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industrious myself, and the more earnest in soliciting mine own friends. Upon me the labour must lie of his establishment, and upon me the disgrace will light of his being refused. Therefore I pray your lordship, now account me not as a solicitor only of my friend's cause, but as a party interested in this; and employ all your lordship's favour to me, or strength for me, in procuring a short and speedy end. For though I know, it will never be carried any other way, yet I hold both my friend and myself disgraced by this protraction. More I would write, but that I know to so honourable and kind a friend, this which I have said is enough. And so I commend your lordship to God's best protection, resting, At your lordship's commandment, [No date.]

ESSEX.

and to tell you truly, my meaning was not that the suit of this other gentleman, Mr. Temple,* should have been moved in my name. For I should have been unwilling to have moved his majesty for more than one at once, though many times in his majesty's courts of justice, if we move once for our friends, we are allowed to move again for our fee.

But indeed my purpose was, that you might have been pleased to have moved it as for myself.

Nevertheless, since it is so far gone, and that the gentleman's friends are in some expectation of success, I leave it to your kind regard what is farther to be done, as willing to give satisfaction to those which have put me in trust, and loath on the other side to press above good manners. And so, with my loving commendations, I remain Yours, &c.

1603.

A LETTER TO DR. MORISON,* A SCOTTISH PHY SICIAN, UPON HIS MAJESTY'S COMING IN. MR. DOCTOR MORISON,

I have thought good by this my letter to renew this my ancient acquaintance which hath passed between us, signifying my good mind to you, to perform to you any good office, for your particular and my expectation, and a firm assurance of the like on your part towards me: wherein I confess you may have the start of me, because occasion hath given you the precedency in investing you with opportunity to use my name well, and by your loving testimony to further a good opinion of me in his majesty, and the court.

But I hope my experience of matters here will, with the light of his majesty's favour, enable me speedily both to requite your kindness, and to acquit and make good your testimony and report. So not doubting to see you here with his majesty, considering that it belongeth to your art to feel pulses, and I assure you Galen doth not set down greater variety of pulses than do vent here in men's hearts, I wish you all prosperity, and remain Yours, &c.

From my Chamber at Gray's Inn, &c., 1603.

TO MR. MATTHEW.+

SIR,-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 enclosed, 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 swaddling 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 cannot but account as a page of 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 cannot alter, no more than time shall me, except it be for the better.

1605.

A LETTER TO MR. MURRAY, OF THE KING'S BED-
CHAMBER.
MR. MURRAY,

It is very true that his majesty most graciously, at my humble request, knighted the last Sunday my brother-in-law, a towardly young gentleman;† for which favour I think myself more bound to his majesty, than for the benefit of ten knights: * He had held a correspondence with Mr. Anthony Bacon, and was employed to find intelligence from Scotland to the Earl of Essex.-See Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1581 till her death, vol. i. p. 79. 109. 116.

To this Sir John Constable, Sir Francis Bacon dedicated the second edition of his Essays, published at London, 1612, in octavo.

TO MY LADY PACKINGTON, IN ANSWER TO A MESSAGE BY HER SENT.( MADAM,-You shall with right good will be made acquainted with any thing that concerneth * Probably Mr. William Temple, who had been educated in King's College, Cambridge, then master of the free school at Lincoln, next successively secretary to Sir Philip Sidney, Secretary Davison, and the Earl of Essex, made provost of Dublin College in 1609, and at last knighted, and appointed one of the masters in chancery in Ireland. He died about 1626, at the age of 72.

† Sir Tobie Matthew's Collection of Letters, p. 11. Mr. Matthew wrote an elegy on the Duke of Florence's felicity. From an old copy of Sir Francis Bacon's Letters.

your daughters, if you bear a mind of love and | finely, somewhat after the manner of my late lord concord, otherwise you must be content to be a stranger unto us; for I may not be so unwise as to suffer you to be an author or occasion of dissension between your daughters and their husbands, having seen so much misery of that kind in yourself.

And above all things I will turn back your kindness, in which you say, you will receive my wife if she be cast off; for it is much more likely we have occasion to receive you being cast off, if you remember what is passed. But it is time to make an end of those follies, and you shall at this time pardon me this one fault of writing to you; for I mean to do it no more till you use me and respect me as you ought. So, wishing you better than it seemeth you will draw upon yourself, I Yours, rest,

FR. BACON.

TO SIR THOMAS BODELEY, AFTER HE HAD IMPARTED TO HIM A WRITING, ENTITLED, COGITATA ET VISA.*

SIR,-In respect of my going down to my house in the country, I shall have miss of my papers, which I pray you therefore to return unto me. You are, I bear you witness, slothful, and you help me nothing: so as I am half in conceit that you affect not the argument, for myself, I know well, you love and affect. I can say no more to you, but non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvæ. If you be not of the lodgings chalked up, whereof I speak in my preface, I am but to pass by your door. But if I had you a fortnight at Gorhambury, I would make you tell me another tale; or else I would add a cogitation against libraries, and be revenged on you that way. I pray you send me some good news of Sir Thomas Smith, and commend me very kindly to him.

So I rest. 1607.

TO THE KING.†

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENT MAJESTY, Mr. St. John his day is past, and well past. I hold it to be Janus Bifrons; it hath a good aspect to that which is past, and to the future; and doth both satisfy and prepare. All did well; my lord chief justice delivered the law for the benevolence strongly; I would he had done it timely. Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer‡ spake

* Rawley's Resuscitatio. + Ibid

The chancellor of the exchequer here meant, was Sir Fulke Greville, who, being early initiated into the court of Queen Elizabeth, became a polite and fine gentleman; and, in the 18th of King James, was created Lord Brooke. He erected a noble monument for himself on the north side of Warwick church, which hath escaped the late desolation, with this well known inscription: "Fulke Greville, servant

privy seal;* not all out so sharply, but as elegantly. Sir Thomas Lake, who is also new in that court, did very well, familiarly and counsellor-like. My lord of Pembroke, who is likewise a stranger there, did extraordinary well, and became himself well, and had an evident applause. I meant well also; and because my information was the ground; having spoken out of a few heads which I had gathered, for I seldom do more, I set down, as soon as I came home, cursorily, a frame of that I had said; though I persuade myself I spake it with more life. I have sent it to Mr. have sent it to Mr. Murray sealed; if your majesty have so much idle time to look upon it, it may give some light of the day's work: but I most humbly pray your majesty to pardon the God preserve you ever. Your majesty's most humble subject, and devoted servant, FR. BACON.

errors.

April 29, 1615.

SIR FRANCIS BACON TO KING JAMES.

IT MAY PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, It pleased your majesty to commit to my care and trust for Westminster Hall three particulars; that of the rege inconsulto, which concerneth Murray; that of the commendams, which con

to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney." Nor is he less remembered by the monument he has left in his writings and poems, chiefly composed in his youth, and in familiar exercises with the gentleman I

have before mentioned.-Stephens.

* Late Earl of Northampton.

Sir Thomas Lake was about this time made one of the

principal secretaries of state, as he had been formerly Latin secretary to Queen Elizabeth, and, before that time, bred under Sir Francis Walsingham. But, in the year 1618, falling into the king's displeasure, and being engaged in the quarrels with his wife and daughter, the Lady Roos, with

the Countess of Exeter, he was at first suspended from the execution of his place, and afterwards removed, and deeply censured and fined in the Star Chamber; although it is said the king then gave him, in open court, this public eulogy, that he was a minister of state fit to serve the greatest prince in Europe. Whilst this storm was hanging over his head, he writ many letters to the king and the Marquis of Buckingham, which I have seen, complaining of his misfortune, that his ruin was likely to proceed from the assistance he gave to his nearest relations.-Stephens.

William, Earl of Pembroke, son to Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord President of the Council in the marches of Wales, by Mary his wife, a lady in whom the muses and graces seemed to meet; whose very letters, in the judgment of one who saw many of them, declared her to be mistress of a pen not inferior to that of her brother, the admirable Sir Philip Sidney, and to whom he addressed his Arcadia. Nor did this gentleman degenerate from their wit and spirit, as his poems, his great patronage of learned men, and resolute opposition to the Spanish match, did, among other instances, fully prove. In the year 1616, he was made lord chamberlain, and chosen chancellor of the university of Oxford. He died suddenly on the 10th of April, 1630, having just completed fifty years. But, his only son deceasing, a child, before him, his estate and honours descended upon his younger brother, Philip, Earl of Montgomery, the lineal ancestor of the present noble and learned earl.-Stephens.

> Sir David Dalrymple's Memorials and Letters, p. 46.

cerneth the Bishop of Lincoln; and that of the habeas corpus, which concerneth the Chancery.

of fourteen several patents, part in Queen Elizabeth's time, some in your majesty's time, which depend upon the like question; but chiefly because this writ is a mean provided by the ancient

These causes, although I gave them private additions, yet, they are merely, or at least chiefly, yours; and the die runneth upon your royal prero-law of England, to bring any case that may congative's diminution, or entire conservation. Of these it is my duty to give your majesty a short

account.

For that of the rege inconsulto, I argued the same in the King's Bench on Thursday last. There argued on the other part Mr. George Crook, the judge's brother, an able bookman, and one that was manned forth with all the furniture that the bar could give him, I will not say the bench, and with the study of a long vacation. I was to answer, which hath a mixture of the sudden; and of myself I will not, nor cannot say any thing, but that my voice served me well for two hours and a half; and that those that understood nothing could tell me that I lost not one auditor that was present in the beginning, but stayed till the later end. If I should say more, there were too many witnesses, for I never saw the court more full, that might disprove me.

cern your majesty, in profit or power, from the ordinary benches, to be tried and judged before your Chancellor of England, by the ordinary and legal part of his power and your majesty knoweth your chancellor is ever a principal counsellor, and instrument of monarchy, of immediate dependence upon the king: and, therefore, like to be a safe and tender guardian of the royal rights.

For the case of the commendams, a matter likewise of great consequence, though nothing near the first, this day I was prepared to have argued it before all the judges; but, by reason of the sickness of the sergeant which was provided to argue on the other side, although I pressed to have had some other day appointed this term; yet it pleased divers of the judges to do me the honour, as to say it was not fit any should argue against me, upon so small time of warning, it is adjourned to the first Saturday next term.

For the matter of the habeas corpus, I perceive this common employment of my lord chancellor, and my lord chief justice, in these examinations, is such a vinculum, as they will not square while these matters are in hand, so that there is altum God ever preserve silentium of that matter. your majesty.

My Lord Coke was pleased to say, that it was a famous argument; but withal, he asked me a politic and tempting question: for, taking occasion by a notable precedent I had cited, where, upon the like writ brought, all the judges in England assembled, and that privately, lest they should seem to dispute the king's commandment, and, upon conference, with one mind agreed, that the writ must be obeyed. Upon this hold, my lord asked me, whether I would have all the rest of the judges called to it. I was not caught; but knowing well that the judges of the Common Pleas were most of all others interested in respect of the prothonotaries, I answered, civilly, that I could advise of it; but that I did not distrust the court; and, besides, I thought the case so clear, TO SIR GEORGE VILLIERS, ON SENDING HIS BILL as it needed not.

Sir, I do perceive, that I have not only stopped, but almost turned the stream; and I see how things cool by this, that the judges that were wont to call so hotly upon the business, when they had heard, of themselves, took a fortnight day to advise what they will do, by which time the term will be near at an end; and I know they little expected to have the matter so beaten down with book-law, upon which my argument wholly went; so that every mean student was satisfied. Yet, because the times are as they are, I could wish, in all humbleness, that your majesty would remember and renew your former commandment which you gave my lord chief justice in Michaelmas term, which was, that after he had heard your attorney, which is now done, he should forbear further proceeding till he had spoke with your majesty.

It concerneth your majesty threefold. First, in this particular of Murray; next, in consequence

Your majesty's most humble
and bounden subject and servant,
FR. BACON.

January 27, 1615.

FOR VISCOUNT.*

SIR:-I send you the bill for his majesty's signature, reformed according to his majesty's amendments, both in the two places, which, I assure you, were both altered with great judgment, and in the third place, which his majesty termed a question only. But he is an idle body that thinks his majesty asks an idle question; and therefore his majesty's questions are to be answered by taking away the cause of the question, and not by replying.

For the name, his majesty's will is law in those things; and to speak truth, it is a well sounding and noble name, both here and abroad; and being your proper name, I will take it for a good sign that you shall give honour to your dignity, and not your dignity to you. Therefore I have made it Viscount Villiers: and for your barony, I will keep it for an earldom; for,

* Stephens's second Collection, p. 10.

though the other had been more orderly, yet that faction of justice, and example to others: we

is as usual, and both alike good in law.

being always graciously inclined to temper mercy with justice, and calling to mind his former good services, and how well and profitably he hath spent his time since his trouble, are pleased to remove from him that blot of ignominy which yet remaineth upon him, of incapacity and disablement; But blement; and to remit to him all penalties whatsoever inflicted by that sentence. Haying therefore formerly pardoned his fine, and released his confinement, these are to will and require you to prepare, for our signature, a bill containing a pardon, in due form of law, of the whole sentence; for which this shall be your sufficient warrant.

For Roper's place,* I would have it by all means despatched; and therefore I marvel it lingereth. It were no good manners to take the business out of my lord treasurer's hands; and therefore I purpose to write to his lordship, if I hear not from him first by Mr. Deccomb. But if I hear of any delay, you will give me leave, especially since the king named me, to deal with Sir Jol.n Roper myself; for neither I nor my lord treasurer can deserve any great thanks of you in this business, considering the king hath spoken to Sir John Roper, and he hath promised; and, besides, the thing itself is so reasonable as it ought to be as soon done as said. I am now gotten into the country to my house, where I have some little liberty to think of that I would think of, and not of that which other men hourly break my head withal, as it was at London. Upon this you may conclude, that most of my thoughts are of his majesty; and then you cannot be far off. God ever keep you, and prosper you. I rest always

Your true and most devoted servant,
FR. BACON.

Aug. 5, one of the happiest days, 1616.

BY KING JAMES.+

TO OUR TRUSTY AND WELL BELOVED THOMAS
VENTRY, OUR ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

I

MR. FRANCIS BACON TO THE EARL OF ESSEX.*

MY LORD,-I did almost conjecture, by your silence and countenance, a distaste in the course imparted to your lordship touching mine own fortune; the care whereof in your lordship as it is no news to me, so, nevertheless, the main effects and demonstrations past are so far from dulling in me the sense of any new, as, contrariwise, every new refresheth the memory of many past. And for the free and loving advice your lordship hath given me, I cannot correspond to the same with greater duty, than by assuring your lordship, that I will not dispose of myself without your allowco-ance, not only because it is the best wisdom in any man in his own matters, to rest in the wisdom of a friend, (for who can by often looking in favour as another with whom he converseth?) the glass discern and judge so well of his own but also because my affection to your lordship hath made mine own contentment inseparable know it will be pleasing to your good lordship from your satisfaction. But, notwithstanding, I that I use my liberty of replying; and I do almost assure myself, that your lordship will rest persuaded by the answer of those reasons which your lordship vouchsafed to open. They were two, the one, that I should include

Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well: Whereas, our right trusty and right well beloved cousin, the Viscount of St. Alban, upon a sentence given in the Upper House of Parliament full three years since, and more, hath endured loss of his place, imprisonment, and confinement also for a great time, which may suffice for the satis

*Sir John Roper, who had for many years enjoyed the place of the chief clerk for enrolling of pleas in the court of King's Bench, esteemed to be worth about four thousand pounds per annum, being grown old, was prevailed with to surrender it upon being created Lord Teynham, with a reservation of the profits thereof to himself during life. Upon which surrender, Sir George Villiers was to have the office granted to two of his trustees for their lives, as Carr, Earl of Somerset, was to have had before. But the Lord Chief Justice Coke not being very forward to accept of the surrender, or make a new grant of it upon those terms, he was, upon the 3d of October, 1616, commanded to desist from the service of this place, and at last removed from it upon the 15th of November following. His successor, Sir Henry Montagu, third son of Sir Edward Montagu, of Boughton in Northamptonshire, recorder of London, and king's sergeant, being more complaisant, Sir John Roper resigned, towards the latter end of the same month; and Mr. Shute, and Mr. Heath, who was afterwards the king's solicitor-general, being the deputies and trustees of Sir George Villiers, were admitted.Stephens's Introduct. p. 37.

+ Cabala, 270. Edw. 1663.

His sentence forbid his coming within the verge of the court. [In consequence of this letter, my Lord Bacon was summoned to Parliament in the first year of King Charles.]

April, 1593.

*

*

The rest of the letter is wanting.

*

THE EARL OF ESSEX TO MR. FRANCIS BACON.+

MR. BACON,-Your letter met me here yesterday. When I came, I found the queen so wayward, as I thought it no fit time to deal with her in any sort, especially since her choler grew to wards myself, which I have well satisfied this day, and will take the first opportunity I can to

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move your suit. And if you come hither, I pray | And thus, desirous to oe recommended to my you let me know still where you are. And so, good aunt, to whom my wife heartily commends being full of business, I must end, wishing you her, I leave you to the protection of Almighty what you wish to yourself. God.

Sept. 1593.

Your assured friend,

ESSEX.

Your loving cousin and friend, ROBERT CECIL. From the Court at Windsor, this 27th of Sept., 1593. I have heard in these causes, Facies hominis es“

LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY TO MR. FRANCIS tanquam leonis.

BACON.*

NEPHEW, I have no leisure to write much; put for answer I have attempted to place you: but her majesty hath required the lord keeper† to give to her the names of divers lawyers to be preferred, wherewith he made me acquainted, and I did name you as a meet man, whom his lordship allowed in way of friendship, for your father's sake: but he made scruple to equal you with certain, whom he named, as Brograve and Branthwayt, whom he specially commendeth. But I will continue the remembrance of you to her majesty, and implore my Lord of Essex's help.

Sept. 27, 1593.

Your loving uncle,

N. BURGHLEY.

SIR ROBERT CECIL TO MR. FRANCIS BACON.

COUSIN,-Assure yourself that the solicitor's coming gave no cause of speech; for it was concerning a book to be drawn, concerning the bar gain of wines. If there had been, you should have known, or when there shall. To satisfy your request of making my lord know, how recommended your desires are to me, I have spoken with his lordship, who answereth he hath done and will do his best. I think your absence longer than for my good aunt's comfort will do you no good: for, as I ever told you, it is not likely to find the queen apt to give an office, when the scruple is not removed of her forbearance to speak with you. This being not yet perfected may stop good, when the hour comes of conclusion, though it be but a trifle, and questionless would be straight despatched, if it were luckily handled. But herein do I, out of my desire to satisfy you, use this my opinion, leaving you to your own better knowledge what hath been done for you, or in what terms that matter standeth.

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+ Puckering.

John Brograve, attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, and afterwards knighted. He is mentioned by Mr. Francis Bacon, in his letter to the lord treasurer of the 7th of June, 1595,

from Gray's Inn, as having discharged his post of attorney of the duchy, with great sufficiency. There is extant, of his, in print, a reading upon the statute of 27 Henry VIII., concerning jointures.

Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq., vol. iii. fol. 197, verso, in the Lambeth Library.

Mr. Edward Coke.

VOL. III.-26

MR. FRANCIS BACON TO THE QUEEN.*

MADAM,-Remembering that your majesty had been gracious to me both in countenancing me, and conferring upon me the reversion of a good place, and perceiving that your majesty had taken some displeasure towards me, both these were arguments to move me to offer unto your majesty my service, to the end to have means to deserve your favour, and to repair my error. Upon this ground, I affected myself to no great matter, but only a place of my profession, such as I do see divers younger in proceeding to myself, and men of no great note, do without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press this matter, I do assure your majesty my spirit is not with

them.

It sufficeth me that I have let your majesty know that I am ready to do that for the service, which I never would do for mine own gain. And if your majesty like others better, I shall, with the Lacedemonian, be glad that there is such choice of abler men than myself. Your majesty's favour indeed, and access to your royal person, I did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, seek and desire; and I would be very glad to be reintegrate in that. But I will not wrong mine own good mind so much as to stand upon that now, when your majesty may conceive I do it but to make my profit of it. But my mind turneth upon other wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that I wish your majesty served answerable to yourself. Principis est virtus maxima nosse suos. Thus I most humbly crave pardon of my boldness and plainness. God preserve your majesty.

MR. FRANCIS BACON TO ROBERT KEMP, OF
GRAY'S INN, ESQ.†

GOOD ROBIN,-There is no news you can write to me, which I take more pleasure to hear, than of your health, and of your loving remembrance of me; the former whereof though you mention not in your letter, yet I straight presumed well of it, because your mention was so fresh to make such a flourish. And it was afterwards accord

*Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq., vol. iii. fol 315, in the Lambeth Library.

+ Ibid. fol. 281.

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