Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/130

 114 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES He seems to be describing sleepless nights during a well-earned attack of gout.] — He heth a minde to be a churchman, and so he might have favour to make one sermon to the King, he careth not what therafter sould befall him : for he would not flatter though he saw Death. — At his hither comniing [on foot] Sr. Francis Bacon said to him. He loved not to sie Poesy goe on other feet than poeticall Dactylus and Spondus. — He never esteemed of a man for the name of a Lord. — Queen Elizabeth never saw herself, after she became old, in a true glass; they painted her, and sometymes would vermilion her nose. She had allwayes about Christmass evens set dice that threw sixes or five, and she knew not they were other, to make her win and esteame herself fortunate. That she had a membrana on her, which made her incapable of man, though for her delight she tried many. At the comming over of Monsieur, ther was a French chirurgion who took in hand to cut it, yett fear stayed her and his death. King Philip had intention by dispensation of the Pope to have married her. — It were good that the half of the preachers of England were plain ignorants, for that either in their sermons they flatter, or strive to shew their own eloquence. — That he wrott all his [verses] first in prose, for so his Master, Cambden, had learned him. — That the half of his Comedies were not in print. — He hath a pastorall intitled The May Lord. . . . — He hath intention to writt a fisher or pastorall play, and set the stage of it in the Lowmond lake. He is to writt his foot Pilgrimage hither and to call it a Dis- coverie. In a poem he calleth Edinborough — ' The heart of Scotland, Britaines other eye.'