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XXXVII. To my Lord of ESSEX.
My singular good Lord,

I MAY perceive, by my lord keeper, that your lordship, as the time served, signified unto him an intention to confer with his lordship at better opportunity; which in regard of your several and weighty occasions, I have thought good to put your lordship in remembrance of; that now at his coming to the court it may be executed : desiring your good lordship, nevertheless, not to conceive out of this my diligence in soliciting this matter, that I am either much in appetite, or much in hope. For as for appetite, the waters of Parnassus are not like the waters of the Spaw, that give a stomach; but rather they quench appetite and desires. And for hope, how can he hope much, that can alledge no other reason than the reason of an evil debtor, who will persuade his creditor to lend him new sums, and to enter farther in with him to make him satisfy the old? and to her majesty no other reason, but the reason of a waterman; I am her first man of those who serve in counsel of law? and so I commit your lordship to God's best preservation.

XXXVIII. To my Lord of ESSEX.

Most honourable, and my singular good Lord, I CANNOT but importune your lordship, with thanks for your lordship's remembering my name to my lord keeper; which being done in such an article of time, could not but be exceedingly enriched, both in demonstration and effect; which I did well discern by the manner of expressing thereof by his lordship again to me. This accumulating of your lordship's favours upon me hitherto, worketh only this effect; that it raiseth my mind to aspire to be found worthy of them, and likewise to merit and serve you for them. whether I shall be able to pay my vows or no, I must leave that to God, who hath them in deposito; whom also I most instantly beseech to give you fruit of your

But

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actions, beyond that your heart can propound: Nam Deus major est corde: even to the environing of his benedictions, I recommend your lordship.

Rawley's XXXIX. To the QUEEN: written by FRANCIS BACON for the Earl of ESSEX.

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It may please your Majesty,

IT were great simplicity in me to look for better, than that your majesty should cast away my letter, as you have done me; were it not that it is possible your majesty will think to find somewhat in it, whereupon your displeasure may take hold; and so indignation may obtain that of you which favour could not. Neither might I in reason presume to offer unto your majesty dead lines, myself being excluded as I am; were it not upon this only argument or subject; namely to clear myself in point of duty. Duty, though my state lie buried in the sands, and my favours be cast upon the waters, and my honours be committed to the wind, yet standeth surely built upon the rock, and hath been, and ever shall be, unforced and unattempted. And therefore, since the world, out of error, and your majesty, I fear, out of art, is pleased to put upon me, that I have so much as any election, or will in this my absence from attendance, I cannot but leave this protestation with your majesty; that I am, and have been merely a patient, and take myself only to obey and execute your majesty's will. And indeed, madam, I had never thought it possible that your majesty could have so disinteressed yourself of me; nor that you had been so perfect in the art of forgetting; nor that after a quintessence of wormwood, your majesty would have taken so large a draught of poppy, as to have passed so many 1 summers without all feeling of my sufferings. But the only comfort I have is this, that I know your majesty taketh delight and contentment in executing

1

'This shews this letter was wrote before the earl of Essex had been reconciled to the queen; and our author not having been called or advised with for some year and a half before the earl's going to Ireland, determines the date at the latest to the begin. ning of 1598.

this disgrace upon me.
And since your majesty can
find no other use of me, I am glad yet I can serve for
that. Thus making my most humble petition to your
majesty, that in justice, howsoever you may by strange-
ness untie, or by violence cut asunder all other knots,
your majesty would not touch me in that which is indis-
soluble that is, point of duty; and that your majesty
will pardon this my unwarranted presumption of writ-
ing, being to such an end: I cease in all humbleness;
Your Majesty's poor, and never so unworthy servant,

SIR,

XL. To Sir ROBERT CECIL.

ESSEX.

I FORBEAR not to put in paper, as much as I thought to have spoken to your honour to-day, if I could have stayed: knowing that if your honour should make other use of it, than is due to good meaning, and than I am persuaded you will; yet to persons of judgment, and that know me otherwise, it will rather appear, as it is, a precise honesty, and this same suum cuique tribuere, than any hollowness to any. It is my luck still to be akin to such things as I neither like in nature, nor would willingly meet with in my course; but yet cannot avoid, without shew of base timorousness, or else of unkind or suspicious strangeness.

[Some hiatus in the copy.]

And I am of one spirit still. I ever liked the Galenists, that deal with good compositions; and not the Paracelsians, that deal with these fine separations and in music, I ever loved easy airs, that go full all the parts together; and not these strange points of accord and discord. This I write not, I assure your honour, officiously; except it be according to Tully's Offices; that is, honestly and morally. For though, I thank God, I account, upon the proceeding, in the queen's service, or not proceeding, both ways; and therefore neither mean to fawn nor retire; yet I naturally desire good opinion with any person which for fortune or spirit is to be regarded: much more with a

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secretary of the queen's, and a cousin-german, and one with whom I have ever thought myself to have some sympathy of nature, though accidents have not suf fered it to appear. Thus not doubting of your honourable interpretation and usage of that I have written, I commend you to the divine preservation.

From Gray's-Inn.

SIR,

XLI. To Sir ROBERT CECIL.

YOUR honour knoweth, my manner is, though it be not the wisest way, yet taking it for the honestest, to do as Alexander did by his physician, in drinking the medicine, and delivering the advertisement of suspicion so I trust on, and yet do not smother what I hear. I do assure you, Sir, that by a wise friend of mine, and not factious towards your honour, I was told with asseveration, that your honour was bought by Mr. Coventry for two thousand angels: and that you wrought in a contrary spirit to my lord your father. And he said farther, that from your servants, from your lady, from some counsellors that have observed you in my business, he knew you wrought underhand with me: the truth of which tale I do not believe. You know the event will shew, and God will right. But as I reject this report, though the strangeness of my case might make me credulous, so I admit a conceit, that the last messenger my lord and yourself used, dealt ill with your honours; and that word, speculation, which was in the queen's mouth, rebounded from him as a commendation: for I am not ignorant of those little arts. Therefore, I pray, trust not him again in my matter. This was much to write; but I think my fortune will set me at liberty, who am weary of asserviling myself to every man's charity. Thus Į, etc.

SIR,

XLII. TO FOULK GREVIL.

I UNDERSTAND of your pains to have visited me, for which I thank you. My matter is an endless question. I assure you I had said, Requiesce, anima mea: but I now am otherwise put to my psalter; Nolite confidere. I dare go no farther. Her majesty had, by set speech, more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her service; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to. And now, whether invidus homo hoc fecit; or whether my matter must be an appendix to my lord of Essex suit; or whether her majesty, pretending to prove my ability, meaneth but to take advantage of some errors, which like enough, at one time or other, I may commit; or what it is; but her majesty is not ready to dispatch it. And what though the master of the Rolls, and my lord of Essex, and yourself, and others, think my case without doubt, yet in the mean time I have a hard condition to stand so, that whatsoever service I do to her majesty, it shall be thought but to be servitium viscatum, lime-twigs and fetches to place myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt every man's nature; which will, I fear, much hurt her majesty's service in the end. I have been like a piece of stuff bespoken in the shop; and if her majesty will not take me, it may be the selling by parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told you, like a child following a bird, which, when he is nearest flieth away, and lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and so in infinitum; I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good friends: of whom, nevertheless, I hope in one course or other gratefully to deserve. And so, not forgetting your business, I leave to trouble you with this idle letter, being but justa et moderata querimonia: for indeed, I do confess, primus amor will not easily be cast off. And thus again I commend me to you.

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