Nine Books on the Dignity and Advancement of Learning

poor; that it does not have similar treasures. I would have happily executed my design: if I had been able to join with the utility found in this book, the politeness of speech which is natural to you; and which is expressed in you with much more grace than it is in those who have acquired it through labor; and who constrain it under the rules of Art. This great Chancellor of England, Bacon original: "Baccon", to whom I serve as interpreter, would owe me a debt of gratitude, if he were still alive, for having made you find his doctrine agreeable: as much because his judgment, which could not be surprised, had felt the strength of your Genius in the honor of your conversation; as because he was engaged to the gratitude for the benefits by which you obliged him through your recommendations to the King his Master, who in your favor MY LORD, restored to him his pension; which his misfortune had caused him to lose. Also, you could not better employ the credit you had with this Prince than for the honor of the Sciences, which knew how to recognize and admire the excellence of your Spirit in the negotiation of this extraordinarily honorable Embassy: where you reunited by a marriage treaty two Kingdoms, which the pretensions of one of the greatest powers of Europe sought always to keep divided. This gave you the advantage of having been seen at the same time as the favorite of two Kings, by a good fortune that happens only very rarely among men. But even strangers are not ignorant of it: it suffices for me to remark that you could not bear the abasement even to the final contempt of this worthy personage, who felt in his need the favorable help that you gave him, because of his merits. In recognition of the goods he received from you, MY LORD, his Spirit makes you see through