452 LETTERS FROM BIRCH. 



tive. When I shall wait upon your highness, I shall give 

 you a farther account. So I most humbly kiss your high- 

 ness s hands, resting 



Your Highness s most devoted Servant. 



I would (as I wrote to the duke in Spain) I could do 

 your highness s journey any honour with my pen. It 

 began like a fable of the poets ; but it deserveth all in a 

 piece a worthy narration. 



To the Duke of Buckingham. 



Excellent Lord, 



I desire in this, which I now presume to write to your 

 grace, to be understood, that my bow carrieth not so high, 

 as to aim to advise touching any of the great affairs now 

 on foot, and so to pass it to his majesty through your 

 hands ; though it be true, that my good affection towards 

 his majesty and the prince and the public is that which 

 will last die in me; and though I think also his majesty 

 would take it but well, if, having been that man I have 

 been, my honest and loyal mind should sometimes feed 

 upon those thoughts. But my level is no farther, but to 

 do the part of a true friend in advising yourself for your 

 own greatness and safety ; although, even in this also, I 

 assure myself I perform a good duty to the public service, 

 unto which I reckon your standing and power to be a firm 

 and sound pillar of support. 



First, therefore, my lord, call to mind oft, and consider 

 duly, how infinitely your grace is bound to God in this one 

 point, which I find to be a most rare piece, and wherein, 

 either of ancient or late times, there are few examples ; 

 that is, that you are beloved so dearly, both by the king 

 and the prince. You are not as a Lerma, or an Olivares, 

 and many others the like, who have insinuated themselves 

 into the favours of young princes, during the kings , their 

 fathers, time, against the bent and inclination of the kings: 

 but contrariwise, the king himself hath knit the knot of 

 trust and favour between the prince and your grace, wherein 

 you are not so much to take comfort in that you may seem 

 to have two lives in your own greatness, as in this, that 

 hereby you are enabled to be a noble instrument for the 

 service, contentment, and heart s ease, both of father and 

 son. For where there is so loving and indulgent a father, 

 and so respective and obedient a son, and a faithful and 

 worthy servant, interested in both their favours upon all 



