LETTERS FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 475 



nearness to my lord, and by speech with Sir Robert, and 

 write what you find. Thus in haste I wish you right well. 



Your Friend assured, 



FR. BACON. 



From Gorhambury, this 26th of September, 1593. 



I pray send me word what is your day of payment, and 

 whether you can be certain to renew, because my brother s 

 land is not yet sold. 



To the Lord High Treasurer.* 



After the remembrance of my humble and bounden duty, 

 it may please your good lordship, the last term I drew myself 

 to my house in the country, expecting that the queen would 

 have placed another solicitor, and so I confess a little to 

 help digestion, and to be out of eye, I absented myself, for 

 I understood her majesty not only to continue in her delay, 

 but (as I was advertised chiefly by my Lord of Essex) to 

 be retrograde (to use the term applied to the highest powers) ; 

 since which time, I have, as in mine own conceit given over 

 the suit, though I leave it to her majesty s tenderness, and 

 the constancy of my honourable friends, so it be without 

 pressing. 



And now my writing to your lordship is chiefly to give 

 you thanks. For surely, if a man consider the travail and not 

 the event, a man is often more bounden to his honourable 

 friends for a suit denied than for a suit succeeding. Here- 

 withal I am bold to make unto your lordship three requests, 

 which ought to be very reasonable because they come so 

 many at once. But I cannot call that reasonable which is 

 only grounded upon favour. The first is, that your lord 

 ship would yet tueri opus tuum and give as much life unto 

 this present suit for the solicitor s place, as may be without 

 offending the queen (for that were not good for me). The 

 next is, that if I did shew myself too credulous to idle hear 

 says, in regard of my right honourable kinsman and good 

 friend Sir Robert Cecil (whose good nature did well answer 

 my honest liberty), your lordship will impute it to the com 

 plexion of a suitor, and of a tired sea-sick suitor, and not to 

 mine own inclination ; lastly, that howsoever this matter 

 go, yet I may enjoy your lordship s good favour and help, 

 as I have done in regard of my private estate, which as I 

 have not altogether neglected, so I have but negligently 



* Lansd. MS. Ixxviii. art. 31. Oiig. 



