IT is very just, since I cannot Personally accompany this Gentleman; yet that I do it with my Letter: wherein if I could transport the Image of mine own minde unto you, as lively as we have often re­presented you unto our selves abroad, then I should not think us asunder while you read it: But of my longing to see you I am a better feel­er then a describer, as likewise of my Obligations towards you, whereof it is not the least that I have been by your mediation, and judgement, and love furnished with so excellent a [Page 2] Comforter of my absence, and so loving and discreet a divider and ea­ser of my Travels; after whose se­paration from me, I am ready to say that which I remember the younger Pliny doth utter with much feeling, after the loss of his venerable and dearest friend Corollius Rufus; Vereor (saith he) ne posthac negligentius vi­vam. But herein my case is better then his: for I cannot but hope that some good occasion will bring him again nearer me: And I must con­fess unto you, I should be glad to see him planted for a while about the King or Prince, that so if his own fortune be not mended by the Court, yet the Court may be better­ed by him in that which it doth more desperately want. Now, Sir, Be­sides himself, there cometh unto you with him an Italian Doctor of phy­sick, by name Gaspero Despotini: a man well practised in his own facul­ty, and very Philosophical and sound [Page 3] in his discourses. By birth a Vene­tian; which though it be not Urbs ignobilis (as St. Paul said of his own Mother-City;) yet is his second birth the more excellent, I mean his illumination in Gods saving Truth; which was the only cause of his re­move, and I was glad to be the con­ductor of him where his conscience may be free, though his condition otherwise (till he shall be known) will be the poorer. This stranger I was desirous to present unto you as my friend, in his company; whose testi­mony may more value him then mine own: And so committing them both to your love, and your self with all that family to Gods blessing hand, I rest,

IT is late at night, and I am but newly come to the knowledge that my Lord is to send a Messenger unto you to morrow morning: yet howsoever, I have resolved not to be left out of this dispatch, though in truth I had rather be the footman my self, then one of the Writers. But here I am tyed about mine own busi­ness; which I have told you like a true Courtier: for Right-Courtiers indeed have no other business but themselves. Our Lord Jesus bless you all as you are now together, and wheresoever you shall be.

I Returned from Cambridge to Lon­don some two hours after the King. The next day was celebrated with 20 Tilters, wherein there en­tred four fraternities: the Earls, Pem­brock and Mongommery: my Lord Walden, Thomas and Henry Hawards, the two Riches, and the two Alex­anders, as they are called (though falsly) like many things else in a Court. The rest were Lenox, A­rundel, Rutland, Dorcet, Shandowes, North, Hey, Dingwel, Clifford, Sir Thomas Sommerset, and Sir. John Harrington. The day fell out wet to the disgrace of many fine Plumes. Some Caparisons seen before, adven­tured to appear again on the Stage with a little disguisement, even on the back of one of the most curious: So frugal are the times, or so indi­gent. [Page 6] The two Riches only made a speech to the King: the rest were contented with bare Imprese: where­of some were so dark, that their meaning is not yet understood; un­less perchance that were their meaning, not to be understood. The two best, to my fancy, were those of the two Earls Brothers: The first a small exceeding white Pearl, and the word, Solo candore valco. The other a Sun casting a glance on the side of a Pillar, and the Beams re­flecting, with this Motto, Splendente refulget. In which devices there seemed an agreement; the elder brother, to allude to his own nature, and the younger to his fortune. The day was signalized with no extraor­dinary accident, save only between S^r Thomas Haward, and S^r Thomas Sommerset, who with a counter-buff had almost set himself out of the sad­dle, and made the others Horse sink under him; but they both came [Page 7] fairly off without any further dis­grace. Of the merits of the rest I will say nothing, my Pen being very unfit to speak of Launces.

To this solemnity of the publick Ambassadors, only the Arch-Dukes was invited, for the healing of the distaste he had taken for the prefe­rence of the Venetian at the marriage. But I doubt the Plaister be too nar­row for the sore; which he seemed not much discontented that men should note in his whole counte­nance that day. Towards the Evening a challenge passed between Archie and a famous Knight, called S^r Thomas Parsons; the one a fool by election, and the other by necessity: which was accordingly performed some two or three dayes after at Tylt, Tornie, and on foot both compleatly armed, and solemnly brought in before their Majesties, and almost as many other meaner eyes as were at the former. Which [Page 8] bred much sport for the present, and afterwards upon cooler consideration much censure and discourse, as the manner is.

The departure of the Count Pa­latine and my Lady Elizabeth is put off from the Thursday in the Easter­week, till the Tuesday following: which day I think will hold. The Commissioners that accompany her, have the titles of Ambassadors, to give them precedency before Sir Ralph Winwood at the Hague; and likewise in any encounters with Almaigne Princes. Sir Edward Cecil goeth as Treasurer to keep up that Office in the name, though it be otherwise perhaps from a General, rather a fall then an ascent. Before this journey there is a conceit, that the Duke of Lenox will be natura­lized a Peer of our Parliament, and my Lord of Rochester be created Earl of Devonshire. The forraign matter is little increased since my last unto [Page 9] you from Cambridge. The Savoy Ambassador not yet arrived. The Turks designs hitherto unknown, and marching slowly according to the nature of huge Armies: In which suspence the Venetians have augmented their guard in the Gulf: enough to confirm unto the world, that States must be conserved, even with ridiculous fears. This is all that the Week yieldeth. My Lord and Lady have received those letters and loving salutations which my Foot-man brought. And so with mine own hearty prayers to God for you, and for that most good Neece, I commit you both to his blessing and love.

I pray Sir remember me very particularly to my Cosin Nicholas [Page 10] your worthy Brother, for whose health our good God be thanked.

Sir James Cromer is this week dead of an Aposteme in his stomack, and in him the name; unless his Lady (as she seemeth to have inten­tion) shall revive it with matching one of her four Daughters with a Cromer of obscure fortune, which they say is latent in your shire.

I Have newly received your last of the 25^th of April, and acquainted my Lord with the Postscript there­of touching your Fathers sickness; of which he had heard somewhat be­fore by Sir R. Drurie: who at the same time told him the like of my Lady your Mother; but we hope now that the one was never true, and that the other (which you con­firm) will be light and sufferable, even at he [...]vy years.

[Page 11] The long-expected Ambassador from Savoy arrived yesternight at Dover: so as now I begin by the ver­tue of a greedy desire to anticipate before-hand, and to devour already some part of that contentment which I shall shortly more really en­joy in your sight and conversation.

Sir Thomas Overbury is still in the Tower, and the King hath since his imprisonment been twice here, and is twice departed, without any altera­tion in that matter, or in other greater.

My L. of Rochester, partly by some relapse into his late infirmity, and partly (as it is interpreted) through the grief of his minde, is also this second time not gone with the King: some argue upon it, that disassiduity in a Favorite, is a degree of decli­nation; but of this there is no ap­pearance: Only I have set it down to shew you the hasty Logick of Courtiers.

[Page 12] The Queen is on her journey to­wards Bathe.

My Lady Elizabeth and the Count Palatine having lyen long in our poor Province of Kent languishing for a Winde, (which she sees though it be but a vapour, Princes cannot command) at length on Sunday last towards evening did put to Sea. Some 8 dayes after, a Book had been Printed and published in Lon­don of her entertainment at Heidel­berge, so nimble an age it is. And because I cannot end in a better jest, I will bid you farewell for this week, committing you and that most be­loved Neece to Gods dearest bles­sings.

YOur Kinsman and friend Sir Ro­bert Killigrew was in the Fleet from Wednesday of the last week, till the Sunday following, and no longer; which I reckon but an Ephemeral fit, in respect of his in firmity who was the cause of it; which to my judgement doth every day appear more and more hectical. Yesterday his father petitioned the King (as he came from the Chappel) that his son might have a Physician, and a ser­vant allowed him, as being much damaged in his health by close im­prisonment: which for my part I believe, for the diseases of fortune have a kinde of transfusion into the body, and strong-working spirits wanting their usual objects, revert upon themselves; because the nature of the minde being ever in motion, must either do, or suffer.

I take pleasure (speaking to a [Page 14] Philosopher) to reduce (as near as I can) the irregularities of Court to constant principles. Now to return to the matter: The King hath granted the Physician, but denyed the servant: By which you may guess at the issue; for when graces are managed so narrowly by a King, otherwise of so gratious nature, it doth in my opinion very clearly de­monstrate the asperity of the of­fence. Sir Gervis Elvis (before one of the Pensioners) is now sworn Lieutenant of the Tower, by the mediation of the House of Suffolk, notwithstanding that my Lord of Rochester was the commender of Sir Iohn Keyes to that charge; which the said Keyes had for a good while (and this maketh the case the more strange) alwayes supplyed even by Patent in the absence of Sir William Wade. Upon which circumstances (though they seem to bend another way) the Logicians of the Court do [Page 15] make this conclusion: That His Ma­jesty satisfying the Suffolcians with petty things, intendeth to repair the Vicount Rochester in the main and gross. And therefore all men con­template Sir Henry Nevil for the future Secretary; some saying that it is but deferred till the return of the Queen, that she may be allowed a hand in his Introduction: Which likewise will quiet the voyces on the other side; though surely that point be little necessary: For yet did I never in the Country, and much less in the Court see any thing done of this kinde, that was not afterwards approved by those that had most op­posed it: such vicissitudes there are here below, as well as of the rest, even of judgement and affection. I would say more, but I am suddenly surprized by the Secretary of the Savoy Ambassador, who I think will depart about the end of the Whitson Holy-dayes, for which I [Page 16] languish. With his businesses I can acquaint you nothing till the next week, by reason of this surpriz [...]l: And besides it hath disturbed my Muses so, I must remain still in debt to my sweet Neece for that Poetic [...]l Postscript that dropped out of her pen. I do weekly receive your Letters, which in truth are more comfort, then I could hope to pur­chase by mine: so as whereas before I had determined to continue this my troubling of you but till I should see you next, I have now made a resolution to plant a Staple, and whensoever we shall be separated, to venture my whole poor stock in traffique with you, finding the re­turn so gainful unto me. And so committing you to Gods dearest blessings, I ever rest

I Have not yet presented to my Lord that Box which came with your Letter of this week; for he re­moved on Wednesday with the King and houshold to Greenwich: And I still remain here to shew you that the Court doth like a Load-stone, draw only those that are intra orbem vir­tutis suae: I mean, within the compass and circle of profit.

The Savoy Ambassador seemeth in his second audience to have dis­charged all his Commission; or otherwise he wanteth authority to proceed further then to a general overture, till the arrival of the Caval^r ▪ Battista Gabaleoni, who is hourly expected, and is here to re­main as Resident for the said Duke.

With him likewise come certain other Gentlemen of title, who should from the beginning have dignified the Ambassadors Train; but the cause of this stragling, was a [Page 18] sudden attempt, which the Duke immediately after the Ambassadors departure (who appointed those Gentlemen to follow him) made upon the Marquisat of Monserrato, where he surprized three Towns with the Petarde: the first time (as one writeth from Venice) that ever that pestilent invention had been put in practice beyond the Alpes.

The cause of this attempt, was for that the Cardinal Gonzaga (now Duke of Mantua) had yielded to send home the Dowager Infanta, to the Duke of Savoy her Father; but would retain her only child, a daugh­ter of two years: in whose right, the said Duke of Savoy pretendeth colourably enough to the foresaid whole Marquisat; and clearly to all the moveables left by the late Duke of Mantua her Father, who died in­testat. Into which point of Law, there entered besides some jealousie of State: being unfit for respects [Page 19] that would have falln easily into the apprehension of duller Princes than the Italian, to leave a childe out of the custody of her Mother, in his that was to gain by the death of it: yet am I of opinion, who have a little contemplated the Duke of Savoys complexion, that nothing moved him more in this business, than the threatnings of the French Queen, who had before commanded Didi­guires to fall into the said Dukes estates by way of diversion, if he should meddle with the least Village in the Monserrato: which feminine menacement did no doubt incite him to do it out of the impatience of scorn; And withall, he built silently upon a ground, which could not well fail him; That the King of Spain would never suffer the French Soul­diers to taste any more of the Grapes and Melons of Lombardie, because L'apetit vient en mangeant: which the issue of the businesses hath proved [Page 20] true: for the Governor of Milan, having raised a tumultuary army of horse and foot, did with it only keep things in stay from farther progress on both sides, till the agreement was made between the Duke of Mantua himself in person, and the Prince of Piedmont within the Town of Milan. The accord is advertised the King from Venice, and Paris. The condi­tions will be better known at the arrival of Gabaleoni; and then likewise we shall see the bottom of this er­rand, which hath been hitherto no­thing, but a general proposition of a match between the same Lady that was formerly offered, and our Prince now living: which the Ambassador hath touched so tenderly, as if he went to manage his Masters credit. Upon the whole matter, I cannot conceive (though he seemeth to let fall some phrases of haste) that he will be gone yet this fortnight or three weeks, till when I languish. And [Page 21] so let me end all my letters, ever resting

IN my last I told you, that the Ambassador of Savoy was to meet the Queen at Windsor, which pains she hath spared him by her own coming yesternight to Greenwich: where I think she will settle her self a day or two before she admit him. Now, seeing the time of the Com­mencement at Cambridge so near as it is, & being able to determine of this Ambassadors departure within that space, I have resolved to take those Philosophical exercises in my way to you; hoping in the mean time to see Albertus admitted by oath to a Clarkship of the Council, or at least [Page 22] to the next vacancy: for he is now strong enough again to swear.

Sir Robert Mansfeld, and Mr. Whitlock were on Saturday last called to a very honourable hearing in the Queens Presence Chamber at White-Hall before the Lords of the Coun­cil, with intervention of my Lord Cook, the Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Master of the Roles, the Lord chief Justice being kept at home with some infirmitie. There the Attorny and Sollicitor first un­dertook Mr. Whitlock and the Re­corder (as the Kings Sergeant) Sir Robert Mansfeld; charging the one as a Counsellor, the other as a que­stioner in matter of the Kings pre­rogative and Soveraignty, upon occasion of a Commission intended for a research into the administration of the Admiralty: against which the said Sir Robert Mansfeld (being him­self so principal an officer therein) had sought some provision of advice, [Page 23] and, This was the sum of the charge: which was diversly amplified. Whit­lock in his answer, spake more con­fusedly, than was expected from a Lawyer, and the Knight more temperately▪ than wa [...] expected from a Souldier. There was likewise some difference noted, not only in the manner, but in the substance between them: For Whitlock ended his speech with an absolute confession of his own offence, and with a promise of employing himself hereafter in de­fence of the Kings prerogative. Sir Robert Mansfeld on the other side, laboured to distinguish between the error of his acts, and the integrity of his zeal and affection towards the King his Master: protesting he should hold it the greatest glory under Heaven to die at his feet, and that no man living should go before him, if there were occasion to advance his dominions, with some other such Martial strains, which [Page 24] became him well. The conclusion of his speech had somewhat of the Courtier, beseeching the Lords, if the restraint he had indured were not in their judgements a sufficient pu­nishment of his error, that then they would continue it as long as it should please them, and add unto it any other affliction of pain or shame whatsoever; provided that after­wards he might be restored again into his Majesties favour, and their good opinions. To tell you what they all severally said that day, were to rob from the liberty of our discourse when we shall meet. In this they generally agreed, both Counsellors and Judges, to represent the humi­liation of both the Prisoners unto the King in lieu of innocency, and to intercede for his gratious pardon: Which was done, and accordingly the next day they were inlarged up­on a submission under writing. This is the end of that business, at which [Page 25] were present as many as the room could contain, and men of the best quality; whom the King was desi­rous to satisfie, not only about the point in hand, but in some other things that were occasionally awa­ked; which I likewise reserve to our private freedom.

The Kings Officers are returned from my Lady Elizabeth; whom they left at Goltzheime the last of May, where His Majesties expence did cease. This place was chosen for her consignment in stead of Ba­cherach, suspected of contagion. She was at Andernach feasted by the Elector of Cullen; at Confluence, or Cobolentz (as they call it) by the other of Trier; and at Mentz by the third of those Ecclesiastick Poten­tates, very Royally and kindly, and (which was less expected) very handsomly. The Count Maurice, and his Brother with troops of Horse, and a guard of Foot, accom­panyed [Page 26] her to Cullen, and entred themselves into that City with her: (I need not tell you, that though themselves were within, the Horse, and most of the Foot were without the walls) Which is here (by the wiser sort of Interpreters) thought as hazardous an act, as either of them both had done in the heat of War; and indeed no way justifiable in foro sapientiae. And therefore such ad­ventures as these must appeal ad forum Providentiae; where we are all covered by his vigilant mercy and love: to which I commit you, and my sweet Neece in my hearty prayers.

I Send you a sprigg of some flow­ers, which I have newly received out of Piedmont, in Winter and Sum­mer the same; and therein an ex­cellent type of a friend.

I am bold likewise to keep my self in the memory of my Neece, till I see her, with a poor pair of Gloves of the newest fashion:

I Told you in my last, that I would take the commencement at Cam­bridge in my way towards you, where [Page 28] I shall be God willing to morrow seven-night. This I now repeat, to save the telling of it again by the next Carrier, fore-seeing that I shall then be impatient of so much delay as a line of mine own effusion, which even now doth torture me, while I contemplate some of those green Banks (that you mention) where when I have you by me (to express my contentment in the Italian phrase) Non scrivero al Papa fratello. The Ambassador of Savoy departed yesterday, making much haste home­wards, or at least much shew of it; where he is likely to come timely enough to the warming of his hands at that fire which his Master hath kindled; whose nature in truth doth participate much of the flint, as well as his state. But is not all this out of my way? Sir, Believe it, my spirits do boyl, and I can hold my Pen no longer then till I have wish­ed all Gods blessings to be with you, [Page 29] and with that best Neece of the World.

Albertus was yesterday with me at the Court. And though there be great disproportion in the space, yet I dare conclude, that as much strength as did carry him to Green­wich, will bear him to Redgrave.

WHereas I wrote unto you, that I would be at Cam­bridge as on Saturday next; I am now cast off again till the Kings return to London, which will be about the middle of the week following. The delay grows from a desire of seeing Albertus his business setled before [Page 30] we come unto you, where we mean to forget all the world besides. Of this we shall bring you the account.

Now, to let matters of State sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what hath happened this week at the banks side. The Kings Players had a new Play, called All is true, repre­senting some principall pieces of the raign of Henry 8. which was set forth with many extraordinary circum­stances of Pomp and Majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garter, the Guards with their embroidered Coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very famili­ar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a Masque at the Car­dinal Wolsey's house, and certain Chambers being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being [Page 31] thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less then an hour the whole house to the very grounds.

This was the fatal period of that vertuous fabrique, wherein yet no­thing did perish, but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provi­dent wit put it out with bottle Ale. The rest when we meet: till when, I protest every minute is the siege of Troy▪ Gods dear blessings till then and ever be with you.

I have this week received your last of the 27. of June, wherein I see my [Page 32] steps lovingly calculated, and in truth too much expectation of so unwor­thy a guest.

IT is both morally and naturally true, that I have never been in perfect health and chearfulness since we parted: but I have entertained my minde; when my body would give me leave, with the contemplati­on of the strangest thing that ever I beheld, commonly called in our language (as I take it) a Parliament: which hath produced nothing, but inexplicable riddles in the place of Laws. For first, it is aborted before it was born, and nullified after it had a being; insomuch, as the Count Palatine (whose naturalization was the only thing that passed in both houses) is now again an Alien. And whereas all other Parliamenrs have [Page 33] had some one eminent quality that hath created a denomination: some being called in our Records mad Parliaments, some, merciless, and the like: This I think, from two pro­perties almost insociable or seldom meeting, may be termed the Parlia­ment of greatest diligence, and of least resolution that ever was, or ever will be; For our Committees were as well attended commonly, as full Houses in former Sessions; and yet we did nothing, neither in the fore­noon, nor after, whereof I can yield you no reason, but this one, that our diversions were more then our main purposes; and some of so sensible nature as took up all our reason, and all our passion in the pursuit of them. Now, Sir, what hath followed since the dissolution of this Civil body, let me rather tell you, then lead you back into any particularities of that which is passed.

It pleased His Majesty the very [Page 34] next morning, to call to examination before the Lords of his Council, divers Members of the House of Commons, for some speeches better becoming a Senate of Venice, where the Treaters are perpetual Princes, then where those that speak so irre­verently are so soon to return (which they should remember) to the natu­ral capacity of Subjects. Of these Examinants, four are committed close Prisoners to the Tower: 1. Sir Walter Chute. 2. Iohn Hoskins. 3. One Wentworth a Lawyer. And 4. M^r Christopher Nevil, second son to my Lord of Apergavenie.

The first made great shift to come thither: For having taken in our house some disgrace in the matter of the undertakers (of whom he would fain have been thought one) to get the opinion of a bold man, af­ter he had lost that of a wise; he fell one morning into a declamation against the times, so insipid, and [Page 35] so unseasonable, as if he had been put but out of his place for it of Car­ver, (into which one of my L. Ad­mirals Nephews is sworn) I should not much have pitied him; though he be my Countryman. The se­cond is in for more wit, and for li­centiousness baptized freedom: For I have noted in our house, that a false or faint Patriot did cover himself with the shadow of equal modera­tion; and on the other side, irreve­rent discourse was called honest li­berty: so as upon the whole matter, No excesses want pretious names. You shall have it in Pliny's language, which I like better then mine own translation; Nullis vitiis desunt pre­tiosa nomina.

The third is a silly and simple creature, God himself knows; and though his Father was by Queen Elizabeth at the time of a Parliament likewise put into the place where the son now is, yet hath he rather [Page 36] inherited his fortune, then his under­standing. His fault was the applica­tion of certain Texts in Ezekiel and Daniel to the matter of impositions; and saying that the French King was kill'd like a Calf, with such like poor stuff: Against which the French Ambassador (having gotten know­ledge of it) hath formed a complaint with some danger of his wisdom.

The last is a young Gentleman, fresh from the School; who having gathered together divers Latin sen­tences against Kings, bound them up in a long speech, and interlarded them with certain Ciceronian excla­mations; as, O Tempora, O Mores.—Thus I have a little run over these accidents unto you, enough only to break out of that silence which I will not call a symptome of my sick­ness, but a sickness it self. How so­ever, I will keep it from being hecti­cal; and hereafter give you a better account of mine own observations. [Page 37] This week I have seen from a most dear Neece a Letter, that hath much comforted one Uncle, and a Post­script the other. Long may that hand move, which is so full of kinde­ness. As for my particular, Take heed of such invitations, if you either love or pity your selves: For I think there was never Needle toucht with a Load-stone that did more incline to the North, then I do to Red­grave: In the mean time, we are all here well: and so our Lord Jesus preserve you there.

Sir I pray remember my hearty affection to my Cosin Nicolas Bacon; and, all joy to the new conjoyned.

I shall propound unto you the next week a very possible Pro­bleme, unto which if you can de­vise [Page 38] how to attain: Non scriveremo al Papa, fratello.

THe Earl of Northampton, ha­ving after a lingring feaver spent more spirits than a younger body could well have born, by the incision of a wennish tumor grown on his thigh, yesternight between eleven and twelve of the clock de­parted out of this world: where, as he had proved much variety and vicissitude of fortune in the course of his life: so peradventure he hath prevented another change thereof by the opportunity of his end: For there went a general voyce through the Court on Sunday last, upon the commitment of Doctor Sharp, and Sir Charles Cornwallis to the Tower, that he was somewhat implicated in [Page 39] that business: whereof I will give you a little accompt at the present as far as I have been hitherto able to penetrate. John Hoskins (of whose imprisonment I wrote unto you by the last Carrier) having at a reexa­mination been questioned, whether he well understood the consequence of that Sicilian vesper, whereunto he had made some desperate allusion in the House of Parliament, made an­swer (and I think very truly) that he had no more then a general infor­mation thereof, being but little conversant in those Histories that lay out of the way of his profession: whereupon being pressed to discover whence he then had recieved this information, since it lay not within his own reading, he confessed to have had it from Doctor Sharp, who had infused these things into him, and had solicited him to impress them in the Parliament: And further, that Hoskins hereupon demanding what [Page 40] protection he might hope for, if afterwards he were called into que­stion; the said Doctor should no­minate unto him, besides others (whose names I will spare) that Earl who hath now made an end of all his reckonings: assuring him of his assistance by the means of Sir Charles Cornwallis, with whom the Doctor was conjoyned in this practice. Thus came Sir Charles into discovery: who being afterward confronted with the Doctor himself, though he could not (as they say) justifie his own person, yet did he clear my Lord of Northampton from any manner of understanding with him therein upon his Salvation: which yet is not enough (as I percieve among the people) to sweep the dust from his Grave. Thus you see (Sir) the natu­ral end of a great man, and the ac­cidental ruine of others, which I had rather you should see in a letter, then as I did on Sunday at Greenwich: [Page 41] where it grieved my soul to behold a grave and learned Divine, and a Gentleman of good hopes and merits carried away in the face of the whole Court, with most dejected counte­nances, and such a greediness at all windows to gaze at unfortunate spectacles.

The Earl of Northampton hath made three of his servants his Execu­tors, with a very vast power as I hear; and for Overseers of his will, my Lord of Suffolk, my Lord of Wor­cester, and my Lord William Haward: to the Earl of Arundel he hath left all his land (which will amount to some 3000. of yearly revenue) besides three or four hundred to Mr. Henry Haward, whereof he had before assured him at the time of his mar­riage; but neither of them to enjoy a penny thereof as yet this eight year: all which time he intendeth the fruits of his estate shall be col­lected and distributed in legacies and [Page 42] pious uses according to his will, which hath not yet been seen: but thus much as I have told you was under­stood before his expiration. To my Lord of Suffolk he hath left his house, but hath disposed of all the moveables and furniture from him: And it is concieved, that he dyed in some distastful impression, which he had taken against him upon the voyces that ran of my Lord of Suffolcks likelihood to be Lord Trea­surer; which place will now assuredly fall upon him; and the world doth contemplate my Lord of Rochester for Lord Privy Seal, and Lord Warden of the five Ports. As for the Lord Chamberlainship, it is somewhat more questionable between my Lord of Pembroke, the Duke of Lenox, and my Lord Knowels. A few daies will determine these ambitions. In the mean time, I commit you (who have better objects) to the con­templation of them, and to the [Page 43] mercy of our loving God in all your waies,

Sir, I have (I know not how) mislayed the character which I left you: therefore I pray send me in your very next a copy. Therefore I have deferred the matter which I am to propound unto you till the next week, because I must send you some oar of lead, and iron withall, which I have not yet gotten.

Is there no room left for the remembrance of that dear Neece▪ God forbid. And I pray (Sir) tell her besides, that a certain Uncle here (whom yet I will not suffer to love her better then my self) doth greedi­ly expect some news from her.

I Hear a little voyce that you are come to London, which to me is the voyce of a Nightingal: for since I cannot enjoy your presence, I make my self happy with your nearness: And yet now methinks I have a kinde of rebellion against it, that we should be separated with such a contemptible distance. For how much I love you, mine own heart doth know, and God knoweth my heart. But let me fall into a passion: for what sin in the name of Christ was I sent hither among soul­diers, being by my profession Aca­demical, and by my charge Pacifical? I am within a day or two to send Cuthberd my servant home: by whom I shall tell you divers things. In the mean while, I have adventured these few lines to break the ice of [Page 45] silence: for in truth it is a cold fault.

My hot love to the best Neece of the World.

HAving here lately seen the deaths of two, and the electi­ons of two other Dukes within the compass of six weeks: I have been bold to entertain your Lordship with a little story of these changes and competitions, though with small presumption that you can take any pleasure in my simple report thereof, unless it win some favour by the [Page 46] freshness or the freedom. For the rest, The whole town is here at the present in horror and confusion up­on the discovering of a foul and fear­full conspiracy of the French against this State; whereof no less then thirty have already suffered very condign punishment between men strangled in prison, drowned in the silence of the night, and hanged in publick view; and yet the bottom is invisible.

If Gods mercy had not prevent­ed it, I think I might for mine own patticular have spared my late sup­plication to the King about my re­turn home towards next Winter: For I cannot hope that in the common Massacre publick Ministers would have been distinguished from other men: Nay, rather we might per­chance have had the honour to have our houses thought worthiest the rifling. I shall give your Lordship a better account of this in my next: [Page 47] Having now troubled you beyond excuse, with my poor Papers. Our blessed God keep your Lordship in his love.

AMong those that have deep in­terest in whatsoever can befall you, I am the freshest witness of your unexpressible affections to my most dear Neece; whom God hath taken from us into his eternal Light and rest; where we must leave her, [...]ll we come unto her. I should think my self unworthy for ever of that love she bare me, if in this case I were fit to comfort you. But it is that only God who can reconsolate [Page 48] us both: Who when he hath called now one, and then another of his own creatures unto himself, will un­clasp the final Book of his Decrees, and dissolve the whole. For which I hope he will rather teach us to thirst and languish, then to repine at particular dissolutions. I had in a peculiar affliction of mine own (all within the compass of little time) much consolation from you; which cannot but be now present with your self; for I am well acquainted with the strength of your Christian minde.

Therefore being kindely invited by the good Master of the Rolles to write by his express Messenger unto you; let me (without further dis­course of our griess) only joyn in this with him, to wish your compa­ny divided between him and me.

We will contemplate together when we meet our future blessed­ness, and our present uncertainties: [Page 49] And I am afraid we shall finde too much argument to drown our pri­vate feelings in the publick solli­citude. Gods love, wherein is all joy, be with us.

I Have received from London the favourable lines wherewith you honoured me then near your depar­ture; which you have somewhat al­layed, with the promise of your re­turn at the beginning of the next Term, which consorteth well with a [Page 50] change of my purpose to Christ­mas in Kent, born in me as I was reading your Letter: For what should I do there in such haste after the Nuptials, when I shall come so as well in Lent? Much ado there hath been towards the point of con­clusion; like that Aphorism of Hyppocrates: Nox ante Chrisin est mo­lestissima. Loves being in this like Feavers, as well as in the rest; for one definition will serve them both: Cordis accensio.

Jack Dinely is not yet arrived, but we expect him daily as Messenger from the Queen his Mistress, of her late happy delivery, after a foul re­port that had been maliciously thrown abroad of her miscarriage by a fall. The Doctor likewise as yet hath given me no answer; but I will quicken him, and put life I hope into the business.

Now, let me tell you, That the noble Sir Gervase Clifton (as in good [Page 51] faith he is in ipsis visceribus) hath been lately here with us, at a time when he hath been content to be en­tertained with the pastimes of chil­dren; a Latine and a Greek Hyppo­litus How often you were remem­bred between us, is harder for me to tell you, then I hope for you to be­lieve. Among other discourse he shewed me a little excrescence that he hath beginning upon the utter­most ball of his eyes; a filmie mat­ter, like the rudiment of a Pinn and Webb as they call it. Whereupon fell into my memory a secret that M^r Bohan had told me his Mother knew: How to take away that evil in growth, and perchance much more in the infancy, with a Medicine ap­plyed only to the Wrists. And I have heard your self likewise speak of a rare thing for that part. I be­seech you (Sir) be pleased with all possible speed to intreat that receipt from M. Bohan, to whom we shall [Page 52] both be much beholden for it. And Sir Gervase Clifton is already so pos­sessed, that he both sayes and thinks, that nothing will cure him better then that which any way shall come through your hand unto him. No peace as yet with either of the Kings: The more wished I think with France, the likelier perchance with Spain. No Offices disposed in Court. No Favorite but the Lord Treasurer. More news in my next. For the present, God keep you in his dear love.

I Beseech you, let these lines with as much affection, though with less civility, conveigh my good wishes [Page 53] after you, which I should my self have brought before your depar­ture.

You seem to have left the Town somewhat Prophetically, not to be near the noise of a very unhappy morning on Munday last: at which time the Parliament assembling again (which you know had been silenced till that day) was then re-ad­journed by the Kings especial Com­mand till Tuesday next: Whereupon the Lower-House fell into such heat (one passion begetting another) that the Speaker (who as discharged by the Royal Power, did refuse to read a kinde of Remonstrance which Sir Iohn Eliott had provisionally set down in Paper) was forced into the Chair. It is strange to consider the lubricity of popular favour: For he that before during this whole Session (if so we may call it) and the former, was so highly commended, and even in this very act by some of [Page 54] the soundest and soberest of the House; yet with the generall Body is so stript of all his credit in a mo­ment, that I have hardly seen in any Chymical work such a precipitation. What hath in sued, will be better told you by this good Captain. Some think the Parliament doth yet hang upon a thred, and may be stitched again together: But, that is an ayrie conceit in my opinion; yet the peace of Italy, and the preparations of France against us, are voyced so strongly, that I verily believe we shall have a new summons.

The States of the low Provinces have since their Western great Prize, newly taken a Careck out of the East, of huge value: so as their acts are, Sub utreque sonantia Phoebo.

I have not yet sent those Verses to Mrs Katherine Stanhope, that she may rather have them in the second Edition: For the Author hath lick­ed them over, and you shall have a [Page 55] new Copy sent you by the next Carrier. We have met together once or twice since your going loco solito; but like a disjoynted compa­ny, wanting one of our best pieces: God send us often chearfully toge­ther: And so I rest

When Jack Dinely shall return out of Lincolnshire, I will give you an account what I writ by him to the Queen of Bohemia about your Spiri­tous Nephew. And I will not forget to rouse the Doctor at Cambridge in the charitable intention. I pray re­member my service to your whole name, and to my Noble Cousin Sir Drue: To whom I will write the next week.

I Know that between us there needs little complement: for which I am for my part so unproper and so unmoulded, that I often neg­lect even civil duties: as well ap­peared by my coming from London without taking leave of you: but yet I cannot be wanting unto your self, nor to the least of your name in any real service, for that were too much violence to my nature: there­fore before my coming from West­minster, I wrote such letters to the Queen of Bohemia about your Spiritous Frank (as I hope, together with the good offices of the bearer thereof) will place him with the Prince of Orenge when he hath taken the Busse. I could have wished that his lively blood had been a little fleshed at that siege. But Jack Dinelies long stay at London for his dispatch, and at Gravesend for a wind hath lost us time. We hear that the [Page 57] King of Spain upon the peazing of his affairs in Italy (where a palm of ground importeth him more then a Province abroad) was resolved to make the Marquess Spinola Gover­nour of Milan, and that the Count Henry Vanden Berge should command the Armies in chief under the Infan­ta. If this be so, there will be there Bella plusquam Civilia, for you know he is near of blood to the Prince of Orenge, though he hath some a little nearer: for he hath one or two by his own sister, as I remember they told me in his Town of Maestrick. The other employment of the Mar­quess is a counsel, plainly taken rather from necessity then reason. For otherwise jealousie of state would hardly commit so much power to a Genouese in the Con­fines of his own Country, unless I have forgotten my forein Max­ims.

I have my head towards Kent, [Page 58] with a hope to see you first there, and afterwards at our Election: which will be the third of August. And so with my humble and hearty remem­brance to that best of men, and noblest of Ladies, I rest

ALthough I intend to write again speedily, and at a little more ease unto you by James, and then to send you and Sir Gervase Clifton the Copy of a letter, which Giovanni tells me you both desire: yet lest you should send over your Frank (who hath from you all his sails and fraught) without part of his balast from me, I have hastened the in­closed letters unto your hand, with [Page 59] the copy of mine to the Queen of Bohemia: the other are ad hanc for­mam. I could wish that he would begin with Jack Dinely, and slide first unseen to Leyden: who will bring him thence to the Queen, and acquaint him with all due respects.

I have written to the Countess of Levistain to cherish him also: a great and assiduous Lady with the Queen, and by Title, my noble Secretary. This is all that I need say at the pre­sent. Doctor Sharpe and I do threa­ten you the next Christmas. In the mean while

Optimo virorum; and to his most worthy Lady. S.

THe very truth is, your love hath prevented me: for I meant by Giovanni to give you some account of what hath passed since our di­vorcement. When I had slept half an hour after you were gone from Danford, I found my self fresco come una rofa: but I awaked in a strange dream, that had seldom before befaln me in an Inn; finding nothing to be paid, not so much as for mine own horses: whereby the reason was plain of the paleness of my water which you observed: for none of the tincture of my gold was gone into the reckoning of the drink, as you had handled the matter.

At the top of Shooters hill my footman stayed, as if he had been watching the Beacon rather then for me; and told me there were good provisions made at Sir Adam Newtons for you and me, with kinde expecta­tion of us both. But my self being [Page 61] desirous to reach Eton that night, as I did, (for my horses I see travail best upon an other mans purse) I blanch­ed the house, and sent thither by Giovanni a fair excuse. True it is, we are much of a humor: Cento Bue will hardly draw us in a journey to any strange place.

At that time likewise Will brought me a letter from Mr. Griffith, which had been expresly sent to Gravesend the night before: whereby I saw Giovanni had taken a false alarm: for he was not to be gone till the Munday morning following: so as I have had time to ballast him with letters: And I have intimated be­forehand to your Jack Dinely, your purpose to pass over the spiritous Frank as soon as you can trick him. We are now towards the Festival of our Election; wherein annually I make a shift to loose four or five friends, and yet do my self no good: so as they are angry with me on the [Page 62] one side, and they laugh at me on the other.

I apprehend this year a great po­verty of Venison with us: for I came too late to exchange your warrant; and my Lady Throckmor­tons will not serve my turn.

Since my coming, Mr. Turvil a French practical man of good erudi­tion hath passed a day or two with me, from whom I hear a shrewd point; That the oath of peace (which should have been taken be­tween the two neighbouring Kings upon the same day) is put off for a moneth: I believe the stop be in France to gain time to disturb our Treaty with Spain.

Mr. Pim (a man whose ears are open) told me likewise yesterday a strange thing; that the Queen of Bohemia hath newly, being hunting, been chased away her self with some affrightment from Rhenen by certain Troops of the enemy that have [Page 63] passed the Isel. With whom it was feared the Count Henry Venden Berge would joyn and ravage the Velow. Yet withall were come tidings, that the Prince of Orenge at the Busse had had parly offered him. But my intelligences are Ci­stern waters: you are nearer the Fountain. And not only, Dulcius ex ipso Fonte bibuntur aquae, but verius too. For both will stand in the verse.

Before I end, let me beseech you, to remember my humble and hearty devotion (in the very stile of Seneca to his Lucilius, and I shall need to say no more) Optimo Virorum. I envy your enjoyments and conversations, and most when they are privatest, for then they are freest. I hope the Noble Lady will return quickly again to her Hesperian Garden. To whom I pray, likewise let my humble service be remembred. And so I rest,

THis Bearer is that Lad, by name Frank Bacon; for whom your Majesties intercession with the Prince of Orenge, hath bound so ma­ny unto you here. It is your good­ness that hath done it, and therefore he is addressed by his friends (and by me who am the meanest of them) first thorow your gracious Hands, and laid down at your Royal Feet.

There is in him (I believe) metal enough to be cast into good form: And I hope it is of the hoblest sort, which is ever the most malleable and plyant. Only one thing I fear, that coming from a Country life, into the lustre of Courts, he will be more troubled with it, then with the his­sing of Bullets.

Now when I consider (as I do at the present) that besides your Ma­jesties antienter favours towards me, [Page 65] and to them that have been, and are so dear unto me; some gone, and some remaining; you have lately re­ceived the childe of my very worthy friend M. Griffith, about the Prince your son; and honoured this other with your especial recommendation, in such a forcible and express man­ner as you were pleased to do it: I say, when I consider all this, I can­not but fall into some passionate que­stions with mine own heart. Shall I die without seeing again my Royal Mistress my self? Shall I not rather bring her my most humble thanks, then let them thus drop out of a dull Pen? Shall such a contemptible distance, as between Eton and the Hague divide me from beholding how her vertues overshine the dark­ness of her fortune? I could spend much paper in this passion; but let it sleep for the present: And God bless your Majesty,

After this humble and just acknow­ledgement of my obligations unto Your Maj., it were a miserable thing for me to tell you, that at our late Election, I have remembred Your Commandment in the first place; I should indeed rather ask what Your Majesty will have next done.

I Am sorry that your Cast of Buck­names cannot be served at this Election: For to choose one of them (and that must have been in a low place) had been discomfortable: they will flie best at ease together. Yet I have thought of a way the next year, in all event not to fail; which is, to divide them between Westminster and Eton. Their Election precedeth ours some three weeks; and truly upon my late observation there, I must needs say, that school mouldeth good Scholars, and of certainer preferment to either of the [Page 67] Universities (for some go to Oxford, and some to Cambridge) then this: out of which the issue is alwayes hard, and the entrance not alwayes easie. Glad I am to hear by your Letter, that you have gotten so good a School-Master, that they may be well mued in the mean while. Be­twixt this and the next turn, I shall lay you down an infallible course for them. And this must content their good father at the present.

If your Masons Brother (who was here on Sunday) had stayed till the next morning, there was some pra­cticable hope to have sped the Boy this year to Cambr. but some unfor­tunate haste, and despair of so many places as fell open, carried him away.

If you had not intimated your own coming to London, you might perchance have been troubled with me in the Countrey: But I will now languish for the hour you promise this place of seeing you here; where [Page 68] your Venison (which we enjoy by exchange from M^r Vice-Chamber­lain) hath given us all occasion to remember you thankfully, as a Be­nefactor to this Board. I will enter­tain you with no home-novelties; but let me tell you a fresh piece of no small noise from abroad. The King of Sweden hath landed with 200 ships a great Army of some 40000 in Germany, with intention (if the Party of our Religion be not all drowsie) to redress the common Cause; or at least, to redintegrate his near Kinsman in Meckleburge, confiscated you know by the Empe­ror: And the opportunity is fair, while the Austrian power is diverted for the help of Spain into Italy. God bless it, and cherish it as his own bu­siness; and in his dear love I leave you: Ever remaining

Sir, I will write to you at large after our Election, when my Brains are settled.

VVE were for three weeks to­gether so besieged at your Eton, first with an overflow of water from the West, and then with a deep snow out of the East, (contra­ry quarters conspiring against us) that our ordinary boats, which usually go and return twice a week, could not pass under the Bridges: where­by such a Letter from you as never man received, lay silent at my Chamber in St Martins-lane till mine own coming to London; to the utter condemnation of my unthank­fulness in the mean time: Which truly I should fear, but that it is the natural property of the same heart, [Page 70] to be a gentle Interpreter, which is so noble an Obliger.

Now, Sir, After I had received and read your Letter, I took some dayes to deliberate what I should do, and to let my judgement settle again which was distracted with so kinde a surprisal: should I use a feathered quill to write unto you? or fly my self to Redgrave? for you had given me wings. At last, I resolved upon both. First, to make this true pro­testation by writing from my very bowels where it is engraven. That though your bounty (considered in all the circumstances, as well the form, as the matter, and the very opportunity of the time wherein it came, and especially without any imaginable pretence of desert in my self) hath been such, as never befell me before, nor can ever befall me again: yet have you therewith not enriched, but stripped and despised me for ever: Nothing that was be­fore, [Page 71] either in my power or posses­sion, being after this mine own: for it is all yours, if it were both the Indies. So as your kindness how­soever flowing from a tender affecti­on: yet is with me like hard wax, dropped and sealed together.

The next after this, shall be to follow it my self: but therein (after the Spanish phrase) I will take lan­guage at the Roles, where I shall understand more punctually about what time you purpose to be here. For, I aym at the convoying of you up to your Eton. About which I will write more by the next Carrier: and prepare your self (Sir) with patience while we live, to be troubled weekly with my letters; whereso­ever I am, even when I shall have no more to say then this, which is the least that can be spoken, that I am

I Do as unwillingly put my pen to tell you, as I am sure you will be to hear what hath befaln my Ne­phew Albertus this week. He was going on Friday last towards even­ing in a Coach alone: whose driver alighting (I know not upon what occasion) hard by Charing-Cross, the horses (being young) took some affrightment, and running away so furiously, that one of them tore all his belly open upon the corner of a Beer Cart, my Nephew (who in this mean while adventured to leap out) seemeth to have hung upon one of the pins of the boot, from whence strugling to get loose, he brake the wast-band of his hose behind, and so fell with the greater violence on the ground, hurting only the hinder­most part of his head, by what pos­sibility we cannot conceive, unless [Page 73] the motion of the Coach did turn him round in the fall. The force of the concussion took from him for some hour or thereabouts the use of his voice and sense, which are now well restored; only, there yet re­maineth in his left arm a kinde of Paralitical stupefaction, and his right eye-lid is all black with some knock that he took in the agitation of the Coach; which peradventure may have been the motive to make him leap out. But these external evils do not so much trouble us, as an in­ward pungent and pulsatory ache within the skull, somewhat lower then the place of his hurt; which hath continued more or less since his fall, notwithstanding twice letting blood, and some nights of good rest, and shaving of his head for the better transpiration; which we doubt the more, because it cometh sine ratione, his hurt being only in the fleshy part, and very sleight, without fra­cture [Page 74] of the skull, without inflamma­tion, without any fever, and all the principal faculties, as me­mory, discourse, imagination untainted. The King hath in this time much consolated us both with sending unto him, and with expres­sing publikely a gracious feeling of his case: but we must fetch our true comforts from him, who is Lord of the whole: And so I leave it.

Since my last unto you, I am sure you hear how Sir Robert Mans­field hath been twice or thrice con­vented before the Lords, and com­mitted to the Marshalsie; partly for having consulted with M. Whitlock the Lawyer about the validity of a Commission drawn for a re-search into the Office of the Admiralty, whereof himself is an Accomptant; and partly for denying to reveal the name of the said Lawyer his Friend; who before had been committed to the Fleet for another case much of [Page 75] the same nature. The point touch­eth a limb of the Kings Prerogative, and immediate Authority. Sir Ro­bert Mansfields Answers (by report) had as much of the Philosopher, or of the Hermite, as of the Souldier, or Courtier; professing openly his little care of this World, or of his own fortunes in it; and divers other phrases of that complexion. Sir Thomas Overbury is still where he was, and as he was, without any alte­ration: The Viscount Rochester yet no way sinking in the point of favour; which are two strange consistents.

Sir R. Drury runneth at the Ring, corbeteth his horse before the Kings window, haunteth my L. of Rochesters chamber, even when himself is not there; & in secret divideth his obser­vances between him & the House of Suffolk: And all this (they say) to be Ambassador at Bruxels. So as super to­ta materia, I see appetites are not all of a kinde: Some go to the Tower for [Page 76] the avoiding of that which another doth languish to obtain. I will end with my Paper, and by the next Carrier either tell you precisely when I shall see you, or prevent the telling of it. And so our sweet Sa­viour bless you and my deer Neece.

BY beginning first with Philoso­phie, I will discover the Method [Page 77] of my nature, preferring it before the speculations of State.

Take any Vegetable whatsoever, (none excepted in the effect, though some difference in the degree) ex­press the juyce; put that in any ves­sel of Wood or Stone, with a narrow neck and mouth, not closed at the top, but covered with any thing, so as it may work out above: Set it af­terwards in some cold hole in a Cel­lar, let it stand there some three weeks, or a moneth, till by fermen­tation it have both purged it self up­wards, and by sediment downwards. Then decant from it the clear juyce, and put that in a Limbeck in Balneo Maris, or in Balneo Roris. The first that riseth will be Aqua ardens, useful perchance according to the quality of the Plant; as of Wormwood for the stomack, of Succory, or any of those Incubae for the Liver. And on the sides of the Limbeck will hang a salt; this is the extracting of salt [Page 78] without calcination; which other­wise certainly must needs consume all the active powers of any Vegeta­ble, and leave nothing but a plastick and passive vertue.

For the point of preserving that salt afterwards from resolution by ayr into water, I hold it impossible, notwithstanding the proper exam­ples that you alledge; which yet must of necessity yield to it. For as your excellent Uncle sayes, and sayes well, in not the least of his works (though born after him) of his experiments: Ayr is predatory.

I have forgotten (for memoria pri­mo senescit) whether I told you in my last a pretty late experiment in Ar­thritical pains: It is cheap enough. Take a rosted Turnip (for if you boyl it, it will open the pores, and draw too much.) apply that in a Poultice to the part affected, with change once in an hour or two, as you finde it dryed by the heat of the [Page 79] flesh, and it will in little time allay the pain.

Thus much in our private way, wherein I dare swear, if our Medi­cines were as strong as our wishes, they would work extreamly.

Now, for the Publick, where per­adventure now and then there are distempers as well as in natural bo­dies.

The Earl of Holland was on Sa­turday last (the day after your Posts departure) very solemnly restored at Council-Table (the King present) from a kinde of Eclipse, wherein he had stood since the Thursday fort­night before: All considered, the obscuration was long, and bred both various and doubtful discourse; but it ended well. All the cause yet known, was a verbal challenge sent from him by Mr Henry Germain in this form: To the now Lord Weston newly returned from his forraign imployments. That since he had al­ready [Page 80] given the King an account of his Embassage, he did now expect from him an account of a Letter of his, which he had opened in Paris, and he did expect it at such a time, even in the Spring-garden (close un­der his fathers Window) with his sword by his side.

It is said (I go no farther in such tender points) that my Lord Weston sent him by Mr Henry Percy (be­tween whom and the said L. Weston had in the late journey (as it seems) been contracted, such friendship as overcame the memory that he was Cosin-German to my L. of Holland) a very fair and discreet answer: That if he could challenge him for any injury done him before, or after his Ambassage, he would meet him as a Gentleman, with his sword by his side where he should appoint. But for any thing that had been done in the time of his Ambassage, he had al­ready given the King an account [Page 81] thereof, and thought himself not accountable to any other. This published on Thursday was fortnight, the Earl of Holland was confined to his Chamber in Court, and the next day morning to his house at Ken­sington, where he remained without any further circumstance of restraint, or displeasure Saturday and Sunday: on which dayes being much visited, it was thought fit on Munday to ap­point M. Dickenson one of the Clerks of the Council, to be his Guardian thus far, that none with­out his presence should accost him. This made the vulgar judgements run high, or rather indeed run low, That he was a lost and discarded man, judgeing as of Patients in Fea­vers, by the exasperation of the fits. But the Queen (who was a little ob­liquely interrested in this business, for in my Lord of Hollands Letter, which was opened, she had one that was not opened, nor so much (as [Page 82] they say) as superscribed; and both the Queens and my L. of Hollands were inclosed in one from M. Walter Mountague (whereof I shall tell you more hereafter.) The Queen I say, stood nobly by him, and as it seems pressed her own affront. It is too intricately involved for me so much as to guess at any particulars. I hear generally discoursed, that the open­ed dispatch was only in favour (if it might be obtained) of Mons^r de Chateau Neuf, and the Cheval^r de Jarr; (who had both been here) but written with caution (and surely not without the Kings knowledge) to be delivered, if there were hope of any good effect, and perchance not without order from His Maje­sty to my Lord Weston; afterwards to stop the said Letters, upon ad­vertisement that both Cateau Neuf, & de Jarr were already in the Bastil­le. But this I leave at large, as not knowing the depth of the business▪

[Page 83] Upon Munday was seven-night fell out another quarrel, nobly car­ried (branching from the former) be­tween my L. Fielding and M. Goring, son and heir to the Lord of that name. They had been the night before at supper. I know not where together; where M. Goring spake something in diminution of my L. Weston, which my L. Fielding told him, it could not become him to suf­fer, lying by the side of his sister. Thereupon, these hot hearts appoint a meeting next day Morning, them­selves alone, each upon his Horse. they pass by Hide-Park, as a place where they might be parted too soon, and turn into a lane by Knights-bridge; where having tyed up their Horses at a hedge or gate, they got over into a Close; there stripped into their shirts, with single Rapiers, they fell to an eager Duel, till they were severed by the Host and his servants of the Inn of the [Page 84] Prince of Orange, who by meer chance had taken some notice of them. In this noble encounter, wherein blood was spent though (by Gods providence) not much on either side there passed between them a ve­ry memorable interchange of a piece of courtesie, if that word may have room in this place: Sayes my Lord Fielding, M. Goring, If you leave me here, let me advise you not to go back by Piccadillia-hall, lest if mis­chance befall me, and be suddenly noised (as it falleth out in these oc­casions now between us) you might receive some harm by some of my friends that lodge thereabouts.

My Lord (replyes Goring) I have no way but one to answer this cour­tesie: I have here by chance in my pocket a Warrant to pass the Ports out of England without a name (got­ten I suppose upon some other occa­sion before,) If you leave me here, take it for your use, and put in your [Page 85] own name. This is a passage much commended between them, as pro­ceeding both from sweetness and stoutness of spirit, which are very compatible. On the solemn day of Saturday last, both this difference and the Original, between the Earl of Holland and the Lord Weston, were fairly reconciled and forgiven by the King, with shaking of hands, and such Symbols of agreement: And likewise Sir Maurice Dromand, who had before upon an uncivil rupture on his part, between him and my Lord of Carlile been committed to the Tower, was then delivered at the same time: and so it all ended, as a merry fellow said, in a Maurice. But whether these be perfect cures, or but skinnings over and Palliations of Court, will appear hereafter: Nay, some say very quickly, for my Lord Westons Lady, being since brought to bed of a daughter, men stand in a kind of suspence, whether [Page 86] the Queen will be the Godmother after so crude a reconcilement, which by the Kings inestimable goodness, I think may pass in this forgiving week.

For forraign matter, there is so little and so doubtful, as it were a misery to trouble you with it. The States confuted Treaty is put to the stock; and the Prince of Orange (by account) gone to the field two dayes since, having broken the business (as they say) by three demands; the resignment of Breda and Guelder, the dismantling of Rheynberg, and the equality of free exercise of Religi­on on either side. The States are strong in arms, weak in money, ow­ing above six hundred thousand pounds sterling in bare interest, be­sides the Capital. The enemy hath neither money, nor men, nor agree­ment. Arena sine calce, yet I hear (and ex bonis Codicibus) that the States are absolutely resolved to [Page 87] besiege no Town this year, unless it be some such place, as may haply fall gently into their lap. They will range with divided troops.

I will have a care in my letters to the Kings only sister (for that is now her published stile even in Sermons) so to commend your Frank unto her (whom she was wont to call, when he went first over, her little Pig) that he may speedily have a Captains place.

God bless him, and bless your whole name; to which I am so much tyed, both by the alliance of the sweetest Neece that ever man had, and by your own kindness since her departure to Heaven. And so I rest,

Your Hester is re-entered into the green-sickness, faulte de je seay quoy.

I pray burn this hasty letter when you have read it.

If you have (as I remember once you told me) the Will of Sir William Pickering; I pray favour me with a Copy of it for a certain purpose: out of which, if I pick any good, you shall be partaker of it.

I have been for the most part sick since I wrote last unto you, but am now chearfull again.

IT is worth the noting, how com­monly the casual firings of houses in Towns do follow one another: And so (methinks) do the inflamma­tions of spirits in Courts: for after the solemn quenching of our late quarrels, there is faln out a new, and shrewdly pursued between Mr. Harbert Price a Sewer to the Queen, [Page 89] and Mr. Eliot, Page to the King.

The beginning they say was upon very sleight occasion: but because a young Lady is an ingredient in the story, I will pass it over. To field they went two daies since upon hot and hasty blood (which somewhat saves it from a deliberate Duel) both shooting the Bridge in several boats; yet the matter being before suspect­ed, my Lord-Chamberlain sent one Mr. Haies (a Scotishman and a good Surgeon, though of late an ordinary Courtier on the Queens side) in guest of them: who found them both on the Surry side a mile or two below bridge closed, and (I hear) on the ground. But Mr. Price already hurt in three places; in one of his sides, in his face, and in three of his fingers: the other is come off un­touched. This Price hath been for­merly bred a Souldier, and some­times (they say) a Lieutenant in the low Provinces. Mr. Eliot scarce yet [Page 90] a man in years: but for height and strength at his full prime, and in both above the common scantling. The King is herewith highly offended: succeeding so freshly up­on the late reconcilements. And it is doubted, they will at least lose their places.

The journey to Scotland continu­eth hotly, and his Majesty removeth house to Theobalds, that way on Saturday come fortnight. But first must be censured the Bishop of Lincoln for too many words, and the Citizens of London in their under­takings in Ireland for too few deeds, which I believe will both trench deep. I shall stay long enough in London (not intending to be gone before the Kings remove) to tell you the event: and truly without your beneficent courtesie, I had been wrapt in a strange riddle: for I could neither have staid nor departed.

I received at the Communion in [Page 91] St. Bartholomews on Sunday last (being Easter-day) in the same Pue with your Hester and her mother; your Hester, either becomes a little tincture of the Green-sickness well, or that becomes her well: well she looks I am sure, and in my fancy draws towards the countenance of her sister Stanhop more and more, but stealingly. My Neece Margaret is come home from her Artisan in Southwark, with some pretty amend­ment. The manner of his cure in those imperfections is somewhat strange: He useth no bindings, but oyls and stroakings: of which I take him to be (in all my reading) both the instrument and the Author. My Neece Ann will prove one of the handsomest creatures of the world: being much grown, and having recti­fied a little squinting or oblique look which she had in one of her eyes so far, as the remainder will turn to a beauty. Her mother hath of late [Page 92] been much troubled (and I think as much in her fancy, which is the greater cure as in her body) with a pain in her right side; which chang­eth place, and therefore is sure, but a flatuous infirmity: yet it hasteneth her removing to better ayr.

From my Lady my sister at Can­terbury we hear nothing; I believe she is in travail with her own thoughts about defacing the inscrip­tion of the Tomb, as far as Catholico and Catholica amount unto. And I could wish, as she took your advice in the invention and word upon the Marble, she had done so in the rest: but in that you were no apt Coun­sellor.

Now, for forein matters. We have fair tydings from Germany; that the Princes hold fast together, and things go well: and I am of opinion, that when those parts have learnt as well as the lower Provinces, to spend a Summer upon the siege of a Town, [Page 93] the war will nestle there as well as below. For they abound in strong places, and war it self is a great refiner of spirits in little time.

The States are in the field earlier then heretofore: and in all judge­ment, it importeth no less, then the countenancing and covering of a general revolt of the geheerten Pro­vinces, as they call them: of that more in my next. And so (Sir) leaving you in our blessed Saviours love, I rest,

Sir, When I have sent you (as I will do by the next Carrier) a new cha­racter, I will open my files.

THis other day at the Cock-pit in Shoe-lane (where my self am rara avis) your Nephew M. Robert Bacon came very kindely to me, with whom I was glad to refresh my ac­quaintance; though I had rather it had been in the Theatre of Red­grave.

I asked him of his Brother, your Frank; and he told me he had been so hindered by winds, as he thought he was not yet gotten over: At which I was sorry, for he hath lost the ho­nour of taking Rheinberge: He may come yet timely enough to see Guel­ders yielded, and after that, to have his share in Juliers, which they write [Page 95] from the Camp, will be the next piece, and so the States will be Masters of all the tract that lies be­tween the Maese and the Rhene; and backed with one of the fattest Pro­vinces of Christendom. Besides, we hear they have recovered their for­mer footing in Brasiel, and beaten the Spanish Fleet. It is hard to say, into what these prosperities will run out: For surely, if they can establish a right correspondency with the up­per Armies of Germany, and either both hold out, or neither agree with­out the other; even this Summer will breed notable effects, and among other I hope, the restitution of the Palatinate; where as much as the Swede had taken, is offered for 16000 Dalers; whereof the half is payed already by the Duke of Sim­mern, Administrator to the young Palatin in his minority, and the other moiety is expected from hence. One thing I must not omit to tell you, [Page 96] that the said young Prince was at the siege of Rheinberge to initiate him in action. The young Cardinal In­fante is come you know to Milan, and they say will there reside as Go­vernour till he can recover Casale and Pignerolo, and purge Italy of the French: So as I believe he will come to Bruxels (for thither he finally tends) in the Spanish pace. Having thus a little skimmed over our fo­rein news, give me leave now to enternain you with some novelties of Art. I send you herewith two printed Capps, A triangular Salt-seller, and the top of an Ambar-Ring. The Capps is a pretty fresh invention of a very easie rate; for they will run shortly at some six pence apiece: and they say the sale is monopolized by a woman at Amsterdam; which may come to some pretty perfection in the ornament of Curtains and Valances of Beds▪ or in some fine historified Table­cloth [Page 97] for a Banquet, or the like. In the invention of the Salt-seller you have an interest your self; for I re­member (Sir) you shewed me a whole furniture of Marble-Saltsel­lers for a Table of your bespeaking: But there is one that hath only gone beyond you in the cheapness of the Material: For this which you now receive, is but of Seacole, and it is strange to see what a polishment so base a stuff doth take, like the ennobling of a Clown. To the bro­ken Ring there belongs a little more discourse. I bought for a tri­fle in Lombard-street long since, be­cause it had a Flie intombed in the sealing part; which if it had been precisely in the middle, would have shewed like the sculpture of the signet it self. Now a while since by a fall from a Table to the ground, it brake, though in a boarded room. Whereupon, there fell a conceit into my minde, that the Ring was Arti­ficial [Page 98] Amber, and not Natural; as indeed my servant Giovanni and I have since plainly discovered. Now I cannot chuse but smile when I think how much more the first Seller of it might have had from me for the falshood (if he would have said so) then for the truth. For surely many rare things may be made of this composition, and intire insectils of any greatness, and in any posture be inclosed therein; which I am sure will inflame you, as it hath set me on fire already to finde the way how to clarifie the Pasta, which seems to be of Rosin, and perchance some dust of true Amber. And thus you see what easie wayes I take to please my self, while I am conversing with you. Let me add to these a strange thing to be seen in London for a cou­ple of pence; which I know not whether I should call a piece of Art or Nature: It is an English man like some swabber of a ship come from [Page 99] the Indies, where he hath learned to eat fire as familiarly as ever I saw any eat cakes; even whole glowing Brands, which he will crash with his teeth, and swallow. I believe he hath been hard famished in the Terra de Fuego, on the South of the Magel­lan-strait.

Sir, I have heard (I know not by whom) that you had a purpose to be here this Whitsontide; but imagining that at least M. Chitock may meet you by the way, I have ventured the trouble of these Lines unto you. For mine own estate, I must acquaint you, (because whether well or ill I am yours) that of late I have been much troubled with certain splene­tick vapours, mounting to the top of my stomack when it is empty: For which I am in a course of gentle Physick at the present, remembring that of Galen, Ego soleo hortari amicos meos, ut in melancholicis affectionibus abstineant à validioribus remediis. [Page 100] My best Physick will be your com­pany,

OH (my most dear Nephew: for so I still glory to call you: while Heaven possesseth her who bound us in that Relation) How have I of late after many vexations of a fastidious infirmity, been at once rent in pieces by hearing that you were at London: what? said I, and must it be at a time when I cannot fly thither to have my wonted part of that conversation: wherein all that know him enjoy such infinite con­tentment? Thus much did sudden­ly break loose from the heart that doth truly honour you. And now (Sir) let me tell you both how it hath [Page 101] gone with me, and how I stand at the present. There is a triple health. Health of body, of minde, and of fortune: you shall have a short ac­count of all three.

For the first: it is now almost an whole Cycle of the Sun, since after certain fits of a Quotidian Feaver, I was assailed by that Splenetick Passion, which a Country good fellow that had been a piece of a Grammarian meant, when he said he was sick of the Flatus, and the other hard Word: for Hypocondriacus stuck in his teeth: it is the very Proteus of all Maladies; shifting into sundry shapes, almost every night a new, and yet still the same; neither can I hope, that it will end in a solar Period; being such a Sa­turnine Humour: but though the Core and Root of it be remaining, yet the Symptomes (I thank my God) are well allayed: and in general, I have found it of more [Page 102] contumacy then malignity; only since the late cold weather, there is complicated with it a more Asthma­tical straitness of respiration then heretofore: yet those about me say, I bear it well, as perchance custome hath taught me: being now famili­arized and domesticated evils: In the Tragedians expression: Jam mansueta Mala. And thus much of the Habit of my Body. On the other side: My minde is in a right Philosophical Estate of health: that is, at an equal distance, both from desire and hope; and ambitious of nothing, but of doing nothing, and of being nothing: yet I have some employment of my thoughts to keep them from mouldring, as you shall know before I close this letter. But first, touching the third kinde of health. My condition or fortune was never better, then in this good Lord Treasures time: the very reverse of his proud Predecessor, that [Page 103] made a scorn of my poverty, and a sport of my modesty; leaving me in bad case: and the world, so as though we now know by what Arts he lived, yet are we ignorant to this hour by what Religion he died, save only that it could not be good, which was not worthy the professing. This free passage let me commit to your noble brest, remembring that in con­fidence of the reciever, I have trans­gressed a late Counsel of mine own which I gave to a young friend, who asking me casually of what he should make him a sute, as he was passing this way towards London; I told him that in my opinion, he could not buy a cheaper nor a more lasting stuff there then silence. For I loved him well, and was afraid of a little free­dom that I spied in him. And now, Sir, I must needs conclude (or I shall burst) with letting you know, that I have divers things in wilde sheets that think and struggle to get out of [Page 104] several kinds, some long promised, and some of a newer conception: but a poor exercise of my pen (wherewith I shall only honour my self by the dedication thereof unto your own person) is that which shall lead the way by mine and your good leave, intending (if God yield me his favour) to print it before It be long in Oxford, and to send you thence, or bring you a Copy to our Redgrave. What the subject is you must not know beforehand: for I fear it will want all other grace, if it lose virginity. And so the Lord of all abundant joy keep you long, con quella buona Ciera, which this my servant did relate unto me,

Mr. Clever one of the now Fellows of this Colledge (where have been divers changes since it had the ho­nour and the gladness to receive you) being this day returned hither from the Excellent Lord Keeper, to whom we had addressed him about a business that concerneth us: Tells me even at this instant in the account of his journey; that it pleased his good Lordship to inquire of him twice or thrice very graciously touching my health. I beseech you (My Noble Nephew) let his Lord­ship see, if it please you, this whole letter (for I dare trust his indulgent goodness, both with my liberties and with my simplicities) and that will tell him my present Estate: which by making it any part of his care, is for ever at his most humble service.

UPon the receipt of a letter from you (which came late, and I know not by what misadventure, half drowned to my hands) with ad­vertisement, that you had been at Sudbury in your passage homewards assailed with a Quartan: I resolved immediately to visit you by this bearer the best of my flights, and lately well acquainted himself with farther travellers, who yet hath been kept here after my said resolution, that he might bring you a full account of the business touching my inviol [...]t Neece so dear unto us both, which was a part of your foresaid letter, and wherein I am confident you will receive very singular con­tentment out of the very Originals of some, and true Copies of other letters which I send you by this my [Page 107] said inward servant; and if he were not so, I would not have intrusted him with so tender Papers. The rest of his stay, was only that I might collect among my poor memorials and experiments something condu­cible to the recovery of your health, wherein I reckon my self as much interessed as in any one thing of this world. I will not say unto you, Courage, as the French use to speak: for you have enough of that within your self: Nor, be merry, in our English phrase (for you can impart enough of that even to others in the incomparable delight of your con­versation) But let me give you two comforts, though needless to the serenity of your spirits. The first, That I hope your infirmity will not hold you long, because it comes (as I may speak, according to the barba­rous translators of Avicenna) In com­plexionato suo: that is in the very season of the revolution of melan­cholick [Page 108] humours, for Omnis Morbus contra complexionatum Patientis vel Temporis, est periculosus aut longus. The other, That it hath not succeed­ed any precedent caustick disease, because those Quartans are of all the most obstinat which arise out of the Incineration of a former Ague. The rest I have committed to the instru­ctions and memory of this bearer, being himself a Student in Physick: and though I dare not yet call him a good Counsellor, yet I assure you, he is a good relator: with this dis­patch I will intermingle no other vulgar subject, but hereafter I will entertain you with as jolly things, as I can scamble together. And so, Sir, for the present, commending you into the sweet and comfortable pre­servation of our dear God: I rest

AN express Messenger will ease us both of the trouble of a cy­pher: But I was in pain whether I should send another, or be that Mes­senger my self, being now as near you as Royston, and scant able to ob­tain pardon of mine own severity for not passing farther; yet this may be said for me, that the present occa­sion required little noise; and besides, I am newly ingaged into some busi­ness, whereof I will give you a par­ticular account, when I shall first have discharged that part which belongeth to your self.

My Lord, my Brother having been acquainted with the matter inclosed in your last to me, dispatched the very next day M. Pen down to Boughton for such writings as had [Page 110] passed at your marriage; which ha­ving consulted with his Lawyers, he found those things to stand in several natures according to the annexed Scedule.

For the point of your coming up, he referreth that to your own heart, and I have only charge from him to tell you, that without any such occa­sion as this, which seemeth to imply your affectionate respect of his Daughter, your own person and conversation shall be ever most wel­come and dear unto him.

As for my Lady, through whose knowledge, and my self, through whose hands you have passed this point of confidence; if you could behold us, and compare us with my Lord, you should see, though no difference in the reality, yet some in the fashion. For to him you must al­low the sober forms of his age and place; but we on the other side are mad with gladness, at the hope we [Page 111] have now taken by this occasion of enjoying both you and my Neece this Winter at London; and we are contented to profess it as profusely as it is possible for a better Pen to set it down: Nay for my part (who in this case have somewhat single) I flatter my self yet farther, that the Term (whereof not much now re­maineth) will accelerate your com­ing: Which if you resolve, I pray then let me only by this Bearer know it, that I may provide you some fit Lodgings at a good distance from White-Hall; for the preserva­tion of blessed liberty, and avoyd­ance of the comber of kindeness: which in troth (as we have privately discoursed) is no small one. Now touching my self.

It may please you Sir to under­stand, That the King, when he was last at Hampton, called me to him, and there acquainted me with a general purpose that he had to put [Page 112] me again into some use. Since which time, the French Ambassador (and very lately) having at an Au­dience of good length besought His Majesty (I know not whether vo­luntarily, or set on by some of our own) to disincumber himself of fre­quent accesses by the choice of some confident servant, to whom the said Ambassador might address himself in such occurrences as did not require the Kings immediate ear. It pleas­ed him to nominate me for that charge, with more gracious commen­dation then it can beseem me to repeat; though I write to a friend, in whose breast I dare depose even my vanities. But lest you should mistake, as some others have been apt to do here, in the present consti­tution of the Court (which is very ombragious) the Kings end in this application of me, I must tell you that it is only for the better preparing of my insufficiency and weakness for [Page 113] the succeeding of Sir Thomas Ed­munds in France; towards which, His Majesty hath thought meet, first to indue me with some know­ledge of the French businesses, which are in motu. And I think my going thither will be about Easter.

Thus you see (Sir) both my next remove, and the exercise of my thoughts, till then; wherewith there is joyned this comfort, besides the redemption from expense and debt at home (which are the Gulfs that would swallow me) that His Maje­sty hath promised to do something for me before I go.

I should now according to the promise of my last tell you many things, wherewith my Pen is swoln; but I will beg leave to defer them till the next opportunity after my coming to London: And they shall all give place now to this one que­stion: Whether there be any thing in this intended journey, that you [Page 114] will command? Which having said, I will end; ever resting

TO divert you from thinking on my faults, I will entertain you with some news out of a Letter which I have here received from Venice, of much consequence divers wayes.

The Bishop of Bamberge, a practi­call Almayn-Prelate (of which kinde there be enough of that coat, though not in that Countrey) was treating [Page 115] in Rome a League against the Pro­testant Princes of Germany, with whom His Majesty (you know) was first by Articles, and is now by ally­ance more nearly confederate: His Commission he had from the Empe­ror, Sotto parole tacite as they call it. Now, while this matter was there moulding, a Chiaus arrives at the Emperors Court, with a Letter from the Turk; importing a denuntiation of War, grounded upon a heap of complaints easily found out between Princes that do not intend to agree. And accordingly the Turk is depart­ed in Person from Constantinople into Hungarie with great Forces (as my Friend writeth) on a morning quando nevicava a furia (by which appeareth the sharpness of the humor) having made a leavy before his going of 5000 youths out of the Seragli; a thing never seen before. He hath left behinde him Nasuf Bassa as Pre­sident of his affairs, who told the [Page 116] Baiolo of Venice there resident, that his Master was but gone to hunt: and seemeth to have healed the same language with the other Ambassa­dors: whether out of meer wanton­ness of conceit, or as esteeming a war with Christians, but a sport in respect of that which he had newly concluded with the Persian, I know not: howsoever, this is likely to quash the Bishops business, and I fear it will fall heavy upon Germany: which first in it self was never more disunited; and besides, the Emperor in small good will with those that should help him. It will likewise in my conjecture hasten the departure of the Count Palatine, or at least (if it so please him) it may well serve his turn for that purpose.

This is all that I have for your entertainment: To morrow morn­ing I depart hence towards London: whence I determine to write by eve­ry Carrier to you, till I bring my self.

[Page 117] In your last you mentioned a cer­tain Courtier that seemeth to have spoken somewhat harshly of me; I have a guess at the man▪ and though for him to speak of such as I am in any kinde whatsoever was a favour: yet I wonder how I am faln out of his estimation; for it is not long since he offered me a fair match within his own tribe, and much addition to her fortune out of his private bounty; when we meet, all the world to nothing we shall laugh, and in truth (Sir) this world is wor­thy of nothing else. In the mean time and ever our sweet Saviour keep us in his love.

I Shall give to morrow morning Matthew Say our Boat-man be­fore his going a shilling, and promise him another at his return to deliver this small packet with his own hands at the Green-Dragon in Bishopsgate-street according to the form of your address, not for any value of mine own Papers, but for some things therein contained, which I wish may come safely and quickly to you. And first, I send you your immortal Un­cles confession of his faith; which I did promise you at Canterbury, solidly and excellently couched; as what­soever else had the happiness to fall under his Meditation, and Pen. Next; you receive a letter freshly written me from Cambridge, with mention (God bless us) of a Jesuite [Page 119] of your name: who seems (as all that comes from any of you is pierc­ing) to have sent over lately some pretty iusinuative book in matter of Theological Controversie, per­chance better dressed then any be­fore, and with more relish com­mended to the vulgar taste, but I believe it will be the same to the stomack: for well they may change their form, but it is long since we have heard their substance over and over, still the same ad fastidium usque. I shall languish to know how he toucheth upon your Name and stirp. The name of my friend who writ me the said letter, I have defaced for the censure of some other things therein, which I should be sorry to adventure at large: but you shall know him from me hereafter; and believe it, he will be worth your knowing.

I cannot forbear to tell you a thing (I know not whether I should [Page 120] call it news, because it is nearer you then to us) but strange in truth, written me from the said University at the same time by the Provost of Kings Colledge there; between whom and me doth pass much fami­liar correspondency. It is of a weekly Lecture there performed heretofore by the Person of Mr. Christopher Goad, and lately deposed with severe commandment (as it should seem) from above, whereupon the women especially by way of of revenge for that restraint do flock to St. Maries in such troops, and so early, that the Masters of Art have no room to sit; so as the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of houses were in deliberation to repress their shoaling thither. Me­thinks, it is a good thing, when zeal in a land grows so thick and so warm. But soft, if I lanch any farther, I may perchance run (which yet were a great mistake) into the name of a Puritan. For that very Lecturer [Page 121] which is now deposed, did live here­tofore with me at my table upon especial choice: being in truth a man of sweet conversation, and of sober solidity.

Now, for other things, Nicolas Oudard brought me the Friday after his departure from you the glad tidings of your Agues discharge, as you then conceived it would be at the twentieth Access, according (as you seem to have told him) to a common observation with you there: so as in Suffolk, I see you count Quartan fits, as you do your sheep, by the score. I could heartily wish you would take for some time after it Alternis Diebus, my preparation of the Lignum Sanctum, with addition likewise of the roots of China, Enula Campana, and a sprig of Tamarisque, all in the decoction of Barley-water, and quickned with a little sprinkling of a Lemmon: a rare Receipt to corroborat the Viscera, and to keep [Page 122] the Stomack in Tono. My said Nicolas tells me likewise, that you began to chirp upon being in London the next Term. I should be glad with your favour to know that point precisely: for having a pur­pose (by Gods dear blessing) to visit you at Redgrave (which will be the best Cordial I took in long time) I would shape my course circularly, either from Suffolk to Kent, or from Kent to Suffolk, as I shall hear of your motions towards the beginning of next Lent. For novelties of Court and State, all mens minds at the pre­sent with us seem magnetical, look­ing towards the North. Order is come down this day to the Justices of this Shire, about a general muster at Alisbury the next week, and for especial watch at the Beacons: so as any burning of a bush by chance near one of them, would set the whole Province in an alarm; but notwith­standing these good providences, we [Page 123] hope well of the issue: and the ra­ther, for that a pretty strong conceit runneth, that the Deanery of Durham is reserved for Doctor Belkanquel, as a reward of his travails to and fro in this great business. While we are uniting our ceremonious breaches, The Kings of France and Spain abroad treat hard this Winter about a peace, as one writeth; (and I believe very truly) without consideration of any other Prince or State but them­selves. If this be so, and take effect in that manner, then is Charles de Loraine Exutus Lepidus, stript to his shirt, the Count Palatine lest at large, and the Swede must stand upon his own feet. But Brevibus Moment is summa vertuntur: all depends upon the taking, or not taking of Brisach, the Helena of Germany: and though a Town indeed of great strength and advantage; yet a poor price for so much blood as hath been lost about it. While I am talking of [Page 124] war, let me tell you what I hear, that your Sir Jacob Ashley is grown a great man at Court in private intro­ducements to the King, together with the Earl Marshall: our good Soveraign will feel a sufficient man quickly. The States lie still and close oppressed with the adversities of the last year; and with nothing more, then the late ruine of fourty well laden ships by the Texel, where­in with deploration of the whole Province were lost one thousand Mariners.

Touching the subject whereof I sent you an account by Nicolas, I have heard nothing since to increase my hope, and much less my faith. You shall have more the next week. Till when and ever our sweet Jesus have you in his love.

Since I concluded this, Mr. Hales (our Bibliotheca Ambulans, as I use to call him) came to me by chance, and told me that the Book of Contro­troversies issued under the name of Baconus, hath this addition to the said name, Alias Southwel. As those of that society shift their names as often as their shirts. And he sayes, it is a very poor thing, only graced with a little method.

YOur friend Sir Robert Killigrew hath been committed to the Fleet, for conferring with a close prisoner in a strange language: which were (as I hear) the two circum­stances that did aggravate his er­ror.

[Page 126] Of his case whose love drew him into it, I can yet make no judgement. The humour seemeth to be sharp, and there is wisdom enough in those that have the handling of the pati­ent to manage the matter, so that at length, his banishment from the Court may be granted as a point of grace. The nature of his alteration was (as you rightly judge it) in the first access somewhat apoplectical, but yet mingled in my opinion with divers properties of a lethargy; whereof we shall discourse more par­ticularly when we meet, which I now long for, besides other respects, that we may lay aside these Meta­phors.

This very morning shall be heard at the Star-chamber the case of Sir Peter Buck an inhabitant at Rochester, an officer (as I take it) of the Navy, who hath lain some good while in prison for having written to a friend of his at Dover a letter containing this [Page 127] news, that some of the Lords had kneeled down to the King for a toleration in Religion: besides some particular aspersion in the said letter of my Lord privy Seal: whom like­wise of late a Preacher or two have disquieted: whereby he hath been moved besides his own nature, and (as some think also) besides his wis­dome, to call these things into pub­lick discourse: quae spreta exolescunt, if antient grave sentences do not deceive us.

My Lady of Shrewsbury, my Lord Gray, and the Lady Arabella remain still close prisoners since their last restraint, which I signified unto you in a little ticquet. Sir William Wade was yesternight put from the Lieu­tenancy of the Tower.

I set down these accidents barely as you see without their causes, which in truth is a double fault, writing both to a friend, and to a Philosopher: but my lodging is so [Page 128] near the Star-chamber, that my pens shake in my hand: I hope therefore the Ambassador of Savoy (who hath already had two audi­ences) will quickly be gone, that I may fly to you, and ease my heart. By the next Carrier I shall tell you all his business. In the mean while, and ever, our dear Saviour bless you.

This Friday morning, May 7. in such haste, that I must leave my dear Neece unanswered, till I can better assemble my spirits, and call the aid of the Muses.

AFter the rest of your trouble at the present, there remaineth a [Page 129] proposition to be consulted with you: about which I should esteem the charge of an express messenger not ill expended, though you were at Jerusalem. And both Mr. Harison and my self think no man living more proper to solve it, then our Sir Edmund Bacon. The Question is this: whether there may not be found some natural Philosophical way to determine the measure of a minute, or quarter, or half, or intire hour, or any portion of time more precisely and uniformly, and infallibly then hath been yet invented by any Mechanical and Artificial motion? And particularly, whether it may not be done by the descent of drops through a Filter, either in Manica Hippocratis, or in a Tongue of cloth equally thick, with consideration likewise of all circumstances in that liquid substance which must sink through it. If this may be done, there will be a mighty point obtained in [Page 130] the rectifying of the Longitudes of the Earth, which depend upon the thoment of the Lunar Eclipses; and Mose, upon the exact determination of the beginning and ending of an hour: for which purpose the great Tycho Brach composed divers Horo­logies, and hour-glasses, some run­ning with simple water, some with distilled spirits, some with pulverized metals, and some with crude Mercu­ry; but never to any infallible satis­faction of the point propounded: which likewise would be of singular use in divers Astronomical observati­ons, if it could be once justly regulat­ed. This we commend to your curious judgement. My servant Nicolas and I hope to send you some good Flints to be Agatized by your miraculous invention.

I pray, Sir, If you have any of those Island stones which you men­tioned unto me at Canterbury, bestow a few upon me. But above all for­get [Page 131] not to let me know where you will be about the beginning of Lent.

Iterum & Iterum vale.

ALL the faculties of my minde (if they had ever been of any value) and all the strength of my body, must yield to the seignory and soveraignty of time over us: But the last thing that will die or decay in me, is the remembrance, how amidst that inestimable contentment which I enjoyed (as all others do) in [Page 132] the benefit and pleasure of your Conversation (being then with you at Redgrave in Suffolk, both your delightful Mansion and Philosophi­cal retreat, where you are best, be­cause there you are most your self, though every where well imparted to your friends) I was then surprized with advertisement from Court of the death of Sir Albertus Morton, my dear Nephew in the vernality (as I may term it) of his employments and fortunes under the best King and Master of the World. And how no great time after (as adversities are seldom solitary) there succeeded in the same place the departure of my no less dear Neece, your long, and I dare say, your still beloved Consort (for love and life are not contermin­able) as well appeareth by your ma­ny tender expressions of that dis­juncture, and by that Monument of your own excellent invention which you have raised to her memory.

[Page 133] This (Sir) ever freshly bleeding in me, and withall revolving often in my retired thoughts, how I have long since overlived my loving Parents, all mine Uncles, Brothers, and Si­sters, besides many of mine especial Friends and Companions of my youth, who have melted away before me; and that I am now my self arrived near those years which lie in the suburbs of Oblivion, being the sole Masculine Branch of my good Fathers house in the County of Kent: So as that poor Name and Reputation which my Ancestors have heretofore sustained by Gods permission, must expire and vanish in my unworthiness: I say (Sir) again and again debating often these Cir­cumstances with my self (and truly not without the common weaknesses & passions of humanity, from which I am of all men least exempted) an extream desire did lately assail me to entertain between my other Private [Page 134] Studies some such discourse as might work upon mine own minde, and at least abstract awhile, if not elevate my cogitations above all earthly objects. Whereupon, to­wards the end of this last Lent (a time of contracted thoughts) I fell to think of that Theam, which I have now entituled, The loss of Friends and final Resignation of our selves. Intending, though it be the highest and uttermost point of Chri­stian Philosophy to familiarize it be­tween us as much as I can, and to address it in form of a letter to your self. For, with whom can I treat of this matter more properly, being both of us almost precisely of equal age, and by the love which you are pleased to bear me, all Joy in the Fruition, and all Grief in the Priva­tion of Friends common between us.

NOw I begin: but why not be­fore? That question shall be answered by the next Carrier, or by a special messenger the next week, at which time you shall have an ac­count of all that hath passed, and some prognostication also upon the future: for my pen is grown bold and eager with rest, as dogs that are tyed up.

At the present all my care is to let you know that I have received your last with the enclosed: which although I well understand my self, yet I have not had time since the decyphering to acquaint the party with it, which shall be done as soon as I have sealed this, and sent it to the Carriers.

I thought now to have said no more: but lest it lose the grace of freshness, I pray let me tell you, that yesterday morning the Vicount Rochester was very solemnly in the [Page 136] Banqueting-hall in the sight of many great ones and small ones created Earl of Somerset; and in the after­noon for a farther honouring and signalizing of the day, my Lord Cook (brought in by the said Earl) was sworn a privy Counseller: to counterpoise the difference of the profit between the Common pleas, and the Kings Bench.

I will turn over the leaf though I die for it, to remember the heartiest love of my soul to that good Neece, to that sweet Neece; to whom I have much to say by the next oppor­tunity. Our dear Saviour keep you both in his continual love.

Touching the project of our house, believe it Sir, I boyl in it; and am ready to begin again that I [Page 137] may tell you how busie I have been in the matter: but let this also be put over till the following week, which is likely to fall heavy upon you.

Written on the day of our great preservation, for which our God be ever glorified.

LIke a woman great with childe I have threatened you almost every week with a proposition of profit: in which kind of breedings, methinks I am of hard birth: but I hope to be brought to bed by the next Carrier. This week hath yet yielded in the publick small effects to entertain you withall; only, some change of opinion about the future great Officers, which are now thus discoursed.

[Page 138] The Earl of Suffolk is still beheld as a Lord Treasurer, and that con­jecture hath never fainted since the very first rising of it. But it is thought, that the dignity of Privy Seal shall lie vacant as it did in the Cecilian times, and that the executi­on thereof with the title of Lord Chamberlain, shall be laid on my Lord of Somerset; for if my Lord of Suffolk should remove from the Kings Privacy to a place of much distraction and cumber without leaving a friend in his room, he might peradventure take cold at his back: which is a dangerous thing in a Court, as Ruygomez de silva was wont to say, that great Artisan of humours. Of the Office of five Ports, I dare yet pronounce nothing. My Lord, my brother will none of it (as I heard him seriously say) though it were offered him, for reasons which he reserveth in his own breast: yet the late Northampton did either so [Page 139] much esteem it, or thought himself to receive so much estimation from it, as he hath willed his body to be laid in the Castle of Dover.

Chute, Hoskins, Sharp, & Sir Charles Cornwallis are still in the Tower, and I like not the complexion of the place. Out of France we have the death of Doctor Carrier; whose great imaginations abroad have had but a short period. And so (Sir) commending you and that dearest Neece to Gods continual blessings, and love. I rest

Sweet Benjamin, since thou art young And hast not yet the use of tongue, Make it thy slave while thou art free, Imprison it, lest▪ it do thee.

THis is that Saturnine time of the year which most molest­eth such splenetick bodies (as mine is) by the revolution of melancho­like blood, which throweth up fasti­dious fumes into the head, whereof I have had of late my share. Howso­ever this trusty fellow of our Town [Page 144] being hired by one about some bu­siness to Cambridge (as he is often hither and thither) and acquainting me commonly with his motions, I have gladly stretched his present journey as far as the Redgrave: hoping by him to have an absolute account of your well being, which Nicolas my servant left in a fair dis­position.

Let me therefore by this oppor­tunity entertain you with some of our newest things: but briefly: for I dare not trust my brains too much.

First, for the affairs of Scotland: Est bene non potuit dicere, dixit, Erit. The wisest Physitians of State are of opinion that the Crisis is good; and I hope your Sir Jacob Ashley, and my Sir Thomas Morton will have a fine employment upon the borders; Ho­nour by the choice of their persons, money by their journal pay, little pains, and no danger. Our Court mourneth this whole Festival with [Page 145] sad frugality for the untimely death of the young Duke of Savoy, our Queens Nephew, hastened they say by the Cardinal his Uncle, who would first have illegitimated him, and that not taking effect by the sup­portment of Spain, he fell to other Roman Arts; so as the said Cardi­nal to decline this black report, is gone a wandring; and as it is thought, will visite bare-foot the Holy-Land. In the mean time, methinks I see him with a crew of Banditi and Bravi in his company; and his own conscience a continual Hangman about him. The Queen Mother stirreth little between Majesty and age: She hath published a short Ma­nifesto touching the reasons of her recess from Bruxels; wherein is one very notable conceit: That she had long born silently the affronts done her by the Prince, Cardinals, Counsellors, and under-Officers, upon no other rea­son then the very shame to have recei­ved [Page 146] them. Of himself she speaketh with good respect, but I know not how the Character of Humility (which she giveth him) will be di­gested: For perchance he had rather have been painted like a Lion then a Lamb. Our Queens delivery ap­proacheth; in a good hour be it spo­ken. There is newly sworn her ser­vant, a lovely Daughter of Sir Ri­chard Harisons, our neighbour in Barkshire; to answer Madamoiselle Darci on her Mothers side. The Count Palatine since his late defeat, is gotten in disguised habit to Ham­borough, and as they say, hath been there visited by the King of Den­mark amidst that cold assembly of Ambassadors. But in his passage between the said Town and Bremen, was like to have been taken by an ambush of Free-booters, who no doubt would have made sale of him. Certain it is, that his Brother Prince Rupert fought very nobly before [Page 147] he yielded: Whereof such notice was taken, even by the Count of Hatfeld himself, that he hath ever since been kept by him in a strong place, rounded day and night with a guard of naked Swords; yet in the Tablets of one that had leave to visit him, the Prince made a shift to comfort the Queen his Mother with a line or two to this sence: That whatsoever became of himself, he would never change his Religion nor his Par­ty. We hear my Lord Craven hath made his composition under 20000. l. As for Ferents, I believe his own head must ransom him, or his heels. The Popes Treaty at Colen goes Il passo del Gambaro, rather backward then forward. And all delibera­tives of State seem to depend much upon the event of Brisach; which I use to call the German Helena, long woed, but for ought I hear yet an Imperial Virgin. These are our forraign Rapsodies: I will end in [Page 148] somewhat nearer us. You receive herewith the Copy of my last or se­cond Letter to M. Carie Raleigh, and his answer thereunto. Believe it Sir, (what conceit soever his actions shall breed) that he is a Gentleman of dextrous abilities, well appear­ing in the management of a business so tender and delicate, as that which now runneth between us; which for my part I resolve to press no further. For (to depose my minde as plainly as I may safely in your breast) I ne­ver could observe any great good effect to insue upon violent disswa­sions in businesses of this nature, but rather an obduration then an abver­sion: Howsoever I would fain (as the occasion suggesteth) propound unto your judgement a pretty Moral doubt, super tota materia, which I have heard discussed and resolved affirmatively among some sk [...]lfull Humorists, who knew the world well. The Question was this, Whe­ther [Page 149] in such a case precisely as ours of meer scandal, without apparent truth, som [...] [...]nclining to think the worst, and some the best, there be left room for any middle imagination between Good and Ill? In the solution of which point, I will crave pardon to reserve a se­cret till we meet; at which I believe you will smile.

We are here (God be blessed) all well: Our Audit ended a little before Christmas-day, more trouble­some then fruitful, after the fashion. The same Officers as the year before, every man of them your servant, or otherwise they had wanted my voyce. M. Harison hath been of late somewhat more then heretofore troubled with certain Nephritical fits; but they are transient and light, Et jam mansueta mala. M. Powel speaketh of you with much devo­tion, as all other whom you have once touched with your Magnetical ver­tue. In the Conclusion let me, as [Page 150] with a Box of Marmalad, close up your stomack with one of the Geni­alest pieces that I have read in my life time, of the same unaffected and discheveled kind, (as I may term it) sent me newly from London; which if you have seen before, I am out of countenance. And so (Sir) wishing you (for I cannot wish you better on earth) after the sweet apprehen­sion of Gods continual favour, the fruition of your self: I rest

[Page 151] YEt my minde and my spirits give me against all the combustions of the World, that before I die I shall kiss again your Royal hand, in as merry an hour as when I last had the honour to wait upon your graci­ous eyes at Heidelberge.

I will now take the boldness to conclude my poor lines with a pri­vate and humble suit unto your Ma­jesty; which I bring with me out of Suffolk from Sir Edmund Bacons house, and that whole Family; among whom your Majesties name and vertues are in singular admira­tion.

There is of that House a young Plant of some sixteen years; well natured, and well moulded both for face and limbs, and one of the bravest spirited boyes in Christendom. It is their joynt ambition, and they have made me their Intercessor, that your Majesty would be pleased to take him for one of your Pages. [Page 152] They want not means otherwaies to bestow him, but their zeal towards your Majesty, and their judgements guide them to this humble desire, for his more vertuous and noble nur­ture. And lest the ordinary number of your Majesties Attendants in that kinde, being perhaps full, might retard their hope of this high favour; I have commission to assure your Majesty, that their meaning is not to aggravate your charge, for he shall have yearly a competent provi­sion allowed to maintain him in good fashion. If my Neece Bacon of dearest memory were alive, (whom God took not long after my Ne­phew Albertus into his eternal bliss) I am sure she would joyn in this suit unto your Majesty, that all Sexes might enter into the obligation: But it is your Majesties own goodness, from which only we can hope for a favourable answer: And so with all our prayers, and with my particular [Page 153] obliged devotion, I most humbly commit your Majesty to Gods re­served blessings, and continual love, ever resting

I Must now acknowledge it true which our Navigators tell us, that there be indeed certain variati­ons of the compass: for I think there was never point of a needle better touched then you have touch­ed me, having ever since I parted from you been looking towards you, and yet still by something or an other, I am put out of my course. [Page 154] I will therefore hereafter not pro­mise you any more to come unto you, but I will promise my self it: because indeed I have no other means to be at peace with my self: for I must lay this heavy note upon your conversation, that I am the un­quieter for it a good while after.

This is the first part of what I meant to say. After which I would fain tell you, That I send this Footman expresly unto you to redeem some part of my fault for not answering your late kinde Letter by the Mes­senger that brought it: But the truth is, I had some special occasion to send to Berry: And therefore I will set no more upon your account then his steps from thence to Red­grave, where perhaps you now are. See what a real Courtier I am, and whether I be likely to prosper. Well, howsoever, let me entertain you a little by this opportunity, with some of our discourses. The King depart­ed [Page 155] yesterday from hence towards you; having as yet, notwithstand­ing much voice, and some wagering on the other side, determined no­thing of the vacant places: Where­upon the Court is now divided into two opinions; the one, that all is reserved for the greater honour of the marriage; the other, that nothing will be done till a Parliament, or (to speak more precisely) till after a Par­liament: Which latter conceit, though it be spread without either Author or ground, yet as many things else of no more validity, it hath gotten faith enough on a sud­dain. I will leave this to the judicial Astrologers of the Court, and tell you a tale about a subject somewhat nearer my capacity.

On Sunday last at night, and no longer; some sixteen Apprentices (of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the story) having secretly learnt a new Play without book, in­tituled, [Page 156] The Hog hath lost his Pearl; took up the White-Fryers for their Theatre: and having invited thither (as it should seem) rather their Mi­stresses then their Masters; who were all to enter per buletini for a note of distinction from ordinary Co­medians towards the end of the Play, the Sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last act at Bridewel; the rest are fled. Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the City is, for they will needs have Sir John Swinerton the Lord Maior be meant by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer by the Pearl. And now let me bid you good night, from my Chamber in King-street this Tuesday, at Eleven of the night,

Francesco hath made a proof of that green which you sent me; against which he taketh this exception, That being tryed upon glass, (which he esteemeth the best of tryals) it is not translucent; arguing (as he saith) too much density of the matter, and consequently, less quickness and spirit then in colours of more te­nuity.

BY the next Carrier (for yet I must say so again) you shall hear when this Ambassador will be gone. The mean while let me entertain you with the inclosed Paper, which the Duke of Savoy hath published in his own defence; joyning together the Sword and Reason.

Sir Robert Mansfeld is still in re­straint. Sir Thomas Overbury not only out of liberty (as he was) but [Page 158] almost now out of Discourse.

We have lately started at a dis­patch from Ireland, importing a va­riance there, about the choice of a Speaker in the summoned Parlia­ment; which came to so sharp a point, that the Deputy was fain to fetch wisdom from hence. Sure it is that the humors of that Kingdom are very hovering, and much awaked with an apprehension taken that we mean to fetter them with Laws of their own making; which in truth were an ingenious strain of State. My Lord and Lady are stollen down into Kent for a few dayes to take in some fresh ayr. They go not this next Progress, if my Brother can get leave of the King to see his Grand­children; where he intends to spend some fortnight, and the rest of the time between Boughton and Can­terbury.

A match treated and managed to a fair probability between my Lord [Page 159] Cooks heir, and the second Daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton is suddain­ly broken; the said Lord Cook having underhand entertained discourse about the Daughter of the late Sir Thomas Bartlet, who in defect of her Brother, shall be heir of that name.

I have nothing more to say, and therefore God keep you and my sweet Neece in his continual love.

Albertus (God be thanked) grow­eth better and better: And in the midst of his own pains, hath re­membred those in Suffolk, whom we both so much honour.

THe last week, by reason of my being in Kent, was a week of si­lence; and this I think will appear unto you a week of wonder.

The Court was full of discourse and expectation, that the King being now disincumbred of the care of his Daughter; would towards this Feast of St. George fill up either all or some at least of those places that had lien vacant so long, and had been in this time of their emptiness a subject of notorious opposition between our great Vicount and the House of Suf­folk. Thus I say ran the opinion: When yesterday about six of the Clock at Evening, Sir Thomas Overbury was from the Council-Chamber conveighed by a Clerk of the Council, and two of the Guard [Page 161] to the Tower; and there by War­rant consigned to the Lieutenant as close Prisoner: Which both by the suddainness, like a stroak of thunder, and more by the quality and rela­tion of the person breeding in the Beholders (whereof by chance I was one) very much amazement; and being likely in some proportion to breed the like in the Hearers, I will adventure for the satisfying of your thoughts about it, to set down the fore-running and leading Causes of this accident, as far, as in so short a time I have been able to wade in so deep a water. It is conceived that the King hath a good while been much distasted with the said Gentle­man, even in his own nature, for too stiff a carriage of his fortune; besides that scandalous offence of the Queen at Greenwich, which was never but a palliated cure. Upon which considerations, His Majesty resolving to sever him from my [Page 162] Lord of Rochester, and to do it not disgracefully or violently, but in some honourable fashion; He com­manded not long since the Arch-Bishop by way of familiar discourse, to propound unto him the Ambas­sage of France, or of the Arch-Dukes Court; whereof the one was shortly to be changed, and the other at the present vacant: In which proposition it seemeth, though shadowed under the Arch-Bishops good will, that the King was also contented some little light should be given him of His Majesties incli­nation unto it, grounded upon his merit. At this the Fish did not bite; whereupon the King took a rounder way, commanding my Lord Chan­cellor, and the Earl of Pembrock to propound joyntly the same unto him (which the Arch-Bishop had before moved) as immediately from the King, and to sweeten it the more, he had (as I hear) an offer [Page 163] made him of assurance before his go­ing off the place, of Treasurer of the Chamber, which he expecteth after the death of the Lord Stanhop; whom belike the King would have drawn to some reasonable composition. Notwithstanding all which Motives and impulsives, Sir Thomas Overbury refused to be sent abroad with such terms as were by the Council inter­preted pregnant of contemptin a case where the King had opened his will; which refusal of his, I should for my part esteem an eternal disgrace to our occupation, if withall I did not consider how hard it is to pull one from the bosom of a Favorite. Thus you see the point upon which one hath been committed standing in the second degree of power in the Court, and conceiving (as himself told me but two hours before) never better then at that present of his own fortunes & ends. Now in this whole matter, there is one main and princi­pal [Page 164] doubt, which doth travail all un­derstandings; that is, Whether this were done without the participation of my Lord of Rochester: A point neces­sarily infolding two different conse­quences; for if it were done without his knowledge, we must expect of himself either a decadence or a ruine; if not, we must then expect a repa­ration by some other great publick satisfaction, whereof the world may take as much notice. These clouds a few dayes will clear: In the mean while I dare pronounce of Sir Thomas Overbury, that he shall return no more to this Stage, unless Courts be governed every year by a new Philosophy, for our old Principles will not bear it.

I have shewed my Lord and La­dies Sister your Letter of the 18. of April, who return unto you their affectionate remembrances, and I many thanks for it. The King hath altered his journey to Thetford, and [Page 165] determineth to entertain himself till the progress nearer London. The Queen beginneth her journey upon Saturday towards Bathe. Neither the Marquess di villa (who cometh from Savoy) nor Don Pedro▪ disarmi­ento (who shall reside here in the room of the present Spanish Ambas­sador) are yet either arrived, or near our Coast; though both on the way: So as I can yet but cast to­wards you a longing, and in truth an envious look from this place of such servility in the getting, and such un­certainty in the holding of fortunes, where me-thinks we are all over­clouded with that sleep of Jacob, when he saw some ascending, and some descending; but that those were Angels, and these are men: For in both, what is it but a Dream? And so (Sir) wishing this Paper in your hands, to whom I dare communicate the freest of my thoughts, I commit you to [Page 166] Gods continual Love and Bles­sings.

I pray (Sir) let me in some corner of every Letter tell my sweet Neece that I love her extreamly, as God judge me.