“My Lord,—Conceiving that your Lordship comes now up in the person of a good servant to serve your sovereign mistress, which kind of compliments we many times _instar magnorum meritorum_, and therefore it would be hard for me to find you, I have committed to this poor paper the humble salutations of him that is more yours than any man’s, and more yours than any man. To these salutations I add a due and joyful gratulation, confessing that your Lordship in your last conference with me, before your journey, spake not in vain, God making it good, that you trusted we should say _Quis putasset_, which, as it is found true in a happy sense, or I wish you do not find another _Quis putasset_ in _the manner of taking this so great a service_. But I hope it is, as he said, _Nubecula est, cito transibit_: and that your Lordship’s wisdom and obsequious circumspection and patience will turn all to the best. So referring all to some time that I may attend you, I commit you to God’s best preservations.” We do not believe that Bacon was capable of an ardent friendship for any one; he was urbane and courteous to all, as is the manner with men of thought and equanimity. With regard to Essex, this letter alone would be sufficient proof to us that he had all along been more of the courtier than the friend. No friend, in these circumstances, _could_ have written in this hollow strain of congratulation. In a short time, however, this strain alters. Essex is examined before the Council, and is committed to the custody of the Lord Keeper. He remains in privacy at York House. The _nubecula_ is growing into a very dark cloud. Bacon, in his interviews with the Queen, does all that a cautious man can do to bring about a reconciliation. But if a reconciliation is impossible, he must serve his sovereign, and not Essex. He now writes thus:— “My Lord,—No man can better expound my doings than your Lordship, which maketh me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of _bonus civis_, which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen; and next of _bonus vir_, that is an honest man. I desire your Lordship also to think that although I confess I love some things much better than I love your Lordship, as the Queen’s service, her quiet and contentment, her honour, her favour, the good of my country, and the like, yet I love few persons better than yourself, both for gratitude’s sake and your own virtues, which cannot hurt but by accident and abuse. Of which my good affections I was ever and am ready to yield testimony by any good offices, but with such reservations as yourself cannot but allow; for as I was ever sorry that your Lordship should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus’s fortune, so for the growing up of your own feathers, specially ostrich’s, or any other save of a bird of prey, no man shall be more glad.”