EDITOR S PREFACE. 275 order and frame the laws of England : the declaration whereof I have left with Sir Edward Sackville, because it were no good manners to clog his majesty, at this time of triumph and recreation, with a business of this nature; so as your lordship may be pleased to call for it to Sir Edward Sackville when you think the time seasonable. " I am bold likewise to present your lordship with a book of my History of King Henry the Seventh. And now that, in summer was twelve months, I dedicated a book to his majesty ; and this last summer, this book to the prince ; your lordship s turn is next, and this summer that cometh (if I live to it) shall be yours. I have desired his majesty to appoint me the task, otherwise I shall use my own choice ; for this is the best retribution I can make to your lordship. God prosper you. I rest " Your lordship s most obliged friend and faithful servant, FR. ST. ALBAN. " Gorhambury, this 20th of March, 1621." On September 5, 1621, Bacon, in a letter to the Marquis of Buckingham, says, "I am much fallen in love with a private life ; but yet I shall so spend my time, as shall not decay my abilities for use." On the 8th of October, 1621, he wrote the following letter to the king. " It may please your most excellent majesty, I do very humbly thank your majesty for your gra cious remission of my fine. I can now, I thank God and you, die, and make a will. "I desire to do, for the little time God shall send me life, like the merchants of London, which when they give over trade, lay out their money upon land. So, being freed from civil business, I lay forth my poor talent upon those things, which may be perpetual, still having relation to do you honour with those powers I have left. i have therefore chosen to write the reign of King Henry the Seventh, who was in a sort your for- runner, and whose spirit, as well as his blood, is doubled upon your majesty. " I durst not have presumed to entreat your majesty to look over the book, and correct it, or at least to signify what you would have amended. But since you are pleased to send for the book, I will hope for it. " God knoweth, whether ever I shall see you again : but I will pray for you to the last gasp, rest ing * the same, your true beadsman, FR. ST. ALB AN. " October 8th, 1621." During the progress of the work, considerable expectation was excited respecting the history. Rawley, in his life of Bacon, says, " His fame is greater, and sounds louder, in foreign parts abroad than at home, in his own nation. Thereby verifying that divine sentence; a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. Concerning which, I will givt you a taste only, out of a letter written from Italy, (the storehouse of refined wits,) to the late Earl of Devon shire; then the Lord Cavendish. I will expect the new Essays of my Lord Chancellor Bacon, as also his history, with a great deal of desire: and whatsoever else he shall compose. But in particu lar, of his history, I promise myself, a thing perfect, and singular; especially in Henry the Seventh, where he may exercise the talent of his divine understanding." After the completion of the work there seems to have been a demur with respect to its publication, in a letter from Sir Thomas Meautys, 8 he says, " May it please your lordship, I have been attending upon my lord marquis minutes for the signing of the warrant." The letter then continues, and, in the conclusion, says, " Your books are ready, and passing well bound up. If your lordship s letters to the king, prince, and my lord marquis were ready, I think it were good to lose no time in their delivery ; for the printer s fingers itch to be selling." It seems by the following letter, that there was another letter from Sir Thomas Meautys complain ing of this demur. " Good Mr. Meautys, for the difference of the warrant, it is not material at the first. But I may not stir till I have it ; and therefore I expect it to-morrow. " For my Lord of London s stay, there may be an error in my book ; but I am sure there is none in me, since the king had it three months by him, and allowed it ; if there be any thing to be mended it is better to be espied now than hereafter. " I send you the copies of the three letters, which you have ; and, in mine own opinion, this demur, as you term it, in my Lord of London, 3 maketh it more necessary than before, that they were deli vered, specially in regard they contain withal my thanks. It may be signified they were sent lie- fore I knew of any stay : and being but in those three hands r they are private enough. But this I leave merely at your discretion, resting your most affectionate and assured friend, "FR. ST. ALBAN. " March 21, 1621."
Note. This passage has a line drawn over it. Birch, 310. * Dr. George Mountf
