Amongst many other dignities which this letter hath by being received and
seen by you, it is not the least, that it was prophesied of before it was
born: for your brother told you in his letter, that I had written: he did
me much honour both in advancing my truth so farre as to call a promise an
act already done; and to provide me a means of doing him a service in this
act, which is but doing right to my self: for by this performance of mine
own word, I have also justified that part of his Letter which concerned
me; and it had been a double guiltinesse in me, to have made him guilty
towards you. It makes no difference that this came not the same day, nor
hears the same date as his; for though in inheritances and worldly
possessions we consider the dates of Evidences, yet in Letters, by which
we deliver over our affections, and assurances of friendship, and the best
faculties of our souls, times and daies cannot have interest, nor be
considerable, because that which passes by them, is eternall, and out of
the measure of time. Because therefore it is the office of this Letter, to
convey my best wishes, and all the effects of a noble love unto you,
(which are the best fruits that so poor a soil, as my poor soul is, can
produce) you may be pleased to allow the Letter thus much of the souls
privilege, as to exempt it from straitnesse of hours, or any measure of
times, and so beleeve it came then. And for my part, I shall make it so
like my soul, that as that affection, of which it is the messenger, begun
in me without my knowing when, any more then I know when my soul began; so
it shall continue as long as that.
_Your most affextionate friend and servant_
J. D.
[x.]
_To the right honourable the Countess of_ Montgomery.