_My Lord:_
With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto
your service and your honorable correspondence unto me and my poor
estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship. I wax
now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in
the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not
fear that action shall impair it, because I account my ordinary course
of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action
are. I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to
serve her Majesty; not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honor; nor
under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the contemplative planet
carrieth me away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent
Sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities.
Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater
parts of my thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my friends,
and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of this commonwealth,
the honor of my house, and the second founder of my poor estate, I am
tied by all duties, both of a good patriot and of an unworthy kinsman,
and of an obliged servant, to employ whatsoever I am to do you service.
Again, the meanness of my estate does somewhat move me; for though I
cannot excuse myself that I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my
health is not to spend, nor my course to get. Lastly, I confess that I
have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends: for I
have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of
two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations,
confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and
auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I
hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions,
and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state of that
province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or
(if one take it favorably) _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it
cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable
countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's own;
which is the thing I greatly affect. And for your Lordship, perhaps you
shall not find more strength and less encounter in any other. And if
your Lordship shall find now, or at any time, that I do seek or affect
any place whereunto any that is nearer unto your Lordship shall be
concurrent, say then that I am a most dishonest man. And if your
Lordship will not carry me on, I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who
reduced himself with contemplation unto voluntary poverty: but this I
will do; I will sell the inheritance that I have, and purchase some
lease of quick revenue, or some office of gain that shall be executed by
deputy, and so give over all care of service, and become some sorry
book-maker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, which (he said) lay
so deep. This which I have writ unto your Lordship is rather thoughts
than words, being set down without all art, disguising, or reservation.
Wherein I have done honor both to your Lordship's wisdom, in judging
that that will be best believed of your Lordship which is truest, and to
your Lordship's good nature, in retaining nothing from you. And even so
I wish your Lordship all happiness, and to myself means and occasion to
be added to my faithful desire to do you service. From my lodging at
Gray's Inn.