Henry Wotton whose Life I novv intend to vvrite vvas born in the Year of our Redemption 1568. in Bocton-hall commonly called Bocton or Bougton place or Palace in the Parish of Bocton Malherb in the fruitful Country of Kent Bocton-hall being an ancient and goodly Structure beautifying and being beautified by the Parish Church of Bocton Malherb adjoyning unto it and both seated vvithin a fair Park of the Wottons on the Brovv of such a Hill as gives the advantage of a large Prospect and of equal pleasure to all Beholders But this House and Church are not remarkable for any thing so much as for that the memorable Family of the Wottons have so long inhabited the one and novv lie buried in the other as appears by their many Monuments in that Church the Wottons being a Family that hath brought forth divers Persons eminent for Wisdom and Valour vvhose Heroick Acts and Noble Employments both in England and in Foreign parts have adorned themselves and this Nation which they have served abroad faithfully in the discharge of their great trust and prudently in their Negotiations with several Princes and also served at home with much Honour and Justice in their wise managing a great part of the Publick Affairs thereof in the various times both of War and Peace But lest I should be thought by any that may incline either to deny or doubt this Truth not to have observed moderation in the commendation of this Family and also for that I believe the merits and memory of such Persons ought to be thankfully recorded I shall offer to the consideration of every Reader out of the testimony of their Pedegree and our Chronicles a part and but a part of that just Commendation which might be from thence enlarged and shall then leave the indifferent Reader to judge whether my error be an excess or defect of Commendations Sir Robert Wotton of Bocton Malherb Knight vvas born about the Year of Christ 1460 he living in the Reign of King Edward the Fourth vvas by him trusted to be Lieutenant of Guisnes to be Knight Porter and Comptroller of Callais where he died and lies honourably buried Sir Edward Wotton of Bocton Malherb Knight Son and Heir of the said Sir Robert was born in the Year of Christ 1489 in the Reign of King Henry the Seventh he was made Treasurer of Callais and of the Privy Councel to King Henry the Eight who offered him to be Lord Chancellor of England but saith Hollinshed out of a virtuous modesty he refused it Thomas Wotton of Bocton Malherb Esquire Son and Heir of the said Sir Edward and the Father of our Sir Henry that occasions this Relation was born in the Year of Christ 1521 he was a Gentleman excellently educated and studious in all the Liberal Arts in the knowledge whereof he attained unto a great perfection who though he had besides those abilities a very Noble and plentiful Estate and the ancient Interest of his Predecessors many invitations from Queen Elizabeth to change his Country Recreations and Retirement for a Courtoffering him a Knight-hood she vvas then vvith him at his Boctonhall and that to be but as an earnest of some more honourable and more profitable employment under Her yet he humbly refused both being a man of great modesty of a most plain and single heart of an ancient freedom and integrity of mind A commendation which Sir Henry Wotton took occasion often to remember with great gladness and thankfully to boast himself the Son of such a Father From whom indeed he derived that noble ingenuity that was always practised by himself and which he ever both commended and cherished in others This Thomas was also remarkable for Hospitality a great Lover and much beloved of his Country to which may justly be added that he was a Cherisher of Learning as appears by that excellent Antiquary Mr. William Lambert in his Perambulation of Kent This Thomas had four Sons Sir Edward Sir James Sir John and Sir Henry Sir Edward was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth and made Comptroller of Her Majesties Houshold He was saith Cambden a man remarkable for many and great Employments in the State during Her Reign and sent several times Ambassador into Foreign Nations After Her death he was by King James made Comptroller of his Houshold and called to be of His Privy Councel and by him advanced to be Lord Wotton Baron of Merley in Kent and made Lord Lieutenant of that County Sir James the second Son may be numbred among the Martial Men of his Age who was in the 38 of Queen Elizabeths Reign with Robert Earl of Sussex Count Lodowick of Nassaw Don Christophoro Son of Antonio King of Portugal and divers other Gentlemen of Nobleness and Valour Knighted in the Field near Cadiz in Spain after they had gotten great Honour and Riches besides a notable retaliation of Injuries by taking that Town Sir John being a Gentleman excellently accomplished both by Learning and Travel was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth and by Her look'd upon with more then ordinary favour and with intentions of preferment but Death in his younger years put a period to his growing hopes Of Sir Henry my following discourse shall give an account The descent of these fore-named Wottons were all in a direct Line and most of them and their actions in the memory of those with whom we have conversed But if I had looked so far back as to Sir Nicholas Wotton who lived in the Reign of King Richard the Second or before him upon divers others of great note in their several Ages I might by some be thought tedious and yet others may more justly think me negligent if I omit to mention Nicholas Wotton the fourth Son of Sir Robert whom I first named This Nicholas Wotton was Doctor of Law and sometime Dean both of York and Canterbury a man vvhom God did not only bless vvith a long life but vvith great abilities of mind and an inclination to imploy them in the service of his Countrey as is testified by his severall Imployments having been sent nine times Ambassador unto forraign Princes and by his being a Privy Councellor to King Henry the eighth to Edward the sixth to Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth vvho also after he had been during the Wars between England Scotland and France three several times and not unsuccessfully imployed in Committies for setling of peace betwixt this and those Kingdomes died saith learned Cambden full of Commendations for Wisdome and Piety He vvas also by the Will of King Henry the eighth made one of his Executors and chief Secretary of State to his Son that plous Prince Edward the sixth Concerning which Nicholas Wotton I shall say but this little more That he refused being offered it by Queen Elizabeth to be Arch bishop of Canterbury and that he died not rich though he lived in that time of the dissolution of Abbeys More might be added but by this it may appear
violence on the ground hurting only the hindermost part of his head by what possibility we cannot conceive unless the motion of the Coach did turn him round in the fall The force of the concussion took from him for some hour or thereabouts the use of his voice and sense which are now well restored only there yet remaineth in his left arm a kind of Paralitical stupefaction and his right eye-lid is all black with some knock that he took in the agitation of the Coach which peradventure may have been the motive to make him leap out But these external evils do not so much trouble us as an inward pungent and pulsatory ach withing the skull somewhat lower then the place of his hurt which hath continued more or less since his fall notwithstanding twice letting blood and some nights of good rest and shaving of his head for the better transpiration which we doubt the more because it cometh sine ratione his hurt being only in the flesâ—…y part and very sleight without fracture of the skull without inflammation without any Feaver and all the principal faculties as memory discourse imagination untainted The King hath in this time much consolated us both with sending unto him and with expressing publickly a gracious feeling of his case but we must fetch our true comforts from him who is Lord of the whole and so I leave it Since my last unto you I am sure you hear how Sir Robert Mansfield hath been twice or thrice convented before the Lords and committed to the Marshalsie partly for having consulted with Mr. Whitlock the Lawyer about the validity of a Commission drawn for a re-search into the Office of the Admiralty whereof himself is an Accomptant and partly for denying to reveal the name of the said Lawyer his Friend who before had been committed to the Fleet for another case much of the same nature The point toucheth a limb of the Kings Prerogative and immediate Authority Sir Robert Mansfield's Answers by report had as much of the Philosopher or of the Hermite as of the Souldier or Courtier professing openly his little care of this World or of his own Fortunes in it and divers other phrases of that complexion Sir Thomas Overbury is still where he was and as he was without any alteration The Viscount Rochester yet no way sinking in the point of favour which are two strange consistents Sir R. Drury runneth at the Ring corbeteth his Horse before the Kings window haunteth my Lord of Rochesters Chamber even when himself is not there and in secret divideth his observances between him and the House of Suffolk And all this they say to be Embassador at Bruxels So as super uta materia I see appetites are not all of a kind Some go to the Tower for the avoiding of that which another doth languish to obtain I will end with my Paper and by the next Carrier either tell you precisely when I shall see you or prevent the telling of it And so our sweet Saviour bless you and my dear Niece H. WOTTON SIR BY the next Carrier for yet I must say so again you shall hear when this Embassador will be gone The mean while let me entertain you with the inclosed Paper which the Duke of Savoy hath published in his own defence joyning together the Sword and Reason Sir Robert Mansfield is still in restraint Sir Thomas Overbury not only out of liberty as he was but almost now out of Discourse We have lately started at a dispatch from Ireland importing a variance there about the choice of a Speaker in the summoned Parliament which came to so sharp a point that the Deputy was fain to fetch wisdome from hence Sure it is that the humours of that Kingdome are very hovering and much awaked with an apprehension taken that we mean to fetter them with Laws of their own making which in tâ—…th were an ingenious strain of State My 〈◊〉 and Lady are stollen down into Kent for a few dayes to take in some fresh air They go not this next Progress if my Brother can get leave of the King to see his Grand-children where he intends to spend some fortnight and the rest of the time between Boughton and Canterbury A Match treated and managed to a fair probability between my Lord Cook 's Heir and the second Daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton is suddenly broken the said Lord Cook having underhand entertained discourse about the Daughter of the late Sir Thomas Bartlet who in defect of her Brother shall be Heir of that Name I have nothing more to say and therefore God keep you and my sweet Neice in his continual love Your poor Uncle faithfull Friend and willing Servant H. WOTTON Albertus God be thanked groweth better and better and in the midst of his own pains hath remembred those in Suffolk whom we both so much honour SIR IN my last I told you that the Ambassador of Savoy was to meet the Queen at Windsor which pains she hath spared him by her own coming yesternight to Greenwich where I think she will settle her self a day or two before she admit him Now seeing the time of the Commencement at Cambridge so near as it is and being able to determine of this Ambassadors departure within that space I have resolved to take those Philosophical exercises in my way to you hoping in the mean time to see Albertus admitted by Oath to a Clarkship of the Council or at least to the next vacancy for he is now strong enough again to swear Sir Robert Mansfield and Mr. Whitlock were on Saturday last called to a very honourable hearing in the Queens Presence Chamber at Whitehall before the Lords of the Council with intervention of my Lord Cook the Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer and Master of the Rolls the Lord chief Justice being kept at home with some infirmity There the Attorny and Sollicitor first undertook Mr. Whitlock and the Recorder as the Kings Sergeant Sir Robert Mansfield charging the one as a Counsellor the other as a questioner in matters of the Kings Prerogative and Soveraignty upon occasion of a Commission intended for a research into the administration of the Admiralty against vvhich the said Sir Robert Mansfield being himself so principal an Officer therein had sought some provision of advice and This vvas the summe of the charge vvhich vvas diversly amplified Whitlock in his answer spake more confusedly then vvas expected from a Lawyer and the Knight more temperately then vvas expected from a Souldier There vvas likewise some difference noted not only in the manner but in the substance between them For Whitlock ended his speech vvith an absolute confession of his own offence and vvith a promise of imploying himself hereafter in defence of the Kings prerogative Sir Robert Mansfield on the other side laboured to distinguish between the errour of his acts and the integrity of his zeal and affection towards the King his Master protesting he should hold
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
procurations of Priviledges and Courtesies with the German Princes and the Republick of Venice for the English Merchants and vvhat he did by direction of King James vvith the Venetian State concerning the Bishop of Spalato's return to the Church of Rome But for the particulars of these and many more that I meant to make known I vvant a vievv of some Papers that might inform me his late Majesties Letter Office having now suffered a strange alienation and indeed I want time too for the Printers Press stays for what is written so that I must haste to bring Sir Henry Wotton in an instant from Venice to London leaving the Reader to make up what is defective in this place by the small supplement of the Inscription under his Arms which he left at all those Houses where he rested or lodged when he return'd from his last Embassy into England Henricus Wottonius Anglo-Cantianus Thomae optimi viri 〈◊〉 minimus à serenissimo Jacobo Iâ—… Mag. Britâ—… Râ—…ge in equestrem titulum adscitus ejusdemqâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ublicam Venetam Legatus Ordinarius â—…mel ad confoeder at 〈◊〉 Provinciarum Ordines in Juliacensi â—…tio Bis ad Carolum Emanuel Sabâ—…diae Dâ—… semel ad unitos superioris Germaniae Principes in Coâ—…ventu Heilbrunensi postremo ad Archiducem Leopoldum Ducem Wittembergensem Civitates imperialâ—…s Argentinam Ulmamqueâ—… ipsum Romanorum Imperatorem Ferdinandum secundum Legatus Extraordinarius tandem hoc didicit Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo To London he came the year before King James died who having for the reward of his forreign service promised him the reversion of an Office which was fit to be turned into present money which he wanted for a supply of his present necessities and also granted him the reversion of the Master of the Rolls place if he out-lived charitable Sir Julius Caesar who then possessed it and then grown so old that he was said to be kept alive beyond Natures Course by the prayers of those many poor which he daily relieved But these were but in hope and his condition required a present support For in the beginning of these imployments he sold to his elder Brother the Lord Wotton the Rent-charge left by his good Father and which is worse was now at his return indebted to several persons whom he was not able to satisfie but by the Kings payment of his Arrears due for his forreign Imployments He had brought into England many servants of which some were German and Italian Artists this was part of his condition who had many times hardly sufficient to supply the occasions of the day For it may by no means be said of his providence as himself said of Sir Philip Sidney's wit That it was the very measure of congruity He being alwayes so careless of money as though our Saviours words Care not for to morrow were to be literally understood But it pleased the God of providence that in this jucture of time the Provosthip of His Mayesties Colledge of Eaton became void by the death of Mr. Thomas Murray for which there were as the place deserv'd many earnest and powerfull Suiters to the King And Sir Henry who had for many years like Siciphas rolled the restless stone of a State-imployment knowing experimentally that the great blessing of sweet content was not to be found in multitudes of men or business and that a Colledge was the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts and to afford rest both to his body and mind which his age being now almost threescore years seemed to require did therefore use his own and the interest of all his friends to procure that place By which means and quitting the King of his promised reversionary Offices and a piece of honest policy which I have not time to relate he got a Grant of it from His Majesty And this was a fair satisfaction to his mind but money was wanting to furnish him with those necessaries which attend removes and a settlement in such a place and to procure that he wrote to his old friend Mr. Nicholas Pey for his assistance of which Nicholas Pey I shall here say a little for the clearing of some passages that I shall mention hereafter He was in his youth a Clerk or in some such way a Servant to the Lord Wotton Sir Henry's Brother and by him when he was Comptroller of the Kings Houshold was made a great Officer in His Majesties House This and other favours being conferred upon Mr. Pey in whom there was a radieal honesty were alwayes thankfully acknowledged by him and his gratitude exprest by a willing and unwearied serviceableness to that Family even till his death To him Sir Henry Wottâ—… wrote to use all his interest at Court to procure Five hundred pounds of his Arrears for leâ—… would not settle him in the Colledge and the want of such a summe wrinckled his face with care 't was his own expression and that money being procured he should the next day after find him in his Colledge and Invidiae remedium writ over his Study door This money being part of his Arrears was by his own and the help of honest Nicholas Pey's interest in Court quickly procured him and he 〈◊〉 quickly in the Colledge the place where indeed his happiness then seemed to have its beginning the Colledge being to his mind as a quiet Harbor to a Sea-faring man after a tempestuous voyage where by the bounty of the pious Founder his very Food and Rayment were plentifully provided for him in kind and more money then enough where he was freed from all corroding cares and seated on such a Rock as the waves of want could not probably shake where he might sit in a Caelm and looking down behold the busie multitude turmoyl'd and tossed in a tempestuous Sea of trouble and dangers And as Sir William Davenant has happily exprest the like of another person Laugh at the graver business of the State Which speaks wen rather wise then fortunate Being thus setled according to the desires of his heart his first study was the Statutes of the Colledge by which he conceiv'd himself bound to enter into Holy Orders which he did being made Deacon with all convenient speed shortly after which time as he came in his Surplice from the Church service an old Friend a person of Quality met him so attired and joyed him of his new habit to whom Sir Henry Wotton replied I thank God and the King by whose goodness I now am in this condition a condition which that Emperor Charles the Fifth seem'd to approve who after so many remarkable Victories when his glory was great in the eyes of all men freely gave up his Crown and the many cares that attended it to Philip his Son making a holy retreat to a Cloysteral life where he might by devout meditations consult with God which the rich or busie men seldome do and have leisure both to examine the errors of his life past and
Heraclitus bewaiâ—…ing and Democritus laughing at the world Mâ—… humbly beseeching the said Lord Archbishop his Gracâ—… and the Lord Bishop of London of both whose favours have tasted in my life time to intercede with our most grâ—… cious Soveraign after my death in the bowels of Jesâ—… Christ That out of compassionate memory of my loâ—… Services wherein I more studied the publick Honouâ—… then mine own Utility some Order may be taken out 〈◊〉 my Arrears due in the Exchequer for such satisfaction 〈◊〉 my Creditors as those whom I have Ordained Supervisâ—… of this my last Will and Testament shall present unto thâ—… Lordships without their farther trouble Hoping likâ—… wise in his Majesties most indubitable Goodness that will keep me from all prejudice which I may otherâ—… suffer by any defect of formality in the Demand of my sâ—… Arrears To for a poor addition to his Cabiâ—… I leave as Emblems of his attractive Vertues and Oâ—… ging Nobleness my great Loadstone and a piece Amber of both kinds naturally united and only differiâ—… in degree of Concoction which is thought somewhat raâ—… Item A piece of Christal Sexangular as they grâ—… all grasping divers several things within it which bought among the Rhaetian Alps in the very place where grew recommending most humbly unto his Lordship 〈◊〉 reputation of my poor Name in the point of my debts 〈◊〉 have done to the forenamed Spiritual Lords and am heartily sorry that I have no better token of my humble thankefulness to his honoured Person It ' I leave to Sir Francis Windebank one of his Majesties principal Secretaries of State whom I found my great friend in â—…oint of Necessity the four Seasons of old Bassano to â—…ang near the Eye in his Parlour being in little form which I bought at Venice where I first entred into his most worthy Acquaintance To the abovenamed Dr. Bargrave Dean of Canterbury I leave all my Italian Books not disposed in this Will I leave to him likewise my Viol de Gamba which hath been twice with me in Italy in which Countrey I first contracted with him an unremovable Affection To my other Supervisor Mr. Nicholas Pey I leave â—…y Chest or Cabinet of Instruments and Engines of all kinds of uses in the lower-box whereof are some sit to be bequeathed to none but so entire an honest man as he is I leave him â—…ikewise forty pound for his pains in te solicitation of my Arrears and am sorry that my ragged Estate can reach no further to one â—…hat hath taken such care for me in â—…he same kind during all my forâ—…eign Imployments To the Liâ—…rary at Eaton Colledge I leave all my Manuscripts not â—…efore disposed and to each of the Fellows a plain Ring of Gold enamel'd black all save the verge with this Motto within Amor unit omnia This is my last VVill and Testament save what â—…all be added by a Schedule thereunto annexed Written 〈◊〉 the first of October in the present year of our Redemption 1637. And subscribed by my self with the Testimony of these Witnesses HENRY VVOTTON Nich. Oudert Geo. Lash ANd now because the mind of man is best satisfied by the knowledge of Events I think 〈◊〉 to declare that every one that was named in his VVill did gladly receive their Legacies by which and his most just and passionate desires for the payment of his debts they joyned in assisting the Overseers of his VVill and by their joynt endeavours to the King then whom none was more willing conscionable satisfaction was given for his just debts The next thing wherewith I shall acquaint the Reader is That he went usually once a year iâ—… not oftner to the beloved Bocton-hall where he would say he found a cure for all cares by the chearfull company which he called the living furniture 〈◊〉 that place and a restoration of his strength by 〈◊〉 Connaturalness of that which he called his genial air He yearly went also to Oxford But the Summer before his death he changed that for a journey to Winchester-Colledge to which School he 〈◊〉 first removed from Bocton And as he returnâ—… from Winchester towards Eaton Colledge said 〈◊〉 a friend his Companion in that Journey Hâ—… usefull was that advice of a Holy Monk who perswâ—… his friend to perform his Customary devotions in 〈◊〉 constant place because in that place we usually meet with those very thoughts which possessed â—…s aâ—… our last being there And I find it thus far experimentally true that at my now being in that School and seeing that very place where I sate when I was a Boy occasioned me to remember those very thoughts of my youth which then possessed me sweet thoughts indeed that promised my growing years numerous pleasures without mixtures of cares and those to be enjoyed when time which I therefore thought slow pac'd had changed my youth into manhood But age and experience have taught me that those were but empty hopes For I have alwayes found it true as my Saviour did foretell Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof Nevertheless I saw there a succession of Boyes using the same recreations and questionless possessed with the same thoughts that then possessed me Thus one generation succeeds another both in their lives recreations hopes fears and deaths After his return from Winchester to Eaton vvhich vvas about five Moneths before his death he became much more retir'd and contemplative in vvhich time he vvas often visited by Mr. John Hales learned Mr. John Hales then a Fellow of that Colledge to vvhom upon an occasion he spake to this purpose I have in my passage to my grave met with most of those Joys of which a discoursive soul is capable and being entertain'd with more inferior pleasures then the sons of men are usually made partakers of nevertheless in this voyage I have not alwayes floated on the calm Sea of Content but have often met with cross winds and storms and with many troubles of mind and temptations to evil And yet though I have been and am a man compass'd about with humane frailties Almighty God hath by his grace prevented me from making shipwrack of faith and a good Conscience the thought of which is now the joy of my heart and I most humbly praise him for it And I humbly acknowledge that it was not my self but he that hath kept me to this great age and let him take the glory of his great mercy And my dear Friend I now see that I draw near my harbour of death that harbour that will secure me from all the future storms and waves of this restless world and I praise God I am willing to leave it and expect a better that world vvherein dwelleth Righteousness These and the like expressions vvere then utter'd by him at the beginning of a Feavourish distemper at vvhich time he vvas also troubled vvith an Asthma or short spitting but after less then twenty fits by the help of familiar Physick and a spare
he had likewise inward intelligence that at his approach the Wicket of the Castle should be opened unto him by one Palfy an Hungarian Gentleman vvhich conceit though perchance raised at first to animate the Souldier yet hath gotten much credit by seeing the enterprise against all discourse continued by day-light Be that point how it vvill his fatal hour vvas come for approaching a Skonce that lyes by the Castle-gate and turning about to cry for his men to come on he vvas shot in the lowest part of his Skull nearest his Neck after vvhich he spake no syllable as Don Carolo d' Austria second base Son to Rodolph the Emperour and himself at that time saved by the goodness of his Armour doth testifie After vvhich some two or three Souldiers attempting to bring away his Body and those being shot the rest gave it over and the vvhole Troops transported themselves to the other side leaving the Boats behind them as if they had meant to contribute new provision for the mending of the Bridge vvhereof they had only broken one little piece This vvas the end of the Count Tampier By his Fathers side a Norman by his Mothers a Champaigne a servant twenty two years to the House of Austria Himself Captain of a thousand Horse but Commander divers times in chief especially before the coming of the Count Bucquoy from vvhom he vvas severed to these nearer Services being of incompatible natures a valiant and plotting Souldier In Encounters more fortunate then Sieges Gracious to his own and terrible to the Hungarians To the present Emperour most dear though perchance as much for Civil as Military Merit for this vvas the very man that first seized upon the Cardinal Clesel vvhen he vvas put into a Coach and transported hence to Tirol So as now vve may expect some Pamphlet the next Mart from Ingolstat or Colen That no man can end vvell vvho hath laid violent hands upon any of those Roman Purpurati To this point I must adde two remarkable Circumstances The first that Tampier among other Papers found in his Pockets is said to have had a Memorial of certain Conditions vvhereon it should be fit to insist in his Parley vvith the Town as having already swallowed the Castle The other that his Head having been cut off by a Souldier and sold for five Dollars to another vvho meant to have the merit of presenting it to the Prince the Presenter vvas rewarded vvith a stroke of a Sable for insulting over the dead Carkass of a Gentleman of Honour Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Wotton My very good Cousin YOur Letter which I received from your Lordship upon your going to Sea was more then a compensation for any former omission and I shall be very glad to entertain a correspondence with you in both kinds which you write of for the latter whereof I am now ready for you having sent you some Ure of that Mine I thank you for your Favours to Mr. Mewtus and I pray continue the same So wishing you out of that honourable Exile and placed in a better Orb I ever rest York-house Octob. 20. 1620. Your Lordships affectionate Kinsman and assured Friend Fr. Verulam Canc. Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon Right Honourable and my very good Lord I Have your Lordships Letters dated the 20th of October and I have withal by the care of my Cousin Mr. Thomas Meawtis and by your own special favour three Copies of that Work wherewith your Lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the children of Nature and to Nature her self in her uttermost extent and latitude who never before had so noble nor so true an Interpreter or as I am readier to style your Lordship never so inward a Secretary of her Cabinet But of your said Work which came but this Week to my hands I shall find occasion to speak more hereafter having yet read only the first Book thereof and a few Aphorismes of the second For it is not a Banquet that men may superficially taste and put up the rest in their Pockets but in truth a solid feast which requireth due mastication Therefore when I have once my self perused the whole I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain hours in my domestick Colledge as an ancient Author For I have learned thus much by it already that we are extreamly mistaken in the computation of Antiquity by searching it backwards because indeed the first times were the youngest especially in points of natural discovery and experience For though I grant that Adam knew the natures of all Beasts and Solomon of all Plants not only more then any but more then all since their time Yet that was by divine infusion and therefore they did not need any such Organum as your Lordship hath now delivered to the world nor we neither if they had left us the memories of their wisdom But I am gone further then I meant in speaking of this excellent Labour while the delight yet I feel and even the pride that I take in a certain Congeniality as I may term it with your Lordships studies will scant let me cease And indeed I owe your Lordship even by promise which you are pleased to remember thereby doubly binding me some trouble this way I mean by the commerce of Philosophical Experiments which surely of all other is the most ingenuous Traffick Therefore for a beginning let me tell your Lordship a pretty thing which I saw coming down the Danuby though more remarkable for the Application then for the Theory I lay a night at Lintz the Metropolis of the higher Austria but then in very low estate having been newly taken by the Duke of Bavaria who blandiente fortunà was gone on to the late effects There I found Keplar a man famous in the Sciences as your Lordship knows to whom I purpose to convey from hence one of your Books that he may see we have some of our own that can honour our King as well as he hath done with his Harmanica In this mans study I was much taken with the draught of a Landskip on a piece of paper me thoughts masterly done whereof enquiring the Author he bewrayed with a smile it was himself adding he had done it Non tanquam Pictor sed tanquam Methematicus This set me on fire At last he told me how He hath a little black Tent of what stuff is not much importing which he can suddenly set up where he will in a Field and it is convertible like a Wind-mill to all quarters at pleasure capable of not much more then one man as I conceive and perhaps at no great ease exactly close and dark save at one hole about an inch and a half in the Diameter to which he applies a long perspective Trunk with the convex-glass fitted to the said hole and the concave taken out at the other end which extendeth to about the middle of this erected Tent through which the visible
wherein I am so much obliged by your confidence which in truth is the greatest of Obligations let me assure your Ladyship by all the protestations of a Christian man that I never heard before the least whispering of that whereof you write concerning my Niece Neither in good faith did I know so much as that there was a Lord T. Your Ladyship sees in what darkness or with what incuriosity I live I shall ere it be long be my self in Kent among my Friends but I vvill vvrite more speedily according to your command In the mean vvhile if I may be pardoned so much boldness I could vvish your Ladyship vvould take some hold of one vvell known in Court on both sides namely Master Nicolas Pey He is a right honest and discreet man in himself and of great trust vvith my Lady T. the Grand-mother under vvhom my Niece vvas bred and likewise vvith her Father and Mother and I am not tender that your Ladyship should tell him you have understood so much from me if it please you to send for him And so I most humbly rest Your Ladyships with all devotion to serve you H. WOTTON To Sir Richard Baker Knight SIR I Conceive that you have been pleased out of our ancient friendship vvhich was first and is ever best elemented in an Academy and not out of any valuation of my poor judgement to communicate vvith me your Divine Meditations on the Lords Prayer in some several sheets vvhich have given me a true taste of the vvhole vvherein I must needs observe and much admire the very Character of your Style vvhich seemeth unto me to have not a little of the African Idea of Saint Augustine's Age full of sweet Raptures and of researching Conceits nothing borrowed nothing vulgar and yet all flowing from you I knovv not hovv vvith a certain equal facility So as I see your vvorldly troubles have been but Pressing-Irons to your heavenly cogitations Good Sir let not any modesty of your Nature let not any obscurity of your Fortune smother such an excellent employment of your Erudition and Zeal for it is a vvork of Light and not of Darkness And thus vvishing you long health that can use it so vvell I remain Your poor Friend to love and serve you H. WOTTON To his Sacred Majesty I Do humbly resume the ancient manner which was adire Caesarem per libellum with confidence in the Cause and in Your Majesties Gracious Equity though not in mine own Merit During my late Imployment Sir E. P. then Master of the Rolls died By his death Sir Julius Caesar claimed not only the Succession of that place but the gift of all the Clerkships of the Chancery that should fall void in his own time Of these Clerkships Your Majesty had formerly granted two Reversions The one to the late Lord Bruce for which Mr. Bond Secretary to my Lord Chancellour had contracted with him The second to me The said Bond got his Grant through the favour of his Master to be confirmed by Sir Julius Caesar before his entrance into the Rolls but through my absence in Your Majesties Service and want of pressing it in the due season my Grant remained unconfirmed though Your Majesty was pleased to write Your Gracious Letter in my behalf Which maketh me much bewail mine own case that my deserts were so poor as Your Royal Mediation was of less value for me then my Lord Chancellours for his Servant The premisses considered my humble Suit unto Your Majesty is this That Sir Julius Caesar may be drawn by Your Supream Authority to confirm unto me my Reversion of the second Clerkship whereof I have a Patent under Your Great Seal Wherein I have just confidence in Your Majesties Grace since Your very Laws do restore them that have been any wayes prejudiced in Servicio Regis Your Majesties long devoted poor Servant H. WOTTON 1621 2. SIR BEsides the Address of my publick Duties unto your hands I have long owed you these private lines full of thanks from my heart for your favour and affection in all my occasions at home and particularly in the Point of my Privy-Seal about my German Accounts wherein as I am abundantly informed both by my Nephew and by Mr. Nicholas Pey whom I repute my best Oracles in the information of mine own Obligations it pleased you to stand by me not only Da vero Amieo but indeed Da vero Cavagliere From which though the benefit which did remain in my purse after the casting up of what was lost was as God knows so little that I may justly build some hope of your further charity in the authorizing of such Demands as I now send yet on the other side I must confess that without your former so friendly and so noble compassion I had received a most irrecoverable ruine and shame beyond all example and my case would have been very strange for I should have been undone by the Kings goodness upon assurance whereof though almost forgotten I had increased my Train Now Sir this acknowledgement of your singular Love I was never more fit to pay you then at the present being intenerated in all my inward feelings and affections by new sickness which with loss of much blood even no less then twenty ounces within these fourteen dayes hath brought me low In which time if God had called me from the Travels of this earth I had left you out of my narrow fortune some poor remembrance of my thankfulness which I have now finding my self by Gods pleasure in a good way of recovery transmitted to my above-said Friend Mr. Pey Before I end I must not forget to ease your Honour of such thanks as in your Letters you have been pleased to bestow on me in respect of your Kinsman Mr. B. because his being with me I do very rightly reckon among my bands to your self for in good faith his integrity and discretion doth sustain my House besides his fellowship in certain Studies wherein we aim at no small things even perchance at a new Systeme of the World at least since we cannot in the Practical and Moral I would we could mend it in the Speculative Part. But lest these private Contemplations on which I am fallen transport me too far I will conclude as I began with humble thanks for all your Favours and with commending your Honoured Person to the Author of all Blessing remaining ever c. Most dear Lord WHile I had your Lordship as I am alwayes bound in my Meditation and somewhat under my Pen wherewith I hope in due time to express how much I honour your Noble Vertues I am as if I had not been overladen before surprized with a new Favour for that is the true Title of your Commands touching a fine Boy of this Colledge whom I perceive by your Letters of the 30th of the last Moneth to pertain to your care Quid multa It shall be done Only in one thing I must crave
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
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
meaning is not yet understood unless perchance that were their meaning not to be understood The two best to my fancy were those of the two Earls Brothers The first a small exceeding white Pearl and the word Solo candore valeo The other a Sun casting a glance on the side of a Pillar and the Beams reflecting with this Motto Splendonte refulget In which devices there seemed an agreement the elder Brother to allude to his own nature and the younger to his fortune The day was signalized with no extraordinary accident save only between Sir Thomas Haward and Sir Thomas Sommerset who with a counter-buff had almost set himself out of the Saddle and made the others Horse sink under him but they both came fairly off without any further disgrace Of the merits of the rest I will say nothing my Pen being very unfit to speak of Launces To this solemnity of the publick Ambassadors only the Arch-duke was invited for the healing of the distaste he had taken for the preference of the Venetian at the marriage But I doubt the Plaister be too narrow for the sore which he seemed not much discontented that men should note in his whole countenance that day Towards the evening a challenge passed between Archie and a famous Knight called Sir Thomas Parsons the one a fool by election and the other by necessity which was accordingly performed some two or three dayes after at Tilt Tornie and on foot both compleatly armed and solemnly brought in before their Majesties and almost as many other meaner eyes as were at the former Which bred much sport for the present and afterwards upon cooler consideration much censure and discourse as the manner is The departure of the Count Palatine and my Lady Elizabeth is put off from the Thursday in the Easter-week till the Tuesday following which day I think will hold The Commissioners that accompany her have the titles of Ambassadors to give them precedency before Sir Ralph Winwood at the Hague and likewise in any encounters with Almaign Princes Sir Edward Cecil goeth as Treasurer to keep up that Office in the name though it be otherwise perhaps from a General rather a fall then an ascent Before this journey there is a conceit that the Duke of Lenox will be naturalized a Peer of our Parliament and my Lord of Rochester be created Earl of Devonshire The forraign matter is little increased since my last unto you from Cambridge The Savoy Ambassador not yet arrived The Turks designs hitherto unknown and marching slowly according to the nature of huge Armies In which suspence the Venctians have augmented their guard in the Gulf enough to confirm unto the world that States must be conserved even with ridiculous fears This is all that the VVeek yieldeth My Lord and Lady have received those Letters and loving salutations which my Foot man brought And so with mine own hearty prayers to God for you and for that most good Neece I commit you both to his blessing and love Your faithfullest of unprofitable Friends H. WOTTON I pray Sir remember me very particularly to my Cousin Nicholas your worthy Brother for whose health our good God be thanked Sir James Cromer is this week dead of an Aposteme in his stomack and in him the name unless his Lady as she seemeth to have intention shall revive it with matching one of her four Daughters with a Cromer of obscure fortune which they say is latent in your Shire From my Chamber this Thursday St. George his Eve 1613. SIR THe last week by reason of my being in Kent was a week of silence and this I think will appear unto you a week of wonder The Court was full of discourse and expectation that the King being now disincumbred of the care of his Daughter would towards this Feast of St. George fill up either all or some at least of those places that had lien vacant so long and had been in this time of their emptiness a subject of notorious opposition between our great Viscount and the House of Suffolk Thus I say ran the opinion When yesterday about six of the Clock at evening Sir Thomas Overbury was from the Council-Chamber conveyed by a Clerk of the Council and two of the Guard to the Tower and there by Warrant consigned to the Lieutenant as close Prisoner Which both by the suddenness like a stroke of Thunder and more by the quality and relation of the person breeding in the Beholders whereof by chance I was one very much amazement and being likely in some proportion to breed the like in the Hearers I will adventure for the satisfying of your thoughts about it to set down the fore-running and leading Causes of this accident as far as in so short a time I have been able to wade in so deep a water It is conceived that the King hath a good while been much distasted with the said Gentleman even in his own nature for too stiff a carriage of his fortune besides that scandalous offence of the Queen at Greenwich which was never but a palliated cure Upon which considerations His Majesty resolving to sever him from my Lord of Rochester and to do it not disgracefully or violently but in some honourable fashion He commanded not long since the Arch-Bishop by way of familiar discourse to propound unto him the Ambassage of France or of the Arch-Dukes Court whereof the one was shortly to be changed and the other at the present vacant In which proposition it seemeth though shadowed under the Arch-Bishops good will that the King was also contented some little light should be given him of His Majesties inclination unto it grounded upon his merit At this the Fish did not bite whereupon the King took a rounder way commanding my Lord Chancellor and the Earl of Pembroke to propound joyntly the same unto him which the Arch-Bishop had before moved as immediately from the King and to sweeten it the more he had as I hear an offer made him of assurance before his going off the place of Treasurer of the Chamber which he expecteth after the death of the Lord Stanhop whom belike the King would have drawn to some reasonable composition Notwithstanding all which Motives and impulsives Sir Thomas Overbury refused to be sent abroad with such terms as vvere by the Council interpreted pregnant of contempt in a Case vvhere the King had opened His vvill vvhich refusal of his I should for my part esteem an eternal disgrace to our occupation if vvithall I did not consider how hard it is to pull one from the bosome of a Favourite Thus you see the point upon vvhich one hath been committed standing in the second degree of power in the Court and conceiving as himself told me but two hours before never better then at that present of his own fortunes and ends Now in this vvhole matter there is one main and principal doubt vvhich doth travel all understandings that is Whether this were done without
the participation of my Lord of Rochester A point necessarily infolding two different consequences for if it vvere done vvithout his knowledge vve must expect of himself either a decadence or a ruine if not vve must then expect a reparation by some other great publick satisfaction vvhere of the vvorld may take as much notice These clouds a few dayes vvill clear In the mean vvhile I dare pronounce of Sir Thomas Overbury that he shall return no more to this Stage unless Courts be governed every year by a new Philosophy for our old Principles vvill not bear it I have shewed my Lord and Ladies Sister your Letter of the 18. of April vvho return unto you their affectionate remembrances and I many thanks for it The King hath altered his journey to Thetford and determineth to entertain himself till the progress nearer London The Queen beginneth her journey upon Saturday towards Bathe Neither the Marquess di Villa vvho cometh from Savoy nor Don Pedro di Sarmientâ—… vvho shall reside here in the room of the present Spanish Ambassador are yet either arrived or near our Coast though both on the way So as I can yet but cast towards you a longing and in truth an envious look from this place of such servility in the getting and such uncertainty in the holding of fortunes where methinks we are all over-clouded with that sleep of Jacob when he saw some ascending and some descending but that those were Angels and these are men For in both what is it but a Dream And so Sir wishing this Paper in your hands to whom I dare communicate the freest of my thoughts I commit you to Gods continual Love and Blessings Your faithful poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON I pray Sir let me in some corner of every Letter tell my sweet Niece that I love her extreamly SIR I Have newly received your last of the 25th of April and acquainted my Lord with the Postscript thereof touching your Fathers sickness of which he had heard somewhat before by Sir R. Drury who at the same time told him the like of my Lady your Mother But we hope now that the one was never true and that the other which you confirm will be light and sufferable even at heavy years The long expected Embassador from Savoy arrived rived yesternight at Dover so as now I begin by the vertue of a greedy desire to anticipate before hand and to devour already some part of that contentment which I shall shortly more really enjoy in your sight and conversation Sir Thomas Overbury is still in the Tower and the King hath since his imprisonment been twice here and is twice departed without any alteration in that matter or in other greater My Lord of Rochester partly by some relapse into his late infirmity and partly as it is interpreted through the grief of his mind is also this second time not gone with the King some argue upon it that disassiduity in a Favorite is a degree of declination but of this there is no appearance Only I have set it down to shew you the hasty Logick of Courtiers The Queen is on her journey towards Bathe My Lady Elizabeth and the Count Palatine having lain long in our poor Province of Kent languishing for a Wind which she sees though it be but a vapour Princes cannot command at length on Sunday last towards evening did put to Sea some eight days after a Book had been Printed and published in London of her entertainment at Heidelberg so nimble an Age it is And because I cannot end in a better jest I will bid you farewell for this week committing you and that most beloved Niece to Gods dearest blessings London this Thursday the 29th of April 1613. Your own in faithfullest love H. WOTTON 1613. SIR YOur Friend Sir Robert Killegrew hath been committed to the Fleet for conferring vvith a close Prisoner in a strange Language which were as I hear the two circumstances that did aggravate his error Of his case whose love drew him into it I can yet make no judgement The humour seemeth to be sharp and there is wisdom enough in those that have the handling of the Patient to manage the matter so that at length his banishment from the Court may be granted as a point of grace The nature of his alteration vvas as you rightly judge it in the first access somewhat apoplectical but yet mingled in my opinion vvith divers properties of a lethargy vvhereof we shall discourse more particularly vvhen vve meet which I novv long for besides other respects that vve may lay aside these Metaphors This very morning shall be heard at the Star-chamber the Case of Sir Peter Buck an Inhabitant at Rochester an Officer as I take it of the Navy who hath lain some good while in Prison for having written to a Friend of his at Dover a Letter containing this news That some of the Lords had kneeled down to the King for a toleration in Religion besides some particular aspersion in the said Letter of my Lord Privy Seal whom likewise of late a Preacher or two have disquieted whereby he hath been moved besides his own nature and as some think also besides his wisdom to call these things into publick discourse quae spreta exolescunt if ancient grave Sentences do not deceive us My Lady of Shrewsbury my Lord Gray and the Lady Arabella remain still close Prisoners since their last restraint vvhich I signified unto you in a little ticket Sir William Wade vvas yesternight put from the Lieutenancy of the Tower I set down these accidents barely as you see vvithout their causes vvhich in truth is a double fault vvriting both to a Friend and to a Philosopher but my lodging is so near the Star-chamber that my Pen shakes in my hand I hope therefore the Embassador of Savoy vvho hath already had two Audiences vvill quickly be gone that I may flie to you and ease my heart By the next Carrier I shall tell you all his business In the mean vvhile and ever our dear Saviour bless you Your faithful poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON 1613. This Friday morning May 7. in such haste that I must leave my dear Niece unanswered till I can better assemble my spirits and call the aid of the Muses SIR YOur Kinsman and Friend Sir Robert Killegrew vvas in the Fleet from Wednesday of the last vveek till the Sunday following and no longer vvhich I reckon but an Ephemeral fit in respect of his infirmity vvho vvas the cause of it vvhich to my judgement doth every day appear more and more hectical Yesterday his Father petitioned the King as he came from the Chappel that his Son might have a Physician and a Servant allowed him as being much damaged in his health by close imprisonment vvhich for my part I believe for the diseases of Fortune have a kind of transfusion into the body and strong vvorking spirits vvanting their usual objects revert upon
themselves because the nature of the mind being ever in motion must either do or suffer I take pleasure speaking to a Philosopher to reduce as near as I can the irregularities of Court â—…o constant principles Novv to return to the matter The King hath granted the Physician but denied the Servant by vvhich you may guess at the issue for vvhen graces are managed so narrowly by a King otherwise of so gracious nature it doth in my opinion very clearly demonstrate the asperity of the offence Sir Gervis Elvis before one of the Pensioners is now sworn Lieuteâ—…nt of the Tower by the mediation of the House of Suffolk notwithstanding that my Lord of Roâ—…ster vvas the commender of Sir Iohn Keys to that charge vvhich the said Keys had for a good while and this maketh the case the more strange always supplied even by Patent in the absence of Sir William Wade Upon vvhich circumstances though they seem to bend another vvay the Logicians of the Court do make this conclusion That His Maâ—…sty satisfying the Suffolcians vvith petty things â—…tendeth to repair the Viscount Rochester in the â—…ain and gross And therefore all men contemâ—…ite Sir Henry Nevil for the future Secretary â—…me saying that it is but deferred till the return of the Queen that she may be allowed a hand in 〈◊〉 Introduction Which likewise will quiet the voices on the other side though surely that point be little necessary For yet did I never in the Country and much less in the Court see any thing done of this kind that was not afterwards approved by those that had most opposed it such vicissitudes there are here below as well as of the rest even of judgement and affection I vvould say more but I am suddenly surprized by the Secretary of the Savoy Embassador vvho I think vvill depart about the end of the Whitson holy-days for vvhich I languish With his businesses I can acquaint you nothing till the next vveek by reason of this surprizal And besides it hath disturbed my Muses so I must remain still in debt to my sweet Niece for that Poetical Postscript that dropped out of her Pen. I do weekly receive your Letters which in truth are more comfort then I could hope to purchase by mine so as vvhereas before I had determined to continue this my troubling of you but till I should see you next I have now made a resolution to plant a Staple and vvhensoever vve shall be separated to venture my vvhole poor stock in traffique vvith you finding the return so gainful unto me And so committing you to Gods dearest blessings I ever rest May 14. 1613. Your faithfullest poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON SIR I Have not yet presented to my Lord that Box vvhich came vvith your Letter of this vveek for he removed on Wednesday vvith the King and Houshold to Greenwich And I still remain here to shevv you that the Court doth like a Loadstone dravv only those that are intra orbem virtutis suae I mean vvithin the compass and circle of profit The Savoy Ambassador seemeth in his second Audience to have discharged all his Commission or otherwise he vvanteth authority to proceed further then to a general overture till the arrival of the Cavalier Battista Gabaleoni vvho is hourly expected and is here to remain as Resident for the said Duke With him likewise come certain other Gentlemen of Title vvho should from the beginning have dignified the Ambassadors Train but the cause of this stragling vvas a sudden attempt vvhich the Duke immediately after the Ambassadors departure vvho appointed those Gentlemen to follovv him made upon the Marquisat of Monferato vvhere he surprized three Towns vvith the Petarde the first time as one writeth from Venice that ever that pestilent invention had been put in practice beyond the Alps. The cause of this attempt vvas for that the Cardinal Gonzaga novv Dukeâ—… of Mantua had yielded to send home the Dowager Infanta to the Duke of Savoy her Father but vvould retain her only Child a Daughter of two years in whose right the said Duke of Savoy pretendeth colourably enough to the foresaid vvhole Marquisat and clearly to all the moveables left by the late Duke of Mantua her Father vvho died intestat Into vvhich point of Law there entered besides some jealousie of State being unfit for respects that vvould have fallen easily into the apprehension of duller Princes than the Italian to leave a Child out of the custody of her Mother in his that was to gain by the death of it Yet am I of opinion vvho have a little contemplated the Duke of Savoy's complexion that nothing moved him more in this business then the threatnings of the French Queen vvho had before commanded Didiguires to fall into the said Dukes estates by vvay of diversion if he should meddle vvith the least Village in the Monserrato vvhich feminine menacement did no doubt incite him to do it out of the impatience of scorn And vvithal he built silently upon a ground vvhich could not vvell fail him That the King of Spain vvould never suffer the French Souldiers to taste any more of the Grapes and Melons of Lombardy because L'apetit vient en mangeant vvhich the issue of the businesses hath proved true for the Governor of Milan having raised a tumultuary Army of Horse and Foot did vvith it only keep things in stay from farther progres on both sides till the agreement vvas made between the Duke of Mantua himself in Person and the Prince of Piedmont vvithin the Town of Milan The accord is advertised the King from Venice and Paris The conditions vvill be better known at the arrival of Gabaleoni and then likewise vve shall see the bottom of this errand vvhich hath been hitherto nothing but a general proposition of a match between the same Lady that vvas formerly offered and our Prince novv living vvhich the Ambassador hath touched so tenderly as if he vvent to manage his Masters credit Upon the vvhole matter I cannot conceive though he seemeth to let fall some phrases of haste that he vvill be gone yet this fortnight or three vveeks till vvhen I languish And so let me end all my Letters ever resting May 21. 1613. Your faithfullest poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON May the 27. SIR J do as unwillingly put my Pen to tell you as I am sure you will be to hear vvhat hath befallen my Nephew Albertus this week He was going on Friday last towards evening in a Coach alone whose driver alighting I know not upon what occasion hard by Charing-Cross the Horses being young took some affrightment and running away so furiously that one of them tore all his belly open upon the corner of a Beer Cart my Nephew who in this mean while adventured to leap out seemeth to have hung on one of the pins of the Boot from whence strugling to get loose he brake the waste-band of his Hose behind and so fell with the greater
tell you then lead you back into any particularities of that which is passed It pleased His Majesty the very next morning to call to examination before the Lords of His Council divers Members of the House of Commons for some Speeches better becoming a Senate of Venice where the Treaters are perpetual Princes then where those that speak so irreverently are so soon to return which they should remember to the natural capacity of Subjects Of these Examinants four are committed close Prisoners to the Tower 1. Sir Walter Chute 2. John Hoskins 3. One Wentworth a Lawyer And 4. Mr. Christopher Nevil second Son to my Lord of Abergaveny The first made great shift to come thither For having taken in our House some disgrace in the matter of the Undertakers of whom he would fain have been thought one to get the opinion of a bold man after he had lost that of a wise he fell one morning into a declamation against the times so insipid and so unseasonable as if he had been put but out of his place for it of Carver into which one of my Lord Admirals Nephews is sworn I should not much have pitied him though he be my Country-man The second is in for more wit and for licentiousness baptized freedom For I have noted in our House that a false or faint Patriot did cover himself with the shadow of equal moderation and on the other side irreverent discourse was called honest liberty so as upon the whole matter No excesses want precious names You shall have it in Pliny's language which I like better then mine own translation Nullis vitiis desunt pretiosa nomina The third is a silly and simple creature God himself knows and though his Father was by Queen Elizabeth at the time of a Parliament likewise put into the place where the Son now is yet hath he rather inherited his fortune then his understanding His fault was the application of certain Texts in Ezekiel and Daniel to the matter of impositions and saying that the French King was kill'd like a Calf with such like poor stuff against which the French Ambassador having gotten knowledge of it hath formed a complaint with some danger of his wisdom The last is a young Gentleman fresh from the School who having gathered together divers Latine Sentences against Kings bound them up in a long Speech and interlarded them with certain Ciceronian exclamations as O Tempora O Mores Thus I have a little run over these accidents unto you enough only to break out of that silence which I will not call a symptome of my sickness but a sickness it self Howsoever I will keep it from being hectical and hereafter give you a better account of mine own observations This vveek I have seen from a most dear Niece a Letter that hath much comforted one Uncle and a Postscript the other Long may that hand move which is so full of kindness As for my particular Take heed of such invitations if you either love or pity your selves For I think there was never Needle toucht with a Loadstone that did more incline to the North then I do to Redgrave In the mean time we are all here well and so our Lord Jesus preserve you there Your faithfullest poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON Sir I pray remember my hearty affection to my Cousin Nicolas Bacon and all joy to the new conjoyned I shall propound unto you the next vveek a very possible Probleme unto vvhich if you can devise how to attain Non scriveremo al Papa fratello London June 16. 1614. SIR THe Earl of Northampton having after a lingring Feaver spent more spirits then a younger body could well have born by the incision of a wennish tumour grown on his thigh yesternight between eleven and twelve of the Clock departed out of this world where as he had proved much variety and vicissitude of fortune in the course of his life so peradventure he hath prevented another change thereof by the opportunity of his end For there vvent a general voice through the Court on Sunday last upon the commitment of Doctor Sharp and Sir Charles Cornwallis to the Tower that he vvas somevvhat implicated in that business vvhereof I vvill give you a little account at the present as far as I have been hitherto able to penetrate John Hoskins of vvhose imprisonment I vvrote unto you by the last Carrier having at a re-examination been questioned vvhether he vvell understood the consequence of that Sicilian vesper vvhereunto he had made some desperate allusion in the House of Parliament made answer and I think very truly that he had no more then a general information thereof being but little conversant in those Histories that lay out of the vvay of his profession vvhereupon being pressed to discover vvhence he then had received this information since it lay not vvithin his own reading he confessed to have had it from Doctor Sharp vvho had infused these things into him and had solicited him to impress them in the Parliament And further that Hoskins hereupon demanding vvhat protection he might hope for if afterwards he vvere called into question the said Doctor should nominate unto him besides others vvhose names I vvill spare that Earl vvho hath novv made an end of all his reckonings assuring him of his assistance by the means of Sir Charles Cornwallis vvith vvhom the Doctor vvas conjoyned in this practice Thus came Sir Charles into discovery vvho being afterward confronted vvith the Doctor himself though he could not as they say justifie his own Person yet did he clear my Lord of Northampton from any manner of understanding vvith him therein upon his Salvation vvhich yet is not enough as I perceive among the People to sweep the dust from his Grave Thus you see Sir the natural end of a great Man and the accidental ruine of others vvhich I had rather you should see in a Letter then as I did on Sunday at Greenwich vvhere it grieved my soul to behold a grave and learned Divine and a Gentleman of good hopes and merits carried away in the face of the vvhole Court vvith most dejected countenances and such a greediness at all vvindows to gaze at unfortunate spectacles The Earl of Northampton hath made three of his Servants his Executors with a very vast power as I hear and for Overseers of his Will my L. of Suffolk my L. of Worcester and my L. William Haward To the Earl of Arundel he left all his Land which will amount to some 3000 l. of yearly revenue besides three or four hundred to Mr. Henry Haward whereof he had before assured him at the time of his marriage but neither of them to enjoy a penny thereof as yet this eight year all which time he intendeth the fruits of his estate shall be collected and distributed in legacies and pious uses according to his will which hath not yet been seen but thus much as I have told you was understood before his expiration
To my Lord of Suffolk he hath left his House but hath disposed of all the moveables and furniture from him And it is conceived that he died in some distastfull impression which he had taken against him upon the voices that ran of my Lord of Suffolk's likelihood to be Lord Treasurer which place will now assuredly fall upon him and the world doth contemplate my Lord of Rochester for Lord Privy Seal and Lord Warden of the five Ports As for the Lord Chamberlainship it is somewhat more questionable between my Lord of Pembroke the Duke of Lenox and my Lord Knowls A few dayes will determine these ambitions In the mean time I commit you who have better objects to the contemplation of them and to the mercy of our loving God in all your wayes Your faithfullest poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON Sir I have I know not how mislayed the Character which I left you therefore I pray send me in your very next a Copy Therefore I have deferred the matter which I am to propound unto you till the next week because I must send you some Ore of Lead and Iron withall which I have â—…ot yet gotten Is there no room left for the remembrance of that â—…ar Neice God forbid And I pray Sir tell â—…r besides that a certain Uncle here whom yet I â—…ill not suffer to love her better then my self doth greedily expect some news from her On Midsummer Morning 1614. SIR LIke a Woman great with Child I have threatned you almost every week with a proposition of profit in which kind of breedings methinks I am of hard birth but I hope to be brought to bed by the next Carrier This week hath yet yielded â—…n the publick small effects to entertain you withall â—…nly some change of opinion about the future great Officers which are now thus discoursed The Earl of Suffolk is still beheld as a Lord Treasurer and that conjecture hath never fainted â—…nce the very first rising of it But it is thought that the dignity of Privy Seal shall lye vacant as it did in the Cecilian times and that the execution thereof with the title of Lord Chamberlain shall be laid on my Lord of Sommerset for if my Lord of Suffolk should remove from the Kings Privacy to a place of much distraction and cumber without leaving a friend in his room he might peradventure take cold at his back which is a dangerous thing in a Court as Ruygomezde silva was wont to say that great Artisan of Humours Of the Office of Five Ports I dare yet pronounce nothing My Lord my Brother will none of it as I heard him seriously say though it were offered him for reasons which he reserveth in his own brest yet the late Northampton did either so much esteem it or thought himself to receive so much estimation from it as he hath willed his Body to be laid in the Castle of Dover Chute Hoskins Sharp and Sir Charles Cornwallis are still in the Tower and I like not the complexion of the place Out of France we have the death of Dr. Carrier whose great imaginations abroad have had but a short period And so Sir commending you and that dearest Neice to Gods continual blessings and love I rest Your own in faithfullest affection H. WOTTON The 7. of June Style of the place 1615. SIR I Hear a little voice that you are come to London which to me is the voice of a Nightingal for since I cannot enjoy your presence I make my self happy with your nearness And yet now methinks I have a kind of rebellion against it that we should be separated with such a contemptible distance For how much I love you mine own heart doth know and God knoweth my heart But let me fall into a passion For what sin in the Name of Christ was I sent hither among Souldiers being by my profession Academical and by my Charge Pacifical I am withâ—… a day or two to send Cisthbert my Servant home â—…y whom I shall tell you divers things In the â—…ean while I have adventured these few lines â—…o break the Ice of silence for in truth it is a â—…old fault Our sweet Saviour bless you Servidore Arrigo Wottoni My hot love to the best Neice of the World SIR AMong those that have deep interest in whatsoever can befall you I am the freshest witâ—…ss of your unexpressible affections to my most â—…ar Neice whom God hath taken from us into â—…s eternal Light and rest where we must leave 〈◊〉 till we come unto her I should think my â—…lf unworthy for ever of that love she bare me â—…in this case I were fit to comfort you But it is â—…t only God who can reconsolate us both VVho when he hath called now one and then â—…other of his own Creatures unto himself will â—…clasp the final Book of his Decrees and disâ—…lve the whole For which I hope he will raâ—…er teach us to thirst and languish then to reâ—…ne at particular dissolutions I had in a peâ—…liar affliction of mine own all within the â—…pass of little time much consolation from 〈◊〉 which cannot but be now present with â—…our self for I am well acquainted with the â—…ength of your Christian mind Therefore being kindly invited by the good Master of the Rolls to write by his express Messengeâ—… unto you let me without further discourse oâ—… our griefs only joyn in this with him to wisâ—… your company divided between him and me We will contemplate together when we meet ouâ—… future blessedness and our present uncertainties 〈◊〉 And I am afraid we shall find too much argument tâ—… drown our private feelings in the publick sollicitude Gods love wherein is all joy be with us From Westminst this 16. April 1626. Your ever true and hearty Servant H. WOTTON From the Colledge the 14. of Decemb. 1628. SIR I Have received from London the favourable lines wherewith you honoured me then near your departure which you have somewhat allayed with the promise of your return at the beginning of the next Term which consorteth well with a change of my purpose to Christmas in Kent born in me as I was reading your Letter For what should I do there in such hast after the Nuptials when I shall come so as well in Lent Much ado there hath been towards the point of conclusion like that Aphorism of Hyppocrates Nox ante Chrisâ—… est molestissima Loves being in this like Feavers as well as in the rest for one definition will serve them both Cordis accensio Iack Dinely is not yet arrived but we expect him daily as Messenger from the Queen his Mistress of her late happy delivery after a foul report that had been maliciously thrown abroad of her miscarriage by a fall The Doctor likewise as yet hath given me no answer but I will quicken him and put life I hope into the business Now let me tell you That the noble Sir Gerâ—…se Clifton as in good faith he is in
predatory I have forgotten for memoria primò senescit whether I told you in my last a pretty late experiment in Arthritical pains it is cheap enough Take a rosted Turnip for if you boyl it it will open the pores and draw too much apply that in a Poultice to the part affected with change once in an hour or two as you find it dried by the heat of the flesh and it will in little time allay the pain Thus much in our private way wherein I dare swear if our Medicines were as strong as our wishes they would work extreamly Now for the Publick where peradventure now and then there are distempers as well as in natural bodies The Earl of Holland vvas on Saturday last the day after your Posts departure very solemnly restored at Council Table the King present from a kind of Eclipse wherein he had stood since the Thursday fortnight before All considered the obscuration vvas long and bred both various and doubtfull discourse but it ended vvell All the cause yet known vvas a verbal challenge sent from him by Mr. Henry Germain in this form to the now Lord Weston newly returned from his forraign imployments That since he had already given the King an account of his Embassage he did now expect from him an account of a Letter of his vvhich he had opened in Paris and he did expect it at such a time even in the Spring garden close under his Fathers Window vvith his Sword by his side It is said I go no farther in such tender points that my Lord Weston sent him by Mr. Henry Percy between vvhom and the said Lord Weston had in the late journey as it seems been contracted such friendship as overcame the memory that he vvas Cousin-German to my Lord of Holland a very fair and discreet answer That if he could challenge him for any injury done him before or after his Embassage he vvould meet him as a Gentleman vvith his Sword by his side vvhere he should appoint But for any thing that had been done in the time of his Embassage he had already given the King an account thereof and thought himself not accountable to any other This published on Thursday vvas fortnight the Earl of Holland vvas confined to his Chamber in Court and the next day morning to his House at Kensington vvhere he remained vvithout any further circumstance of restraint or displeasure Saturday and Sunday on vvhich dayes being much visited it vvas thought fit on Munday to appoint Mr. Dickenson one of the Clerks of the Council to be his Guardian thus far that none vvithout his presence should accost him This made the vulgar judgements run high or rather indeed run low That he vvas a lost and discarded man judging as of Patients in Feavers by the exasperation of the fits But the Queen vvho vvas a little obliquely interested in this business for in my Lord of Holland's Letter vvhich vvas opened she had one that vvas not opened nor so much as they say as superscribed and both the Queen's and my Lord of Holland's vvere inclosed in one from Mr. Walter Mountague vvhereof I shall tell you more hereafter The Queen I say stood nobly by him and as it seems pressed her own affront It is too intricately involved for me so much as to guess at any particulars I hear generally discoursed that the opened dispatch vvas only in favour if it might be obtained of Monsieur de Chateau Neuf and the Chevalier de Jarr vvho had both been here but vvritten vvith caution and surely not vvithout the Kings knowledge to be delivered if there vvere hope of any good effect and perchance not vvithout Order from His Majesty to my Lord Weston afterwards to stop the said Letters upon advertisement that both Chateau Neuf and de Jarr vvere already in the Bastille But this I leave at large as not knowing the depth of the business Upon Munday vvas seven-night fell out another quarrel nobly carried branching from the former between my Lord Fielding and Mr. Goring Son and Heir to the Lord of that Name They had been the night before at Supper I know not vvhere together vvhere Mr. Goring spake something in diminution of my Lord Weston vvhich my Lord Fielding told him it could not become him to suffer lying by the side of his Sister Thereupon these hot hearts appoint a meeting next day morning themselves alone each upon his Horse They pass by Hide-Park as a place vvhere they might be parted too soon and turn into a Lane by Knights-bridge vvhere having tyed up their Horses at a Hedge or Gate they got over into a Close there stripped into their Shirts vvith single Rapiers they fell to an eager Duel till they vvere severed by the Host and his servants of the Inne of the Prince of Orange vvho by meer chance had taken some notice of them In this noble encounter vvhere in blood vvas spent though by Gods providence not much on either side there passed between them a very memorable interchange of a piece of courtesie if that vvord may have room in this place Sayes my Lord Fielding Mr. Goring If you leave me here let me advise you not to go back by Piccadillia-hall lest if mischance befall me and be suddenly noised as it falleth out in these occasions now between us you might receive some harm by some of my friends that lodge thereabouts My Lord replyes Goring I have no vvay but one to answer this courtesie I have here by chance in my Pocket a Warrant to pass the Ports out of England vvithout a Name gotten I suppose upon some other occasion before If you leave me here take it for your use and put in your own Name This is a passage much commended between them as proceeding both from sweetness and stoutness of spirit vvhich are very compatible On the solemn day of Saturday last both this difference and the Original between the Earl of Holland and the Lord Weston vvere fairly reconciled and forgiven by the King vvith shaking of hands and such Symbols of agreement And likewise Sir Maurice Dromand vvho had before upon an uncivil ture on his part between him and my Lord of Carlile been committed to the Tower was then delivered at the same time and so it all ended as a merry Fellow said in a Maurice But whether these be perfect cures or but skinnings over and Palliations of Court will appear hereafter Nay some say very quickly for my Lord Westons Lady being since brought to bed of a Daughter men stand in a kind of suspence whether the Queen will be the Godmother after so crude a reconcilement which by the Kings inestimable goodness I think may pass in this forgiving week For foreign matter there is so little and so doubtfull as it were a misery to trouble you with it The States confuted Treaty is put to the stock and the Prince of Orenge by account gone to the Field two days since having broken the business
both how they stand at your arrival there being every day changeable and how they incline in the future and particularly to sound the affections and the matter how far they be capable of any reasonable measure of agreement that from thence We may take judgement whether it shall be fit for Us to adde any others unto you in a main Treaty with safety of Our Honour and benefit of the Cause or to send others in your room and to release you from that business to your ordinary Residence at Venice Wherein We are contented to defer thus much to your discretion that if you shall find things desperate and the Emperours Party absolutely victorious you may then after a Currier dispatched unto Us with advertisement of all circumstances take your way to Venice If otherwise you shall find the Forces on both sides to stand within such terms of equality as the event is like in probability to continue dubious and uncertain you shall then attend the issue till the blow shall be strucken and upon all important variations of occurrences you shall signifie the same unto Us. 2. According to this scope of your imployment you shall hold with all those Priâ—…s from the highest to the meanest and from those that are most remote in respect to those that are nearest unto Us in nature and Alliance the same language assuring them all that We constantly continue in Our own Principles that is in first desiring the quiet of Christendome and particularly of those parts by all possible means wherein We have formerly expressed by a noble Ambassage of one of Our nearest Servants before Our Brother the French King did enter into it and before Our Selves shall be drawn to any other resolution which We thought meet to make publickly known both by Our said former Ambassador the Vicount Doncaster and now by you leaving the rest to God and time 3. Touching your address first or second to one part or other We leave it to your discretion upon the place when you have consulted with the Princes of the Union in general or with their Sub-director for the time whither you may best direct your self whom you shall pray in Our Name to assist you therein with their best advice as likewise in all things else concerning the present Affairs That after this exploration of the business being much altered since our first Ambassage We may know what it shall be fit for Us further to direct 4. Whereas We are informed that the Ambassadors of Our Brother the French King have Instructions to propound two things 1. A Surceasance of Arms 2. An Imperial Diet you shall signifie that in the first of these motions We mainly concur with Him and in the other so far as by the directions of Our Dear Son-in-Law you shall find convenient for the publick good and His own 5. Touching the Dukes of Saxony and Bavaria and any other Prince not comprised within the Union you shall desire them heartily in Our Name to joyn with Us for the common tranquillity that things may not pass to a further irritation of those Princes and States and particularly of Our Selves which otherwise profess Pacifical and Christian ends fortifying your exhortation therein with the best reasons that you can collect out of the present Affairs as they shall appear unto you 6. To all Princes whom it may any way concern you shall make it known that in the Election of Our Son-in-Law to the Crown of Bohemia We had no part by any precedent Counsel or practice which We affirm in the faith and truth of a Christian Prince And are likewise informed of his own clearness therein by vehement affirmations and by most probable Circumstances A Copy of my Dispatch to the King from Vienna Septemb. 7. 1620. May it please my most Gracious Soveraign IF Your Majesty since my last Accompt from Augusta of what I had handled with the Duke of Loreign and Wirtenberg with the Arch-duke Leopold and with the Communities of Strasburg and Ulm shall have expected to hear before now what I do in this place the obligation of Your own goodness and bounties towards me besides the conscience of my charge and duty may in the mean while have assured Your Majesty that no diligence or fidelity on my part hath been wanting in the pursuit of Your Commands and Christian ends as I hope shall appear by this Dispatch Wherein first It may please Your Majesty to understand that I have been ten dayes here in Vienna after I had been four whole dayes stayed by the Emperour at Cloâ—…ster-Nyberg on the Dannby not above a Dutch mile or little more from this Town whilst a House and all other things were preparing for my reception Which course was likewise held with the French Ambassadors in the same measure During vvhich time of my stay the Emperour sent me some Provisions and vvithal the young Baron of Harach to conduct me hither and here continually to assist me for procurement of my Audiences or any other conveniences being a Gentleman of the Emperours Bed-chamber twice heretofore employed in foreign Ambassages Son-in-lavv to the Count Eckemberg the Emperors Favorite and Son to the next of his Counsellors in grace and credit though the young Baron of Mersberg Captain of his Guard vvas sent to the French yet I perceive in the choice of this other Gentleman an equality of respect towards your Majesty vvas used An hour after my arrival here he sent to bid me vvelcome the Count of Mecaw heretofore Lord Chamberlaine to the Emperour Matthias and a Counsellor to this in tertiis quartisve I am placed near to the Court in the House of the Baron de Gabriana vvith rich furniture and good attendance and hitherto at the Emperors charge vvhich vvithin a vvhile must cease of vvhich I have given the Reason in my Letter to Mr. Secretary Nanton In the mean time I must profess unto your Majesty that no circumstance of due regard to the Honour of your Name hath been here omitted but all done vvith unexpected freedom in so much as to accompany me at my Table are sent and admitted Gentlemen of both Religions and of the best degree vvhich in the meaner Courts of Germany I have noted to pass vvith more restraint Thus much concerning my Reception vvhich is the formal part Novv before I pass unto the material it is a piece of curiosity to tell unto your Majesty vvhat discords I here finde amongst the publick Instruments vvhich seem somewhat considerable The French Ambassadours have been here about seven vveeks and to this hour are unvisited by the Spanish though close adjoyning them upon a meagre punctuality for thus it standeth The French arrived on the Munday at night the Spaniard sent immediately to vvelcome them his Secretary ex forma They have Audience the next morning following that passed the Count Ognate demands leave to visit them in the afternoon they desire to be excused being a day of ordinary dispatch The
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
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
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
all my good is but vain hope of gain The day is past and yet I saw no Sun And now I live and now my life is done 2. The Spring is past and yet it hath not sprung The fruit is dead and yet the leaves are green My youth is gone and yet I am but young I saw the vvorld and yet I vvas not seen My thread is cut and yet it is not spun And now I live and now my life is done 3. I sought my death and found it in my womb I look'd for life and saw it was a shade I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb And now I die and now I am but made The glass is full and now my glass is run And now I live and now my life is done 1. RIse oh my Soul with thy desires to Heaven And with Divinest contemplation use Thy time where times eternity is given buse And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts aâ—… But down in darkness let them lie So live thy better let thy worse thoughts die 2. And thou my Soul inspir'd with holy flame View and review with most regardful eye That holy Cross whence thy salvation came On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die For in that Sacred object is much pleasure And in that Saviour is my life my treasure 3. To thee O Jesu I direct my eye To thee my hands to thee my humble knees To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice To thee my thoughts who my thoughts only sees To thee my self my self and all I give To thee I die to thee I only live Ignoto Sir Walter Raleigh the Night before his Death EVen such is time that takes on trust Our youth our joyes our all we have And pays us but with age and dust Who in the dark and silent Grave When we have wandred all our ways Shuts up the story of our days But from this earth this grave this dust My God shall raise me up I trust W. R. The World THe World 's a bubble and the life of man less then a span In his conception wretched from the womb so to the tomb Nurst from his cradle and brought up to years with cares and fears Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns on water or but writes in dust Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest what life is best Courts are but only superficial Schools to dandle Fools The rural part is turn'd into a den of savage men And where 's a City from foul vice so free But may be term'd the worst of all the three Domestick cares afflicts the Husbands bed or pains his head Those that live single take it for a curse or do things worse none These would have children those that have them or wish them gone What is it then to have or have no wife But single thraldom or a double strife Our own affections still at home to please is a disease To cross the Seas to any forreign soil peril and toil Wars with their noise affright us when they cease w' are worse in peace What then remains but that we still should cry For being born and being born to die Fra. Lord Bacon De Morte MAns life 's a Tragedy his mothers womb From which he enters is the tyring room This spacious earth the Theater and the Stage That Country which he lives in Passions Rage Folly and Vice are Actors The first cry The Prologue to th' ensuing Tragedy The former act consisteth of dumb shows The second he to more perfection grows I' th third he is a man and doth begin To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin I' th fourth declines i' th fifth diseases clog And trouble him then Death 's his Epilogue Ignoto EPIGRAM IF breath were made for every man to buy The poor man could not live rich would not die John Hoskins to his little Child Benjamin from the Tower SWeet Benjamin since thou art young And hast not yet the use of tongue Make it thy slave while thou art free Imprison it lest it do thee LETTERS TO Sir EDMUND BACON SIR IT is very just since I cannot personally accompany this Gentleman yet that I do it with my Letter wherein if I could transport the Image of mine own mind unto you as lively as we have often represented you unto our selves abroad then I should not think us asunder while you read it But of my longing to see you I am a better feeler then a describer as likewise of my obligations towards you whereof it is not the least that I have been by your mediation and judgement and love furnished with so excellent a Comforter of my absence and so loving and discreet a divider and easer of my Travels after whose separation from me I am ready to say that which I remember the younger Pliny doth utter with much feeling after the loss of his venerable and dearest Friend Cerellius Rufus Vereor saith he ne posthac negligentius vivam But herein my case is bettter then his for I cannot but hope that some good occasion will bring him again nearer me And I must confess unto you I should be glad to see him planted for a while about the King or Prince that so if his own fortune be not mended by the Court yet the Court may be bettered by him in that which it doth more desperately want Now Sir Besides himself there cometh unto you with him an Italian Doctor of Physick by name Gasperâ—… Despotini a man well practised in his own faculty and very Philosophical and sound in his discourses By birth a Venetian which though it be not Urbs ignobilis as Saint Paul said of his own Mother-City yet is his second birth the more excellent I mean his illumination in Gods saving Truth which was the only cause of his remove and I was glad to be the conductor of him where his conscience may be free though his condition otherwise till he shall be known will be the poorer This Stranger I was desirous to present unto you as my friend in his company whose testimony may more value him then mine own And so committing them both to your love and your self with all that family to Gods blessing hand I rest From my Lodging in Kings-street April 2. 1611. Your poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON SIR IT is late at night and I am but newly come to the knowledge that my Lord is to send a Messenger unto you to morrow morning yet howsoever I have resolved not to be left out of this dispatch though in truth I had rather be the sootman my self then one of the Writers But here I am tied about mine own business which I have told you like a true Courtier for right Courtiers indeed have no other business but themselves Our Lord Jesus bless you all as you are now together and wheresoever you shall be From Greenwich May 27. 1611. Your Uncle by your own election and your Servant by mine
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