r) both
exalt and perfect me by my sufferings, which have more in them of thy
Mercie, then of mans Crueltie, or thy own Justice._

* * * * *

27. _To the Prince of_ Wales.

Son, If these Papers with some others, wherein I have set down the
private reflections of my Conscience, and my most impartiall thoughts
touching the chief passages, which have been most remarkable or
disputed in my late troubles, come to your hands, to whom they are
chiefly designed; they may be so far usefull to you, as to state your
judgement aright in what hath passed; whereof a pious is the best use
can be made; and they may also give you some directions, how to remedy
the present distempers, and prevent (if God will) the like for time to
come.

It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of my long
restraint, when I find my leisure and solitude have produced something
worthy of my self, and usefull to you; That neither You nor any other
may hereafter measure my Cause by the Successe, nor my judgment of
things by my Misfortunes, which I count the greater by far, because
they have so far lighted upon you and some others whom I have most
cause to love as well as my self, and of whose unmerited sufferings I
have a greater sense then of Mine own.

[Illustration: Natus May 29 An^o 1630 AEtatis suae]

But this advantage of wisdom You have above most Princes, that You
have begun, and now spent some years of discretion, in the experience
of troubles, and exercise of patience, wherein Piety, and all Vertues,
both Morall and Politicall, are commonly better planted to a thriving
(as trees set in winter) then in the warmth, and serenity of times,
or amidst those delights, which usually attend Princes Courts in times
of peace and plenty, which are prone, either to root up all plants of
true Vertue and Honour, or to be contented only with some leaves, and
withering formalities of them, without any reall fruits, such as tend
to the publique good, for which Princes should alwaies remember they
are born, and by providence designed.

The evidence of which different education the holy Writ affords us in
the contemplation of _David_ and _Rehoboam_: The one prepared by
many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom, the other softned by the
unparaleld prosperity of Solomons Court, and so corrupted to the great
diminution, both for Peace, Honor, and Kingdom, by those flatteries,
which are as unseparable from prosp