LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 



Your lordships are not only judges, but parliamentary 

 judges, you have a farther extent of arbitrary power, than 

 other courts : and if you be not tied to the ordinary 

 course of courts or precedents, in point of strictness and 

 severity, much more in points of mercy and mitigation. And 

 yet if any thing I should move might be contrary to your 

 honourable and worthy ends to introduce a reformation, 

 I should not seek it, but herein I beseech your lordships to 

 give me leave to tell you a story. Titus Manlius took his 

 son s life for giving battle against the prohibition of his gene 

 ral. Not many years after, the like severity was pursued 

 by Papirius Cursur the dictator, against Quintus Maximus, 

 who being upon the point to be sentenced, was by the 

 intercession of some principal persons of the senate spared ; 

 whereupon Livy maketh this grave and gracious obser 

 vation. &quot; Neque minus firmata est disciplina militaris 

 periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserabili supplicio Titi 

 Manlii.&quot; The discipline of war was no less established by 

 the questioning only of Quintus Maximus, than by the 

 punishment of Titus Manlius And the same reason is of 

 the reformation of justice, for the questioning of men of 

 eminent place hath the same terror, though not the same 

 rigor with the punishment. But my case stayeth not there ; 

 for my humble desire is, that his majesty would take the 

 seal into his hands, which is a great downfall, and may 

 serve, I hope, in itself, for an expiation of my faults. 



Therefore if mercy and mitigation be in your lordships 

 power, and do no ways cross your ends, why should I not 

 hope of your favours and commiserations ? Your lordships 

 may be pleased to behold your chief pattern, the king our 

 sovereign, a king of incomparable clemency, and whose 

 heart is inscrutable for wisdom and goodness. You well 

 remember, that there sat not these hundred years before in 

 your house a prince (and never such a prince) whose pre 

 sence deserveth to be made memorable by records and 



