DEUXIÈME PÉTITION A LA REINE

M' Lillyes peticion to the Queene.

1601 : about the tyme of my L® of Essex followers fall.

Non ero qui nunc sum (te miserante) miser.

Most gratious and dread Soueraigne, Tyme cannot worke my peticions nor my peticions Tyme.

After many yeeres, since yt pleased yo’ Highnes to except against Tentes and Toyles, I wish y° for Tentes I might put in Tenementes : Soe should I be eased of courtly Toyles : Some landes, good fines or forfeitures, y‘ shall comme to yo’ Ma‘, by y‘ just fall of those false Traytors; That seinge nothinge will come to me by Revells, Ï may pray vppon the Rebells. :

Thirteene yeeres your Highnes servant : but yet nothinge.

Twenty frendes, y‘ though they saye they will be suer, I find suer to be slowe.

À thousand hopes, but ail nothinge, a hundred promises, but yet nothinge. Thus castinge vp the Inventorye of my frendes, hopes, prommisses, and tyme : The Summa totalis amounteth in all to iust nothinge.

He was asuter to be Mrof the Reuelles andtentes but eauer crossed

My last will, is shorter then my Inventorie : But three Legacyes, Patience to my Creditors, Melancholly w‘hout measure to my frendes, & Beggery not w‘hout shame to my posteryty.

Si placet hoc meruique quid o tua fulmina cessant.

Virgo, parens, princeps.

In all humillity intreate : y‘ Î may dedicate to yo’ sacred handes, Lilly de Tristibus; wherein shalbe seene, patience, labours, misfortunes.

Quorum si singula nost{r|i frangere non poterunt, poterant tamen omnia mente[m]. The last and the least, y° if I be borne to haue nothinge,

TI may haue a proteccion to pay nothinge; w‘h sute is like his, y‘ following the Court for recompence of his seruice, committed a Robbery, & tooke yt out in a pardon. (Bodleian Library, T'anner Mss., 169. f. 69, d’après Bond, Lyly. Works, I, 378.)

LYLY MEMBRE DU PARLEMENT

John Lille, esq. ) Aylesbury Borough Richard Moore, ss cn NL (Bucks).

(Members of Parliament, Part I, Parliaments of England, 1213-1702, 437.)