Note 188 — Chapter IV · THE STRAND. (continued 2)

In 1596, Northampton writes thus to Lord Burghley (Essex's great enemy), upon presenting to him a devotional composition. "The weight of your lordship's piercing judgment held me in so reverend an awe, as before I were encouraged by two or three of my friends, who had a taste, I durst not present this treatise to your view: but since their partiality hath made me thus bold, my own affection to sanctify this labour to yourself hath made me impudent."

Yet in the year succeeding, our authority observes, he has the following passage in a letter to Essex:—"Some friend of mine means this day, before night, to merit my devotion and uttermost gratitude by seeking to do good to you; the success whereof my prayers in the meantime shall recommend to that best gale of wind that may favour it. Your lordship, by your last purchase, hath almost enraged the dromedary that would have won the Queen of Sheba's favour by bringing pearls. If you could once be as fortunate in dragging old Leviathan (Burghley) and his cub, tortuosum colubrum (Sir Robert Cecil), as the prophet termeth them, out of this den of mischievous device, the better part of the world would prefer your virtue to that of Hercules." See "Memoirs of the Peers of James I." p. 240. Such "wise men" are the worst of fools. And here he was acting, as such men are apt to do, like one of the commonest fools, in saying such contradictory things under his own hand.