LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 325 



it is duty and decorum in me not to write shortly to your 

 majesty again, but with some length ; not so much by way 

 of defence or answer, which, yet I know your majesty would 

 always graciously admit ; as to show that I have, as I ought, 

 weighed every word of your majesty s letter. 



First, I do acknowledge that this match of Sir John 

 Villiers is magnum in parvo in both senses, that your ma 

 jesty speak eth. But your majesty perceiveth well, that I 

 took it to be in a farther degree, majus in parvo, in respect 

 of your service. But since your majesty biddeth me to 

 confide upon your act of empire, I have done. For, as the 

 Scripture saith &quot; to God all things are possible ;&quot; so cer 

 tainly to wise kings much is possible. But for that second 

 sense, that your majesty speaketh of, magnum in parvo, in 

 respect of the stir ; albeit it being but a most lawful and 

 ordinary thing, I most humbly pray your majesty to pardon 

 me, if I signify to you, that we here take the loud, and vocal, 

 and as I may call it, streperous carnage to have been far 

 more on the other side, which indeed is inconvenient, rather 

 than the thing itself. 



Now for the manner of my affection to my Lord of Buck 

 ingham, for whom I would spend my life, and that which 

 is to me more, the cares of my life ; 1 must humbly confess, 

 that it was in this a little parent-like (this being no other 

 term, than his lordship hath heretofore vouchsafed to my 

 counsels;) but in truth (and it please your majesty) with 

 out any grain of disesteem of his lordship s discretion ; for 

 I know him to be naturally a wise man, of a sound and 

 staid wit, as I ever said unto your majesty. And again, I 

 know he hath the best tutor in Europe. But yet I was 

 afraid, that the height of his fortune might make him too 

 secure ; and, as the proverb is, a looker-on sometimes seeth 

 more than a gamester. 



For the particular part of a true friend, which your ma 

 jesty witnesseth, that the earl hath lately performed towards 

 me, in palliating some errors of mine ; it is no new thing 

 with me to be more and more bound to his lordship ; and I 

 am most humbly to thank (whatsoever it was) both your 

 majesty and him; knowing well, that I may, and do com 

 mit many errors, and must depend upon your majesty s 

 gracious countenance and favour for them, and shall have 

 need of such a friend near your majesty. For I am not so 

 ignorant of mine own case, but that I know I am come in 

 with as strong an envy of some particulars, as with the love 

 of the general. 



