Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	author_n	great_a	time_n	2,069	5	3.0647	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28017	The apology of Sr. Francis Bacon, Kt. in certain imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex written to the Right Honourable his very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.	Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626.; Devonshire, Charles Blount, Earl of, 1563-1606.	1670 (1670)	Wing B268; ESTC R27214	17,987	17

good offices but to publish and declare my self for him and never was so ambitious of any thing in my life time as I was to have carried some token or favour from her Majesty to my Lord using all the art I had both to procure her Majesty to send and my self to be the messenger for as to the former I feared not to alledge to her that this proceeding toward my Lord was a thing towards the people very implausible and therefore wished her Majesty however she did yet to discharge her self of it and lay it upon others and therefore that she should intermix her proceeding with some immediate graces from her self that the world might take knowledge of her Princely nature and goodness lest it should alienate the hearts of her people from her which I did stand upon knowing well that if she once relented to send or visit those demonstrations would prove matter of substance for my Lords good And to draw that employment upon my self I advised her Majesty that whensoever God should move her to turn the light of her favours towards my Lord to make signification to him thereof that her Majesty if she did it not in person would at the least use some such mean as might not intitle themselves to any part of the thanks as persons that were thought mighty with her to work her or to bring her about but to use some such as could not be thought but a meer conduct of her own goodness but I could never prevail with her though I am perswaded she saw plainly whereat I levelled but she plainly had me in jealousie that I was not hers intirely but still had inward and deep respects towards my Lord more than stood at that time with her will and pleasure About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lords cause which though it grew from me went after about in others names For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that Book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the peoples head boldness and faction said She had an opinion that there was treason in it and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within case of treason whereto I answered for treason surely I found none but for fellony very many And when her Majesty hastily asked me wherein I told her the Author had committed very apparent theft for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus and translated them into English and put them into his Text. And another time when the Queen would not be perswaded that it was his writing whose name was to it but that it had some more mischievous Author and said with great indignation that she would have him racked to produce his Author I replyed Nay Madam he is a Doctor never rack his person but rack his stile let him have pen ink and paper and help of books and be enjoyned to continue the Story where it breaketh off and I will undertake by collecting the stiles to judge whether he were the Author or no. But for the main matter sure I am when the Queen at any time asked mine opinion of my Lords case I ever in one tenor said unto her that they were faults which the Law might term Contempts because they were the trangression of her particular directions and instructions but then what defence might be made of them in regard of the great interest the person had in her Majesties favour in regard of the greatness of his place and the ampleness of his Commission in regard of the nature of the business being action of war which in common cases cannot be tyed to strictness of instructions in regard of the distance of the place having also a sea between that demands and commands must be subject to wind and weather in regard of a councel of State in Ireland which he had at his back to avow his actions upon and lastly in regard of a good intention that he would alledge for himself which I told her in some religions was held to be a sufficient dispensation for Gods commandements much more for Princes In all these regards I besought her Majesty to be advised again and again how she brought the cause into any publick question nay I went further for I told her my Lord was and eloquent and well spoken man and besides his eloquence of nature or art he had an eloquence of accident which passed them both which was the pity and benevolence of his hearers and therefore that when he should come to his answer for himself I doubted his words would have so unequal passage above theirs that should charge him as would not be for her Majesties honour and therefore wished the conclusion might be that they might wrap it up privately between themselves and that she would restore my Lord to his former attendance with some addition of honour to take away discontent But this I will never deny that I did shew no approbation generally of his being sent back again into Ireland both because it would have carried a repugnancy with my former discourse and because I was in mine own heart fully perswaded that it was not good neither for the Queen nor for the State nor for himself and yet I did not dissawde it neither but left it ever as locus lubricus For this particularity I do well remember that after your Lordship was named for the place in Ireland and not long before your going it pleased her Majesty at White-hall to speak to me of that nomination at which time I said to her Surely Madam if you mean not to imploy my Lord of Essex thither again your Majesty cannot make a better choise and was going on to show some reason and her Majesty interrupted me with great passion Essex said she whensoever I send Essex back again into Ireland I will Marry you claim it of me whereunto I said Well Madam I will release that contract if his going be for the good of your State Immediately after the Queen had thought of a course which was also executed to have somewhat published in the Star-chamber for the satisfaction of the world touching my Lord of Essex his restraint and my Lord of Essex not to be called to it but occasion to be taken by reason of some Libels then dispersed which when her Majesty propounded unto me I was utterly against it and told her plainly that the people would say that my Lord was wounded upon his back and that justice had her balance taken from her which ever consisted of an accusation and defence with many other quick and significant tearms to that purpose insomuch that I remember I said that my Lord in foro famae was too hard for her and therefore wished her as I had done before to wrap it up privately And

THE APOLOGY OF Sr. FRANCIS BACON Kt. In certain Imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex WRITTEN To the Right Honourable his very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire Lord Lieutenant of Ireland LONDON Printed by S. G. B. G. for William Lee and are to be sold at the sign of the Turks-Head in Fleet-street over against Fetter-Lane 1670. To the Right Honourable his very good Lord the Earl of Devonshire Lord Lieutenant of Ireland IT may please your good Lordship I cannot be ignorant and ought to be sensible of the wrong which I sustain in common speech as if I had been false or unthankful to that noble but unfortunate Earl the Earl of Essex and for satisfying the vulgar sort I do not so much regard it though I love a good name but yet as an handmaid and attendant of honesty and vertue For I am of his opinion that said pleasantly That it was a shame to him that was a Suiter to the Mistriss to make love to the Waiting woman and therefore to woe or court common fame otherwise then it followeth on honest courses I for my part find not my self fit nor disposed But on the other side there is no worldly thing that concerneth my self which I hold more dear than the good opinion of certain persons amongst which there is none I would more willingly give satisfaction unto then to your Lordship First because you loved my Lord of Essex and therefore will not be partial towards me which is part of that I desire next because it hath ever pleased you to shew your self to me an honorable friend and so no baseness in me to seek to satisfie you and lastly because I know your Lordship is exccellently grounded in the true rules and habits of duties and moralities which must be they which shall decide this matter wherein my Lord my defence needeth to be but simple and brief namely that whatsoever I did concerning that action and proceeding was done in my duty and service to the Queen and the State in which I would not shew my self false-hearted nor faint-hearted for any mans sake living For every honest man that hath his heart well planted will forsake his King rather than forsake God and forsake his friend rather than forsake his King and yet wil forsake any earthly commodity yea and his own life in some cases rather than forsake his friend I hope the world hath not forgotten these degrees else the heathen saying Amicus usque ad aras shall judge them And if any man shall say I did officiously intrude my self into that business because I had no ordinary place the like may be said of all the business in effect that passed the hands of the learned Councel either of State or Revenues these many years wherein I was continually used For as your Lordship may remember the Queen knew her strength so well as she looked her word should be a warrant and after the manner of the choisest Princes before her did not always tye her trust to place but did sometime divide private favour from office And I for my part though I was not so unseen in the world but I knew the condition was subject to envy and peril yet because I knew again she was constant in her favours and made an end were she began and especially because she upheld me with extraordinary access and other demonstrations of confidence and grace I resolved to indure it in expectation of better But my scope and desire is that your Lordship would be pleased to have the honourable patience to know the truth in some particularity of all that passed in this cause wherein I had any part that you may perceive how honest a heart I ever bear to my Soveraign and to my Country and to that Noble man who had so well deserved of me and so well accepted of my deservings whose fortune I cannot remember without much grief But for any action of mine towards him there is nothing that passed me in my life time that cometh to my remembrance with more clearness and less check of conscience for it will appear to your Lordship that I was not only not opposite to my Lord of Essex but that I did occupy the utmost of my wits and adventure my fortune with the Queen to have reintegrated his and so continued faithfully and industriously till his last fatal impatience for so I will call it after which day there was not time to work for him though the same my affection when it could not work on the subject proper went to the next with no ill effect towards some others who I think do rather not know it than not acknowledge it And this I will assure your Lordship I will leave nothing untold that is truth for any enemy that I have to adde and on the other side I must reserve much which makes for me in many respects of duty which I esteem above my credit and what I have here set down to your Lordship I protest as I hope to have any part in God's favour is true It is well known how I did many years since dedicate my travels and studies to the use and as I may tearm it service of my Lord of Essex which I protest before God I did not making election of him as the likeliest mean of mine own advancement but out of the humor of a man that ever from the time I had any use of reason whether it were reading upon good books or upon the example of a good Eather or by nature I loved my Country more than was answerable to my fortune and I held at that time my Lord to be the fitter instrument to do good to the State and therefore I applied my self to him in a manner which I think hapneth rarely among men for I did not only labour carefully and industriously in that he set me about whether it were matter of advice or otherwise but neglecting the Queens service mine own fortune and in a sort my vocation I did nothing but advise and ruminate with my self to the best of my understanding propositions and memorials of any thing that might concern his Lordships honour fortune or service And when not long after I entred into this course my Brother Mr. Anthony Bacon came from beyond the Seas being a Gentleman whose ability the world taketh knowledge of for matters of State specially forraign I did likewise knit his service to be at my Lords disposing And on the other side I must and will ever acknowledge my Lords love trust and favour towards me last of all his liberality having infeofed me of land which I sold for eighteen hundred pounds to Master Reynold Nicholas and I think was more worth and that at such a time and with so kind and noble circumstances as the manner was as much as the matter which though it be but an idle digression yet because I am not willing to be short in commemoration of his benefits I will presume