NOTES S T. 



In a letter to the King, April 1, 1616, he says : 



It may please your most excellent Majesty, The last day when it pleased your 

 majesty to express yourself towards me in favour, far above that I can deserve, 

 or could expect, 1 was surprised by the prince s coming in ; I most humbly 

 pray your majesty, therefore, to accept these few lines of acknowledgment. I 

 never had great thoughts for, my self, farther than to maintain those great 

 thoughts which 1 confess J have for your service. I know what honour is, and 

 I know what the times are ; but I thank God with me my service is the prin 

 cipal, and it is far from me, under honourable pretences, to cover base desires, 

 which I account them to be, when men refer too much to themselves, especially 

 serving such a king, I am afraid of nothing, but that the master of the horse, 

 your excellent servant, and myself, shall fall out about this, who shall hold 

 your stirrup best; but were your majesty mounted, and seated without difficul 

 ties and distaste in your business, as I desire and hope to see you, I should &quot; ex 

 animo&quot; desire to spend the decline of my years in my studies, wherein also I 

 should not forget to do him honour, who besides his active and politic virtues, 

 is the best pen of kings, and much more the best subject of a pen. God ever 

 preserve your majesty. Your Majesty s most humble subject, and more and 

 more obliged servant. 



To Sir Thomas Bodley. 



Sir, I think no man may more truly say, with the psalm, Multum incolafuit 

 animu mea,* than my self; for I do confess since I was of any understanding, 

 my mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done : and in absence are 

 many errors, which 1 do willingly acknowledge; and amongst the rest, this great 

 one that led the rest ; that knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold 

 a book, than to play a part, I have led my life in civil causes ; for which I was 

 not very fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my mind. 



Tennison says, To the like purpose in a MS. letter to the Lord Chancellor 

 Egerton, which I have sometimes perused ; he says : &quot; I am not so deceived in 

 myself, but that I know very well (and I think your lordship is major Corde, 

 and in your wisdom you note it more deeply than I can in my self) that in 

 practising the law, I play not my best game, which maketh me accept with a 

 nisi quid potius, as the best of my fortune, and a thing better agreeable to better 

 gifts than mine but not to mine.&quot; And it appeareth by what he hath said in a 

 letter to the Earl of Essex, that he once thought not to practise in his profes 

 sion. &quot; I am purposed,&quot; said he, &quot; not to follow the practice of the law ; and 

 my reason is only because it drinketh too much time, which I have devoted to 

 better purposes.&quot; 



Upon taking his seat in Chancery, he says, &quot; Only the depth of the three 

 long vacations I would reserve in some measure free from business of estate, 

 and for studies, arts and sciences, to which in my own nature I am most 

 inclined.&quot; 



T. Life, p. xxiii. 



The apartments in which Lord Bacon resided are said to be at No. 1, Gray s 

 Inn Square, on the north side, one pair of stairs ; I visited them in June 1832. 

 They are said to be, and they appear to be in the same state in which they must 

 have been for the last two centuries ; handsome oak wainscot and a beautiful 

 ornament over the chimney-piece. In the garden there was, till within the last 

 three or four years, a small elevation surrounded by trees, called Loid Bacon s 

 mount, and there was a legend that the trees were planted by him ; they were 

 removed to raise the new building now on the west side of the garden, and they 

 stood about three-fourths from the south end. In the books in the Steward s 

 Office there are many of Lord Bacon s autographs of his admission, when he 

 was a bencher, of the different students. 



My soul hath been long a sojourner. 



