MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 65 



self well, and had an evident applause.* I meant well 

 also ; and because my information was the ground ; having 

 spoken out of a few heads which I had gathered, for I sel 

 dom do more, I set down, as soon as I came home, cursorily, 

 a frame of that I had said ; though I persuade myself I 

 spake it with more life. I have sent it to Mr. Murray 

 sealed ; if your majesty have so much idle time to look 

 upon it, it 1 may give some light of the day s work : but I 

 most humbly pray your majesty to pardon the errors. God 

 preserve you ever. 



Your majesty s most humble Subject, 



and devoted Servant, 



April 29, 1615. FR. BACON. 



Sir Francis Bacon to King James. f 



It may please your most excellent Majesty, 

 It pleased your majesty to commit to my care and trust 

 for Westminster Hall three particulars ; that of the rege 

 inconsulto, which concerneth Murray ; that of the commen- 

 dams, which concerneth the Bishop of Lincoln ; and that 

 of the habeas corpus, which concerneth the Chancery. 



These causes, although I gave them private additions, 

 yet they are merely, or at least chiefly, yours ; and the die 

 runneth upon your royal prerogatives diminution, or entire 

 conservation. Of these it is my duty to give your majesty 

 a short account. 



For that of the rege inconsulto, I argued the same in the 

 King s Bench on Thursday last. There argued on the 

 other part Mr. George Crook, the judge s brother, an able 

 book-man, and one that was manned forth with all the fur 

 niture that the bar could give him, I will not say the 

 bench, and with the study of a long vacation. I was to 



* William, Earl of Pembroke, son to Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, 

 Lord President of the Council in the marches of Wales, by Mary his wife, a 

 lady in whom the muses and graces seemed to meet ; whose very letters, in the 

 judgment of one who saw many of them, declared her to be mistress of a pen 

 not inferior to that of her brother, the admirable Sir Philip Sidney, and to whom 

 he addressed his Arcadia. Nor did this gentleman degenerate, from their wit 

 and spirit, as his poems, his great patronage of learned men, and resolute oppo 

 sition to the Spanish match, did, among other instances, fully prove. In the 

 year 1616, he was made lord chamberlain, and chosen chancellor of the univer 

 sity of Oxford. He died suddenly on the 10th of April, 1630, having just 

 completed fifty years. But his only son deceasing, a child, before him, his estate 

 and honours descended upon his younger brother, Philip, Earl of Montgomery, 

 the lineal ancestor of the present noble and learned earl. Stephens. 



t Sir David Dalrymple s Memorials and Letters, p. 46. 

 VOL. XUI. F 



