388 OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 



the party, which within the realm is contrary to the 

 state, wherein they are as wise as he that thinketh 

 to kindle a fire by blowing the dead ashes ; when, 

 I say, a man looketh into the cause and ground of 

 this plentiful yield of libels, he will cease to marvel, 

 considering the concurrence which is, as well in the 

 nature of the seed as in the travel of tilling and 

 dressing ; yea, and in the fitness of the season for 

 the bringing up of those infectious weeds. 



But to verify the saying of our Saviour, &quot; non 

 &quot; est discipulus super magistrum ;&quot; as they have 

 sought to deprave her majesty s government in her 

 self, so have they not forgotten to do the same in her 

 principal servants and counsellors ; thinking, belike, 

 that as the immediate invectives against her majesty 

 do best satisfy the malice of the foreigner, so the 

 slander and calumniation of her principal counsellors 

 agreed best with the humours, of some malecontents 

 within the realm ; imagining also, that it was like 

 they should be more scattered here, and freelier 

 dispersed ; and also should be less odious to those 

 foreigners which were not merely partial and pas 

 sionate, who have for the most part in detestation the 

 traitorous libellings of subjects directly against their 

 natural prince. 



Amongst the rest in this kind, there hath been 

 published this present year of 1592, a libel that giveth 

 place to none of the rest in malice and untruths ; 

 though inferior to most of them in penning and style ; 

 the author having chosen the vein of a Lucianist, and 

 yet being a counterfeit even in that kind. This 



