CALUMNIES. CCCXXXI 



King and your lordship will I hope put an end to these 

 my straits one way or other.&quot; And in a subsequent letter 

 he said, &quot; I perceive, by some speech that passed between 

 your lordship and Mr. Meautys, that some wretched 

 detractor hath told you, that it were strange I should be 

 in debt ; for that I could not but have received an hundred 

 thousand pound gifts since I had the seal, which is an 

 abominable falsehood. Such tales as these made St. James 

 say, that the tongue is a fire, and itself fired from hell, 

 whither when these tongues shall return, they will beg a 

 drop of water to cool them. I praise God for it, I never 

 took penny for any benefice or ecclesiastical living; I never 

 took penny for releasing any thing I stopped at the seal ; 

 I never took penny for any commission, or things of that 

 nature ; I never shared with any servant for any second or 

 inferior profit.&quot; 



About the same period he thus wrote to the King, in a 



letter which he entrusted to the discretion of Buckingham 



& 



to withhold or deliver : (a} 



It may please your most excellent Majesty, Time hath 

 been, when I have brought unto you &quot; Gemitum Columbse&quot; 

 from others, now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your 

 majesty with the wings of a dove, which, once within these 



lordship s last and highest step of preferment in his profession, which was 

 the custody of the great seal of England. And for conformity of language 

 I call this a preferment, but in truth (and as his lordship understood) it 

 was the decadence of all the joy and comfort of his life ; and instead of a 

 felicity, as common reputed, it was a disease like a consumption, which 

 rendered him heartless and dispirited.&quot; See ante, p. cxcii. 



() My very good Lord, Yesterday I know was no day; now I hope 

 I shall hear from your lordship, who art my anchor in these floods. Mean 

 while to ease my heart, I have written to his majesty the inclosed ; which I 

 pray your lordship to read advisedly, and to deliver it, or not to deliver it, 

 as you think good. God ever prosper your lordship. 



March 25, 1621. Yours ever what I can, FR. ST. ALBAN, Cane. 



