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THE CECILS
child were saved from destitution. He also interfered to prevent the confiscation of his estate of Sherborne, at least for the time.
Raleigh at least had no doubt of Cecil's good will towards him, and both he and his wife were always grateful. "Your lordship hath been our only comfort in our lamentable misfortune," wrote Lady Raleigh, and Sir Walter expressed himself still more warmly. No apology is needed for introducing another of his characteristic letters, written in December, 1603.
"To give you thanks, to promise gratefulness, to return words, is all I can do; but that your lordship will esteem them I cannot promise myself; no, not so much as hope it. To use defences for the errors of former times, I cannot. For I have failed, both in friendship and in judgment. Therefore this is all that I can now say for myself; vouchsafe to esteem me as a man raised from the dead, though not in body, yet in mind. For neither Fortune, which sometimes guided me or rather Vanity, for with the other I was never in love shall turn mine eyes from you toward her, while I have being: nor the World, with all the cares and enticements belonging unto it, shall ever weigh down (though it be of the greatest weight to mortal men) the memory alone of your lordship's true respects had of me; respects tried by the touch; tried by the fire; true witnesses in true times; and then only, when only available.
"And although I must first attribute unto God, who inclined: and secondly and essentially, after God, to my dear Sovereign, who had goodness apt to be inclined:—goodness and mercy without comparison and example;—yet I must never forget what I find was in your lordship's desire, what in your will, what in your words and works,
