LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 27 



and verify your commendation. And so with my loving 

 commendations (good Mr. FoulesJ I leave you to God s 

 goodness. 



From Gray s Inn, this 25th of March. 



Sir Francis Bacon to Sir Robert Cecil, after defeat 

 of the Spaniards in Ireland, for reducing that 

 kingdom to civility, with some reasons inclosed. 



It may please your Honour, 



As one that wisheth you all increase of honour, and as 

 one that cannot leave to love the state, what interest soever 

 I have, or may come to have in it, and as one that now this 

 dead vacation time have some leisure &quot; ad aliud agendum.&quot; 

 I will presume to propound unto you that which though 

 you cannot but see, yet I know not whether you apprehend 

 and esteem it in so high a degree that is, for the best action 

 of importation to yourself, of sound honour and merit to 

 her majesty, and this crown, without ventosity or popula 

 rity, that the riches of any occasion, or the tide of any op 

 portunity can possibly minister or offer. And that is, the 

 causes of Ireland, if they be taken by the right handle: 

 for if the wound be not ripped up again, and come to a 

 festered sense, by new foreign succours, I think that no phy 

 sician will go on much with letting blood &quot; in declinatione 

 morbi,&quot; but will intend to purge and corroborate. To which 

 purpose, I send you mine opinion, without labour of words 

 in the inclosed, and sure I am, that if you shall enter into 

 the matter according to the vivacity of your own spirit, no 

 thing can make unto you a more gainful return : for you 

 shall make the queen s felicity complete, which now (as it is) 

 is incomparable ; and for yourself, you shall make yourself 

 as good a patriot as you are thought a politic, and to have 

 no less generous ends than dexterous delivery of yourself 

 towards your ends ; and as well to have true arts and 



