tell me, during the course of my last service, that you would raise me, and, that when you are resolved to raise a man, you were more careful of him, than himself, and that what you had done for me in my marriage, was a benefit for me, but of no use to your lordship; and therefore I might assure myself, you would not leave me there, with many like speeches; which I know too well my duty to take any other hold of, than the hold of a thankful remembrance: and I know, and all the world knoweth, that your lordship is no dealer of holy-water, but noble and real; and on my part, on sure ground, that I have committed nothing that may deserve any alteration; and if I cannot observe you as I would, your lordship will impute it to my want of experience, which I shall gather better, when I am once settled. And therefore my hope is, your lordship will finish a good work, and consider, that time groweth precious, and that I am now "vergentibus annis:" and although I know your fortune is not to want a hundred such as I am, yet I shall be ever ready to give you my best and first fruits, and to supply, as much as in me lieth, a worthiness by thankfulness. FR. BACON. Lord Chancellor Bacon to the King. It may please your most excellent Majesty. I dare not presume any more to reply upon your majesty, but reserve my defence till I attend your majesty at your happy return, when I hope verily to approve myself not only a true servant to your majesty, but a true friend to my lord of Buckingham; and for the times also, I hope to give your majesty a good account, though distance of place may obscure them. But there is one part of your majesty's letter, that I could be sorry to take time to answer; which is, that your majesty conceives, that whereas I wrote that the heighth of my lord's fortune might make him secure, I mean, that he was turned proud, or unknowing of himself. Surely, the opinion I have ever had of my lord (whereof your majesty is best witness) is far from that. But my meaning was plain and simple, that his lordship might, through his great fortune, be the less apt to cast and foresee the unfaithfulness of friends, and the malignity of enemies, and accidents of times. Which is a judgment (your majesty knoweth better than I) that the best authors make of the best, and best tempered spirits "ut sunt res humanæ ;" insomuch as Guicciardini maketh the same judgment (not of a particular person,) but of the wisest state of Europe, the senate of Venice, when he saith, their prosperity had made them secure, and under-weighers of perils. Therefore I beseech your majesty, to deliver me in this, from any the least imputation to my dear and noble lord and friend. And so expecting, that that sun which when it went from us, left us cold weather, and now it is returned towards us hath brought with it a blessed harvest, will, when it cometh to us, dispel and disperse all mists and mistakings. July 31. 1617. I am, etc. The Lord Chancellor Bacon to the King. It may please your most excellent Majesty, I do many times, with gladness, and for a remedy of my other labours, revolve in my mind the great happiness which God (of his singular goodness) hath accumulated upon your majesty every way, and how complete the same would be, if the state of your means were once rectified, and well ordered; your people military and obedient, fit for war, used to peace; your church illightened with good preachers, as an heaven of stars; your judges learned, and learning from you, just, and just by your example; your nobility in a right distance between crown and people, no oppressors VOL. XI. F of the people, no over-shadowers of the crown; your council full of tributes of care, faith, and freedom; your gentlemen, and justices of peace, willing to apply your royal mandates to the nature of their several counties, but ready to obey; your servants in awe of your wisdom, in hope of your goodness; the fields growing every day, by the improvement and recovery of grounds, from the desert to the garden; the city grown from wood to brick, your sea-walls, or Pomerium of your island, surveyed, and in edifying; your merchants embracing the whole compass of the world, east, west, north, and south; the times give you peace, and yet offer you opportunities of action abroad; and lastly, your excellent royal issue entaileth these blessings and favours of God to descend to all posterity. It resteth therefore, that God having done so great things for your majesty, and you for others, you would do so much for yourself, as to go through (according to your good beginnings) with the rectifying and settling of your estate and means, which only is wanting, "Hoc rebus defuit unum." I therefore, whom only love and duty to your majesty, and your royal line, hath made a financier, do intend to present unto your majesty a perfect book of your estate, like a perspective-glass, to draw your estate nearer to your sight; beseeching your majesty to conceive, that if I have not attained to do that I would do, in this, which is not proper for me, nor in my element, I shall make your majesty amends in some other thing, in which I am better bred. Jan. 2. 1618. God ever preserve, etc. The Lord Chancellor Bacon to the King. It may please your most excellent Majesty, Time hath been, when I have brought unto you "Gemitum Columbæ" from others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your majesty with the wings of a dove, which, once within these seven days, I thought would have carried me a higher flight. When I enter into myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is come upon me. I have been, (as your majesty knoweth best) never author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have things carried "suavibus modis." I have been no avaricious oppressor of the people. I have been no haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man, in my conversation or carriage: I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a good patriot born. Whence should this be; for these are the things that use to raise dislikes abroad. For the House of Commons, I began my credit there, and now it must be the place of the sepulture thereof. And yet this parliament, upon the message touching religion, the old love revived, and they said, I was the same man still, only honesty was turned into honour. For the upper-house, even within these days, before these troubles, they seemed as to take me into their arms, finding in me ingenuity, which they took to be the true straight line of nobleness, without crooks or angles. And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the books of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times. And therefore I am resolved, when I come to my answer, not to trick my innocency, (as I writ to the lords) by cavillations or voidances; but to speak to them the language that my heart speaketh to me, in excusing, extenuating, or ingenuous confessing; praying God to give me the grace to see to the bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of heart do steal upon me, under shew of more neatness of conscience, than is cause. But not to trouble your majesty any longer, craving pardon for this long mourning letter; that which I thirst after, as the hart after the streams, is, that I may know, by my matchless friend that presenteth to you this letter, your majesty's heart (which is an abyssus of goodness, as I am an abyssus of misery) towards me. I have been ever your mau, and counted myself but an usufructuary of myself, the property being yours. And now making myself an oblation, to do with me as may best conduce to the honour of your justice, the honour of your mercy, and the use of your service, resting as clay in your majesty's gracious hands, Mar. 25. 1620. Sir Francis Bacon to the King, upon the sending unto him a beginning of a History of His Majesty's Time. It may please your Majesty, Hearing that you are at leisure to peruse story, a desire took me to make an experiment what I could do in your majesty's times which, being but a leaf or two, I pray your pardon, if I send it for your recreation, considering, that love must creep where it cannot go. But to this I add these petitions: first, that if your majesty do dislike any thing, you would conceive I can amend it upon your least beck. Next, that if I have not spoken of your majesty encomiastically, your majesty will be pleased only to ascribe it to the law of an history, which doth not clutter together praises upon the first mention of a name, but rather disperseth them, and weaveth them throughout the whole narration. And as for the proper place of commemoration, (which is in the period of life,) I pray God I may never live to write it. Thirdly, that the reason why I presumed to think of this oblation, was, because whatsoever my disability be, yet I shall have that advantage which |