In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant what it is that I do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own weakness to sustain my purpose.  But my hope is, that if my extreme love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection; for that “it is not granted to man to love and to be wise.”  But I know well I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to others; and 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 well (if I were