r of thinking, to be omitted. It is without date, but must have
been written in 1565.

* * * * *

"Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Henry Sidney, on the Quarrel between
Thomas Earl of Ormond and the Earl of Desmond, _anno_ 1565.

"HARRY,

"If our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between the
two Irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pass my
hand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered your eyes; but warned
by my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, I rede you take
good heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that I hear
not the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks,
and so the goal is gone. Make some difference between tried, just, and
false friend. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded
with loss. Let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for the
like. Suffer not that Desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promised
works, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or John for
gage: he hath so well performed his English vows, that I warn you trust
him no longer than you see one of them. Prometheus let me be,
_Epimetheus_[59] hath been mine too long. I pray God your old strange
sheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her wooly
garment upon her wolvy back. You know a kingdom knows no kindred, _si
violandum jus regnandi causa_. A strength to harm is perilous in the
hand of an ambitious head. Where might is mixed with wit, there is too
good an accord in a government. Essays be oft dangerous, specially when
the cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so ever
betide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby.

[Note 59: In the original, "and Prometheus," but evidently by a mere
slip of the pen.]

"Believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whose
parents sought the rule that they full fain would have. I warrant you
they will never be accused of bastardy; you were to blame to lay it to
their charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed before.
If I had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases,
I had never played my part. No, if I did not see the balances held awry,
I had never myself come into the weigh house. I hope I shall have so
good a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their duty
among you. If aught have been amiss at home, I will patch though