s not Seneca's own, but
cribbed from some Greek which would have been admired by those who scoff
at the Latin.

I had not noticed this Seneca coincidence: but I had observed a few
passages of Montaigne's own, which seemed to me to have got into Bacon's
Essays. I dare say I couldn't light upon all these now; but, having been
turning over Essai 9, Lib. III. De la Vanite, I find one sentence which
comes to the point: 'Car parfois c'est bien choisir de ne choisir pas.'
In the same Essay is a piece of King Lear, perhaps; 'De ce mesme papier
ou il vient d'escrire l'arrest de condemnation contre un Adultere, le
Juge en desrobe un lopin pour en faire un poulet a la femme de son
compaignon.' One doesn't talk of such things as of plagiarisms, of
course; as if Bacon and Shakespeare couldn't have said much better things
themselves; only for the pleasure of tracing where they read, and what
they were struck by. I see that 'L'Appetit vient en mangeant' is in the
same Essay.

If I light some other day on the other passages, I will take the liberty
of telling you. You see I have already taken the liberty of writing to a
man, not unknown to me in several ways, but with whom I have not the
pleasure of being acquainted personally. Perhaps I may have that
pleasure one of these days; we are both connected with the same town of
Beccles, and may come together. I hope so.

But I have also another reason for writing to you. Your 'Master' wrote
me word the other day, among other things, that you as well as he wished
for my own noble works in your Library. I quite understand that this is
on the ground of my being a Trinity man. But then one should have done
something worthy of ever so little a niche in Trinity Library; and that I
do know is not my case. I have several times told the Master what I
think, and know, of my small Escapades in print; nice little things, some
of them, which may interest a few people (mostly friends, or through
friends) for a few years. But I am always a little ashamed of having
made my leisure and idleness the means of putting myself forward in
print, when really so many much better people keep silent, having other
work to do. This is, I know, my sincere feeling on the subject. However,
as I think some of the Translations I have done are all I can dare to
show, and as it would be making too much fuss to wait for any further
asking on the subject, I will send them if you think good one of these
days all d