fauoure with your grace
than they, my seruice more acceptable than theirs, my prowesse
and exercise in armes more worthy than theirs, my diligence more
industrious than theirs, my advise and counsell more auayleable
than theirs, all mine other deedes and doings in better
Estimation than theirs: they I say, dallied in the lap of the
cancred witch dame Enuy, by what meanes are they to be
recouered? by what meanes their infection purged? by what meanes
their mallice cured? If not to see me depriued of your grace,
expelled from your Court, and cast headlonge into the gulfe of
death extreme? If I should bribe them with great rewardes, if I
should honour them with humble reuerence, if I should exalt them
aboue the Skyes, if I should employ the vttermost of my power,
to do them seruice, all frustrate and cast away: they wil not
cease to bring me into perill, they will not spare to reduce me
to misery, they will not sticke to ymagin all deuyses for myne
anoyance, when they see al other remdyes impotent and vnable:
this is the poisoned plague which enuenometh all Princes
courtes: this is the mischiefe which destroyeth all kyngdomes:
this is the monster that deuoureth all vertuous enterpryses and
offendeth eche gentle spirite: this is the dim vale which so
ouershadoweth the clerenes of the eyes as the bright beams of
verity cannot be sene, and so obscureth the equity of iustice,
as right from falshode cannot be discerned: this is the manifest
cause that breadeth a thousand errors in the workes of men: and
to draw nere to the effecte of this my tedious talke, briefly,
there is no vice in the worlde that more outragiously corrupteth
Princes courtes, that more vnfrendly vntwineth frendship's band,
that more vnhappely subuerteth noble houses, then the poysone of
Enuy: for he that enclineth his eares to the enuious person, he
that attendeth to his malignant deuises, vnpossible it is for
him to do any dede that is eyther good or vertuous: but to
finishe and end for auoyding of wearines and not to stay your
maiesty from your waighty affayres, I say that the enuyous man
reioiceth not so much in his own good turnes nor gladdeth
himself so greatlye with his owne commodityes, as hee doth
insulte, and laugh at the discommodityes and hinderance of
others, at whose profite and gain he soroweth and lamenteth: and
to put out both the eyes of his companion, the enuious man
careth not to plucke out one of his own. These wordes (most
inuincible