NOTES 3 M 3 N 3 O. 



both to move you to preserve your person for further merit and service of her 

 majesty and your country ; and likewise, to refer this action to the same end. 

 And so in most true and fervent prayers, I commend your lordship, and your 

 work in hand, to the preservation and conduct of the divine majesty ; so much 

 the more watchful as these actions do more manifestly in show, though alike in 

 truth, depend upon his divine providence. 



That nobleman embraced the cause of his friend with his wonted zeal, and 

 instantly dispatched two letters from Sandwich, to be given to the father and 

 mother of the lady. The letter to Sir Thomas Cecil was as follows : 



Sir, I write this letter from the sea side ready to go abroad, and leave it 

 pith my secretary, to be by him delivered to you, whensoever he shall know, 

 that my dear and wortthy friend, Mr. Francis Bacon, is a suitor to my Lady 

 Hatton, your daughter. What his virtues and excellent parts are, you are not 

 ignorant. What advantages you may give, both to yourself and to your house, 

 by having a son-in-law so qualified, and so likely to rise in his profession, 

 you may easily judge. Therefore, to warrant my moving of you to incline 

 favourably to his suit, I will only add this, that if she were my sister or daughter, 

 I protest I would as confidently resolve to farther it, as I now persuade you. 

 And though my love to him be exceedingly great, yet is my judgment nothing 

 partial ; for he that knows him as well as I do, cannot but be so affected. In 

 this farewell of mine I pray receive the kindest wishes of your most affectionate 

 and assured friend, ESSEX. 



Sandwich, this 24th of June. 



Lady Cecil, to whom the next letter was addressed, was one of the daughters 

 and coheirs of John Nevil, Lord Latimer. 



Madam, The end in my writing to your ladyship now, is to do that office to 

 my worthy and dear friend, which, if I had stayed in England, I would have 

 done by speech ; and that is, to solicit your ladyship to favour his suit to my 

 Lady Hatton, your daughter ; which I do in behalf of Mr. Francis Bacon, 

 whose virtues I know so much, as you must hold him worthy of very good for 

 tune. If my judgment be any thing, I do assure your ladyship I think you shall 

 very happily bestow your daughter. And if my faith be any thing, I protest, if 

 I had one as near me, as she is to you, I had rather match her with him than 

 with men of far greater titles. And if my words do carry credit with your lady 

 ship, you shall make me very much bound to you, and shall tie me to be at 

 your ladyship s commandment, ESSEX. 



Sandwich, the 24th of June, 1597. 



3 N. Life, p. xlii. 



This was a most unhappy marriage, and Bacon s subsequent knowledge 

 of Lady Hatton s violence of temper must have made him thankful for his de 

 feat. This lady s name is still connected with a wild legend, and not many 

 years since she was believed to revel nightly with much pomp, in the old man 

 sion in Hatton Garden, which Count Swedenborg afterwards converted into a 

 chapel. 



3 O. Life, p. xlii. 

 To Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. 



It may please your Lordship, I am to make humble complaint to your 

 lordship of some hard dealing offered me by one Sympson, a goldsmith, a man 

 noted much, as I have heard, for extremities and stoutness upon his purse ; but 

 yet I could scarcely have imagined he would have dealt either so dishonestly 

 towards myself, or so contemptuously towards her majesty s service. For this 

 Lombard (pardon me, I most humbly pray your lordship, if being admonished 

 by the street he dwells in, I give him that name) having me in bond for three 



