the forcible
simplicity of the style in domestic details will show, what I have often
observed, that our language has not advanced in expression since the age
of James the First. I have transcribed it from the original, and its
interest must plead for its length.

TO LADY HATTON.

"MADAM, _10th July, 1617_.

"Seeing these people speak no language but thunder and lightning,
accounting this their cheapest and best way to work upon you, I would
with patience prepare myself to their extremities, and study to defend
the breaches by which to their advantage they suppose to come in upon
me, and henceforth quit the ways of pacification and composition,
heretofore and unseasonably endeavoured, which, in my opinion, lie most
open to trouble, scandal, and danger; wherefore I will briefly set down
their objections, and such answers to them as I conceive proper.

"The first is, you conveyed away your daughter from her father. Answer.
I had cause to provide for her quiet. Secretary Winwood threatening that
she should be married from me in spite of my teeth, and Sir Edward Cook
dayly tormenting the girl with discourses tending to bestow her against
her liking, which he said she was to submit to his; besides, my daughter
daily complained, and sought to me for help; whereupon, as heretofore I
had accustomed, I bestowed her apart at my cousin-german's house for a
few days, for her health and quiet, till my own business for my estate
were ended. Sir Edward Coke _never asked me where she was, no more than
at other times, when at my placing she had been a quarter of a year from
him, as the year before with my sister Burley_.

"Second. That you endeavoured to bestow her, and to bind her to my Lord
of Oxford without her knowledge and consent.

"Upon this subject a lawyer, by way of invective, may open his mouth
wide, and anticipate every hearer's judgment by the rights of a father;
this, dangerous in the precedent to others; to which, nevertheless, this
answer may be justly returned.

"Answer. My daughter, as aforesaid, terrified with her father's threats
and hard usage, and pressing me to find some remedy from this violence
intended, I did compassionate her condition, and bethought myself of
this contract to my Lord of Oxford, if so she liked, and thereupon I
gave it to her to peruse and consider by herself, which she did; she
liked it, cheerfully writ it out with her own hand, subscribed it, and
returned it to m