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MAdam, in the state I am now in, there is none but your selfe could make me speak: and I never did a greater worke in my life than to dictate these foure untoward lynes: my spi∣rit is so wholly taken up with the consideration of my misery, and flies all commerce and com∣pany, in so violent a manner, that if it concerned
me not exceedingly, you should know that—finds himselfe infinitely obliged to your courte∣sies, and my selfe no lesse than he; I thinke ve∣rily, I should have let—depart, without so much as bidding him Farewell. Pardon Ma∣dam, the weaknesse of a vulgar spirit, which feeles no crosses light, and falls flat downe at tho very first blow of adverse Fortune. Perhaps in prosperitie, I should carry my selfe better, and I doe not thinke, that joy could make me inso∣lent; but to say the truth, in affliction I am no body, and that which would not so much as leave a scratch upon the skin of a Stoick, pier∣ceth me to the very heart, and makes in it most deepe wounds. Griefe dejects me in such sort, and makes me so lazie in doing my dutie, and so unfit for all functions of a civill life, that I won∣der no longer at those that were turned into trees and rockes, and lost all sence with onely the sence of griefe. Yet Madam, as often as I call to minde, that I hold some part in your ac∣count and love; I am forced to confesse, that my melancholy is unjust, and that I have no good foundation for my sadnesse. This honour ought to be unto me a generall remedy against all sorts of affliction, and the misery that you complaine of, is not so much to be pittied as to be envied. From thence it is, that I draw all the comfort I am capable of, humbly entreating you to beleeve you shall never pitie a man in misery, that will be more gratefull than my selfe, nor that is more passionately, than I am
Madam
Your, &c.
31. Decemb. 1629.