of any other writer whatsoever: and the rather because himselfe hath been an Actor of most part of them and in verie honourable place. There is no signe or apparance that ever he disguised or coloured any matter, either through hatred, malice, favour, or vanitie; whereof the free and impartiall judgements he giveth of great men, and namely of those by whom he had been advanced or imployed in his important charges, as of Pope Clement the seaventh, beareth undoubted testimony. Concerning the parts wherein he most goeth about to prevaile, which are his digressions and discourses, many of them are verie excellent and enriched with faire ornaments, but he hath too much pleased himselfe in them: for endeavouring to omit nothing that might be spoken, having so full and large a subject, and almost infinite, he proveth somewhat languishing, and giveth a taste of a kind of scholasticall tedious babling. Moreover, I have noted this, that of so severall and divers armes, successes, and effects he judgeth of; of so many and variable motives, alterations, and counsels, that he relateth, he never referreth any one unto vertue, religion or conscience: as if they were all extinguished and banished the world. And of all actions how glorious soever in apparance they be of themselves, he doth ever impute the cause of them to some vicious and blame-worthie occasion, or to some commoditie and profit. It is impossible to imagine that amongst so infinite a number of actions whereof he judgeth, some one have not been produced and compassed by way of reason. No corruption could ever possesse men so universally but that some one must of necessity escape the contagion; which makes me to feare he hath had some distaste or blame in his passion, and it hath haply fortuned that he hath judged or esteemed of others according to himselfe. In my Philip de Comines there is this: In him you shall find a pleasing- sweet and gently-gliding speech, fraught with a purely sincere simplicitie, his narration pure and unaffected, and wherein the Authours unspotted good meaning doth evidently appeare, void of all manner of vanitie or ostentation speaking of himselfe, and free from all affection or envie-speaking of others; his discourses and perswasions accompanied more with a well-meaning zeale and meere [Footnote: Pure.] veritie than with any laboured and exquisite sufficiencie, and allthrough with gravitie and authoritie, representing a man well-borne and brought up in high negotiations. Upon the Memoires and historic of Monsieur du Bellay: It is ever a well-pleasing thing to see matters written by those that have as said how and in what manner they ought to be directed and managed: yet can it not be denied but that in both these Lords there will manifestly appeare a great declination from a free libertie of writing, which clearely shineth in ancient writers of their kind: as in the Lord of louinille, familiar unto Saint Lewis; Eginard,