as a schoolmaster with his scholars, ever to teach, never to learn....  You should know many of these tales you tell to be but ordinary, & many other things, which you repeat, & serve in for novelties to be but stale....  Your too much love of the world is too much seen, when having the living” [income] “of L10,000, you relieve few or none:  the hand that hath taken so much, can it give so little?  Herein you show no bowels of compassion....  We desire you to amend this & let your poor Tenants in Norfolk find some comfort, where nothing of your Estate is spent towards their relief, but all brought up hither, to the impoverishing of your country....  When we will not mind ourselves, God (if we belong to him) takes us in hand, & because he seeth that we have unbridled stomachs, therefore he sends outward crosses.”  And Bacon ends by commending poor Coke “to God’s Holy Spirit ... beseeching Him to send you a good issue out of all these troubles, & from henceforth to work a reformation in all that is amiss, & a resolute perseverance, proceeding, & growth, in all that is good, & that for His glory, the bettering of yourself, this Church & Commonwealth; whose faithful servant whilest you remain, I am a faithful servant unto you.”

If ever there was a case of adding insult to injury, surely this piece of canting impertinence was one of the most outrageous.

FOOTNOTES: 

[3] Life of Sir Edward Coke. By H.W.  Woolrych.  London:  J. & W.T.  Clarke, 1826, pp. 145-48.

[4] Lipscomb’s History and Antiquities of the Co. of Bucks, 1847, Vol.  IV., p. 548.

[5] Gray made the churchyard of Stoke Pogis the scene of his famous Elegy, and he was buried there in 1771.

[6] Ency.  Brit., Vol.  XIV.  Article on London.

[7] Lady Elizabeth’s house in Holborn was called Hatton House.  A letter (S.P.  Dom., James I., 13th July, 1622) says:  “Lady Hatton sells her house in Holborn to the Duke of Lennox, for L12,000.”  Another letter (ib. 26th February, 1628) says that “Lady Hatton complained so much of her bargain with the Duchess of Richmond for Hatton House, that the Duchess has taken her at her word and left it on her hands, whereby she loses L1,500 a year, and L6,000 fine.”

[8] “Under no man’s judgment should the King lie; but under God and the law only.”

[9] Letter from John Castle.  See D’Israeli’s Character of James I., p. 125.

[10] Cabala Sive Scrina Sacra:  Mysteries of State and Government.  In Letters of Illustrious Persons, etc.  London:  Thomas Sawbridge and others, 1791, p. 86.

CHAPTER III.

          “Marriage is a matter of more worth
          Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.”
                              Henry VI., I., v., 5.