LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 



Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Treasurer Burghley. 



My singular good Lord, 



Your lordship s comfortable relation of her majesty s 

 gracious opinion and meaning towards me, though at that 

 time your leisure gave me not leave to shew how I was 

 affected therewith ; yet upon every representation thereof it 

 entereth and striketh more deeply into me, as both my 

 nature and duty presseth me to return some speech of 

 thankfulness. It must be an exceeding comfort and en 

 couragement to me, setting forth and putting myself in way 

 towards her majesty s service, to encounter with an example 

 so private and domestical, of her majesty s gracious good 

 ness and benignity ; being made good and verified in my 

 father, so far forth, as it extendeth to his posterity. 



Accepting them as commended by his service, during the 

 non-age, as I may term it, of their own deserts, I, for my 

 part, am very well content, that I take least part, either of his 

 abilities of mind, or of his worldly advancement; both which 

 he held and received, the one of the gift of God immediately, 

 the other of her majesty s gift : yet, in the loyal and earnest 

 affection which he bare to her majesty s service, I trust my 

 portion shall not be with the least : nor in proportion with 

 the youngest birth. For methinks his precedent should be 

 a silent charge upon his blessing unto us all, in our degrees, 

 to follow him afar off, and to dedicate unto her majesty s 

 service both the use and spending of our lives. True it is, 

 that I must needs acknowledge myself prepared and fur 

 nished thereunto with nothing but with a multitude of lacks 

 and imperfections; but calling to mind how diversely, and in 

 what particular providence God hath declared himself to 

 tender the state of her majesty s affairs, I conceive and gather 

 hope, that those whom he hath in a manner press d for her 

 majesty s service, by working and imprinting in them a single 



