shrines where the saint is, or is believed to be: and you having built an ark to save learning from deluge, de serve propriety in any new instrument or engine, whereby learning should be improved. or advanced. 1605. Rawley's LXXVIII. To the Earl of 'SALISBURY, upon sending the Advancement of Learning. Resuscita tio. It may please your good Lordship, I PRESENT your lordship with a work of my vacant time, which if it had been more, the work had been better. It appertaineth to your lordship, besides my particular respects, in some propriety, in regard you are a great governor in a province of learning. And, that which is more, you have added to your place affection towards learning; and to your affection judgment of which the last I could be content were, for the time, less, that you might the less exquisitely censure that which I offer unto you. But sure I am, the argument is good, if it had lighted upon a good author. But I shall content myself to awake better spirits, like a bell-ringer, which is first up to call others to church. So with my humble desire of your lordship's good acceptation, I remain. 1605. 1 Sir Robert Cecil, created by king James lord Cecil, viscount Cranburne, and earl of Salisbury, was not only son to one of the greatest statesmen of his age, the lord Burleigh, but succeeded him in his places and abilities, and was one of the great supports of the queen's declining years. Yet the ill offices he was thought to perform towards the noble and popular earl of Essex, together with his conduct in some particulars in her successor's reign, abated the lustre of his character, which otherwise from his parts and prudence would have appeared very conspicuous. After he had been long secretary of state, some years lord treasurer and chancellor of the university of Cambridge, he died in May 1612, at Marlborough, in his return from the Bath; as by a diary of his sickness and the account given by Sir Robert Naunton, one of his retinue, appears; which I should not mention, but that his enemies in their libels, which flew freely about, have suggested that he died on the Downs; which, if true, could be esteemed at most but his misfortune. Stephens. 2 LXXIX. To the Lord Treasurer BUCKHURST, on the same subject. May it please your good Lordship, I HAVE finished a work touching the advancement or setting forward of learning, which I have dedicated to his majesty, the most learned of a sovereign, or temporal prince that time hath known: and upon reason not unlike I humbly present one of the books to your lordship: not only as a chancellor of an university, but as one that was excellently bred in all learning; which I have ever noted to shine in all your speeches and behaviours: and, therefore your lordship will yield a gracious aspect to your first love, and take pleasure in the adorning of that wherewith yourself are so much adorned. And so humbly desiring your favourable acceptation thereof, with signification of humble duty, I remain. 1605. doT I shall draw this noble lord's character from Sir Robert Naunton's observations of the favourites of queen Elizabeth; and much in his own words: My lord of Buckhurst was of the noble house of the Sackvilles, and of the queen's consanguinity. He was a very fine gentleman of person and endowments both of art and nature, but without measure magnificent, till on the turn of his humour, and the allay that his years, and good counsels of the queen, etc. had wrought upon those immoderate courses of his youth, and that height of spirit inherent to his house; she began berl to assist him in the reparation of that vast patrimony he had much wasted. After the honour she had given him of lord Buckhurst, and knight of the garter, she procured him to be chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford, upon the death of Sir Christopher Hatton, and constituted him lord treasurer, on the death of the lord Burleigh, which office he enjoyed till April, 1608, dying then suddenly at the council table; the king having some years before created him earl of Dorset. He is also much commended for his happy vein in poetry, to which he was addicted in his youth; and for his elocution, and the excellencies of his pen; faculties that ran in the blood, as Sir Robert Naunton observes in his son Robert, and his grandsons Richard and Edward, successive earls of Dorset; and the last age had the satisfaction to see continued in the person of the right honourable Charles earl of Dorset and Middlesex. Stephens. Resuscita Rawley's LXXX. To the Lord Chancellor, Sir T. EGERTON, Lord Ellesmere, on the same subject. tio. Sir Tobie 11. May it please your good Lordship, I HUMBLY present your lordship with a work, wherein as you have much commandment over the author, so your lordship hath great interest in the argument: for, to speak without flattery, few have like use of learning, or like judgment in learning, as I have observed in your lordship. And again, your lordship hath been a great planter of learning, not only in those places in the Church, which have been in your own gift, but also in your commendatory vote, no man hath more constantly held Detur digniori: and therefore, both your lordship is beholding to learning, and learning beholding to you: which maketh me presume with good assurance that your lordship will accept well of these my labours; the rather because your lordship in private speech hath often begun to me in expressing your admiration of his majesty's learning, to whom I have dedicated this work; and whose virtue and perfection in that kind did chiefly move me to a work of this nature. And so with signification of my most humble duty and affection to your lordship, I remain. 1605. SIR, LXXXI. To Mr MATTHEW. I PERCEIVE you have some time when you can be content to think of your friends; from whom since you have borrowed yourself, you do well, not paying the principal, to send the interest at six months day. The relation which here I send you inclosed, carries the truth of that which is public: and though my little leisure might have required a briefer, yet the matter would have endured and asked a larger. I have now at last taught that child to go, at the swadling whereof you were. My work touching the proficiency and advancement of learning, I have put into two books: whereof the former, which you saw, I can't but account as a page to the latter. I have now published them both; whereof I thought it a small adventure to send you a copy, who have more right to it than any man, except bishop Andrews, who was my inquisitor. The death of the late great judge concerned not me, because the other was not removed. I write this in answer to your good wishes; which I return not as flowers of Florence, but as you mean them; whom I conceive place can't alter, no more than time shall me, except it be for the better. 1605. LXXXII. To Dr. PLAYFERE,4 desiring him to Rawley's translate the Advancement into Latin. Mr. Dr. Playfere, Resuscita tio. A GREAT desire will take a small occasion to hope and put in trial that which is desired. It pleased you a good while since to express unto me the good liking which you conceived of my book of the advancement of learning; and that more significantly, as it seemed to me, than out of courtesy or civil respect. Myself, as I then took contentment in your approbation thereof, so I should esteem and acknowledge not only my contentment increased, but my labours advanced, if I might obtain your help in that nature which I desire: wherein, before I set down in plain terms my request unto you, I will open myself, what it was which I chiefly sought and propounded to myself in that work; that you may perceive that which I now desire, to be pursuant thereupon. If I do not much err, for any judgment that a man maketh of his own doings, had need be spoken with a Sinunquam fallat imago,* I have * Vir. Ecl. this opinion, that if I had sought mine own commen- ii. 27,. dation, it had been a much fitter course for me to have 3 Mr. Matthew wrote an elegy on the Duke of Florence's felicity. 4 Thomas Playfere, D. D. a native of Kent, educated in St. John's college in Cambridge, and appointed Margaret professor of divinity in that university about 1596, in the room of Dr. Peter Baro. He died there about January or February, 1608. done as gardeners used to do, by taking their seed and slips, and rearing them first into plants, and so uttering them in pots, when they are in flower, and in their best state. But for as much as the end was merit of the state of learning, to my power, and not glory; and because my purpose was rather to excite other mens wits, than to magnify mine own, I was desirous to prevent the uncertainness of mine own life and times, by uttering rather seeds than plants: nay and farther, as the proverb is, by sowing with the basket rather than with the hand: wherefore, since I have only taken upon me to ring a bell to call other wits together, which is the meanest office, it cannot but be consonant to my desire, to have that bell heard as far as can be. And since they are but sparks which can work but upon matter prepared, I have the more reason to wish that those sparks may fly abroad, that they may the better find and light upon those minds and spirits which are apt to be kindled. And therefore the privateness of the language considered, wherein it is written, excluding so many readers; as, on the other side, the obscurity of the argument in many parts of it excludeth many others; I must account it a second birth of that work, if it might be translated into Latin, without manifest loss of the sense and matter. For this purpose I could not represent to myself any man into whose hands I do more earnestly desire that work should fall than yourself; for by that I have heard and read, I know no man a greater master in commanding words to serve matter. Nevertheless, I am not ignorant of the worth of your labours, whether such as your place and profession imposeth, or such as your own virtue may, upon your voluntary election, take hand. But I can lay before you no other persuasions than either the work itself may affect you with; or the honour of his majesty, to whom it is dedicated; or your particular inclination to myself; who as I never took so much comfort in any labours of mine own, so I shall never acknowledge myself more obliged in any thing to the labours of another, than in that which shall assist it. Which your labour if I can by my in |