Volume 1

A collection of letters illustrative of the progress of science in England from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles the Second / Edited by James Orchard Halliwell.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A collection of letters illustrative of the progress of science in England from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles the Second / Edited by James Orchard Halliwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that som nedefull supportail wolde be for me (in due tyme} devysed: eyther throwgh the meer and gracious good favour that I was perswaded the Q. most excellent Majesty did beare unto me, or els throwgh the procurement of some of the right honorable cownsaylours, which both right weli knew, by how hard dealing my father Roland Dee (servant to her Majesties father the most renowned and triumphant King of our age) was disabled for leaving unto me due mayn- tenance: and also sufficiently understode of sundry sutes in my behalf motioned, for some ayde toward the atcheving of some of my honest intents. Of which sutes no one (hither- to) hath taken the wished for success, for any my behofe. Nay, in the mean tyme of some my travayles beyond the seas, unleast your honor had put to your helping hand, I had byn defeated of that little exhibition, which I enjoye; being but borrowed a while, by speciall priviledge and favor extra- ordinary. And that unwillingly un my part, if I could other wayes have had the supply therof in like yerely value, which (as God knoweth) findeth not me, and my pore familie, ne- cessary meat, drink, and fewel, for a frugall and philosophi- call dyet. But if I may (with your Lordships favor) speak as I think, unfaynedly: unleast your honor had supposed that I had odly committed the care for my necessary mayntenance unto some other noble cownsaylour than yourself: veryly I judge, that, long ere this, your honor would have made me to have tasted of that mervaylously famous your honorable constant and lucky favour and benedicite of the Court Royall; whereby, may have bin and are made lable to dis- pend of their owne yerely, thre, fowre, five, &c. of hundred pownds. ‘To compare with any of them in desert publik or lerning, I neyther dare, nor justly can. But in zeale to the best lerning and knowledg, and in incredible toyle of body and mynde, very many yeres therfore onely endured: I know most assuredly that this land never bred any man, whose ac- cownt therin can evidently be proved greater than myne. I trust that this my simple speche, uttered in the record of my conscience, and with a sincere estimate both of myne and my predecessors doings, will not seme to your wisdome arro- gantly vaunted; onely God can make the perswasion of the truth hereof to settle into the bottom of your lordships hart. And fearing to offend your honor any way, eyther with rude homelyness, or with superfluitie of wordes, I will cut of all such digressions; and committing myself, and my honest purposes, wholy to your Lordships protection and direction henceforward, I beseche your honor to accept my faithfull good meaning toward your Lordship, which, dayly and