I, for my part, shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself, or
accept from another, that duty of humanity, "Nam qui erranti comiter
monstrat viam," etc. [To kindly show the wanderer the path.] I do
foresee likewise that of those things which I shall enter and register
as deficiencies and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some
of them are already done and extant; others to be but curiosities, and
things of no great use; and others to be of too great difficulty and
almost impossibility to be compassed and effected. But for the two
first, I refer myself to the particulars For the last, touching
impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible which may
be done by some person, though not by every one; and which may be done
by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in the succession
of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man's life; and which
may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavor. But
notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of Solomon,
"Dicit piger, Leo est in via" [the sluggard says there is a lion in the
path], than that of Virgil, "Possunt quia posse videntur" [they can,
because they think they can], I shall be content that my labors be
esteemed but as the better sort of wishes, for as it asketh some
knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some
sense to make a wish not absurd.

TO MY LORD TREASURER BURGHLEY

From 'Letters and Life,' by James Spedding

_My Lord:_

With as much confidence as mine own honest and faithful devotion unto
your service and your honorable correspondence unto me and my poor
estate can breed in a man, do I commend myself unto your Lordship. I wax
now somewhat ancient; one and thirty years is a great deal of sand in
the hour-glass. My health, I thank God, I find confirmed; and I do not
fear that action shall impair it, because I account my ordinary course
of study and meditation to be more painful than most parts of action
are. I ever bare a mind (in some middle place that I could discharge) to
serve her Majesty; not as a man born under Sol, that loveth honor; nor
under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the contemplative planet
carrieth me away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent
Sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities.
Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater
parts of my thoughts are to deserve wel