TO HER 



SACRED MAJESTY. 



I DO here most humbly present and dedicate to your sacred 

 Majesty a sheaf and cluster of fruit of the good and fa 

 vourable season, which, by the influence of your happy 

 government, we enjoy ; for if it be true that silent leges inter 

 arma, it is also as true, that your Majesty is, in a double 

 respect, the life of our laws ; once, because without your 

 authority they are but litera mortua; and again, because 

 you are the life of our peace, without which laws are put 

 to silence. And as the vital spirits do not only maintain 

 and move the body, but also contend to perfect and renew 

 it, so your sacred Majesty, who is anima legis, doth not 

 only give unto your laws force and vigour, but also hath 

 been careful of their amendment and reforming ; wherein 

 your Majesty s proceeding may be compared, as in that 

 part of your government, for if your government be consi 

 dered in all the parts, it is incomparable, with the former 

 doings of the most excellent princes that ever have reigned, 

 whose study altogether hath been always to adorn and 

 honour times of peace with the amendment of the policy of 

 their laws. Of this proceeding in Augustus Csesar the 

 testimony yet remains. 



Pace data terris, animum ad civilia vertit 

 Jura suum ; legesque tulit justissimus auctor. 

 Hence was collected the difference between gesta in armis 

 and acta in toga, whereof he disputeth thus : 



Ecquid est, quod tarn proprie did potest actum ejus qui 

 togatus in republica cumpotestate imperioque versatus sit 

 quam lex? queer e acta Gracchi? leges Sempronii profe- 

 rantur. Quare Sylla : Cornelia ? Quid ? Cn. Pom. tertius 

 consulates in qiabus actis consistet? nempe in legibus: a 

 Ctesare ipso si quareres quidnam egisset in urbe, et in toga : Phil j c 7 

 leges multas se responderet, et pr&claras tulisse. 



The same desire long after did spring in the emperor 



