Monday, May 31, 2004

About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause, which though it grew from me, went after about in other's names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was treason in it and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within the case of treason: whereto I answered : for treason surely if found none, but for felony (plagiarism) very many. ---Apologie in Certaine Imputations concerning the Late Earle of Essex (found in The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Spedding)