MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 87 



thought fit, partly by way of praying your help, and partly 

 by way of offering my good will ; partly again by way of 

 preoccupating your conceit, lest you may in some things 

 mistake. 



My estate, to confess a truth to your lordship, is weak 

 and indebted, and needeth comfort; for both my father, 

 though I think I had greatest part in his love to all his 

 children, yet in his wisdom served me in as a last comer ; 

 and myself, in mine own industry, have rather referred and 

 aspired to virtue than to gain : whereof I am not yet wise 

 enough to repent me. But the while, whereas Solomon 

 speaketh that &quot; want cometh first like a wayfaring man,&quot; 

 and after like &quot; an armed man,&quot; I must acknowledge to 

 your lordship myself to [be] inprimo gradu ; for it stealeth 

 upon me. But for the second, that it should not be able 

 to be resisted, I hope in God I am not in that case; for 

 the preventing whereof, as I do depend upon God s provi 

 dence all in all, so in the same his providence I see opened 

 unto me three not unlikely expectations of help : the one 

 my practice, the other some proceeding in the Queen s 

 service, the third [the] place I have in reversion; which, 

 as it standeth now unto me, is but like another man s 

 ground reaching upon my house, which may mend my 

 prospect, but it doth not fill my barn. 



For my practice, it presupposeth my health, which, if I 

 should judge of as a man that judgeth of a fair morrow by 

 a fair evening, I might have reason to value well. But 

 myself having this error of mind, that I am apter to conclude 

 in every thing of change from the present tense than of a 

 continuance, do make no such appointment. Besides I am 

 not so far deceived in myself but that I know very well, 

 and I think your lordship is major corde, and in your wis 

 dom you note it more deeply than I can in myself, that in 

 practising the law, I play not all my best game, which 

 maketh me accept it with a nisi quod potius, as the best of 

 my fortune, and a thing agreeable to better gifts than mine, 

 but not to mine. 



For my placing, your lordship best knows, that when I 

 was much dejected with her majesty s strange dealing 

 towards me, it pleased you, of your singular favour, so far 

 to comfort and encourage me, as to hold me worthy to be 

 excited to think of succeeding your lordship in your second 

 place;* signifying in your plainness, that no man should 



* The mastership of the rolls ; which office the Lord Keeper held till the 

 Lord Bruce was advanced to it, May 18, 1603. 



