say, is res inæstimabilis, my liberty; so that now, whenever God calleth me, I shall not die a prisoner; nay, further, your majesty hath vouchsafed to rest a second and iterate aspect of your eye of compassion upon me, in the referring the consideration of my broken estate to my good lord the treasurer, which as it is a singular bounty in your majesty, so I have yet so much left of a late commissioner of your treasure, as I would be sorry to sue for any thing that might seem immodest. These your majesty's great benefits, in casting your bread upon the waters, as the Scripture saith, because my thanks cannot any ways be sufficient to attain, I have raised your progenitor of famous memory, and now I hope of more famous memory than before, King Henry VII., to give your majesty thanks for me; which work, My Lord of Bucks touching my warrant and most humbly kissing your majesty's hands, I do present. And because, in the beginning of my trouble, when in the midst of the tempest I had a kenning of the harbour, which I hope now, by your majesty's favour, I am entering into, I made a tender to your majesty of two works, a History of England, and a Digest of your Laws, as I have by a figure of pars pro toto performed the one, so I have herewith sent your majesty, by way of an epistle, a new offer of the other; but my desire is Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, Newmarket, Nov. 13th, 1622. I will give order to my secretary to wait upon Sir John Suckling about your other business. access. Endorsed, TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. EXCELLENT LORD, Though I have troubled your lordship with many letters, oftener than I think I should, (save that affection keepeth no account,) yet, upon the repair of Mr. Matthew, a gentleman so much your lordship's servant, and to me another myself, as your lordship best knoweth, you would not have thought me a man alive, except I had put a letter into his hand, and withal, by so faithful and approved a man, commended my fortunes afresh unto your lordship. My lord, to speak my heart to your lordship, I never felt my misfortunes so much as now: not for that part which may concern myself, who profit (I thank God for it) both in patience and in settling mine own courses; but when I look abroad and see the times so stirring, and so much dissimulation and falsehood, baseness and envy in the world, and so many idle clocks going in men's heads, then it grieveth me much, that I am not sometimes at your lordship's elbow, that I might give you some of the fruits of the careful advice, modest liberty, and true information of a friend that loveth your lordship as I do. For, though your lordship's fortunes be above the thunder and storms of inferior regions, yet, nevertheless, to hear the wind, and not to feel it, will make one sleep the better. My good lord, somewhat I have been, and much I have read; so that few things that concern states or greatness, are new cases unto me: and therefore I hope I may be no unprofitable servant to your lordship. I remember the king was wont to make a character of me, far above my worth, that I was not made for small matters: and your lordship would sometimes bring me from his majesty that Latin sentence, de minimis non curat lex; and it hath so fallen out, that since my retiring, times have been fuller of great matters than before; wherein, perhaps, if I had continued near his majesty, he might have found more use of my service, if my gift lay that way; but that is but a vain imagination of mine. True it is, that as I do not aspire to use my talent in the king's great affairs; yet, for that which may concern your lordship, and your fortune, no man living shall give you a better account of faith, industry, and affection than I shall. I must conclude with that which gave me occasion of this letter, which is Mr. Mathew's employment to your lordship in those parts, wherein I am verily persuaded your lordship shall find him a wise and able gentleman, and one that will bend his knowledge of the world (which is great) to serve his majesty, and the prince, and in especial your lordship. So I rest Your lordship's most obliged Gray's Inn, this 18th of April, 1623. you, and how much I need you. There be many things in this journey, both in the felicity and in the carriage thereof, that I do not a little admire, and wish your grace may reap more and more fruits in continuance answerable to the beginnings; myself have ridden at anchor all your grace's absence, and my cables are now quite worn. I had from Sir Toby Mathew, out of Spain, a very comfortable message, that your grace had said, I should be the first that you would remember in any great favour after your return; and now coming from court, he telleth me he had commission from your lordship to confirm it for which I humbly kiss your hands. My lord, do some good work upon me, that I may end my days in comfort, which, nevertheless, cannot be complete except you put me in some way to do your noble self service, for I must ever rest Your grace's most obliged October 12, 1623. FR. ST. ALBan. I have written to his highness, and had presented my duty to his highness to kiss his hands at York House, but that my health is scarce yet confirmed. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. MY LORD,―The assurance of your love makes me easily believe your joy at my return; and if I may be so happy as, by the credit of my place, to supply the decay of your cables, I shall account it one of the special fruits thereof. What Sir Toby Matthew hath delivered on my behalf, I will be ready to make good, and omit no oppor tunity that may serve for the endeavours of Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Royston, Oct. 14, 1623. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN MY HONOURABLE LORD, I have delivered your lordship's letter and your book to his majesty, who hath promised to read it over: I wish I could promise as much for that which you sent me, that my understanding of that language might make me capable of those good fruits, which I assure myself, by an implicit faith, proceed from your pen; but I will tell you in good English, with my thanks for your book, that I ever rest Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Hinchenbrook, October 29, 1623. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. EXCELLENT LORD, I send your grace for a parabien, a book of mine, written first and dedicated to his majesty in English, and now translated into Latin, and enriched. After his majesty and his highness, your grace is ever to have the third turn with me. Vouchsafe, of your wonted favour, to present also the king's book to his majesty. The prince's I have sent to Mr. Endimion Porter. I hope your grace (because you are wont to disable your Latin) will not send your book to the Conde d'Olivares, because he was a deacon, for I understand by one, (that your grace may guess whom I mean,) that the Conde is not rational, and I hold this book to be very rational. Your grace will pardon me to be merry, however, the world goeth with me. I ever rest Your grace's most faithful and obliged servant, TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. MY LORD, I give your lordship many thanks for the parabien you have sent me; which is so welcome unto me, both for the author's sake and for the worth of itself, that I cannot spare a work of so much pains to your lordship and value to me, unto a man of so little reason and less art; who if his skill in languages be no greater than I found it in argument, may, perhaps, have as much need of an interpreter (for all his deaconry) as myself; and whatsoever mine ignorance is in the tongue, yet this much I understand in the book, that it is a noble monument of your love, which I will entail to my posterity, who, I hope, will both reap the fruit of the work, and honour the memory of the author. The other book I delivered to his majesty, who is tied here by the feet longer than he purposed to stay. For the business your lordship wrote of in your other letters, I am sorry I can do you no service, having engaged myself to Sir William Becher before my going to Spain, so that I cannot free myself, unless there were means to give him satisfaction. But I will ever continue Your lordship's assured friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Hinchenbrook, Oct. 27th, 1623. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. EXCELLENT LORD, I send Mr. Parker to have ready, according to the speech I had with your grace, my two suits TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. MY LORD, I have moved his majesty in your suit, and find him very gracious inclined to grant it; but he desireth first to know from my lord treasurer his opinion and the value of it, to whom I have written to that purpose this enclosed letter, and would wish your lordship to speak with him yourself for his favour and furtherance therein, and for my part I will omit nothing that appertaineth to Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Newmarket, 28th of January, 1623. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY Very noble Lord, Mr. Doctor Rawley, by his modest choice, hath much obliged me to be careful of him, when God shall send any opportunity. And if his majesty shall remove me from this see, before any such occasion be offered, not to change my intentions with my bishopric. It true that those ancients, Cicero, Demosthenes, and Plinius Secundus, have preserved their orations (the heads and effects of them at least) and their epistles; and I have ever been of opinion, that those two pieces, are the principal pieces of our antiquities: those orations discovering the form of administering justice, and the letters the histories (or rather lives of men) borrow as much carriage of the affairs in those times. For our from the affections and phantasies of the writers, as from the truth itself, and are for the most of them built together upon unwritten relations and traditions. But letters written è re nata, and bearing a synchronism or equality of time cum rebus gestis, have no other fault, than that which was imputed unto Virgil, nihil peccat nisi, quod nihil peccet, they speak the truth too plainly, and cast too glaring a light for that age, wherein they were, or are written. Your lordship doth most worthily, therefore, in preserving those two pieces, amongst the rest of those matchless monuments you shall leave be hind you; considering that, as one age hath not | Your lordship may therefore inform yourself if one bred your experience, so is it not fit it should be Sidley, of Kent, hath not already founded in Oxconfined to one age, and not imparted to the times ford a lecture of this nature and condition. But to come. For my part therein, I do embrace the if Oxford in this kind be an Argus, I am sure honour with all thankfulness, and the trust im- poor Cambridge is a right Polyphemus, it hath posed upon me, with all religion and devotion. but one eye, and that not so steadily or artificialFor those two lectures in natural philosophy, ly placed, but bonum est facile sui diffusivum; and the sciences woven and involved with the your lordship being so full of goodness, will same; it is a great and a noble foundation, both quickly find an object to pour it on. That which for the use and the salary, and a foot that will made me say thus much I will say in verse, that teach the age to come, to guess in part at the your lordship may remember it the better, greatness of that herculean mind which give them their existence. Only your lordship may be advised for the seats of this foundation. The two I will conclude with this vow: Deus, qui animum universities are the two eyes of this land, and istum tibi, animoisti tempus quam longissimum fittest to contemplate the lustre of this bounty; tribuat. It is the most affectionate prayer of these two lectures are as the two apples of these Your lordship's most humble servant, eyes. An apple when it is single is an ornament, Jo. LINCOLN. when double a pearl, or a blemish in the eye. Sola ruinosis stat Cantabrigia pannis Buckden, last of December, 1625. LETTERS FROM MATHEWS, NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED. SIR FRANCIS BACON, DESIRING A FRIEND TO DO | speak like a critic) that I do perhaps indormis HIM A SERVICE. SIR, The report of this act, which I hope will prove the last of this business, will probably, by the weight it carries, fall, and seize on me. And, therefore, not now at will, but upon necessity it will become me to call to mind what passed; and (my head being then wholly employed about invention) I may the worse put things upon the account of mine own memory. I shall take physic to-day, upon this change of weather, and vantage of leisure; and I pray you not to allow yourself so much business, but that you may have time to bring me your friendly aid before night, &c. SIR FRANCIS BACON TO A FRIEND, ABOUT READ- INGS SIR,-Because you shall not lose your labour this afternoon, which now I must needs spend with my Lord Chancellor, I send my desire to you in this letter, that you will take care not to leave the writing which I left with you last with | any man so long as that he may be able to take a copy of it; because, first, it must be censured by you, and then considered again by me. The thing which I expect most from you is, that you would read it carefully over by yourself, and to make some little in writing, where you think (to cere; or where I do indulgere genio; or where, in fine, I give any manner of disadvantage to myself. This, super totam materiam, you must not fail to note, besides all such words and phrases as you cannot like; for you know in how high account I have your judgment. SIR FRANCIS BACON TO THE SAME PERSON UPON SIR, The reason of so much time taken before my answer to yours of the fourth of August, was chiefly my accompanying my letter with the paper which here I send you; and again, now lately (not to hold from you till the end of a letter that which by grief may, for a time, efface all the former contents,) the death of your good friend and mine, A. B.; to whom, because I used to send my letters for conveyance to you, it made me so much the more unready in the despatch of them. In the mean time, I think myself (howsoever it hath pleased God otherwise to bless me) a most unfortunate man, to be deprived of two (a great number in true friendship) of those friends whom I ac counted as no stage friends, but private friends, (and such as with whom I might both freely and safely communicate;) him by death, and you by absence. As for the memorial of the late deceased |