Chapter II

The allusion to the illness of Sir Edward Herbert, afterward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, fixes the date of this letter. He sailed from Dieppe for Dover in February, 1609, and came at once to London. In his _Autobiography_ (ed. Sidney Lee, 2d edition, London, n. d., p. 60) Herbert writes,

"I had not been long in London, when a violent burning fever seized
upon me, which brought me almost to my death, though at last I did by
slow degrees recover my health."

This and the preceding letter appear to have been written on the same day.