64 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 



and you help me nothing: so as I am half in conceit that 

 you affect not the argument, for myself, I know well, 

 you love and affect. I can say no more to you, but non 

 canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylva. If you be not of 

 the lodgings chalked up, whereof I speak in my preface, 

 I am but to pass by your door. But if I had you a fortnight 

 at Gorhambury I would make you tell me another tale ; or 

 else I would add a cogitation against libraries, and be re 

 venged on you that way. I pray you send me some good 

 news of Sir Thomas Smith, and commend me very kindly 

 to him. So I rest. 



1607. 



To the King.* 



It may please your excellent Majesty, 

 Mr. St. John his day is past, and well past. I hold it 

 to be Janus Bifrons ; it hath a good aspect to that which 

 is past, and to the future; and doth both satisfy and pre 

 pare. All did well; my Lord Chief Justice delivered the 

 law for the benevolence strongly ; I would he had done it 

 timely. Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer^ spake finely, 

 somewhat after the manner of my late Lord Privy Seal ;J 

 not all out so sharply, but as elegantly. Sir Thomas Lake, 

 who is also new in that court, did very well, familiarly and 

 counsellor-like. My Lord of Pembroke, who is likewise 

 a stranger there, did extraordinary well, and became him- 



* Rawley s Resuscitatio. 



t The chancellor of the exchequer here meant was Sir Fulke Greville, who 

 being early initiated into the court of Queen Elizabeth, became a polite and fine 

 gentleman ; and in the 18th of King James was created Lord Brooke. He 

 erected a noble monument for himself on the north side of Warwick Church, 

 which hath escaped the late desolation, with this well known inscription, 

 &quot; Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and 

 friend to Sir Philip Sidney.&quot; Nor is he less remembered by the monument he 

 has left in his writings and poems, chiefly composed in his youth, and in fami 

 liar exercises with the gentleman I have before mentioned. Stephens. 



f Late Earl of Northampton. 



Sir Thomas Lake was about this time made one of the principal secretaries 

 of state, as he had been formerly Latin secretary to Queen Elizabeth, and 

 before that time bred under Sir Francis Walsingham. But in the year 1618, 

 falling into the king s displeasure, and being engaged in the quarrels of his wife 

 and daughter the Lady lloos, with the Countess of Exeter, he was at first sus 

 pended from the execution of his place, and afterwards removed, and deeply 

 censured and fined in the Star Chamber ; although it is said the King then gave 

 him in open court this public eulogy, that he was a minister of state fit to serve 

 the greatest prince in Europe. Whilst this storm was hanging over his head, 

 he writ many letters to the King and the Marquis of Buckingham, which I have 

 seen, complaining of his misfortune, that his ruin was likely to proceed from 

 the assistance he gave to his nearest relations. Stephens. 



