MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 93 



operation in it, that will not suffer good endeavours to 

 perish. 



The Queen saluted me to-day as she went to chapel. I 

 had long speech with Sir Robert Cecil this morning, who 

 seemed apt to discourse with me ; yet of yourself, ne verbum 

 quidem, not so much as a quomodo valet ? 



This I write to you in haste, aliud ex alio, I pray set in 

 a course of acquainting my Lord Keeper what passeth, at 

 first by me, and after from yourself. I am more and more 

 bound to him. 



Thus wishing you good health, I recommend you to God s 

 happy preservation. 



Your entire loving Brother, 



From the Court, FR. BACON. 



this 30th of May, [1596.] 



The Substance of a Letter P now wish your Lordship^ 

 should write to her Majesty. 



That you desire her majesty to believe id, quod res ipsa 

 loquitur, that it is not conscience to yourself of any advan 

 tage her majesty hath towards you, otherwise than the 

 general and infinite advantage of a queen and a mistress ; 

 nor any drift or device to win her majesty to any point or 

 particular, that moveth you to send her these lines of your 

 own mind : but first, and principally, gratitude ; next a 

 natural desire of, you will not say, the tedious remembrance, 

 for you can hold nothing tedious that hath been derived 

 from her majesty, but the troubled and pensive remem 

 brance of that which is past, of enjoying better times with 

 her majesty, such as others have had, and that you have 

 wanted. You cannot impute the difference to trie conti 

 nuance of time, which addeth nothing to her majesty but 

 increase of virtue, but rather to your own misfortune or 

 errors. Wherein, nevertheless, if it were only question of 

 your own endurances, though any strength never so good 

 may be oppressed, yet you think you should have suffo 

 cated them, as you had often done, to the impairing of your 

 health, and weighing down of your mind. But that which 

 indeed toucheth the quick is, that whereas you accounted 

 it the choice fruit of yourself to be a contentment and en 

 tertainment to her majesty s mind, you found many times 

 to the contrary, that you were rather a disquiet to her, and 

 a distaste. 



* Francis Bacou. t Robert, Earl of Essex. 



