To the Lord of Canterbury. [Whitgift]
It may please your Grace, I have considered the objections, perused the statutes, and framed the alterations, which I send; still keeping myself within the brevity of a letter and form of a narration; not entering into a form of argument or disputation: For in my poor conceit it is somewhat against the majesty of princes’ actions to make too curious and striving apologies; but rather to set them forth plainly, and so as there may appear an harmony and constancy in them, so that one part upholdeth another. And so I wish your Grace all prosperity. From my poor lodging, this, etc.
Your Grace’s most dutiful,
Pupil and Servant.
My Lord,
It is a great grief unto me, joined with marvel, that her Majesty should retain an hard conceit of my speeches in Parliament. It mought please her sacred Majesty to think what my end should be in those speeches, if it were not duty, and duty alone. I am not so simple but I know the common beaten way to please. And whereas popularity hath been objected, I muse what care I should take to please many, that taketh a course of life to deal with few. On the other side, her Majesty’s grace and particular favour towards me hath been such, as I esteem no worldly thing above the comfort to enjoy it, except it be the conscience to deserve it. But if the not seconding of some particular person’s opinion shall be presumption, and to differ upon the manner shall be to impeach the end, it shall teach my devotion not to exceed wishes, and those in silence. Yet notwithstanding (to speak vainly as in grief) it may be her Majesty hath discouraged as good a heart as ever looked towards her service, and as void of self-love. And so in more grief than I can well express, and much more than I can well dissemble, I leave your Lordship, being as ever,
Your Lordship’s entirely devoted.
A Letter of Expostulation to the Attorney General Sir Edward Coke.
Mr. Attorney,
I thought best, once for all, to let you know in plainness what I find of you, and what you shall find of me. You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, my experience, my discretion. What it pleaseth you, I pray, think of me: I am one that knows both mine own wants and other men’s; and it may be, perchance, that mine mend, and others stand at a stay. And surely I may not endure in public place to be wronged, without repelling the same to my best advantage to right myself. You are great, and therefore have the more enviers, which would be glad to have you paid at another’s cost. Since the time I missed the Solicitor’s place (the rather I think by your means) I cannot expect that you and I shall ever serve as Attorney and Solicitor together: but either to serve with another upon your remove, or to step into some other course; so as I am more free than ever I was from any occasion of unworthy conforming myself to you, more than general good manners or your particular good usage shall provoke. And if you had not been shortsighted in your own fortune (as I think) you might have had more use of me. But that tide is passed.
I write not this to show my friends what a brave letter I have written to Mr. Attorney; I have none of those humours. But that I have written is to a good end, that is, to the more decent carriage of my mistress’ service, and to our particular better understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall be answered by you in deed, and not in word, I suppose it will not be worse for us both. Else it is but a few lines lost, which for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. So this being but to yourself, I for myself rest.
To the Earl of Salisbury.
It may please your Lordship,
I am not privy to myself of any snch ill deserving towards your Lordship, as that I should think it an impudent thing to be suitor for your favour in a reasonable matter, your Lordship being to me as (with your good favour) you cannot cease to be, but rather it were a simple and arrogant part in me to forbear it. It is thought Mr. Attorney shall be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In case Mr. Solicitor rise, I would be glad now at last to be Solicitor, chiefly because I think it will increase my practice, wherein God blessing me a few years, I may amend my state, and so after fall to my studies and ease, whereof one is requisite for my body, and the other sorteth with my mind. Herein if I may find your Lordship’s favour, I shall be more happy than I have been, which may make me also more wise. I have small store of means about the King, and to sue myself is not so fit.
And therefore I shall leave it to God, his Majesty, and your Lordship. For if I must still be next the door, I thank God in these transitory things I am well resolved. So beseeching your Lordship not to think this letter the less humble, because it is plain, I remain,
At your Lordship’s service very humbly,
Fr. Bacon.
A Letter to the Earl of Salisbury, of Courtesy upon a New Year Tide.
It may please your good Lordship,
Having no gift to present you with in any degree proportionable to my mind, I desire nevertheless to take the advantage of a ceremony to express myself to your Lordship; it being the first time I could make the like acknowledgment, when I stood out of the person of a suitor. Wherefore I most humbly pray your Lordship to think of me, that now it hath pleased you, by many effectual and great benefits, to add the assurance and comfort of your love and favour to that precedent disposition which was in me to admire your virtue and merits, I do esteem whatsoever I have or may have in this world but as trash, in comparison of having the honour and happiness to be a near and well accepted kinsman to so rare and worthy a counsellor, governor, and patriot. For having been a studious if not curious observer, as well of antiquities of virtue as late pieces, I forbear to say to your Lordship what I find and conceive; but to any other I would think to make myself believed. But not to be tedious (in that which may have the show of a compliment) I can but wish your Lordship many happy years; many more than your father had; even so many more as we may need you more. So I remain.
To Sir George Carey in France upon sending him his writing
In Felicem Memoriam Elizabeth.
My Very Good Lord,
Being asked the question by this bearer, an old servant of my brother Anthony Bacon, whether I would command him any service into France, and being at better leisure than I would, in regard of sickness, I began to remember that neither your business nor mine (though great and continual) can be upon an exact account any just occasion why so much good will as bath passed between us should be so much discontinued as it hath been. And therefore, because one must begin, I thought to provoke your remembrance of me by my letter. And thinking how to fit it with somewhat besides salutations, it came to my mind that this last summer vacation, by occasion of a factious book that endeavoured to verify Misera Fæmina (the addition of the Pope’s Bull) upon Queen Elizabeth, I did write a few lines in her memorial, which I thought you would be well pleased to read, both for the argument, and because you were wont to bear affection to my pen. Verum, ut aliud ex alio, if it came handsomely to pass, I would be glad the President De Thou (who hath written a history, as you know, of that fame and diligence) saw it; chiefly because I know not whether it may not serve him for some use of his story; wherein I would be glad he did right to the truth, and to the memory of that Lady, as I perceive by that he hath already written he is well inclined to do. I would be glad also it were some occasion (such as absence may permit) of some acquaintance or mutual notice between us.
For though he hath many ways the precedence (chiefly in worth), yet this is common to us both, that we serve our sovereigns in places of law eminent: and not ourselves only, but that our fathers did so before us; and lastly, that both of us love learning and liberal sciences, which was ever a bond of friendship in the greatest distances of places. But of this I make no further request than your own occasions and respects (to me unknown) may further or limit; my principal purpose being to salute you, and to send you this token: whereunto I will add my very kind commendations to my Lady; and so commit you both to God’s holy protection.
To the King.
It may please Your Excellent Majesty,
My principal end being to do your Majesty service, I crave leave to make at this time to your Majesty this most humble oblation of myself. I may truly say with the psalm. Multum incola fuit anima mea; for my life hath been conversant in things wherein I take little pleasure. Your Majesty may have heard somewhat that my father an honest man, and somewhat you may have seen of myself, though not to make any true judgment by, because I have hitherto had only potestatem verborum nor that neither. I was three of my young years bred with an ambassador in France, and since I have been an old truant, in the school-house of your council-chamber, though on the second form; yet longer than any that now sitteth bath been on the head form. If your Majesty find any aptness in me, or if you find any scarcity in others, whereby you may think it fit for your service to remove me to business of although I have a fair way before me for profit (and by your Majesty’s grace and favour for honour and advancement), and in a course less exposed to the blasts of fortune, yet now that he is gone, quo vivente virtutibus certissimum exitium, I will be ready as a chessman to be wherever your Majesty’s royal hand shall set me. Your Majesty will bear me witness, I have not suddenly opened myself thus far. I have looked on upon others, I see the exceptions, I see the distractions, and I fear Tacitus will be a prophet, magis alii homines quam alii mores. I know mine own heart, and I know not whether God that hath touched my heart with the affection may not touch your royal heart to discern it.
Howsoever, I shall at least go on honestly in mine ordinary course, and supply the rest in prayers for you, remaining, etc.
To the Lord Somerset.
It may please your good L,
I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns of Court failed; wherein I conceive there is no other ground of that event but impossibility. Nevertheless, because it falleth out that at this time Gray’s Inn is well furnished of gallant young gentlemen, your L, may be pleased to know that rather than this occasion shall pass without some demonstration of affection from the Inns of Court, there are a dozen gentlemen of Gray’s Inn that out of the honour which they bear to your Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain, to whom at their last masque they were so much bounden, will be ready to furnish a masque; wishing it were in their powers to perform it according to their minds.
And so for the present I humbly take my leave, resting your Ls very humbly and much bounden,
Fr. Bacon.
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