hard to get any thing out of the Counsel-Chamber as out of the Exchequer Sir Henry Vane is suddenly sent Extraordinary Ambassador to the Hague vvith the more vvonder because Sir Robert Carr is yet there omni par negotio The others having been Cofferer breeds some conjecture that the business is pecuniary Nothing is yet done about the Rolls and those other places in sequence And my Lord of Bristow's re entry into the Court vvho the last vveek carried the Sword before the King filleth us vvith new discourse as if he should be restored to the Vice-Chamberlainship vvhich yet lyeth amortized in your Noble Friend Mine own businesses stand as they did And the best is they are rather stationary then retrograde I pray remember my hearty affection to your vvorthy Brother and give him the best hope of his Anthony And so languishing for you again I commit you all to Gods dear love March 11. 1628. Your faithfullest poor Friend HENRY WOTTON To the same My sweet and dear Jack Dinely I Am come newly from those Ladies vvho think themselves more lovely then before and perhaps then they are ever since I shewed them your Character of their beauties in your Letter from the Gally-Gravesend Never vvas a Town better Epithited They all remember themselves extream kindly unto you While I vvas there I should have vvritten Letters provisionally to go vvith Mr. Griffith But my Brains are even yet in some distraction among good Ideas vvhereby I am put now to vvrite these and other that go vvith them in hast For my said Friend hath given me vvarning that he shall be gone to morrow morning from London I have vvritten to our Royal Mistress upon a touch in your last vvhich found me at Bocton that I had now sent her my Niece Stanhop's Picture in little if an express Messenger sent for it the very night before I cam away by my Lord of Chesterfield to vvhom it vvas promised had not ravished it out of my Pocket But I shall have it in a greater form at my return thither immediately after our Election vvhich vvill begin to morrow seven-night And the Friday morning following Sir George Kevet's Son is in the head of our List For Lentum est to say he shall be after your late refreshment of the Queens Commands Sir Edmund Bacon vvas likewise vvith me at Bocton vvhen your Letter so over-joyed him that he called in the very instant for some Paper to send for the spiritous Frank Bacon from Redgrave And Sene viene volando as fast as he can trick him up for the Souldier Of vvhom I vvill vvrite more by himself For to discharge the thanks that are due for him is no sudden business To return to Mr. Griffith No man living ever took a kinder impression then he hath done of his obligations towards you And it is indeed a piece of his Character to take the least kindness to heart He knows all news You have him now in your hands And God be between you both Your poor Friend suisceratissimamente H. WOTTON To my most worthy dear Friend Mr. John Dinely Attendant on the young Prince at Leyden From the Colledge the 16. of August 1629. My sweet Jack Dinely WE have newly concluded our Anniversary business which hath been the most distracted Election that I verily believe had ever before been seen since this Nurse first gave Milk through no less then four recommendatory and one mandatory Letter from the King himself besides intercessions and messengers from divers great Personages for Boys both in and out enough to make us think our selves shortly Electors of the Empire if it hold on Among which confusions I did not forget as I have written to our Royal Mistress to put Sir G. Kevets Son in the head of our List. After this which I have truly told you you cannot well expect many lines from me for as the Seas require some time to settle even when the winds are ceased so need our brains after such an agitation yet somewhat I must say by thâ—… Bearer You have gotten a great interest in the whole Family and in all that touch upon it by the pains which you have taken and yet they reserve themselves not to be more beholden to you for the introduction then they hope to be for youâ—… direction of him there though he comes I can tell you with severe advice from his Uncle that if ever he be an inch from the eye of the Prince unless with the Queen either in time of security or danger Actum est between them We leave him now to your moulding as if he were as he is indeed to be melt in a new fornace there is spirit enough to work upon though perchance overshadowed with some rural modesty but that among Camps and Courts is now and then too soon divested I shall be glad to hear how he appeareth di prima vista as likewise of little Griffith after whom I hearken with no less affection Dum verser in hac materia I could wish you at some times to quicken your Anthony here with a line or two which in Persius phrase Patrnum sapiant Not truly that I perceive any slackness in him but you know what our Italian Horsemen say Un Caval del Reguo vuol anche gli sproni We are divided by sundry reports from you between hopes and fears both great your next will ease us which will find me in Kent whether I am turning my head again for a while that I may be present at my Niece Stanhops good time My Niece Hester is absolutely reclaimed from those foolish impressions which she had taken Gods Name be ever blessed for it and it is none of the least ends of my going to rivet that business I hope at the next Term to do some wonders for my self so I call them and so they must be if I do them for among Courtiers I am a wonder as Owls are among gay Birds Now farewel for the present let us still love one another and our dear God love us both Your truest poor Friend H. W. I had made it a resolution to my self never to write to the Queen without somewhat likewise to the King but understanding that they are now separated I have this time forborn to trouble him in so noble an action To my most dear and worthy Friend Mr. John Dinely Secretary to the Queen of Bohemia My dear J. Dinely FOr I am loth to lose the possession of our familiarity you left me here your Letters and your Love in deposito and I have since received other from you somewhat of a sad complexion touching the affairs of Germany as then they stood But more newly we hear that Barhard of Weinmar doth miracles upon the Danuby the River sometimes of our merry passage We vvish in this House where you have placed me vvith much contentment that every Mole-hill that he takes vvere a Province and that the Duke of Bavaria vvere not only fled to
pardon to pass a little gentle Expostulation with your Lordship You are pleased in your Letter to except my inconveniences as if in the Nobleness of your Nature notwithstanding your desire you would yet allow me here a liberty of mine own Judgement or Affection No my Good Lord That priviledge comes too late even for your self to give me when I once understand your mind For let me assure your Lordship that I have such a conscience and real feeling of my deep Obligations towards your Noble Person as no value nor respect under Heaven can purchase my voice from him on whom you have bestowed it It is true that the King himself and no longer then three or four dayes before the date of your Letters so nimble are the times did write for another but we shall satisfie his Majesty with a pre-election and yours shall have my first nomination which howsoever will fall timely enough for him within the year For there belongs after they are chosen a little soaking as well as a baking before into our Boys And so not to insist any longer upon such a poor obedience I humbly lay my self and whatsoever is or shall be within my power at your Lordships feet remaining Your Lordships in the truest and heartiest devotions Worthy Sir ALL health to your self and to yours both at home and abroad Sorry I was not to be at Eton when Mr. B. your Nephew and my Friend came thither to visit me being then in procinct of his travels But I had some good while before at another kind visitation together with your Sons and Mr. S. given him a Catholick Rule which was given me long since by an old Roman Courtier with whom I tabled in Siena and whose Counsels I begged for the government of my self at my departure from him towards the foresaid Court where he had been so well versed Sinor Arrigo saies he There is one short remembrance will carry you safe through the whole World I was glad to hear such a preservative contracted into so little room and so besought him to honour me with it Nothing but this saith he Gli Pensiere streâ—…ti il viso sciolto That is as I use to translate it Your Thoughts close and your Countenance loose This was that moral Antidote which I imparted to Mr. B. and his fellow-travellers when they were last with me having a particular interest in their vvell doings both as they are yours and as they have had some training under my poor Regiment To vvhich tyes of friendship you have added a third that they are now of the Colledge of Travellers vvherein if the fruit of the time I have spent vvere answerable to the length I might run for a Deacon at least If I had not been absent vvhen Mr. B. came last I vvould have said much more in private between us vvhich shall be supplied by Letter if I may receive a safe form of address from you I continue mainly in the same opinion vvhich I touched unto them That after their impriming in France I could vvish them to mount the Pirenies into Spain In that Court as I hear you have an assured Friend And there they may consolidate the French vivacity vvith a certain Sosiego as they call it till they shall afterwards pass from Barcolona over to Italy vvhere lies the true mean between the other two humours You see Sir by this discourse that I am in mine own Countrey at leisure I pray pardon it vvhatsoever it be because it proceedeth from hearty good vvill And so I rest At your Commands H. W. Sir My Servant the Bearer hath somewhat to say unto you about a piece of Painting vvhich I vvould fain send to your House in the Countrey covered till it come thither because it is soberly naked and ready to be set up being in a gilded Frame already 1633. Right Honourable I Received such a Letter from you touching my poor Pamphlet of Architecture vvhich I yet preserve among my preciousest Papers as I have made it a Resolution to put nothing forth under my Name vvithout sending one of the first Copies unto your indulgent hands There is born a small welcome to the King from Scotland whom I have not yet seen since his Return I know not how out of a little indignation They have sent us over from Leiden from France from Polonia c. a tempest of Panegyricks and Laudatives of their Princes whereupon I debated with my self What Have we not as good a Theam and Theater as they Or do we want Sense or Zeal to express our Happiness This stirred my very Bowels and within a while my Pen such as it is I confess the Subject is so high as I fear may condemn my Obscurity to have undertaken it but withall so true as I hope vvill not mis-become mine ingenuity Howsoever I submit it to your judgement and if in charity you shall be pleased to like any thing in it I humbly beseech you that you would be pleased to take some occasion of speaking favourably of it to the King himself for though I aim at nothing by it save the very doing of it yet I should be glad to have it impressed by better judgements then my own And so I most humbly rest At c. To Dr. CASTLE Worthy Sir TIll the receipt of your last and the like from others of both Universities and one from Bruxels Ejusdem Argumenti I thought in good faith that as I have lived I thank God with little Ambition so I could have died with as much silence as any man in England But now I see that the most unvaluable things may serve to make a noise And I have now no more to say but that while the foresaid report shall be false the under-writer is Truly Yours H. Wotton My dear Nic. MOre then a voluntary motion doth now carry me towards Suffolk especially that I may confer by the way with an excellent Physician at B. whom I brought my self from Venice where as either I suppose or surmise I first contracted my infirmity of the Spleen to which the very Seat is generally inclined and therefore their Physicians who commonly study the inclinations of places are the likeliest to understand the best remedies I hope to be back by It wrinckles my face to tell you that my will cost me 500 l. that done my thoughts are at rest and over my Study door you shall find written INVIDIAE REMEDIUM Let me end in that word and ever rest Your heartiest poor Friend H. WOTTON POSTSCRIPT I Forbear to write further having a world of Discourse to unload unto you like those that weed not a Garden till it be grown a Wood. To Iz. Wa. In answer of a Letter requesting him to perform his promise of Writing the Life of Dr. Donne My worthy Friend I Am not able to yield any reason no not so much as may satisfie my self why a most ingenuous Letter of yours hath lain so long by me as it
ever thought they were meer emptinesses yet they may chance serve between some natures to kindle good will but I account our Friendship no longer in fieri You have so represented unto me as methinks I see him walking not like a Funambulus upon a Cord but upon the edge of a Razor What shall I retribute to you from hence Nothing but a pretty Accident in a sad Subject There was you know inhabitant in a young Widow of value Who lately dying at London whither she went to solace with some of her Friends left order by Will that her Body should be buried in her dwelling Parish as it was this week where made the Funeral Sermon who had been one of her professed Suitors and so she did not want a passionate Elogist as well as an excellent Preacher For the estate of mine own Body it is not so well as my Servant seems by your Letter to have laid it before you It is true that the Symptomes are well allayed or otherwise peradventure Custom hath taught me to bear them better being now familiarized and domesticated evils I am mansueta mala Yet still the hot fumes continue in the night and the salivation by day but in somewhat a lesser measure besides a streightness of breathing which I should be glad to know whether you observe in other Hypochendriacal Patients And if you can advise me of a good Errynum I have a strong fantasie ex Fernelio that it will discharge my head but such juyces and expressions as he appointed are not now to be had Sir pardon me this trouble and God have you in his love Your affectionate Friend to serve you unceremoniously H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir I Now return unto you your secret Papers again whereof lest I should violate the Communications of such a Friend I have not so much as reserved a Copy though I might have done it by your leave but I have perused them so often as I think I can say them without Book The Scene seemeth since then much changed to the worse yet I hope all will resolve into nothing And that when things appear most tempestuous they will be nearest a calm according to your great Aphorism in Physick Nox ante Crisin est molestissima I beseech you Sir not to conceive by the tardity of my Answer unto you any faintness in the acknowledgement of your favours but to prosecute your friendly intelligence upon occasion even when I shall be on the other side of you as perchance I shall be shortly in my genial soil For I will teach the Foot-Posts of that place to find your Lodging And so leaving you in Gods dear love I rest Your professed poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON To Doctor Castle SIR LEt me pray you that the subject of these lines may be only to recommend unto your Counsel and good Affection the Bearer of them Mr. John Gainsford the nearest Kinsman on my Mothers side that I have living and yet my nearer Friend so as I have more then a single interest in his health He is much travelled with an exorbitant effusion of which though it be a natural preventive to some evils yet surely without either stop or moderation must needs exhaust his spirits He hath had heretofore some taste of your acquaintance at large and you have left in him illos aculeos which you do in all that after the Scotish phrase get but a gripe of you for you are indeed a wounding Man as my Servant Nicholas saith to whom I shewed your last Letter This my dear Cousin in one thing especially is capable of good hope from your advice that he believes in it by my discourse with him who truly must confess that I have received much benefit by yours touching my splenetical Infirmity which differeth from his no more then the stopping or running of the same Spout Besides this he is the fitter for you to work upon because he hath yet tried no remedy not so much as the ordinary diversion of opening another vein Sir I commend him most heartily into your hands and because you have two Capacities as our Lawyers speak a Political and Philosophical from both which I draw much good Give me leave to entertain you with a Letter of some few Novelties from Oxford received as I was thinking to shut up the Present which shall end in ever professing my self Your very hearty poor Friend H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir YOu are the very man who hath authenticated unto me that sentence which we read in the life of Attious delivered by Cornelius Nepos That Prudentia est quaedam divinatio So as truly hereafter when I shall receive from the intelligences of your Friends and your own judgement upon them any sinister Prognostick it will make me open your next Letter with trembling fingers It is one among many wonders unto me that the young Lord C. hath made a transition to the contrary Party I thought he had been better elemated at Eton. I send you herewith for a little exchange the Copy of an Elegant Letter which came unto me by the last Boat from a Friend both of Studies and Affairs touching forreign troubles which it is not amiss to contemplate if it be but for some diversion from our own Christendom was never within our Age so inflamed I hope the ends of the World are come upon us I shall shortly remove into Kent but while I am absent there is one shall wait on you weekly in London to receive and to convey any of your Commands to me for that is the true name of all your Requests To your professed plain Friend H. Wotton POSTSCRIPT MY Lords Grace of Canterbury hath this week sent hither to Mr. Hales very nobly a Prebendaryship of Windsor unexpected undesired like one of the favours as they write of Henry the Seventh's time To Doctor C. Worthy Sir IHave received your last of the 24th of May through the hands of Mr. Iowes of Windsor immediately upon my return to mine ordinary Cell whence I made a short retirement during the late Solemnities with intention in truth to have visited the City of Bath and to see whether among all kind of affected persons confluent thither I could pick out any counsel to allay that sputative Symptome which yet remaineth upon me from my obstructions of the Spleen But that journey is laid asleep Now Sir in answer to your said Letter it grieves me to tell you a truth which this my Servant well knoweth That I am for the future Election of this year so ingaged already to four Privy-Councellors and three of them of the highest and moreover to a Friend of great interest in all the breath that I have to bestow that in good saith I know not how to struggle for a voice for a Child of rare and almost prodigious hopes who is one of my poor Scholers and much less for any other propounded so late as your Friend Son For it is
severe commandment as it should seem from above whereupon the Women especially by way of revenge for that restraint do flock to St. Maries in such troops and so early that the Masters of Art have no room to sit so as the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses were in deliberation to repress their shoaling thither Methinks it is a good thing when zeal in a land grows so thick and so warm But soft if I lanch any farther I may perchance run which yet were a great mistake into the name of a Puritan For that very Lecturer which is now deposed did live heretofore with me at my Table upon especial choice being in truth a man of sweet conversation and of sober solidity Now for other things Nicolas Oudard brought me the Friday after his departure from you the glad tidings of your Agues discharge as you then conceived it would be at the twentieth Access according as you seem to have told him to a common observation with you there so as in Suffolk I see you count Quartan fits as you do your Sheep by the score I could heartily wish you would take for some time after it Alternis Diebus my preparation of the Lignum Sanctum with addition likewise of the roots of China Enula Campana and a sprig of Tamarisque all in the decoction of Barley-water and quickned with a little sprinkling of a Lemmon a rare Receipt to corroborate the Viscera and to keep the Stomack in Tono My said Nicolas tells me likewise that you began to chirp upon being in London the next Term. I should be glad with your favour to know that point precisely for having a purpose by Gods dear blessing to visit you at Redgrave which will be the best Cordial I took in long time I would shape my course circularly either from Suffolk to Kent or from Kent to Suffolk as I shall hear of your motions towards the beginning of next Lent For novelties of Court and State all mens minds at the present with us seem magnetical looking towards the North. Order is come down this day to the Justices of this Shire about a general muster at Alisbury the next week and for especial watch at the Beacons so as any burning of a bush by chance near one of them would set the whole Province in an alarm but notwithstanding these good providences we hope well of the issue and the rather for that a pretty strong conceit runneth that the Deanary of Durham is reserved for Doctor Belkanquel as a reward of his travels to and fro in this great business While we are uniting our ceremonious breaches the Kings of France and Spain abroad treat hard this Winter about a peace as one writeth and I believe very truly without consideration of any other Prince or State but themselves If this be so and take effect in that manner then is Charles de Loraine Exutus Lepidus stript to his shirt the Count Palatine left at large and the Swede must stand upon his own feet But Brevibus Momentis summa vertuntur all depends upon the taking or not taking of Brisach the Helena of Germany and though a Town indeed of great strength and advantage yet a poor price for so much blood as hath been lost about it While I am talking of War let me tell you what I hear that your Sir Jacob Ashley is grown a great man at Court in private introducements to the King together with the Earl Marshal our good Sovereign will feel a sufficient man quickly The States lie still and close oppressed with the adversities of the last year and with nothing more then the late ruine of forty well laden Ships by the Texel wherein with deploration of the whole Province were lost one thousand Mariners Touching the subject whereof I sent you an account by Nicolas I have heard nothing since to increase my hope and much less my faith You shall have more the next week Till when and ever our sweet Jesus have you in his love Your Servant alla suiscerata H. W. SIR Since I concluded this Mr. Hales our Bibliotheca ambulans as I use to call him came to me by chance and told me that the Book of Controversies issued under the name of Baconus hath this addition to the said name alias Southwell as those of that Society shift their names as often as their shirts And he says it is a very poor thing only graced with a little method From your Colledge Decemb. 5. 1638. SIR AFter the rest of your trouble at the present there remaineth a proposition to be consulted with you about which I should esteem the charge of an express Messenger not ill expended though you were at Jerusalem And both Mr. Harison and my self think no man living more proper to solve it then our Sir Edmund Bacon The Question is this whether there may not be found some natural Philosophical way to determine the measure of a minute or quarter or half or intire hour or any portion of time more precisely and uniformly and infallibly then hath been yet invented by any Mechanical and Artificial motion And particularly whether it may not be done by the descent of drops through a Filter either in Menica Hippocratis or in a tongue of cloth equally thick with consideration likewise of all circumstances in that liquid substance which must sink through it If thâ—…s may be done there will be a mighty point obtained in the rectifying of the Longitudes of the Earth which depend upon the thoment of the Lunar Eclipses and Mose upon the exact determination of the beginning and ending of an hour for which purpose the great Tychs Brach composed divers Horologies and Hour-glasses some running with simple Water some with distilled Spirits some with pulverized Mettals and some with crude Mercury but never to any infallible satisfaction of the point propounded which likewise would be of singular use in divers Astronomical observations if it could be once justly regulated This we commend to your curious judgement My Servant Nicolas and I hope to send you some good Flints to be Agatized by your miraculous invention I pray Sir if you have any of those Island stones which you mentioned unto me at Canterbury bestow a few upon me But above all forget not to let me know where you will be about the beginning of Lent Iterum Iterum vale A late Letter written towards the end of Lent by Sir Henry Wotton Provost of his Majesties Colledge at Eaton To the Right worthy his ever truly Honoured Sir Edmund Bacon Knight and Baronet touching the loss of Friends and final resignation of our selves SIR ALl the faculties of my mind if they had ever been of any value and all the strength of my body must yield to the seignory and soveraignty of time over us But the last thing that will die or decay in me is the remembrance how amidst that inestimable contentment which I enjoyed as all others do in the benefit and pleasure of
doubt from that place Not that I apprehend any Contagions vvhatsoever as I think you know but the Winter coming on and the Place bleat a small excuse vvill serve my turn God send you all comfort in your first and second self To vvhose goodness I leave you resting Your most affectionate Alla Suiscerata HENRY WOTTON From the Pallace by Canterbury August last 1638. SIR NExt your own and your dear Consorts health I languish to hear of your first reception at Court. For though I suppose it vvas short yet vve Philosophers say that Principia plus valent virtute quam mole Next that I pray let me know your opinion of the prodigious escape of the Queen Mother of France out of the Spanish clutches to the Hague And vvhether she be trajectura as our right vvorthy Friend Dr. Dorislaus vvriteth me I am come hither in a very benign Constellation and silent conspiracy of my chiefest Friends that have met here at the same time Sir Edmund Bacon Sir Francis Barnham and Sir Thomas Culpepper All men of singular conversation and some of them though of the same County yet that had not been here in seven years before Of vvhich my Nephew Sir Edmund and my self are to pass this next vveek under the Roof of my L. Chief Justice Finch at his House of Mote close by through his Noble and unresistable Importunity God keep us in his Love vvherein is all joy and abundance Your ever most affectionate HENRY WOTTON From the Palace by Canterbury this St. Bartholomew's day 1638. SIR I Send you inclosed the preparation of Guajacum as I have found incomparable benefit thereby I expect in exchange the Letter touching the Dutchess de Cheureuse I am in great perplexity by hearing no News of Nicholas Oudard since the first of September Stylo novo from Bruxels being that afternoon to go to Mechelen vvith a Letter of Authority for his present dispatch so as he vvrote he vvould either send me vvord if any impediment should intervene or bring the first News himself Besides Monsieur Gerbier thought his business in so fair a vvay as he left a Maid there to come over in the company of himself and his Mother When I lay these things together I can make no good interpretation of it Yet I vvill not anticipate and prejudge mine own mishaps as I should account the loss of him vvhom I have trained from a Child God grant all be vvell If you could meet vvith Monsieur Gerbier and enquire vvhether he hath heard any thing it vvould much ease my heart one vvay or other And so leaving you in the Lords protection I rest Your true Friend in omni fortuna HENRY WOTTON From the Colledge Septemb. 26. 1638. SIR I Was glad for all the private in a late Letter from you and sorry for the publick both forraign and inward But I like Plato's counsel vvell In adversities to compress murmur For our Providence saith he is too short to judge vvhether there may not lye under the outside of an apparent evil some in-imaginable good The last Philosophy is Voluntas tua fiat Domine Upon hearing some good vvhile since of the misadventures in the Palatine House his loss of Meppen before he had it the defeat of his Troops as soon as he had gathered them the taking of his Brother c. I fell upon a conceit that perchance these unpleasant things might call over Sir R. Cave the Prince being destitute of counsel and of proper Instruments of Action for they say Ferentz is likewise prisoner And so there vvould be room here for your Imployment vvhich I vvould vvish you to press extreamly But of this more in my next I now send you an Hogshead of more then Soror Tonantis and very vvillingly though so long after March you take us Sul basso But one thing I must tell you that for your Wives Splenetique Infirmity there is nothing worse in the world then either strong or stale Beer Now that we have you out of the Streights and in the Ocean as you call it both of novelties as well as of other things Matthew Saye shall have order to call upon you at least once a week And for the present I leave you in his Love that never faileth remaining Your very truly affectionate HENRY WOTTON From the Colledge this Thursday morning 1638. SIR BEtween you and me Complemental Letters are as needless and improper as I hope the provisions of Armour in the Tower will be As for Novelties of State you are in the Center and we rural Wights in the Circumference and Skirts entertained with nothing but some cold icesickles and droppings from you Londoners Imagine us therefore to stand gaping for the return of the Lord Marquess In the mean while I should be glad to know in what quality my Nephew Colonel Morton is imployed towards the North for I hear of one Serjeant Major Thelwel in more noise And so intending as soon as it can be ready to entertain you with a strange Collar of Brawn I rest Ever your own HENRY WOTTON This Epiphany 1638. SIR MY Pen hath not conversed with you for certe Gite of our Boat a pretty while not wanting affection but matter You are in the Center of Novelties God send all well as I have no doubt it will be at last I am within some few weeks tending to my Genial Soyl at Boughton Malherb and thence about by Redgrave I shall make a Circle hither again taking perchance both Universities in my Line homewards You married men are deprived of these evagations While we stand in a little suspense touching the event of inward Affairs I am glad to hear from abroad in the High Dutch Gazette that there is a Treaty of Exchange in hand between Prince Rupert and Prince Casimir of Poland whom the Swedes have in custody Methinks it is a pretty balanced intention and of no improbable issue the King of Hungaria alià s Emperor growing every day lower and lower I desire much to know how your vertuous Consort standeth in her health and how your self proceedeth in your hopes resting Semper Semper Tuus HENRY WOTTON From the Colledge Feb. 21. 1638. Charissime I Am sorry to hear of new Oaths in Scotland between the Covenanters vvho they say will have none but Iesus Christ to reign over them A Sacred Cover of the deepest Impiety God open their eyes and soften their hearts I have read a good part of the Declaration wherein the Dean of Durhâ—…ns Pen doth well appear and the whole business is very black Never was there such a stamping and blending of Rebellion and Religion together I thank you for your news touching Prince Rupert but I fear the Hungarian King will hold him too fast To your Question about mine own Remove it vvill be towards the ending of this vveek for a night or two to London so as I hope to save you the labour of journeying hither My Lodging if it be not prepossessed will
CVLCOR ET CLAVDI W·Dolle·F Reliquiae Wottonianae OR A COLLECTION Of LIVES LETTERS POEMS WITH CHARACTERS OF Sundry PERSONAGES And other Incomparable PIECES of LANGUAGE and ART Also Additional Letters to several Persons not before Printed BY THE Curious Pencil of the Ever Memorable Sir HENRY WOTTON K t. Late Provost of Eaton Colledge The Third Edition with large Additions LONDON Printed by T. Roycroft for R. Marriott F. Tyton T. Collins and I. Ford 1672. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE PHILIP EARL of Chesterfield Lord Stanhop of Shelford My Lord I HAVE conceived many Reasons why I ought in Iustice to Dedicate these Reliques of Your Great Uncle Sir Henry Wotton to Your Lordship some of which are that both Your Grand-mother and Mother had a double Right to them by a Dedication when first made Publick as also for their assisting me then and since with many Material Informations for the Writing his Life and for giving me many of the Letters that have fallen from his curious Pen so that they being now dead these Reliques descend to Youâ—… as Heir to â—…hem and the Inheritor of the mâ—…orable Bocton Palace the Place of his Birth where so many of the Ancient and Prudent and Valiant Family of the Wottons lie now-Barâ—…ed whose remarkable Monuments You have lately Beautified and to them added so many of so great Worth as hath made it appear that at the Erecting and Adâ—…ging them You were above the thought of Charge that they might if possible for 't was no casie undertaking boldsome proporâ—…â—…mith the Merits of Your Ancestors My Lord These are a part of many more Pensoâ—… that have inclin'd me to this Dedication and these with the Example of a Liberty that is not given but now too usually taken by many Scriblers to make trifling Dedications might have begot a boldness in some Men of as mean as my mean Abilities to have undertaken this But indeed my Lord though I was ambitious enough of undertaking it yet as Sir Henry Wotton hath said in a Piece of his own Character That he was condemn'd by Nature to a bashfulness in making Requests so I find my self pardon the Parallel so like him in this that if I had not had more Reasons then I have yet exprest these alone had not been powerful enough to have created a Confidence in me to have attempted it Two of my unexprest Reasons are give me leave to tell them to Your Lordship and the World that Sir Henry Wotton whose many Merits made him an Ornament even to Your Family was yet so humble as to acknowledge me to be his Friend and died in a belief that I was so since which time I have made him the best return of my Gratitude for his Condescention that I have been able to express or he capable of receiving and am pleased with my self for so doing My other Reason of this boldness is an incouragement very like a command from Your worthy Cousin and my Friend Mr. Charles Cotton who hath assared me that You are such a Lover of the Memory of Your Generous Unkle Sir Henry Wotton that if there were no other Reason then my endeavors to preserve it yet that that alone would secure this Dedication from being unacceptable I wish that nor he nor I be mistaken and that I were able to make You a more Worthy Present My Lord I am and will be Your Humble and most Affectionate Servant Iziak Walton Feb. 27. 1672. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER YOu may be pleas'd to take notice that in this last Relation of Sir Henry Wotton's Life 't is both inlarg'd and some small errors rectified so that I may now be confident there is no material mistakes in it There is in this Impression an Addition of many Letters in which the spirit with which they were writ will assure them to be Sir Henry Wotton's For his Merits they are above my expressions and for that reason the Reader is requested to take to what I have said of him in his Life these following Testimonies I. That his Work of Architecture is Translated into Latin Printed with the Great Vitruvius and this Elogy prefixed HENRICUS WOTTONIUS Anglo Cantianus Thomae Optimi Viri Filius natu minimus à Serenissimo Jacobo Io MAGNAE BRITTANIAE c. Rege in Equestreâ—… Titulum ascitus ejusdémque ter ad Remp. VENETAM Legatus Ordinarius semel ad Confoederatarum Provinciarum Ordines in Juliacensi negotio bis ad Carolum Emmanuelem Sabaudiae Ducem semel ad unitos Superioris Germaniae Principes in Conventu Heilbrunnensi postremò ad Archiducem Leopoldum Ducem Wirtenbergensem civitates Imperiales Argentinam Ulmámque ipsum Romanorum Imperatorem Ferdinandum II. Legatus extraordinarius Tandem hoc didicit ANIMAS SAPIENTIORES FIERI QUIESCENDO II. The second testimony is that of the great Secretary of Nature the Lord Chancellor Bacon who thought it not beneath Him to collect some of the Apothegms and sayings of this Author III. Sir Richard Baker in his Chronicle of England sets to his Seal also in a passage thus speaking of men of Note in King Iames his time Sir Henry Wotton was sent Ambassador into Italy and indeed the Kingdome yielded not a fitter man to match the Capriciousness of the Italian wits A man of so able dexterity with his Pen that he hath done himself much wrong and the Kingdom a great deal more in leaving no more of his Writings behind him AN ACCOUNT Of the WORK NOw of the Work it self Thou shalt find in it many curious things about Architecture Fountains Picture Groves Sculpture Aviaries Landskip Conservatories of rare beasts Magnetical experiments  Gardens Fish-ponds And also many Observations of the Mysteries and Labyrinths in Courts and States delivered in Lives Letters to and Characters of sundry Personages As Observations and Characters which He took in his Imployments abroad of these Dukes of Venice Giovanni Bembo Nani Priuli Donato Giustiniano Ferdin Gr. Duke of Tuscany An Account of Foscarini Of the Arch-Duke Leopold Of Count Tampire Artists and Famous men mentioned Tyco-brahe Count Bevilacqua Kepler Leon Alberti Aldrovandus Philip D'Orme Albert Durer Anto. Labaca censured Palladio Michael Angelo B.  Sir Henry Fanshaw Observations at home of the Courts of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charls with Lives and Characters of Earl of Essex Duke of Buckingham  Of K. Charles I. Characters and Observations of Queen Elizabeth Q. of Bohemia E. of Essex Father Duke of Buckingham E. of Leicester Spanish Journey E. of Essex Imployments L. Bacon Arch. B. Whitgift L. Treasurer Weston M. Anthony Bacon L. Treasurer Iuxton Sir Robert Cecil Bp. Bedel The Cecillians Isle of Rheez Walter Devereux Of the Dukes Ominous presages Sir Philip Sidney  Sir Walter Raleigh Countess of Denbigh Secretary Cuff. Arch. Bishop Of K. Iames. B. of Ely K. Charles Part of the Authors own Character Q Mary  Censures of Felton Stamford D. Egglesham Scioppius THE LIFE OF Sir HENRY WOTTON SIR
that Sir Henry Wotton vvas a Branch of such a kindred as left a Stock of Reputation to their Posterity such Reputation as might kindle a generous emulation in strangers and preserve a noble ambition in those of his Name and Family to perform Actions vvorthy of their Ancestors And that Sir Henry Wotton did so might appear more perfectly then my Pen can express it if of his many surviving friends some one of higher parts and imployment had been pleased to have commended his to Posterity But since some years are now past and they have all I know not why forborn to do it my gratitude to the memory of my dead friend and the renewed request of some that still live solicitous to see this duty performed these have had a power to perswade me to undertake it which truly I have not done but with some distrust of mine own Abilities and yet so far from despair that I am modestly confident my humble language shall be accepted because I shall present all Readers with a Commixture of truth and Sir Henry Wotton ' s merits This being premised I proceed to tell the Reader that the Father of Sir Henry Wotton vvas twice married first to Elizabeth the Daughter of Sir John Rudstone Knight after vvhose death though his inclination vvas averse to all Contentions yet necessitated he vvas to several Suits in Law in the prosecution vvhereof vvhich took up much of his time and vvere the occasion of many Discontents he vvas by divers of his friends earnestly perswaded to a re-marriage to vvhom he as often answered That if ever he did put on a resolution to marry he was seriously resolved to avoid three sorts of persons namely those that had Children that had Law-suits that vvere of his Kindred And yet following his own Law-suits he met in Westminster-hall vvith Mrs. Elionora Morton Widow to Robert Morton of Kent Esq vvho vvas also engaged in several Suits in Law and he observing her Comportment at the time of hearing one of her Causes before the Judges could not but at the same time both compassionate her Condition and affect her Person for the tears of Lovers or Beauty drest in sadness are observ'd to have in them a Charming Eloquence and to become very often too strong to be resisted vvhich I mention because it prov'd so vvith this Thomas Wotton for although there vvere in her a concurrence of all those accidents against vvhich he had so seriously resolved yet his affection to her grew then so strong that he resolved to solicite her for a Wife and did and obtained her By her vvho vvas the Daughter of Sir William Finch of Eastwell in Kent he had only Henry his youngest Son His Mother undertook to be Tutoress unto him during much of his Childhood for vvhose care and pains he paid her each day vvith such visible signs of future perfection in Learning as turned her imployment into a pleasing-trouble vvhich she vvas content to continue till his Father took him into his own particular care and disposed of him to a Tutor in his own House at Bocton And vvhen time and diligent instruction had made him fit for a removal to an higher Form vvhich vvas very early he vvas sent to Winchester-School a place of strict Discipline and Order that so he might in his youth be moulded into a Method of living by Rule vvhich his vvise Father knew to be the most necessary vvay to make the future part of his life both happy to himself and usefull for the discharge of all business vvhether publick or private And that he might be confirmed in this regularity he was at a fit age removed from that School to be a Commoner of New-Colledge in Oxford both being founded by William Wickham Bishop of Winchester There he continued till about the eighteenth year of his Age and was then transplanted into Queens-Colledge where within that year he was by the chief of that Colledge perswasively injoyned to write a Play for their private use it was the Tragedy of Tancredo which was so interwoven with Sentences and for the Method and exact personating those humours passions and dispositions which he proposed to represent so performed that the gravest of that society declared he had in a sleight imployment given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities And though there may be some sowr dispositions which may think this not worth a memorial yet that wise Knight Baptista Gâ—…arini whom learned Italy accounts one of her ornaments thought it neither an uncomely nor an unprofitable imployment for his Age. But I pass to what will be thought more serious About the twentieth year of his Age he proceeded Master of Arts and at that time read in Latine three Lectures de Oculo wherein he having described the Form the Motion the curious composure of the Eye and demonstrated how of those very many every humour and nerve performs its distinct Office so as the God of Order hath appointed without mixture or confusion and all this to the advantage of man to whom the Eye is given not only as the Bodies guide but whereas all other of his senses require time to inform the Soul this in an instant apprehends and warns him of danger teaching him in the very eyes of others to discover wit folly love and hatred After he had made these Observations he fell to dispute this Optique Question Whether we see by the Emission of the Beams from within or Reception of the Species from without and after that and many other like learned disquisitions he in the Conclusion of his Lectures took a fair occasion to beautifie his Discourse with a Commendation of the blessing and benefit of Seeing By which we do not only discover Natures Secrets but with a continued content for the eye is never weary of seeing behold the great Light of the World and by it discover the Fabrick of the Heavens and both the Order and Motion of the Celestial Orbs nay that if the eye look but downward it may rejoyce to behold the bosome of the Earth our common Mother embroidered and adorned with numberless and various Flowers which man sees daily grow up to perfection and then silently moralize his own condition who in a short time like those very Flowers decayes withers and quickly returns again to that Earth from which both had their first being These were so exactly debated and so Rhetorically heightned as among other admirers caused that learned Italian Albericus Gentilis then Professor of the Civil Law in Oxford to call him Henrice miâ—…celle which dear expression of his was also used by divers of Sir Henry's dearest Friends and by many other persons of Note during his stay in the University But his stay there was not long at least not so long as his Friends once intended for the year after Sir Henry proceeded Master of Arts his Father whom Sir Henry did never mention without this or some like reverential expression
Zeal to advance the Cause of God wherein his Travels abroad were not obscure in the time of the Excommunication of the Venetians For it may please Your Majesty to know that this is the man whom Padre Paulo took I may say into his very soul with whom he did communicate the inwardest thoughts of his heart from whom he professed to have received more knowledge in all Divinity both Scholastical and Positive than from any that he had ever practised in his dayes of which all the passages were well known to the King Your Father of most blessed memory And so with Your Majesties good favour I will end this needless Office for the general Fame of his Learning his Life and Christian temper and those Religious Labours which himself hath dedicated to Your Majesty do better describe him then I am able Your MAJESTIES Most humble and faithful Servant H. WOTTON TO this Letter I shall add this That he was to the great joy of Sir Henry Wotton made Governor of the said Colledge and that after a fair discharge of his duty and trust there he was thence removed to be Bishop of Kilmore In both which places his life was so holy as seemed to equal the primitive Christians for as they so he kept all the Ember-weeks observed besides his private devotions the Canonical hours of Prayer very strictly and so he did all the Feasts and Fast dayes of his Mother the Church of England to which I may add that his Patience and Charity were both such as shewed his affections were set upon things that are above for indeed his whole life brought forth the fruits of the Spirit there being in him such a remarkable meekness that as St. Paul advised his Timothy in the Election of a Bishop That he have a good report of those that be without so had he for those that were without even those that in point of Religion whereof the Roman perswasion of which there were very many in his Diocess did yet such is the power of visible Piety ever look upon him with respect and reverence and testified it by a concealing and safe protecting him from death in the late horrid Rebellion in Ireland when the fury of the wild Irish knew no distinction of persons and yet there and then he was protected and cherished by those of a contrary perswasion and there and then he dyed not by violence or misusage but by grief in a quiet Prisonâ—… 1629. And with him was lost many of his learned Writings which were thought worthy of preservation and amongst the rest 〈◊〉 was lost the Bible which by many years labour and conference and study he had translated into the Irish Tongue with an intent to have printed it for publick use More might be said of Mr. Bedel who I told the Reader was Sir Henry Wottons first Chaplain and much of his second Chaplain Isaac Bargrave Doctor in Divinity and the late learned and hospitable Dean of Canterbury as also of the Meriâ—… of many others that had the happiness to attend Sir Henry in his forreign imployments But the Reader may think that in this digression I have already carried him too far from Eaton Colledge and therefore I shall lead him back as gently and as orderly as I may to that place for a further conference concerning Sir Henry Wotton Sir Henry Wotton had propos'd to himself before he entred into his Collegiate life to write the life of Martin Luther and in it the History of the Reformation as it was carried on in Germany For the doing of which he had many advantages by his several Embassies into those paâ—…ts and his interest in the several Princes of the Empire by whose means he had access to the Records of all the Haâ—… Toâ—…s and the knowledge of many secret passages that â—…ll not under common viewâ—… and in these he had made a happy progress as it well known to his worthy friend Dr. Dâ—…a the â—…te Reverend Bishop of Saliâ—…bury but in the midst of this design His late Majesty King Charles the first that knew the value of Sir Henry Wottons 〈◊〉 did by a perswasive loving violence to which may be added a promise of 500 l. a year force him to lay Luther aside and betake himself to write the History of England in which he proceeded to write some short Characters of a few Kings as a foundation upon which he meant to build but for the present meant to be more large in the story of Henry the sixth the Founder of that Colledge in which he then enjoy'd all the worldly happiness of his present being but Sir Henry dyed in the midst of this undertaking and the footsteps of his labours are not recoverable by a more than common diligence This is some account both of his inclination and the employment both of his time in the Colledge where he seemed to have his Youth renewed by a continual conversation with that Learned Society and a daily recourse of other Friend of choicest breeding and parts by which that great blessing of a chearfull heart vvas still maintained he being alwayes free even to the last of his day from that peevishness which usually attends Age. And yet his mirth was sometimes damp'd by the remembrance of divers old Debts pâ—…ly contracted in his forreign Imployments for which his juâ—… Arrears due from the King would have made satisfaction but being still delayed with Coâ—…t-promises and finding some decayes of health he did about two years before his death out of a Christian desire that none should be a lose by it make his last Will concerning which a doubt till remains whether it discovered more hâ—…y wit or conscionable policy But there is no doubt but that his chief design vvas a Christian endeavour that his Debts might be satisfied And that it may remain as such a Testimony and a Legacy to those that lov'd him I shall here impart it to the Reader as it vvas found vvrit vvith his own hand IN the name of God Almighty and All-meroifâ—…l I Henry Wotton Provost of his Majesties Colledge by Eaton being mindful of mine own mortality which the sin of our first Parents did bring upon all flesh Do by this last Will and Testament thus dispose of my self and the poor things I shall leave in this World My Soul I bequeath to the Immortal God my Maker Father of our Lord Jesus Christ my blessed Redeemer and Mediator through his all-sole sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole World and efficient for his Elect in the number of whom I am one by his meer grace and thereof in oft unremoveably affâ—…d by his holy Spirit the true 〈◊〉 Comforter My body I bequeath to the Earth if I shall end my transitory dayes at or near Eaton to be â—…ed in the Chappel of the said Colledge as the Fellows shall dispose thereof with whom I have liv'd my God knows in all loving affection or If I shall dye near Bocton
exercise of form may be deceitfully dispatched of course yet that he who lives some space among the assiduous advantages and helps of Knowledg except he be of the Society of the Antipodes who turn night into day and take no notice of what is done cannot chuse but receive so much upon ordinary observation as may make him Master of some Art which frequent opportunities as they happily add something to those who are but idle lookers on so no doubt they must advance perfection in those who are more studiously observant every day presenting their Judgements with matters examinable by the precepts they read and most producing to their inventions occurrents fit for further inquiry Every Nature is not a fit Stock to graft a Scholer on THe Spaniard that wrote the Trial of Wits undertakes to shew what Complexion is fit for every Profession I will not disable any for proving a Scholer nor yet dissemble that I have seen many happily forced upon that course to which by nature they seemed much indisposed Sometimes the possibility of preferment prevailing with the credulous expectation of less expence with the covetous opinion of ease with the fond and assurance of remoteness with the unkind parents have moved them without discretion to engage their children in adventures of Learning by whose return they have received but small contentment But they who are deceived in their first designs deserve less to be condemned as such who after sufficient trial persist in their wilfulness are no way to be pitied I have known some who have been acquainted by the complaints of Governors clamors of Creditors and confessions of their Sons what might be expected from them yet have held them in with strong hand till they have desperately quit or disgracefully forfeited the places where they lived Deprived of which they might hope to avoid some misery if their Friends who were so careful to bestow them in a Colledg when they were young would be so good as to provide a room for them in some Hospital when they are old He seldom speeds well in his course that stumbles at his setting forth I Have ever been unwilling to hear and careful not to utter predictions of ill success Oracles proceeding as well from Superstitious ignorance as curious Learning and what I deliver in these words occasioned by examples past I desire may be applied for prevention rather then prejudice to any hereafter To the same effâ—…t I heard a discreet Censor lesson a young Scholer negligent at his first entrance to the Elements of Logick and Philosophy telling him That a Child starved at nurse would hardly prove an able man And I have known some who attended with much expectation at their first appearing have stained the Maidenhead of their Credit with some negligent performance fall into irrecoverable dislike with others and hardly escape despair of themselves They may make a better excuse but not hope for more favour who can impute the fault of their inauspicious attempts some where else a circumstance necessarily to be considered where punishment is 〈◊〉 but where reward is proposed for worth it is as usually detained from those who could not as from those who cared not to deserve it The way to Knowledg by Epitomies is too streight by Commentaries too much about IT is sufferable in any to use what liberty they list in their own manner of Writing but the contracting and extending the lines and sense of others if the first Authors might speak for themselves would appear a thankless office and if the Readers did confer with the Originals they would confess they were not throughly or rightly informed Epitomies are helpful to the memory and of good private use but set forth for publick Monuments accuse the industrious Writers of delivering much impertinency and divert many to close and shallow cisterns whose leasure might well be acquainted with more deep and open springs In brief what I heard sometimes spoken of Ramus I believe of those thrifty Compendiums They shew a short câ—…urse to those who are contented to know a little and a sure way to such whose care is not to understand much Commentaries are guilty of the contrary extreme stifling the Text with infinite additions and scruing those conceits from the words which if the Authors were set on the Rack they would never acknowledge He who is discreet in bestowing his pains will suspect those places to be desert and barren where the way cannot be found without a guide and leave curiosity in enquest of obscurities which before it receive content doth lose or tire it self with digressions Discretion is the most universal Art and hath more Professors then Students DIscretion as I understand it consists in the useful knowledg of what is fit and comely of necessary direction in the practice of moral duties but most esteemed in the composing and framing civil behaviour men ordinarily being better content to be dishonest then to be conscious to themselves that they are unmannerly Few study it because it is attained rather by a natural felicity then by any indeavour or pains and many profess it presuming on sufficiency to censure others and as unable to discern themselves concerning their own defects as unaccustomed to be rightly informed It little concerns men indifferent what we do in that kind and our friends are either nothing offended therewith or unwilling to offend us with their relation our enemies seldom speak of it in our hearing and when we hear we as hardly believe them They who travel far easily miss their way TRavel is reputed a proper means to create men wise and a possible to make them honest because it forces circumspectness on those abroad who at home are nursed in security and perswadeth good behaviour and temperance to such who far from friends and means are willing to have little to do with the Lawyer or Physician Men coming into other Countries as if born into a strange world with some discretion above them which teacheth both to distrust others and keep themselves sober and to sâ—…ift off those homely fashions which Nature and Custome in their years of simplicity had put on them But these effects are not general many receiving more good in their Bodies by the tossing of the Ship whilst they are at Sea then benefit in their Minds by breathing in a forreign Air when they come to Land Yet they are as desirous men should observe they have travelled as careful in their travels to observe nothing and therefore if they be not able to make it known by their relation and discourse it shall appear by their clothes and gesture Some attain to greater perfection being able to shew at what charge they have seen other places by their excellency in some other rare vices or irregularity in strange opinions As the times are he is commended that makes a saving Voyage and least discredits his Travels who returns the same man he went Somewhat of the Gentleman gives a tincture
suorum nosse ingenia Est quando veterum Epigrammata recensendo Animum oblectas non minori Acumine quà m componebantur Sic seria tua sic remissiora cursim peragravi At ipsa quam cepi in his quanquà m ita levitèr delibandis Voluptas Calamum jam currentem nescio quo modo novo Impetu exstimulat ut Majestatis Tuae veram Effigiem in Contractiori Modulo quasi sub uno simul intuitu si tantum Veniae indulseris vel mihimet ipsi repraesentem Quam sic Mente concipio Staturam dicerem Justae proximam Corpus erectum Agile Color in Universum ex EBORACENSI Albore quà m LANCASTRIA Rubedine plus hausit Caesaries nigella quà m flavae propior Frons multum Fidei praefert O ulos generosa quaedam Verecundia honestat non qualem olim de Syllâ sed de Pompeio legimus In Gestubus nihil affectatum In toto etiam Aspectu nil Turgidi nil Efferati sed alliciens ac decora Suavitas Alacritatem Vigorem celerior incessus prodit Alioquin sedati Affectus Compositi Mores Propositi Promissi tenacissimus Amans Veri Vitiorum Osor. Justus Constans Fortis non simplicitèr tantùm sed scientèr Bonus Talis es Talemque quanto Applausu recipiemus Videre Mihi videor dum Horrida interdùm Tranquilla simul contendo quotiescúnque RICHARDUS ille TERTIUS Eboraco forsan suo aut longinquiùs Londinum remearet Proceres circa se conciret Quà m nutabant Nobilium Capita Quà m pallebant Ora Quam sollicitas inter se suspiciones ac murmura conferebant Ac si dirus repentè Cometes aut infaustum aliquod Sidus suprà Horizontem emersisset Sed contrà Justi Bonique PRINCIPIS Reditus nihil aliud omninò est quà m ipsa Solis Anastrophe Cùm Vernalibus radiis deformem Hiemem expellit ac blando Tepore cuncta circumquâque refovet exhilarat Euge igitur Rex omnibus Bonis Gratissime Sed in quae Vota desinam Veteribus in usu erat quorum Exemplo percitus exiguum hunc laborem audacter nimiùm subivi post Trajani Tempora sub Laudatissimo quoque Imperatore hujuscemodi acclamandi Formula Vive ANTONINE Regna THEODOSI AUGUSTO faelicior TRAIANO Melior Sit autem Hic Imperii Tui novissimus Character quòd Optanda sunt Laudandis Pauciora Igitur postquam hoc tantum ex Ardenti Affectu voverim ut CAROLUS Optimus REX DOMINUS noster Regnet Vivatque Sibimetipsi soli Diuque similis Finis esto O Fortunatos nimium Bona si sua norint A PANEGYRICK TO King CHARLES BEING OBSERVATIONS Upon the Inclination Life and Government of our Late SOVERAIGN VVritten in Latin By Sir HENRY WOTTON Knight Provost of Eton Colledge a little before his Death And now Englished by a Friend of the Authors TO OUR Young CHARLES DUKE of CORNWALL EARL of CHESTER c. HENRY WOTTON wisheth long life THese following Vowes and Acclamations wherewith Your Father the best of Kings was received at his Return from Scotland I dedicate not unadvisedly to Your Highness that when you shall be seasoned with Erudition now your Ornament from many Ancestors you may draw from this whatever small memorial a Treasure more glorious then a triple Diadem namely AN HEREDITARY IMAGE OF VERTUE TO THE KING At His Return from SCOTLAND Sir HENRY WOTTON's Vows and Acclamations Imperial CHARLES my King and Master ACustome it was anciently among the civiller Nations so oft as they enjoyed a just and a Gracious King that their mute felicity might not contract a dulness in their brests to pour forth their affections and joyes in elogies wishes and applauses But chiefly then when any nobler occasion invited the rejoycers expressions Which sacred customes Emulation in some sort having transported me and dispell'd the chilness from my brest which the weight of age hath introduced I shall with flagrant confidence betake my self to celebrate this Day whereon your Majesty doth restore your Self to us and us unto our selves So far indeed am I from being discouraged by the weakness of my own elocution that I am even ready to esteem my self thereby the abler For what need is here of dressings Rhetorical Wherefore over sollicitously ballance the weight of words Susfice it this day simply to rejoyce Sincerity is a plain and impolite thing the less tricked the more chearful and Eloquence while it adorneth corrupteth our gladness Nor is it my fear that this shall seem a flatterers act as it were ambitiously prostrate at Fortunes feet which in truth were unworthy of that ingenuous modesty derived from my Parents unbefitting that blessed Rest of mind I drew from liberal Studies Yet doth one solitude at the very entrance I confess surround me lest namely even with true praises I offend that modesty wherewith Your Majesty useth so sweetly to season your other Vertues for whereas you are most stout in all things else that requires Validity of Body or Constantness of Mind I only doubt lest you should beat this dayes Applauses and Elogies by so much the more tenderly by how much they are the more justly due We read that Germanicus and yet how great a Personage not long before the battel against the Chatti did under the disguise of a beasts skin that he might not be observed by night approach his souldiers tents to catch up by dark what they conceived of him So do those commonly with most tenderness admit their own commendations who most deserve them Whence I sufficiently foresee the necessity of assuring my access to your Sacred Ears not by Arguments drawn from the slight Magazines of Rhetorick but by others of a soberer sort I shall therefore affirm it most equitable that neither the gallant nor the baser lives of Princes be pressed down in ignoble silence But that both good and bad be transmitted equally to the knowledge of Posterity in a like freedome of writing as living and with no less reverence of Truth then of Majesty Those least vertuous examples failing Vertues themselves by degrees decay These that evading the power of Laws yet may be bridled through some awe of Record This to you I may dare to speak my most Gracious Master and even that I may dare I owe to your self alone who now have so lived 33 years and so reigned near to nine That you dread not truth Most famous was of old and will live for ever that answer of Virginius Rufus to Cluvius You know Virginius saith he what credit is due to History wherefore if you read any thing in my books otherwise then you would have it pardon me To whom Virginius Thou canst not Cluvius be ignorant of this That therefore I did what I have done that it might be free for you to write what you pleased This was indeed the confidence of a gallant but yet of a private man How much more eminent may the joy be of this day for a King returned of whose Life and Morals we
Danger In his countenance which is the part that all eyes interpret no open alteration even after the succours which he expected did fail him but the less he shewed without the more it wrought intrinsecally according to the nature of suppressed passions For certain it is that to his often mentioned Secretary Doctor Mason whom he laid in Pallet near him for natural Ventilation of his thoughts he would in the absence of all other ears and eyes break out into bitter and passionate Eruptions protesting That never his Dispatches to divers Princes nor the great business of a Fleet of an Army of a Siege of a Treaty of War of Peace both on foot together and all of them in his head at a time did not so much break his repose as a conceit That some at home under his Majesty of whom he had well deserved were now content to forget him but whom he meant I know not and am loth to rove at conjectures Of their two Forts he could not take the one nor would he take the other but in the general Town he maintained a seisure and possession of the whole three full months and eighteen days and at the first descent on shore he was not immured within a wooden Vessel but he did countenance the landing in his long Boat Where succeeded such a defeat of near two hundred Horse and these not by his ghess mounted in haste but the most part Gentlemen of Family and great resolution seconded with two thousand Foot as all circumstances well ballanced on either side may surely endure a comparison with any of the bravest Impressions in ancient time In the issue of the whole business he seems charged in opinion with a kind of improvident conscience having brought of that with him to Camp perchance too much from a Court where Fortune had never deceived him Besides we must consider him yet but rude in the profession of Arms though greedy of Honour and zealous in the Cause At his return to Plimouth a strange accident befell him perchance not so worthy of memory for it self as for that it seemeth to have been a kind of prelude to his final period The now Lord Goring a Gentleman of true honour and of vigilant affections for his Friend sends to the Duke in all expedition an express Messenger with advisement to assure his own Person by declining the ordinary Road to London for that he had credible Intelligence of a plot against his life to be put in execution upon him in his said journey towards the Court. The Duke meeting the Messenger on the way read the Letter and smothering it in his pocket without the least imaginable apprehension rides forwards His company being about that time not above seven or eight in number and those no otherwise provided for their defence then with ordinary swords After this the Duke had advanced three miles before he met with an old Woman near a Town in the Road who demanded Whether the Duke were in the company and bewraying some especial occasion to be brought to him was lead to his Horse-side where she told him that in the very next Town where he was to pass she had heard some desperate men vow his death And thereupon would have directed him about by a surer way This old Womans casual access joyn'd with that deliberate advertisement which he had before from his Noble Friend moved him to participate both the tenour of the said Letter and all the circumstances with his Company who were joyntly upon consent that the Woman had advised him well Notwithstanding all which importunity he resolved not to wave his way upon this reason perhaps more generous then provident that if as he said he should but once by such a diversion make his Enemy believe he were afraid of danger he should never live without Hereupon his young Nephew Lord Viscount Fielding being then in his Company out of a Noble spirit besought him that he would at least honour him with his Coat and blew Ribbon thorow the Town pleading that his Uncle's life whereon lay the property of his whole Family was of all things under Heaven the most precious unto him and undertaking so to gesture and muffle up himself in his hood as the Duke's manner was to ride in cold weather that none should discern him from him and so he should be at the more liberty for his own defence At which sweet Proposition the Duke caught him in his arms and kissed him yet would not as he said accept of such an offer in that case from a Nephew whose life he tendred as much as himself and so liberally rewarded the poor Creature for her good will After some short directions to his Company how they should carry themselves he rode on without perturbation of his mind He was no sooner entred into the Town but a scambling Souldier clapt hold of his bridle which he thought was in a begging or perchance somewhat worse in a drunken fashion yet a Gentleman of his train that rode a pretty distance behind him conceiving by the premisses it might be a beginning of some mischievous intent spurred up his Horse and with a violent rush severed him from the Duke who with the rest went on quickly through the Town neither for ought I can hear was there any further enquiry into that practice the Duke peradventure thinking it wisdome not to resent discontentments too deep At his return to the Court he found no change in Faces but smothered murmurings for the loss of so many gallant Gentlemen against which his friends did oppose in their discourses the chance of War together with a gentle expectation for want of supply in time After the complaints in Parliament and the unfortunate issue at Rheez the Dukes fame did still remain more and more in obloquy among the mass of people whose judgements are only reconciled with good successes so as he saw plainly that he must abroad again to rectifie by his best endeavour under the publick Service his own reputation Whereupon new preparatives were in hand and partly reparatives of the former beaten at Sea And in the mean while he was not unmindfull in his civil course to cast an eye upon the wayes to win unto him such as have been of principal credit in the Lower House of Parliament applying lenitives or subducting from that part where he knew the humors were sharpest amidst which thoughts he was surprized with a fatal stroke written in the black Book of necessity There was a younger Brother of mean fortunes born in the County of Suffolk by name Iohn Felton by nature of a deep melancholy silent and gloomy constitution but bred in the active way of a Souldier and thereby raised to the place of Lieutenant to a Foot-Company in the Regiment of Sir Iames Ramsey This was the man that closely within himself had conceived the Dukes death But what may have been the immediate or greatest motive of that fellonious conception is even
the Dukes Oath which they gently call his Promise The Inquisitors are upon Complaint and not otherwise against the deceased Prince especially in matter of Extortion to enquire of the truth and accordingly to punish his Heirs Which Office doth continue in Authority the term of a year The Correctors at this time presented four new Law 1. That the Brothers and Children of the Prince shall take place in publick Processions after the principal Magistrates namely next to the Censors 2. That immediately after the choice of any new Duke in the next Grand Councel shall be openly rehearsed all former Decrees against Defrauders of the Publick Chests This they call in their Dialect Intaccamento di Casse as unpardonable here as Treason The other two merit no Memory being only about little encrease of Provision for the Dukes Attendants and some Enlargement of time for the Correctors Office which heretofore did determine as soon as the Election began These new Orders thus made and approved by the Grand Councel from whence all Authority floweth they proceeded on Friday morning to the Election About which time were discovered four Competitors Antonio Priuli Gieconimo Giustiniano Augustino Nani and Niccolo-Donato The three first all Procuratori di St. Marco Who are in number Nine in degree the second Personages of the State and commonly the Seminary of their Princes though not of necessity as well appeareth by the fourth Concurrent who was yet no more then a Senator of the Wide Sleeve a Vesture of eminent Gravity and Place in their Councels Of these Priuli and Giustiniano having before been chosen Commissioners in the Business of the Uscocchi were by a new Warning and Penalty in the Senate on Friday before the Prince then languishing commanded to be gone But this did not prejudice their Hopes For I have noted one singular property in the Composition of this State That no mans fortunes without other Demerits are hindred by their Absence Now it shall be fit to set down with what Foundations and with what Oppositions they entred the List. Priuli had passed through all the principal Charges of the State in the Civil way And had lastly in the Military been Generalissimo till sickness sent him home in the Austrian Action His own Family numerous His Alliance strong Himself a man of moderate nature of pleasant and popular Conversation rather free then sowr and reserved of good extemporal judgement and discourse for the satisfying of publick Ministers which is the Dukes proper part Lastly Threescore and ten years old for that must not be forgotten among his helps But he suffered two Objections though both rather within his Fortune then his Nature The one that he was the Father of a Cardinal which might distract his Affection between the State and the Church The other that he was poor and somewhat behind-hand Of which Objection on the other side his Favourers made up part of his merit as having indebted himself in the publick Service Giustiniano was a Gentleman that had likewise passed through the best places at home of excellent Gravity and Judgement and of most unquestionable Integrity not violent not avaricious singularly beloved of the people to whose satisfaction in a time of this nature it was perhaps meet to yield somewhat He was besides one year elder then Priuli but his old age did not help him so much as he was hindred by the Antiquity of his Name For the Princedome having been for the two last Successions in the old Families it was likely the new would now strive to bring it back again among their own Blood Nani had carried himself meritoriously in forraign Imployments particularly against the Pope in the time of the Interdict which held up his Credit among the good Patriots And having been near the Supream Place at the last Election he re-entred now with the more hope Besides being by nature stiff and sensitive his cunning friends did mould that to his advantage the time seeming to need such a man But two wilde rumours did much oppress him The one with the better sort that he had purchased by close gifts certain of the poor Gentlemens Favours The other with the people that he had of late been Author of some hard Decrees his age besides was but 63 years and his complexion durà ble Donato sirnamed Testolina for the littleness of his head had been long time conversant in the gravest Consultations was reputed one of the wealthiest Gentlemen of the whole City of good natural capacity and above the rest adorned with Erudition Besides he had the Commendation of fourscore years and of a weak body But it was thought somewhat presumptuous that he should contend with persons of higher Rank whereupon some conceived his end only to gain a friend by his voices and to make himself Procurator in the room of him that should be Prince With these hopes and with these objections they entred the Field after they had laboured their friends one whole Week namely from the Friday night of the Dukes death to the Friday morning following and perhaps a good while before within which time at the place of their Broglio as they term it where the Concurrents sue for voices Nani the youngest of the four was noted by some vacant searching wits to tread softly to walk stoopingly and to raise himself from Benches where he sate with laborious and painful gesture as Arguments of no lasting man Such a counterfeiting thing sometimes is Ambition To come now to the Election The Election of the Duke of Venice is one of the most intricate and curious Forms in the World consisting of ten several precedent Ballotations Whereupon occurreth a pretty Question What need there was of such a deal of solicitude in choosing a Prince of such limited Authority And it is the stranger for having been long in use the ancient Forms being commonly the most simple To which doubt this Answer may serve the turn that it was as the tradition runneth a Monks Invention of the Benedictin Order And in truth the whole mysterious frame therein doth much â—…avour of the Cloyster For first a Boy must be snatched up below and this Child must draw the Balls and not themselves as in all other Elections then is it strangely intermingled half with Chance and half with Choice So as Fortune as well as Judgement or Affection hath her part in it and perhaps the greater One point as now and then happeneth even in the mòst curious webs of this nature seemeth somewhat unequal Namely that the 41 who are the last immediate Electors of the Duke must be all of several Families and of them twenty five at least concur to his Nomination For hereby the old names which are but twenty four cannot make a Duke without help from some one of the new And that is not easily gotten through emulation between them as strong perhaps as any publick respect So as the two last Dukes Memo and Bembo both of the ancient Blood
radiations of all the objects without are intromitted falling upon a paper which is accommodated to receive them and so he traceth them with his pen in their natural appearance turning his little Tent round by degrees till he hath designed the whole Aspect of the Field This I have described to your Lordship because I think there might be good use made of it for Chorography for otherwise to make Landskips by it were illiberal though surely no Painter can do them so precisely Now from these artificial and natural curiosities let me a little direct your Lordship to the contemplation of Fortune Here by a sleight Battel full of miserable errours if I had leisure to set them down all is reduced or near the point In the Provinces there is nothing but of fluctuation and submission the ordinary consequences of Victory wherein the triumphs of the Field do not so much vex my soul as the triumphs of the Pulpit For what noise will now the Jesuite disseminate more in every corner then victrix causa Deo placuit which yet was but the Gospel of a Poet No my Lord when I revolve what great things Zisca did in the first troubles of his Countrey that were grounded upon conscience I am tempted to believe the Alldistinguishing eye hath been more displeased with some humane affections in this business then with the business it self I am now preparing my departing toward my other imployment for in my first Instructions I had a power to go hence when this controversie should be decided either by Treaty or by Fortune whereof now the worser means have perverted the better Here I leave the French Ambassadors upon the Stage as I found them being willing quod solum superest to deal between the Emperour and Bethlehem Gabor with whom I have nothing to do as he is now singled Betwixt this and Italy I purpose to collect the memorablest Observations that I have taken of this great Affair and to present a Copy thereof unto your Lordships indulgent not to your severe judgement The present I cannot end though I have too much usurped upon your precious time without the return of my humble thanks unto your Lordship for the kind remembrance of my Cousin Mr. John Meawtis in your Letter to me and of your recommendation of him before being a Gentleman in truth of sweet conditions and strong abilities I shall now transport him over the Alpes where we will both serve your Lordship and love one another And so beseeching God to bless your Lordship with long life and honour I humbly rest Your Lordships Right Honourable OF my appearing to this State and of my reception here I gave your Lordship notice by my former Letters The Counsels of this State I find to be calm for the new Pope hath assured them He will keep storms out of Italy True it is that he hath bravely denied already passage to the Neopolitan Cavalry and Infantry through the Ecclesiastical State though instantly pressed by the Spanish Ambassador in which Humour if hee shall persevere without warping we shall think him here a well-seasoned piece of Timber We hear of an Ambassador from Savoy on his way to you C. C. a plain Instrument from a subtle Prince and therefore the more proper to deceive us and to be first deceived himself The business I shall need not to tell you nor indeed can I say much of the hope of it How we stand here will appear by the two enclosed Copies But for those things I shall give his Majesty continual advertisement as time shall change the prospect of this Theater whereon I am placed So with all my duties remembred as well those of Thankfulness as those of Affection I will subscribe my self as truly I am Your Lordships c. POSTSCRIPT This very Morning which is the Nuncio's ordinary day of Audience He hath surprized the Duke and Senators with presentation of a Jubile unto them from his Master Some discourse that it is to gain Fame and Favour by an indulgent Beginning To the Marquess of Buckingham Right Honourable and my very good Lord I Know your Lordship cannot want Presents of the best kind from all Countreys if you would be but pleased to bewray your Desire For your Favour is worthy to be studied both because you are powerfull and because in the common judgement of which we hear the sound that are far off you imploy your power nobly For my part though I am not able to reach unto any thing proportionable to your Dignity nor even to mine own mind yet I must not suffer Venice where I have served the King so long to be wholly disgraced And therefore I have taken the boldness in a Ship newly departed from this Harbour to send your Lordship two Boxes of poor things which because they need a little explication not so much for their value as their use I have desired Mr. Nicholas Pey one of the Clerks of his Majesties Kitchin who is my friend of trust at home in all my occasions to acquaint your Lordship with a note of them Wherein my end is plain only to excite your Lordship with this little taste to command me further in whatsoever may better please you And so I most humbly commit you to Gods blessed Love Venice this 16. of May. Your Lordships with all devotion to serve you H. Wotton To the Lord Keeper Williams ut videtur 1621 2. Right Reverend and Right Honourable my very good Lord HAving not yet passed with your good Lordship so much as the common duty of Congratulation to whom I am so obliged both for your love to my dearest Nephew and for your gracious remembrances of mine own poor Name I thought it even a particular duty to my self to acquaint your Lordships Secretary my ancient and worthy Friend with the Story of mine own evils that your Lordship may know my silence to have been as I may well term it a Symptome of my infirmity I am now strong again to serve your Lordship and I know that I have a Friend of trust at home it is honest Nicholas Pey that I mean who hath often leave by your Favour to wait upon you Therefore I could wish if this place where I am grown almost a free Denison may yield any thing for your use or delight that you would be pleased either to acquaint me by my said Friend plainly which shall be a new obligation with your Commands or at least to let him mark your Desires Now in the mean time because I know that I can do your Lordship no greater Service then to give you occasion of exercising your own goodness I will take the freedome most humbly and heartily to recommend unto your charitable and honourable affections a very worthy Person whose fortune is no better at the present then to be my Chaplain though we are or at least ought all to be the better by his vertuous example and our time the better spent by his learned
good wishes of the Archbishop of Armagh been directed hither with a most humble Petition unto Your Majesty that You will be pleased to make Mr. William Bedel now Resident upon a small Benefice in Suffolk Governour of Your Colledge at Dublin for the good of that Society And my self being required to render unto Your Majesty some testimony of the said William Bedel who was long my Chaplain at Venice in the time of my first Imployment I am bound in all Conscience and Truth as far as Your Majesty will Vouchsafe to accept my poor judgement to affirm of him that I think hardly a fitter Man for that Charge could have been propounded unto Your Majesty in Your whole Kingdome for singular Erudition and Piety Conformity to the Rites of Your Church and zeal to advance the Cause of God wherein his travels abroad were not obscure in the time of the Excommunication of the Venetians For it may please Your Majesty to know that this is the Man whom Padre Paulo took I may say into his very soul with whom hee did communicate the inwardest thoughts of his heart from whom he prosessed to have received more knowledge in all Divinity both Scholastical and Positive then from any thaâ—… he had ever practised in his dayes of which all the passages were well known unto the King Your Father of most blessed Memory And so with Your Majesties good Favour I will end this needless office For the general fame both of his Learning â—…nd Life and Christian Temper and those religious Labours which Himself hath dedicated unto Your Majesty do better describe him Your Majesties most humble and faithfull Vassal H. Wotton To the DUKE My most noble Lord WHen like that impotent man in the Gospel I had lain long by the Pools side while many were healed and none would throw me in it pleased your Lordship first of all to pity my infirmities and to put me into some hope of subsisting hereafter Therefore I most humbly and justly acknowledge all my ability and reputation from your favour You have given me in couragement you have valued my poor endeavours with the King you have redeemed me from ridiculousness who had served so long without any mark of favour By which Arguments being already and ever bound to be yours till either life or honesty shall leave me I am the bolder to beseech your Lordship to perfect your own work and to draw his Majesty to some setling of those things that depend between Sir Julius Casar and me in that reasonable form which I humbly present unto your Lordship by this my Nephew likewise your obliged Servant being my self by a late indisposition confined to my Chamber but in all estates such as I am Your Lordships H. WOTTON SIR I Send you by this Bearer to keep you in mirth a piping Shepherd done by Cavalier Bassaw and so well as may merit some place in your Chamber which I hear is the Center of good Musick to which out of my pieces at home I have commanded James to add a Messara playing upon a Timbril done by Allessandro Padovano a rising Titian as we esteemed him Good Sir let us know some true passages of the plight of the Court I have laid about for some constant intelligence from forraign parts being strangely relapsed into that humour in my old age Shall I tell you why In good faith for no other use that I mean to make of news but only that when God shall call me to a better I may know in what state I leave this World Your affectionate Friend to serve you H. WOTTON To M r. Nicolas Arnauld SIR THis young Gentleman my very near Kinsman having gotten enough of Venetiâ—… Italian to seek better and being for that end directed by me to Siena I will take the boldness to commend him to your disposing there assuring myself that you have gained much friendship and power wheresoever you are by that impression which you have left in us here And so with those thanks which were long since due for your kind remembrance of me by a Letter from Florence I commit you to Gods dear blessings and love and lever rest From Venice Your very affectionate poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON To the Lord Treasurer Weston My most honoured good Lord I Most humbly present though by some infirmities a little too late a strange New-years Gift unto your Lordship which I will presume to term the cheapest of all that you have received and yet of the richest materials In short it is only an Image of your Self drawn by memory from such discourse as I have taken up here and there of your Lordship among the most intelligent and unmalignant men which to pourtrait before you I thought no servile office but ingenuous and real and I could wish that it had come at the Day that so your Lordship might have begun the New Year somewhat like Plato's definition of Felicity with the contemplation of your own Idea They say That in your forraign Employments under King James your Lordship won the Opinion of a very able and searching Judgement having been the first discoverer of the Intentions against the Palatinate which were then in brewing and masked with much Art And that Sir Edward Conway got the start of you both in Title and Employment at home because the late Duke of Buckingham wanted then for his own Ends a Martial Secretary They say That under our present Soveraign you were chosen to the highest charge at the lowest of the State when some instrument was requisite of undubitable integrity and provident moderation which Attributes I have heard none deny you They discourse thus of your Actions since that though great Exhaustions cannot be cured with sudden Remedies no more in a Kingdom then in a Natural Body yet your Lordship hath well allayd those blustering clamors wherewith at your beginnings your House was in a manner dayly besieged They note that there have been many changes but that none hath brought to the Place a judgement so cultivated and illuminated with various Erudition as your Lordship since the Lord Burghley under Queen Elizabeth whom they make your Parallel in the ornament of Knowledge They observe in your Lordship divers remarkable combinations of Vertues and Abilities rarely sociable In the Character of your Aspect a mixture of Authority and Modesty In the Faculties of your Mind quick Apprehension and Solidity together In the style of your Port and Train as much Dignity and as great Dependency as was ever in any of your Place and with little noise or outward fume That your Table is very abundant free and noble without Luxury That you are by nature no Flatterer and yet of greatest power in Court That you love Magnificence and Frugality both together That you entertain your Guests and Visiters with noble courtesie but void of complement Lastly that you maintain a due regard to your Person and Place and yet are an Enemy to frothy
were in Lavender without an Answer save this only The pleasure I have taken in your Style and Conceptions together with a Meditation of the Subject you propound may seem to have cast me into a gentle slumber But being now awaked I do herein return you most hearty thanks for the kind prosecution of your first motion touching a just Office due to the memory of our ever memorable Friend To whose good fame though it be needless to add any thing and my age considered almost hopeless from my Pen yet I will endeavor to perform my promise if it were but even for this cause that in saying somewhat of the Life of so deserving a man I may perchance over-live mine own That which you add of Doctor King now made Dean of Rochester and by that translated into my native soil is a great spur unto me with whom I hope shortly to confer about it in my passage towards Boughton Malherb which was my genial Air and invite him to a friendship with that Family where his Predecessor was familiarly acquainted I shall write to you at large by the next Messenger being at present a little in business and then I shall set down certain general heads wherein I desire information by your loving diligence hoping shortly to enjoy your own ever welcome company in this approaching time of the Fly and the Cork And so I rest Your very hearty poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON To the same My worthy Friend SInce I last saw you I have been confined to my Chamber by a quotidian Feaver I thank God of more contumacy then malignity It had once left me as I thought but it was only to fetch more company returning with a surcrew of those splenetick vapours that are called Hypocondriacal of which most say the cure is good company and I desire no better Phisician then your self I have in one of those fits endeavoured to make it more easie by composing a short Hymn and since I have apparelled my best thoughts so lightly as in Verse I hope I shall be pardoned a second vanity if I communicate it with such a Friend as your self to whom I wish a chearful spirit and a thankful heart to value it as one of the greatest blessings of our good God in whose dear love I leave you remaining Your poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON A Hymn to my God in a Night of my late Sickness OH thou great Power in whom I move For whom I live to whom I die Behold me through thy beams of love Whilst on this couch of tears I lie And cleanse my sordid soul within By thy Christs Blood the Bath of Sin No hallowed Oyls no grains I need No rags of Saints no purging fire One rosie drop from David's Seed Was worlds of Seas to quench thine Ire O precious Ransome which once paid That Consummatum est was said And said by him that said no more But seal'd it with his sacred Breath Thou then that hast dispung'd my Score And dying wast the death of Death Be to me now on thee I call My Life my Strength my Joy my All. H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir I Cannot according to the Italian phrase at which I have been often ready to laugh among a Nation otherwise of so civil language accuse the receit of any Letter from you since your remove from these parts save of two by this Bearer my Servant and yours as all mine shall be Neither can I satisfie my imagination so far I am from quieting my desire where a third which you intimate in your last may yet lie smothered in some pocket for which I should have made a great research if that were not the diligentest way to miss it The truth is as I do highly estimate every line from your Pen so on the other side I am as jealous that any of them should stray For when a Friend of mine that was lately going towards your City fell casually into some discourse with me how he should cloath himself there I made some sport to tell him for a little beguiling of my Melancholy Fumes that in my opinion the cheapest stuff in London was Silence But this concerneth neither of us both for we know how to speak and write safely that is honestly Always if we touch any tender matter let us remember his Motto that wrote upon the Mantle of his Chimney where he used to keep a good fire OptimusSecretariorum I owe you abundant thanks for the Advertisements in your last so clearly and judiciously delivered you cannot do me a greater favour for though I am a Cloystered Man in the Condition of my present Life besides my Confinement by Infirmity yet having spent so much of mine Age among Noise abroad and seven Years thereof in the Court at home there doth still hang upon me I know not how a certain Concupiscence of Novelties I am sorry I have nothing in that kind at the present to interchange with you In mine own sickness I had of late for one half night and a whole day following a perfect intermission like a Truce from all Symptoms but some of them are returned again and I am afraid it will be hard to throw out altogether this same Saturnine Enemy being now lodged in me almost a full year In your way of applying the Leeches I have found sensible benefit If I could get a lodging near Paul's Church I would fain pass a week there yet before the great Festival Pardon me Good Sir this Communication with you of my Domestick purposes and pardon me likewise the use of another mans hand in this Letter for a little ease of mine own Head and Eyes And so I rest Your hearty Friend and Servant in all occasions H. WOTTON Sir Your subscription of Aldrovandus putteth me in mind of a mishap which befel me in the time of my private Travels I had been in a long pursuit of a much commended Author namely Johannes Britanicus de re Metallica and could never see him but in the Library of the brave Monks of Mont d'Oliveto in the Contaà o di Siena where while I had taken order to have him transcribed Aldrovando passing that way borrowed him from the Monastery and I sending not long after unto him in Bologna my Friend found him newly dead And this was the period of my fruitless curiosity To Doctor C. Worthy Sir I See by your Letters by your discourses and by your whole conversation that you are a Friend of great Learning and which are commonly consociated of as great humanity which shall make me study by any means within the narrowness of my fortune and judgement to deserve your love The rest I leave to this Bearer my Servant As I am Yours H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir HEnceforward no Complemental forms between us Let others repute them according to the Latine denomination Fine civil filling of speech and Letters For my part in good faith ex Diametro I
H. WOTTON 1612 13. SIR I Must now acknowledge it true which our Navigators tell us that there be indeed certain variations of the Compass for I think there was never point of a needle better touched then you have touched me having ever since I parted from you been looking towards you and yet still by something or another I am put out of my course I will therefore hereafter not promise you any more to come unto you but I will promise my self it because indeed I have no other means to be at peace with my self for I must lay this heavy note upon your conversation that I am the unquieter for it a good while after This is the first part of what I meant to say After which I would fain tell you That I send this Foot man expresly unto you to redeem some part of my fault for not answering your late kind Letter by the Messenger that brought it But the truth is I had some special occasion to send to Berry and therefore I will set no more upon your account then his steps from thence to Redgrave where perhaps you now are See what a real Courtier I am and whether I be likely to prosper Well howsoever let me entertain you a little by this opportunity with some of our discourses The King departed yesterday from hence towards you having as yet notwithstanding much voice and some wagering on the other side determined nothing of the vacant places Whereupon the Court is now divided into two opinions the one that all is reserved for the greater honour of the marriage the other that nothing will be done till a Parliament or to speak more precisely till after a Parliament which latter conceit though it be spread without either Author or ground yet as many things else of no more validity it hath gotten faith enough on a sudden I will leave this to the judicial Astrologers of the Court and tell you a tale about a subject somewhat nearer my capacity On Sunday last at night and no longer some sixteen Apprentices of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the Story having secretly learnt a new Play without Book intituled The Hog hath lost his Pearl took up the White-Fryers for their Theatre and having invited thither as it should seem rather their Mistresses then their Masters who were all to enter per buletini for a note of distinction from ordinary Comedians Towards the end of the Play the Sheriffs who by chance had heard of it came in as they say and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last Act at Bridewel the rest are fled Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the City is for they will needs have Sir Iohn Swinerton the Lord Maior be meant by the Hog and the late Lord Treasurer by the Pearl And now let me bid you good night from my Chamber in King-street this Tuesday at Eleven of the night Your faithfullest to serve you H. WOTTON Francesco hath made a proof of that Green which you sent me against which he taketh this exception That being tryed upon Glass which he esteemeth the best of tryals it is not translucent arguing as he saith too much density of the matter and consequently less quickness and spirit then in colours of more tenuity Cambridge Sunday at Night SIR TO divert you from thinking on my faults I will entertain you with some News out of a Letter which I have here received from Venice of much consequence divers wayes The Bishop of Bamberge a Practical Almain Prelate of which kind there be enough of that Coat though not in that Countrey was treating in Rome a League against the Protestant Princes of Germany with whom His Majesty you know was first by Articles and is now by alliance more nearly confederate His Commission he had from the Emperour Sâ—…tto parole tacite as they call it Now while this matter was there moulding a Chiaus arrives at the Emperours Court with a Letter from the Turk importing a denuntiation of VVar grounded upon a heap of complaints easily found out between Princes that do not intend to agree And accordingly the Turk is departed in Person from Constantinople into Hungary with great Forces as my Friend writeth on a morning quando nevicava a furia by which appeareth the sharpness of the humour having made a leavy before his going of 5000 youths out of the Seragli a thing never seen before He hath left behind him Nasuf Bassa as President of his affairs who told the Batolo of Verice there resident that his Master was but gone to hunt and seemeth to have held the same language with the other Ambassadors whether out of meet wantonness of conceit or as esteeming a war with Christians but a sport in respect of that which he had newly concluded with the Persian I know not howsoever this is likely to quash the Bishops business and I fear it will fall heavy upon Germany which first in it self was never more dis-united and besides the Emperour in small good will with thâ—…se that should help him It will likewise in my conjecture hasten the departure of the Count Palatine or at least if it so please him it may well serve his turn for that purpose This is all that I have for your entertainment To morrow morning I depart hence towards London whence I determine to write by every Carrier to you till I bring my self In your last you mentioned a certain Courtier that seemeth to have spoken somewhat harshly of me I have a guess at the man and though for him to speak of such as I am in any kind whatsoever was a favour yet I wonder how I am fallen out of his estimation for it is not long since he offered me a fair Match within his own Tribe and much addition to her Fortune out of his private bounty When we meet all the world to nothing we shall laugh and in truth Sir this world is worthy of nothing else In the mean time and ever our sweet Saviour keep us in his love Your poor faithfull Friend and Servant H. WOTTON March the last 1613. SIR I Returned from Cambridge to London some two hours after the King The next day was celebrated with twenty Tilters wherein there entred four fraternities the Earls Pembroke and Mongommery my Lord Walden Thomas and Henry Hawards the two Riches and the two Alexanders as they are called though falsly like many things else in a Court. The rest were Lenox Arundel Rutland Dorset Chandowes North Hey Dingwel Clifford Sir Thomas Sommerset and Sir Iohn Harrington The day fell out wet to the disgrace of many fine Plumes Some Caparisons seen before adventured to appear again on the Stage with a little disguisement even on the back of one of the most curious So frugal are the times or so indigent The two Riches only made a Speech to the King the rest were contented with bare Imprese wherof some were so dark that their
Berge should command the Armies in chief under the Infanta If this be so there will be there Bella plusquam Civilia for you know he is near of blood to the Prince of Orenge though he hath some a little nearer for he hath one or two by his own Sister as I remember they told me in his Town of Maestrick The other employment of the Marquess is a Counsel plainly taken rather from necessity then reason For otherwise jealousie of State would hardly commit so much power to a Genouese in the Confines of his own Country unless I have forgotten my foreign Maxims I have my head towards Kent vvith a hope to see you first there and afterwards at our Election which will be the third of August And so vvith my humble and hearty remembrance to that best of Men and noblest of Ladies I rest This Munday night late 1629. Il suisceratissi manente vostro H. WOTTON SIR ALthough I intend to write again speedily and at a little more ease unto you by Iames and then to send you and Sir Gervase Clifton the Copy of a Letter vvhich Giovanni tells me you both desire yet lest you should send over your Frank vvho hath from you all his sails and fraught vvithout part of his balast from me I have hastened the inclosed Letters unto your hand vvith the Copy of mine to the Queen of Bohemia the other are ad hanc formam I could vvish that he vvould begin vvith Iack Dinely and slide first unseen to Leyden vvho vvill bring him thence to the Queen and acquaint him with all due respects I have written to the Countess of Levistain to cherish him also a great and assiduous Lady with the Queen and by Title my noble Secretary This is all that I need say at the present Doctor Sharpe and I do threaten you the next Christmass In the mean while From the Colledge this Tuesday 1629. Your humble Servant H. WOTTON Optimo virorum and to his most worthy Lady S. SIR THe very truth is your love hath prevented me for I meant by Giovanni to give you some account of what hath passed since our divorcement When I had slept half an hour after you were gone from Darford I found my self fresco come una rosa but I awaked in a strange dream that had seldom before befaln me in an Inn finding nothing to be paid not so much as for mine own Horses whereby the reason was plain of the paleness of my water which you observed for none of the tincture of my gold was gone into the reckoning of the drink as you had handled the matter At the top of Shooters-hill my Foot-man staid as if he had been watching the Beacon rather then for me and told me there were good provisions made at Sir Adam Newtons for you and me with kind expectation of us both But my self being desirous to reach Eton that night as I did for my horses I see travel best upon another mans purse I blanched the house and sent thither by Giovanni a fair excuse True it is we are much of a humour Cento Bue will hardly draw us in a journey to any strange place At that time likewise Will brought me a Letter from Mr. Griffith which had been expresly sent to Grâ—…esend the night before whereby I saw Giovanni had taken a false alarm for he was not to be gone till the Munday morning following so as I have had time to ballast him with Letters And I have intimated beforehand to your Jack Dinely your purpose to pass over the spiritous Frank as soon as you can trick him We are now towards the Festival of our Election wherein annually I make a shift to lose four or five Friends and yet do my self no good so as they are angry with me on the one side and they laugh at me on the other I apprehend this year a great poverty of Venison with us for I came too late to exchange your Warrant and my Lady Throckmortons will not serve my turn Since my coming Mr. Turvil a French practical man of good erudition hath passed a day or two with me from vvhom I hear a shrewd point That the oath of peace which should have been taken between the two neighbouring Kings upon the same day is put off for a moneth I believe the stop be in France to gain time to disturb our Treaty with Spain Mr. Pim a man whose ears are open told me likewise yesterday a strange thing that the Queen of Bohemia hath newly being hunting been chased away her self with some affrightment from Rhenen by certain Troops of the enemy that have passed the Isel With whom it was feared the Count Henry Venden Borge would joyn and ravage the Velow Yet withal were come tidings that the Prince of Orenge at the Buss had had parly offered him But my intelligences are Cistern-waters you are nearer the Fountain And not only Dulcius ex ipso Fonte bibuntur aquae but verius too For both will stand in the verse Before I end let me beseech you to remember my humble and hearty devotion in the very style of Seneca to his Lucilius and I shall need to say no more Optimo Virorum I envy your enjoyments and conversations and most when they are privatest for then they are freest I hope the Noble Lady will return quickly again to her Hesperian Garden To whom I pray likewise let my humble service be remembred And so I rest From the Colledge this Wednesday night 1629. Excepto quod non simul esses caetera laetus H. WOTTON To the Queen of Bohemia May it please your Majesty THis Bearer is that Lad by name Frank Bacon for whom your Majesties intercession with the Prince of Orenge hath bound so many unto you here It is your goodness that hath done it and therefore he is addressed by his Friends and by me who am the meanest of them first thorow your Gracious hands and laid down at your Royal feet There is in him I believe mettal enough to be cast into good form and I hope it is of the noblest sort which is ever the most malleable and pliant Only one thing I fear that coming from a Country life into the lustre of Courts he will be more troubled with it then with the hissing of Bullets Now when I consider as I do at the present that besides your Majesties ancienter favours towards me and to them that have been and are so dear unto me some gone and some remaining you have lately received the Child of my very worthy Friend Mr. Griffith about the Prince your Son and honoured this other with your especial recommendation in such a forcible and express manner as you were pleased to do it I say when I consider all this I cannot but fall into some passionate questions with mine own heart Shall I die without seeing again my Royal Mistress my self Shall I not rather bring her my most humble thanks then let them thus drop
sport of my modesty leaving me in bad case and the world so as though we now know by what Arts he lived yet are we ignorant to this hour by what Religion he died save only that it could not be good which was not worthy the professing This free passage let me commit to your noble brest remembring that in confidence of the receiver I have transgressed a late Counsel of mine own which I gave to a young friend who asking me casually of what he should make him a sute as he was passing this way towards London I told him that in my opinion he could not buy a cheaper nor a more lasting stuff there then silence For I loved him well and was afraid of a little freedome that I spied in him And now Sir I must needs conclude or I shall burst with letting you know that I have divers things in wilde sheets that think and struggle to get out of several kinds some long promised and some of a newer conception but a poor exercise of my Pen wherewith I shall only honour my self by the dedication thereof unto your own person is that which shall lead the way by mine and your good leave intending if God yield me his favour to Print it before it be long in Oxford and to send you thence or bring you a Copy to our Redgrave What the subject is you must not know before hand for I fear it will want all other grace if it lose virginity And so the Lord of all abundant joy keep you long con quella buona Ciera which this my Servant did relate unto me Who live at all your commands H. WOTTON From your Colledge this Ashwednesday 1637. Postscript Mr. Clever one of the now Fellows of this Colledge where have been divers changes since it had the honour and the gladness to receive you being this day returned hither from the Excellent Lord Keeper to whom we had addressed him about a business that concerneth us Tells me even at this instant in the account of his journey that it pleased his good Lordship to enquire of him twice or thrice very graciously touching my health I beseech you My Noble Nephew let his Lordship see if it please you this whole Letter for I dare trust his indulgent goodness both with my liberties and with my simplicities and that will tell him my present Estate which by making it any part of his care is for ever at his most humble service Noble Sir above all the most honoured and loved UPon the receipt of a Letter from you which came late and I know not by what misadventure half drowned to my hands with advertisement that you had been at Sudbury in your passage homewards assailed with a Quartan I resolved immediately to visit you by this Bearer the best of my flights and lately well acquainted himself with farther travellers who yet hath been kept here after my said resolution that he might bring you a full account of the business touching my inviolate Neece so dear unto us both which was a part of your foresaid Letter and wherein I am confident you will receive very singular contentment out of the very Originals of some and true Copies of other Letters which I send you by this my said inward servant and if he were not so I would not have intrusted him with so tender Papers The rest of his stay was only that I might collect among my poor memorials and experiments something conducible to the recovery of your health wherein I reckon my self as much interessed as in any one thing of this world I will not say unto you Courage as the French use to speak for you have enough of that within your self Nor Be merry in our English phrase for you can impart enough of that even to others in the incomparable delight of your conversation But let me give you two comforts though needless to the serenity of your spirits The first That I hope your infirmity will not hold you long because it comes as I may speak according to the barbarous Translators of Avicenna In complexionato suo that is in the very season of the revolution of melancholick humours for Omnis Morbus contra complexionatum Patientis vel Temporis est periculosus aut longus The other That it hath not succeeded any precedent caustick disease because those Quartans are of all the most obstinate which arise out of the Incineration of a former Ague The rest I have committed to the instructions and memory of this Bearer being himself a Student in Physick and though I dare not yet call him a good Counsellor yet I assure you it is a good Relator with this dispatch I will intermingle no other vulgar subject but hereafter I will entertain you with as jolly things as I can scamble together And so Sir for the present commending you into the sweet and comfortable preservation of our dear God I rest Your faithful poor Servant H. WOTTON From the Colledge Novemb. 6. 1638. My Noble Honoured Loved ever Remembred ever Desired Nephew I Shall give to morrow morning Matthew Say our Boat-man before his going a shilling and promise him another at his return to deliver this small packet with his own hands at the Green-Dragon in Bishopsgate-street according to the form of your address not for any value of mine own Papers but for some things therein contained which I wish may come safely and quickly to you And first I send you your immortal Uncles Confession of his Faith which I did promise you at Canterbury solidly and excellently couched as whatsoever else had the happiness to fall under his Meditation and Pen. Next you receive a Letter freshly written me from Cambridge with mention God bless us of a Jesuite of your name who seems as all that comes from any of you is piercing to have sent over lately some pretty insinuative Book in matter of Theological Controversie perchance better dressed then any before and with more relish commended to the vulgar taste but I believe it will be the same to the stomack for well they may change their form but it is long since we have heard their substance over and over still the same ad fastidium usque I shall languish to know how he toucheth upon your Name and stirp The Name of my friend who writ me the said Letter I have defaced for the censure of some other things therein which I should be sorry to adventure at large but you shall know him from me hereafter and believe it he will be worth your knowing I cannot forbear to tell you a thing I know not whether I should call it news because it is nearer you then to us but strange in truth written me from the said University at the same time by the Provost of Kings Colledge there between whom and me doth pass much familiar correspondency It is of a weekly Lecture there performed heretosore by the Person of Mr. Christopher Goad and lately deposed with
singular virtue and piety and resolution in good but likewise to consider him relatively he is an excellent Husband Brother and Friend I call Favorites the Friends of Kings as your Majesty who is so well versed in the best of Books knows I may do with very good warrant For was not Hushai the Archite so styled to David and after him Zahud to Solomon Nay had not the Highest of all Examples in the time of his Humane lowness both among the living a Beloved that lay on his bosome and another also whom he calls his Friend even when he called him from the dead Thus much I could not abstain to let fall from my pen by the way against all murmurers at any singularity of affection which abound both in States and Families But of these three Relations I will now only contemplate that which respecteth your Majesty which indeed is as clear and visible as the rest For surely all the Parliaments that our most Gracious Sovereign hath hitherto assembled and all the Actions that he hath undertaken abroad either of himself or by combinations and his private Counsels at home have principally levelled at your support and restorement as the Deliberations likewise that went before in the latter time of your most blessed Father So as your Majesty in the justness of your Cause and in the sweetness of your Nature doth stand firmly invested in both the titles of as beloved a Sister as you were a Daughter And I am confident that our living and loving God who did accept the zeal of your Royal Brother and bless his own and the publick devotions at home with almost a miraculous conversion of the infirmity which raged into health and of the sterility which was feared into plenty will likewise find his own good time to favour our pursuits abroad Your Majesties second comfort is the universal love of all good Minds To which I may justly add a particular zeal in him who is nearest his Majesty to foment his best desires towards you which he hath expressed sundry times within my hearing The last and inwardest consolation that I can represent unto your Majesty is your self your own soul your own vertues your own Christian constancy and magnanimity Whereby your Majesty hath exalted the glory of your sex conquered your affections and trampled upon your adversities To conclude you have shewed the World that though you were born within the chance yet without the power of fortune And so having sought to redeem so long a silence I tear with too long a trouble I will promise your Majesty to commit no more of the former fault and humbly beg your pardon for the other ever and ever remaining Your Majesties poor Servant with all humble and hearty devotion HENRY WOTTON To my most dear and worthy Friend Mr. John Dinely at the Hague My ever most dear Jack Dinely THe Queens last Letter wherewith her Majesty did too much honour me coming when my voices of any value were no more in mine own power was nearer a torment then a surprizal It shall teach me to reserve my self as wiser men do for such supervenient temptations I must confess above all strength if the least possibility had been lest It is true I could have given him a latter place but in that I should have disgraced the suiter and disrespected the Commander I have therefore rather chosen to put him in the Vanguard the next year being the Son of a Souldier then now in the Rear And this is the summe of my humble answer to her Majesty though in other terms Your Anthony who is my Guest every Saturday night is well grown in stature and more in knowledge I verily believe he will prove both a wise and learned man and certainly good We have passed over quocunque modo the most troublesome Election that I think was here ever seen Wherein according to my usual fashion I have lost four or five friends and yet I thank God not gotten the value of one Harrington So as they are angry at me on the one side and they laugh at me on the other If my most gracious Mistress will in her goodness be pleased to drown her displeasure till the next turn I shall chearfully in the mean time bear the weight of mine own simplicity I have gotten with much adoe some of the Psalms translated by my late most blessed Master for the young Prince of Bohemia which is one of your memorials that have slept too long by me and I have ransacked mine own poor Papers for some entertainment for the Queen which shall be sent together Though it be now a misery to revisit the fancies of my youth which my judgement tells me are all too green and my glass tells me that my self am gray Till my next let me trouble you no farther The love of God be with us and we are well Your poor true Friend HENRY WOTTON From the Colledge at midnight the 12. of August 1628. I hear that one hath offered to the Prince of Orenge an invention of discoursing at a great distance by Lights Is it true A Noble Lady who is desirous to bestow her Son at Leyden would fain be first informed what commodity for education the place doth yield wherein you shall do me and her a great favour To my very worthy and ever dear Friend Mr. John Dinely at the Hague My ever dear Jack Dinely YOur last of the 6th of October vvere vvelcome beyond all expression intimating a hope that I shall see your self shortly vvhich vvill be mille Epistolae I do not see how you can fail of the thing vvhereof you vvrite if you come quickly The Letter in your behalf from our Royal Mistress to his Majesty here is too faint being moulded in your own modesty Therefore I have a little invaded it vvith some violence unto you When you consult vvith me about the Personage that should first or second or tertiate your business vvith the King I must answer as Demosthenes did of Action My Lord Thresorer My Lord Thresorer and so again We contemplate him not only in the quality of his Place but already in some degree of a Privado and even the fresh introducement of Sir F. Cottington to the Counsel-Table is no small argument of his strength though otherwise a Subject of merit I hear likewise that his own sorraign imployments have given him a great taste of things abroad So as you vvill not find him incurious to discourse vvith you And I verily believe that he vvill take an address of you from the Queen unto him as the principal Personage to the heart vvherein methinks it vvere fit and proper that her Majesty vvould be pleased likewise to favour you vvith some lines to my Lord Conaway because they vvere joyned in Ambassage unto Her at Prage This is all that I shall need to say till your own coming Your little Anthony prospers extreamly vvell and I dare now say he vvill prove a good Scholar And
so being in truth in no very chearfull disposition at the present but newly come out of two or three fits of an Ague I vvill trouble neither of us both any further ever resting From London ready to return to my Coll. at Eton this 13. of Nov. 1628. Your poor professed Friend HENRY WOTTON If the Queen have not heard the Epitaph of Albertus Morton and his Lady it is vvorth her hearing for the passionate plainness He first deceas'd She for a little tryed To live vvithout him Lik'd it not and died POSTSCRIPT In a Letter under this date to her Majesty I conclude vvith a supplication that She vvill be pleased to receive a Page at the joynt suit of the House of Bacons A Boy of singular spirits vvithout aggravation of her charge for he shall vvant no means to maintain himself in good fashion about so Royal a Mistress I pray heartily further this motion and be in it your self Nuncius laetitiarum Part of a Letter to the Lord Treasurer Earl of Portland ut videtur THis is the reckoning of my unpleasant time whereby your Lordship sees that my silence hath been a symptome as I may term it of my infirmity from all outward respects and duties contracting my thoughts about my self But can that serve my turn No in troth my good Lord For I should while my self was in contemplation have remembred that I was bound to congratulate with your Lordship even for mine own sake especially when I found by the long use of two or three Physicians the exhaustion of my Purse as great as other evacuations It would breed wrinckles in my face if I should stay any longer upon this point I will chear my self that your Lordship did love me even before I was so worthy of your compassion I have tasted the benefit of your discourse I have enjoyed your hospitality I have been by your favour one of your familiar guests I have had leave to interchange some good tales and stories in your company and to exercise my natural freedom Besides we have been conjoyned in a serious business wherein I do even yet hope for some good by your means So as I have had in your Lordship the interests both of earnest and of pleasant conversation which gives me the boldness to assure my self that I am still not only within your Lordships remembrance but likewise within your loving care But I dig in a Rock of Diamonds To the KING 1628. May it please Your most Sacred Majesty IT is more to be bound to Your Majesties judgement then to be bound to Your favour Therefore I do not only joy but glory though still with humble acknowledgement and feeling what my self am that You have been pleased as I understand from my Lord of Dorchester to apply my Pen to so noble an end being confident that the very care not to disgrace Your Majesties good pleasure and indulgent choice of me will invigorate my weakness But before I enter into the description of others actions and fortunes which require a free spirit I must present at Your Royal feet and even claim from Your natural equity and goodness such compensation as it shall please You in that which followeth I served the King Your Father of most blessed memory from the time he sent for me at the beginning of his Raign out of France retaining then some gracious remembrance of my service with him in Scotland twenty years that is almost now a third part of my life in ordinary and extraordinary imployments abroad I had many comfortable Letters of his contentment or at least of his gracious toleration of my poor endeavours And I had under his own Royal hand two hopes in reversion The first a moiety of a six Clerks place in Chancery The next of the Office of the Rolls it self The first of these I was forced to yield to Sir William Beecher upon the late Duke of Buckingham's former engagement unto him by promise even after Your Majesty had been pleased to intercede for me with Your said ever blessed Father And that was as much in value as my Provostship were worth at a Market The other of the Reversion of the Rolls I surrendred to the said Duke in the Gallery at Wallingford-House upon his own very instant motion the said Duke then intending it upon the now Attorney Sir Robert Heath though with serious promise upon his honour that he would procure me some equivalent recompence before any other should be setled in the place The truth of my humble claim and of his sincere intentions towards me I present herewith unto Your Majesty in a Letter all under his own hand I could likewise remember unto Your Majesty the losses I have sustained abroad by taking up moneys for my urgent use at more then twenty in the hundred by casualty of fire to the damage of near four hundred pounds in my particular by the raising of moneys in Germany whereby my small allowance when I was sent to the Emperors Court fell short five hundred pounds as Seignor Burlamachi too well knoweth and other wayes Now for all this that I may not press Your Majesty with immoderate desires I most humbly beg from Your Royal equity and I may say from Your very compassion but two things First That Your Majesty will be pleased in disposing of the Rolls to which I was assigned to reserve for me some small proportion towards the discharge of such debts as I contracted in publick service yet remaining upon interest Next That You will be likewise pleased to promise me the next good Deanry that shall be vacant by death or remove whereof I also had a promise from Your blessed Father then at Newmarket and am now more capable thereof in my present condition And thus shall Your Majesty restore me both to the freedom of my thoughts and of my life otherwise so intricated that I know not how to unfold it And so with my continual prayers to the Almighty for his dearest and largest blessings upon Your Royal Person I ever rest Whitehall Feb. 12. Styl vet 1628. Your Majesties most faithfull poor Subject and Servant HENRY WOTTON To my most worthy Friend Mr. John Dinely Esq at Boston in Lincolnshire My dear Jack Dinely YOu see I keep my familiarity though you be the governor of Princes And I see by your Letter that I am every where in your remembrance even where so many natural pledges divide you The Parliament is since your going dissolved by the King upon such reason as in good faith all sober minds must approve even while they wish it otherwise Never was there such a morning as that which occasioned the dissolution since Phacton did guide his Fathers Chariot We are now cheared with some forraign news but I am still sorry that we must fetch our comfort from abroad and from the discords of Italy instead of the harmony of England Our Lords sit often and vvere never more close insomuch as it is as