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ing, Amor sin fin, no tiene fin.* This bids me make | house, I humbly pray you think better of it.
choice of your friend and mine, for his noble suc-
cours; not now towards the aspiring, but only the
respiring of my fortunes. I, who am a man of
books, have observed, that he hath both the mag-
nanimity of the old Romans, and the cordiality of
the old English; and withal, I believe, he hath the
wit of both: sure I am, that for myself I have
found him in both my fortunes, to esteem me so
much above my just value, and to love me so much
above the possibility of deserving, or obliging on
my part, as if he were a friend created and reserved
for such a time as this. You know what I have to
say to the great lord, and I conceive it cannot pass
so fitly to him by the mouth of any, as of this gen-
tleman; and therefore do your best (which I know
will be of power enough) to engage him both in the
substance and to the secrecy of it: for I can think
of no man but yourself, to be used by me in this,
who are so private, so faithful, and so discreet a
friend to us both; as on the other side, I dare swear
he is, and know myself to be as true to you as your
own heart.

CCLXXX.

AN EXPOSTULATION TO THE
MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.+

For

that motion to me was a second sentence more grievous than the first, as things then stood, and do yet stand: for it sentenced me to have lost both in my own opinion, and much more in the opinion of others, that which was saved to me, almost only, in the former sentence; and which was more dear to me than all that which was taken from me, which is your lordship's love and favour. For had it not been for that bitter circumstance, your lordship knows, that you might have commanded my life, and all that is mine. But surely it could not be that, nor any thing in me, which wrought the change. It is likely on the other part, that though your lordship in your nature I know to be generous and constant, yet I being now become out of sight, and out of use, your lordship having a flood of new friends, and your ears possessed perhaps by such as would not leave room for an old; your lordship may, even by course of the world, and the overbearing of others, be turned from me; and it were almost a miracle if it should be otherwise. But yet, because your lordship may still have so heroical a spirit, as to stand out in all these violent assaults, which might have alienated you from your friend; my humble suit to your lordship is, that remembering our former friendship, which began with your beginnings, and since that time hath never failed on my part, your lordship would deal clearly with me, and let me know whether I continue in your favour or no; and whether YOUR lordship will pardon me, if, partly in the in those poor requests, which I may yet make to his freedom of adversity, and partly of former friend- Majesty (whose true servant I ever was and am) for ship, (the sparks whereof cannot but continue,) I the tempering of my misery, I may presume to use open myself to your lordship, and desire also your lordship to open yourself to me. The two last acts which you did for me, in procuring the releasement of my fine, and my Quietus est, I acknowledge, were effects real and material of your love and favour; which, as to my knowledge, it never failed in my prosperity, so in these two things it seems not to have turned with the wheel. But the extent of these two favours is not much more than to keep me from persecution. For any thing farther, which might tend to my comfort and assistance, as I cannot say to myself, that your lordship hath forsaken me; so I see not the effects of your undeserved, yea undesired professions and promises; which being made to a person in affliction, have the nature, after a sort, of vows. But that which most of all makes me doubt of a change or cooling in your lordship's affection to wards me, is, that being twice now at London, your lordship did not vouchsafe to see me, though by messages you gave me hope thereof, and the latter time I had begged it of your lordship.

MY VERY GOOD LORD,

The cause of change may either be in myself or your lordship. I ought first to examine myself, which I have done; and God is my witness, I find all well, and that I have approved myself to your lordship a true friend, both in the watery trial of prosperity, and in the fiery trial of adversity. If your lordship take any insatisfaction touching the

Love without ends hath no end, was a saying of Gondomar the Spanish ambassador; meaning thereby, that if it were begun not upon particular ends, it would last. Bacon's Apophthegms, 67. Vol. I. p. 315.

your lordship's favour and help as I have done; for otherwise it were a kind of stupidness in me, and a great trouble also to your lordship, for me not to discern the change, for your lordship to have an importuner, instead of a friend and a suitor. Though howsoever, if your lordship should never think of me more, yet in respect of your former favours, which cannot altogether be made void, I must remain, &c.

CCLXXXI. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.‡

MY LORD,

I HAVE despatched the business your lordship recommended to me, which I send your lordship here enclosed, signed by his Majesty, and have likewise moved him for your coming to kiss his hand, which he is pleased you should do at Whitehall when he returneth next thither.

In the mean time I rest

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Newmarket, 13 Nov. 1622.

I will give order to my secretary to wait upon
Sir John Suckling about your other business.

Endorsed by the lord St. Alban's hand,
My lord of Bucks, touching my warrant and access.
Sir Tobie Matthew's Collection of Letters, p. 48, and
Stephens's Second Collection, P. 167.

Stephens's Second Collection, p. 174.

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THOUGH I have troubled your lordship with many letters, oftener than I think I should, (save that affection keepeth no account,) yet upon the repair of Mr. Matthew, a gentleman so much your lordship's servant, and to me another myself, as your lordship best knoweth, you would not have thought me a man alive, except I had put a letter into his hand, and withal, by so faithful and approved a man, commended my fortunes afresh unto your lordship.

My lord, to speak my heart to your lordship, I❘ never felt my misfortunes so much as now: not for that part which may concern myself, who profit (I thank God for it) both in patience, and in settling mine own courses; but when I look abroad and see the times so stirring, and so much dissimulation and falsehood, baseness and envy in the world, and so many idle clocks going in men's heads, then it grieveth me much, that I am not sometimes at your lordship's elbow, that I might give you some of the fruits of the careful advice, modest liberty, and true information of a friend that loveth your lordship as I do. For though your lordship's fortunes be above the thunder and storms of inferior regions; yet nevertheless, to hear the wind and not to feel it, will make one sleep the better.

My good lord, somewhat I have been, and much I have read; so that few things that concern states or greatness, are new cases unto me: and therefore I hope I may be no unprofitable servant to your lordship. I remember the king was wont to make a character of me, far above my worth, that I was not made for small matters; and your lordship would sometimes bring me from his Majesty that Latin sentence, De minimis non curat lex: and it hath so fallen out, that since my retiring, times have | been fuller of great matters than before; wherein perhaps, if I had continued near his Majesty, he might have found more use of my service, if my gift lay that way but that is but a vain imagination of mine. True it is, that as I do not aspire to use my talent in the king's great affairs; yet for that which may concern your lordship, and your fortune, no man living shall give you a better account of faith, industry, and affection, than I shall. I must conclude with that which gave me occasion of this letter, which is Mr. Matthew's employment to your lordship in those parts, wherein I am verily persuaded your lordship shall find him a wise and able gentleman, and one that will bend his knowledge of the world (which is great) to serve his Majesty, and the prince, and in especial your lordship. So I rest Your lordship's most obliged and faithful servant, FR. ST. ALBAN.

Gray's-Inn, this 18th April, 1623.

Stephens's Second Collection, p. 175. + Ibid. p. 177.

CCLXXXIII. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.†

EXCELLENT LORD,

How much I rejoice in your Grace's safe return, you will easily believe, knowing how well I love you, and how much I need you. There be many things in this journey both in the felicity and in the carriage thereof, that I do not a little admire, and wish your Grace may reap more and more fruits in continuance answerable to the beginnings. Myself have ridden at anchor all your Grace's absence, and my cables are now quite worn. I had from Sir Toby Matthew, out of Spain, a very comfortable message, that your Grace had said, I should be the first that you would remember in any great favour after your return and now coming from court, he telleth me he had commission from your lordship to confirm it: for which I humbly kiss your hands.

My lord, do some good work upon me, that I may end my days in comfort, which nevertheless cannot be complete except you put me in some way to do your noble self service; for I must ever rest Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant, FR. ST. ALBAN.

12 Oct. 1623.

I have written to his highness, and had presented my duty to his highness, to kiss his hands at Yorkhouse, but that my health is scarce yet confirmed.

CCLXXXIV. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.‡

MY LORD,

THE assurance of your love makes me easily believe your joy at my return; and if I may be so happy, as by the credit of my place to supply the decay of your cables, I shall account it one of the special fruits thereof. What Sir Toby Matthew hath delivered on my behalf, I will be ready to make good, and omit no opportunity that may serve for the endeavours of

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Royston, Octob. 14, 1623.

CCLXXXV. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.§ EXCELLENT LORD,

I SEND your Grace for a parabien a book of mine, written first and dedicated to his Majesty in English, and now translated into Latin and enriched. After his Majesty and his highness, your Grace is ever to have the third turn with me. Vouchsafe of your wonted favour to present also the king's book to his Majesty. The prince's I have sent to Mr. Endimion Porter. I hope your Grace, because you are wont to disable your Latin, will not send your book to Ibid. p. 178. § Ibid. p. 179.

the Conde d'Olivares, because he was a deacon; for

HAM.I

I understand by one, that your Grace may guess CCLXXXVIII. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGwhom I mean, that the Conde is not rational, and I hold this book to be very rational. Your Grace will pardon me to be merry, however the world goeth with me. I ever rest

Your Grace's most faithful and obliged servant, FR. ST. ALBAN. Gray's-Inn, this 22d October, 1623.

I have added a begging postscript in the king's letter; for, as I writ before, my cables are worn out, my hope of tackling is by your lordship's means. For me and mine I pray command.

CCLXXXVI. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.* MY LORD,

I GIVE your lordship many thanks for the parabien you have sent me; which is so welcome unto me, both for the author's sake and for the worth of itself, that I cannot spare a work, of so much pains to your lordship and value to me, unto a man of so little reason and less art; who if his skill in languages be no greater than I found it in argument, may, perhaps, have as much need of an interpreter, for all his deaconry, as myself; and whatsoever mine ignorance is in the tongue, yet this much I understand in the book, that it is a noble monument of your love, which I will entail to my posterity, who I hope, will both reap the fruit of the work, and honour the memory of the author. The other book I delivered to his Majesty, who is tied here by the feet longer than he purposed to stay.

For the business your lordship wrote of in your other letters, I am sorry I can do you no service, having engaged myself to Sir William Becher before my going into Spain, so that I cannot free myself, unless there were means to give him satisfaction. But I will ever continue

Your lordship's assured friend and faithful
servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Hinchenbrook, 27 Oct. 1623.

CCLXXXVII. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN. †

MY HONOURABLE LORD,

I HAVE delivered your lordship's letter and your book to his Majesty, who hath promised to read it over: I wish I could promise as much for that which you sent me, that my understanding of that language might make me capable of those good fruits, which, I assure myself by an implicit faith, proceed from your pen. But I will tell you in good English, with my thanks for your book, that I ever

rest

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Hinchenbrook, 29 Oct. 1623.

• Stephens's Second Collection, p. 180. + Ibid. p. 181.

EXCELLENT LORD,

I SEND Mr. Parker to have ready, according to the speech I had with your Grace, my two suits to his Majesty, the one for a full pardon, that I may die out of a cloud; the other for a translation of my honours after my decease. I hope his Majesty will have compassion on me, as he promised me he would. My heart telleth me that no man hath loved his Majesty and his service more entirely, and love is the law and the prophets. I ever rest

Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant, 25 Nov. 1623. FR. ST. ALBAN.

CCLXXXIX. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.§ MY HONOURABLE LORD,

I HAVE received your lordship's letter, and have been long thinking upon it, and the longer the less able to make answer unto it. Therefore if your lordship would be pleased to send any understanding man unto me, to whom I may in discourse open myself, I will by that means so discover my heart with all freedom, which were too long to do by letter, especially in this time of parliament business, that your lordship shall receive satisfaction. In the mean time I rest

Your lordship's faithful servant,
G. BUCKINGHAM.

Royston, 16 December.

CCXC. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.||
MY LORD,

I HAVE moved his Majesty in your suit, and find him very graciously inclined to grant it; but he desireth first to know from my lord treasurer his opinion and the value of it: to whom I have written to that purpose this enclosed letter, and would wish your lordship to speak with him yourself for his favour and fartherance therein; and for my part I will omit nothing that appertaineth to

Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, G. BUCKINGHAM. Newmarket, the 28th of Jan. 1623.

CCXCI. TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.¶

EXCELLENT LORD,

I HAVE received the warrant, not for land but for the money, which if it may be speedily served, is ‡ Ibid. p. 181. § Ibid. p. 184. | Ibid. p. 185. ¶ Ibid.

sure the better; for this I humbly kiss your Grace's | Your lordship is interested in honour, in the opinion hands.

But because the exchequer is thought to be somewhat barren, although I have good affiance of Mr. Chancellor, yet I hold it very essential, and therein I most humbly pray your Grace's favour, that you would be pleased by your letter to recommend to Mr. Chancellor the speedy issuing of the money by this warrant, as a business whereof your Grace hath an especial care; the rather for that I understand from him, there be some other warrants for money to private suitors at this time on foot. But your Grace may be pleased to remember this difference that the other are mere gifts; this of mine is a bargain, with an advance only.

I most humbly pray your Grace likewise to present my most humble thanks to his Majesty. God ever guide you by the hand. I always rest Your faithful and more and more obliged servant, FR. ST. ALBAN.

Gray's-Inn, this 17th of
November, 1624.

of all them who hear how I am dealt with; if your lordship malice me for such a cause, surely it was one of the justest businesses that ever was in chancery. I will avouch it; and how deeply I was tempted therein, your lordship knows best. Your lordship may do well, in this great age of yours, to think of your grave, as I do of mine; and to beware of hardness of heart. And as for fair words, it is a wind, by which neither your lordship, nor any man else, can sail long. Howsoever, I am the man who will give all due respects and reverence to your great place, &c.

CCXCIV. TO THE KING.§

MOST GRACIOUS AND DREAD SOVEREIGN, BEFORE I make my petition to your Majesty, I make my prayers to God above pectore ab imo, that if I have held any thing so dear as your Majesty's service, nay, your heart's ease, and your honour's, I

I most humbly thank your Grace for your Grace's may be repulsed with a denial: but if that hath favour to my honest deserving servant.

CCXCII. TO THE LORD ST. ALBAN.*

MY NOBLE LORD,

THE hearty affection I have borne to your person and service, hath made me ever ambitious to be a messenger of good news to you, and an eschewer of ill; this hath been the true reason why I have been thus long in answering you, not any negligence in your discreet modest servant, you sent with your letter, nor his who now returns you this answer, ofttimes given me by your master and mine; who though by this may seem not to satisfy your desert and expectation, yet, take the word of a friend who will never fail you, hath a tender care of you, full of a fresh memory of your by-past service. His Majesty is but for the present, he says, able to yield unto the three years' advance, which if you please to accept, you are not hereafter the farther off from obtaining some better testimony of his favour worthier both of him and you, though it can never be answerable to what my heart wishes you, as Your lordship's humble servant,

been the principal with me, that God, who knoweth my heart, would move your Majesty's royal heart to take compassion of me, and to grant my desire.

I prostrate myself at your Majesty's feet, I your ancient servant, now sixty-four years old in age, and three years five months old in misery. I desire not from your Majesty means, nor place, nor employment, but only, after so long a time of expiation, a complete and total remission of the sentence of the upper house, to the end that blot of ignominy may be removed from me, and from my memory with posterity; that I die not a condemned man, but may be to your Majesty, as I am to God, nova creatura. Your Majesty hath pardoned the like to Sir John Bennet, between whose case and mine, not being partial with myself, but speaking out of the general opinion, there was as much difference, I will not say as between black and white, but as between black and gray, or ash-coloured :|| look therefore down, dear sovereign, upon me also in pity. I know your Majesty's heart is inscrutable for goodness; and my lord of Buckingham was wont to tell me you were the best natured man in the world; and it is God's property, that those he hath loved, he loveth to the end. Let your Majesty's grace, in this my desire, stream down upon me, and let it be out of the fountain and spring-head, and ex mero motu, that, living or dying, the print of the goodness of king James may be in my heart, and his praises in my mouth. This my most humble request grantCCXCIII. TO THE LORD + TREASURER MARL-ed, may make me live a year or two happily; and BOROUGH, EXPOSTULATING ABOUT HIS denied, will kill me quickly. But yet the last thing UNKINDNESS AND INJUSTICE. that will die in me, will be the heart and affection of Your Majesty's most humble and true devoted servant,

MY LORD,

G. BUCKINGHAM.

I HUMBLY entreat your lordship, and if I may use the word, advise you to make me a better answer. Stephens's Second Collection, p. 186.

+ The lord Marlborough was made treasurer 22 Dec. 1624. 22 Jac.

Sir Tobic Matthew's Collection of Letters, p. 54.
Stephens's First Collection, p. 197.

July 30, 1624.

FR. ST. ALBAN.

|| Sir John Bennet, judge of the prerogative court, was, in the year 1621, accused, convicted, and censured in parliament for taking of bribes, and committing several misdemeanors relating to his office.

CCXCV. IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, | CCXCVII. THE BISHOP'S ANSWER TO THE BY KING JAMES.*

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

TRUSTY AID 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; vhich may suffice for the satisfaction of justice, and example to others: We being always graciously incined 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 troubl, are pleased to remove from him that blot of igminy which yet remaineth upon him, of incapaciy and disablement; and to remit to him all penities whatsoever inflicted by that sentence. Having 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 prdon, in due form of law, of the whole sentence: fo which this shall be your sufficient warrant.

CCXCVI. THE LOR VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN TO DR. WILLIAMS BISHOP OF LINCOLN, CONCERNING HIS PEECHES, &c.§

MY VERY GOOD LORI

I AM much bound toyour lordship for your honourable promise to D Rawley: he chooseth rather to depend upon the me in general, than to pitch upon any particular; ich modesty of choice I commend.

I find that the ancients, asCicero, Demosthenes, Plinius Secundus, and othershave preserved both their orations and their episs. In imitation of whom I have done the like to I own; which nevertheless I will not publish while live; but I have been bold to bequeath them toour lordship, and Mr. Chancellor of the duchy. My speeches, perhaps, you will think fit to publish the letters, many of them, touch too much upon la matters of state, to be published; yet I was willin they should not be lost. I have also by my will ered two lectures in perpetuity, in either university ie, with an endowment of 2001. per annum apiec they to be for natural philosophy, and the scites thereupon depending; which foundations I ha required my executors to order, by the advice a direction of your lordship, and my lord bishop ooventry and These be my thoughts n. I rest

Litchfield.

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PRECEDING LETTER.||

RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY VERY NOBLE LORD, MR. Doctor Rawley, by his modest choice, hath much obliged me to be careful of him, when God shall send any opportunity; and, if his Majesty shall remove me from this see, before any such occasion be offered, not to change my intentions with my bishopric.

It is true that those ancients, Cicero, Demosthenes, and Plinius Secundus, have preserved their orations, the heads and effects of them at the least, and their epistles; and I have ever been of opinion, that those two pieces are the principal pieces of our antiquities: those orations discovering the form of administering justice, and the letters the carriage of the affairs in those times. For our histories, or rather lives of men, borrow as much from the affections and phantasies of the writers, as from the truth itself, and are for the most of them built altogether upon unwritten relations and traditions. But letters written e re nata, and bearing a synchronism or equality of time cum rebus gestis, have no other fault, than that which was imputed unto Virgil, nihil peccat, nisi quod nihil peccat; they speak the truth too plainly, and cast too glaring a light for that age, wherein they were, or are written.

Your lordship doth most worthily therefore in preserving those two pieces, amongst the rest of those matchless monuments you shall leave behind you; considering, that as one age hath not bred your experience, so is it not fit it should be confined to one age, and not imparted to the times to come. For my part therein, I do embrace the honour with all thankfulness, and the trust imposed upon me with all religion and devotion. For these two lectures in natural philosophy, and the sciences woven and involved with the same; it is a great and a noble foundation both for the use, and the salary, and a foot that will teach the age to come, to guess in part at the greatness of that Herculean mind, which gave them their existence. Only your lordship may be advised for the seats of this foundation. The two universities are the two eyes of this land, and fittest to contemplate the lustre of this bounty: these two lectures are as the two apples of these eyes. apple when it is single, is an ornament, when double a pearl or a blemish in the eye. Your lordship may therefore inform yourself if one Sidley of Kent hath not already founded in Oxford a lecture of this nature and condition. But if Oxford in this kind be an Argus, I am sure poor Cambridge is a right Polyphemus; it hath but one eye, and that not so steadily or artificially placed; but bonum est facile sui diffusivum: your lordship being so full of goodness will quickly find an object to pour it on. That which made me say thus much, I will say in verse, that your lordship may remember it better;

An

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