Chapter XXXI

That many of the letters headed "To Yourself" were addressed to George Gerrard there is ample evidence; that any of the letters so headed were addressed to another correspondent there is, so far as I know, no reason for believing.

Donne writes from Spa, to which place he accompanied Sir Robert and Lady Drury in May, 1612.

By 1582, the recurring annual error of approximately eleven minutes in the Julian calendar amounted to ten days. Pope Gregory XIII accordingly ordained that ten days should be deducted from the year 1582 by reckoning what according to the old calendar would have been the 5th, as the 15th of October. Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy carried out the Pope's instructions exactly; in France the change was deferred until December, when the 10th was reckoned as the 20th; in the Low Countries the change was from December 15th to December 25th. England did not adopt the change until 1752, when the 3d of September, old style, was reckoned as September 14th. "26 July _here_ (i.e., at Spa) 1612" would, therefore, in England be July 16th, 1612.

Lord Treasurer Salisbury died May 24th, 1612. That contemporary estimate of his abilities which is, perhaps, most in accord with modern judgments is that of Francis Bacon:

"Soon after the death of a great Officer, who was judged no advancer
of the King's Matters, the King said to his Sollicitor Bacon, who was
his Kinsman: Now tell me truly, what say you of your Cousin that is
gone? Mr. Bacon answered, Sir, since your Majesty doth charge me, I'll
e'ne deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of him, as
if I were to write his Story. I do think he was no fit Counsellor to
make your Affairs better; but yet he was fit to have kept them from
growing worse. The King said, On my So'l, Man, in the first thou
speakest like a True Man, and in the latter like a Kinsman."
(_Baconiana_, 1679, p. 55.)