MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 79 



For the delaying I think it not hard, neither shall there 

 want my best endeavour to make it easy, of which I hope 

 you shall not need to doubt by the judgment, which I 

 gather of divers circumstances confirming my opinion. I 

 protest I suffer with you in mind, that you are thus gra 

 velled ; but time will founder all your competitors, and set 

 you on your feet, or else I have little understanding. 



Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon. * 



Sir, 



I wrote not to you till I had had a second conference 

 with the Queen, because the first was spent only in com 

 pliments : she in the beginning excepted all business : this 

 day she hath seen me again. After I had followed her 

 -humour in talking of those things, which she would enter 

 tain me with, I told her, in my absence I had written to 

 Sir Robert Cecil, to solicit her to call you to that place, to 

 which all the world had named you ; and being now here, 

 I must follow it myself ; for I know what service I should 

 do her in procuring you the place ; and she knew not how 

 great a comfort I should take in it. Her answer in playing 

 just was, that she came not to me for that, I should talk of 

 those things when I came to her, not when she came to 

 me ; the term was coming, and she would advise. I would 

 have replied, but she stopped my mouth. To-morrow or 

 the next day I will go to her, and then this excuse will be 

 taken away. When I know more, you shall hear more ; 

 and so I end full of pain in my head, which makes me write 

 thus confusedly. 



Your most affectionate Friend. 



Earl of Essex to Mr. Francis Bacon. f 



Sir, 



I went yesterday to the Queen through the galleries in 

 the morning, afternoon, and at night. I had long speech 

 with her of you, wherein I urged both the point of your ex 

 traordinary sufficiency proved to me not only by your last 

 argument, but by the opinion of all men I spake withal, 

 and the point of mine own satisfaction, which, I protested, 

 should be exceeding great, if, for all her unkindness and 

 discomforts past, she should do this one thing for my sake. 



* Among the papers of Antony Bacon, Esq. vol. iv. fol. 122, in the Lam 

 beth Library, 

 t Ibid. 123. 



