better assemble my spirits and call the aid of the Muses Sir AFter the rest of your trouble at the present there remaineth a proposition to be consulted with you about which I should esteem the charge of an express messenger not ill expended though you were at Jerusalem And both Mr. Harison and my self think no man living more proper to solve it then our Sir Edmund Bacon The Question is this whether there may not be found some natural Philosophical way to determine the measure of a minute or quarter or half or intire hour or any portion of time more precisely and uniformly and infallibly then hath been yet invented by any Mechanical and Artificial motion And particularly whether it may not be done by the descent of drops through a Filter either in Manica Hippocratis or in a Tongue of cloth equally thick with consideration likewise of all circumstances in that liquid substance which must sink through it If this may be done there will be a mighty point obtained in the rectifying of the Longitudes of the Earth which depend upon the thoment of the Lunar Eclipses and Mose upon the exact determination of the beginning and ending of an hour for which purpose the great Tycho Brach composed divers Horologies and hour-glasses some running with simple water some with distilled spirits some with pulverized metals and some with crude Mercury but never to any infallible satisfaction of the point propounded which likewise would be of singular use in divers Astronomical observations if it could be once justly regulated This we commend to your curious judgement My servant Nicolas and I hope to send you some good Flints to be Agatized by your miraculous invention I pray Sir If you have any of those Island stones which you mentioned unto me at Canterbury bestow a few upon me But above all forget not to let me know where you will be about the beginning of Lent Iterum Iterum vale A late letter written towards the end of Lent by Sir Henry Wotton Provost of his Majesties Colledge at Eaton To the Right worthy his ever truly honoured Sir Edmund Bacon Knight and Baronet touching the loss of friends and final resignation of our selves Sir ALL the faculties of my minde if they had ever been of any value and all the strength of my body must yield to the seignory and soveraignty of time over us But the last thing that will die or decay in me is the remembrance how amidst that inestimable contentment which I enjoyed as all others do in the benefit and pleasure of your Conversation being then with you at Redgrave in Suffolk both your delightful Mansion and Philosophical retreat where you are best because there you are most your self though every where well imparted to your friends I was then surprized with advertisement from Court of the death of Sir Albertus Morton my dear Nephew in the vernality as I may term it of his employments and fortunes under the best King and Master of the World And how no great time after as adversities are seldom solitary there succeeded in the same place the departure of my no less dear Neece your long and I dare say your still beloved Consort for love and life are not conterminable as well appeareth by your many tender expressions of that disjuncture and by that Monument of your own excellent invention which you have raised to her memory This Sir ever freshly bleeding in me and withall revolving often in my retired thoughts how I have long since overlived my loving Parents all mine Uncles Brothers and Sisters besides many of mine especial Friends and Companions of my youth who have melted away before me and that I am now my self arrived near those years which lie in the suburbs of Oblivion being the sole Masculine Branch of my good Fathers house in the County of Kent So as that poor Name and Reputation which my Ancestors have heretofore sustained by Gods permission must expire and vanish in my unworthiness I say Sir again and again debating often these Circumstances with my self and truly not without the common weaknesses passions of humanity from which I am of all men least exempted an extream desire did lately assail me to entertain between my other Private Studies some such discourse as might work upon mine own minde and at least abstract awhile if not elevate my cogitations above all earthly objects Whereupon towards the end of this last Lent a time of contracted thoughts I fell to think of that Theam which I have now entituled The loss of Friends and final Resignation of our selves Intending though it be the highest and uttermost point of Christian Philosophy to familiarize it between us as much as I can and to address it in form of a letter to your self For with whom can I treat of this matter more properly being both of us almost precisely of equal age and by the love which you are pleased to bear me all Joy in the Fruition and all Grief in the Privation of Friends common between us Now Sir c. Sir NOw I begin but why not before That question shall be answered by the next Carrier or by a special messenger the next week at which time you shall have an account of all that hath passed and some prognostication also upon the future for my pen is grown bold and eager with rest as dogs that are tyed up At the present all my care is to let you know that I have received your last with the enclosed which although I well understand my self yet I have not had time since the decyphering to acquaint the party with it which shall be done as soon as I have sealed this and sent it to the Carriers I thought now to have said no more but lest it lose the grace of freshness I pray let me tell you that yesterday morning the Vicount Rochester was very solemnly in the Banqueting-hall in the sight of many great ones and small ones created Earl of Somerset and in the afternoon for a farther honouring and signalizing of the day my Lord Cook brought in by the said Earl was sworn a privy Counseller to counterpoise the difference of the profit between the Common pleas and the Kings Bench. I will turn over the leaf though I die for it to remember the heartiest love of my soul to that good Neece to that sweet Neece to whom I have much to say by the next opportunity Our dear Saviour keep you both in his continual love Your faithfullest Servant HENRY WOTTON Touching the project of our house believe it Sir I boyl in it and am ready to begin again that I may tell you how busie I have been in the matter but let this also be put over till the following week which is likely to fall heavy upon you Written on the day of our great preservation for which our God be ever glorified On Midsummer morning Sir LIke a woman great with childe I have threatened you almost
called honest liberty so as upon the whole matter No excesses want pretious 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 Latin 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 How soever I will keep it from being hectical and hereafter give you a better account of mine own observations This week I have seen from a most dear Neece a Letter that hath much comforted one Uncle and a Postscript the other Long may that hand move which is so full of kindeness 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 Load-stone 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 HENRY WOTTON Sir I pray remember my hearty affection to my Cosin Nicolas Bacon and all joy to the new conjoyned I shall propound unto you the next week a very possible Probleme unto which 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 than a younger body could well have born by the incision of a wennish tumor 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 went a general voyce through the Court on Sunday last upon the commitment of Doctor Sharp and Sir Charles Cornwallis to the Tower that he was somewhat implicated in that business whereof I will give you a little accompt at the present as far as I have been hitherto able to penetrate John Hoskins of whose imprisonment I wrote unto you by the last Carrier having at a reexamination been questioned whether he well understood the consequence of that Sicilian vesper whereunto 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 way of his profession whereupon being pressed to discover whence he then had recieved this information since it lay not within his own reading he confessed to have had it from Doctor Sharp who had infused these things into him and had solicited him to impress them in the Parliament And further that Hoskins hereupon demanding what protection he might hope for if afterwards he were called into question the said Doctor should nominate unto him besides others whose names I will spare that Earl who hath now made an end of all his reckonings assuring him of his assistance by the means of Sir Charles Cornwallis with whom the Doctor was conjoyned in this practice Thus came Sir Charles into discovery who being afterward confronted with 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 with him therein upon his Salvation which yet is not enough as I percieve 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 which I had rather you should see in a letter then as I did on Sunday at Greenwich where 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 whole Court with most dejected countenances and such a greediness at all windows 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 Lord of Suffolk my Lord of Worcester and my Lord William Haward to the Earl of Arundel he hath left all his land which will amount to some 3000. 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 concieved that he dyed in some distastful impression which he had taken against him upon the voyces that ran of my Lord of Suffolcks 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 Knowels A few daies 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 waies Your faithfullest poor friend and Servant HENRY 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 oar of lead and iron withall which I have not yet gotten Is there no room left for the remembrance of that dear Neece God forbid And I pray Sir tell her besides that a certain Uncle here whom yet I will not suffer to love her better then my self doth greedily expect some news from her The 7. of
LETTERS OF Sir Henry Wotton TO Sir Edmund Bacon LONDON Printed by R. W. for F. T. at the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1661. THE PRINTER TO THE READER TO remove all suspicion that may arise concerning these Letters published so long after the Authors death these are to assure you that they are printed from the Originals written with his own hand though without this assurance the spirit of them will sufficiently discover their Author Farewell Letters 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 minde 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 Corollius Rufus Vereor saith he ne posthac negligentius vivam But herein my case is better 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 Gaspero 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 St. 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 Your poor friend and Servant HENRY WOTTON From my Lodging in King-street this 2d. Apr. 1611. 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 footman my self then one of the Writers But here I am tyed 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 Your Uncle by your own Election and your servant by mine HENRY WOTTON From Greenwich the 27. May 1611. March the last 1613. Sir I Returned from Cambridge to London some two hours after the King The next day was celebrated with 20 Tilters wherein there entred four fraternities the Earls Pembrock 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 Dorcet Shandowes North Hey Dingwel Clifford Sir Thomas Sommerset and Sir John 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 whereof 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 valco The other a Sun casting a glance on the side of a Pillar and the Beams reflecting with this Motto Splendente 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 Sr Thomas Haward and Sr 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-Dukes 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 Sr Thomas Parsons the one a fool by election and the other by necessity which was accordingly performed some two or three dayes after at Tylt 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 Almaigne 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 Venetians 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 Week 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 HENRY WOTTON I pray Sir remember me very particularly to my Cosin 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 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. Drurie 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 heâ—…vy years The long-expected Ambassador from Savoy arrived 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 L. of Rochester partly by some relapse into his late infirmity and partly as it is interpreted through the grief of his minde 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 lyen long in our poor Province of Kent languishing for a Winde which she sees though it be but a vapour Princes cannot command at length on Sunday last towards evening did put to Sea Some 8 dayes after a Book had been Printed and published in London of her entertainment at Heidelberge 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 Neece to Gods dearest blessings Your own in faithfullest love HENRY WOTTON London this Thursday the 29th of April 1613. Sir YOur Kinsman and friend Sir Robert Killigrew was in the Fleet from Wednesday of the last week till the Sunday following and no longer which I reckon but an Ephemeral fit in respect of his in firmity who was the cause of it which 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 which for my part I believe for the diseases of fortune have a kinde of transfusion into the body and strong-working spirits wanting their usual objects revert upon themselves because the nature of the minde 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 to constant principles Now to return to the matter The King hath granted the Physician but denyed the servant By which you may guess at the issue for when graces are managed so narrowly by a King otherwise of so gratious 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 Lieutenant of the Tower by the mediation of the House of Suffolk notwithstanding that my Lord of Rochester was the commender of Sir Iohn Keyes to that charge which the said Keyes had for a good while and this maketh the case the more strange alwayes supplyed even by Patent in the absence of Sir William Wade Upon which circumstances though they seem to bend another way the Logicians of the Court do make this conclusion That His Majesty satisfying the Suffolcians with petty things intendeth to repair the Vicount Rochester in the main and gross And therefore all men contemplate Sir Henry Nevil for the future Secretary some saying that it is but deferred till the return of the Queen that she may be allowed a hand in his Introduction Which likewise will quiet the voyces 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 kinde 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 would say more but I am suddenly surprized by the Secretary of the Savoy Ambassador who I think will depart about the end of the Whitson Holy-dayes for which I languish With his businesses I can acquaint you nothing till the next week by reason of this surprizâ—…l And besides it hath disturbed my Muses so I must remain still in debt to my sweet Neece for that Poeticâ—…l 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 whereas 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 whensoever we shall be separated to venture my whole poor stock in traffique with you finding the return so gainful unto me And so committing you to Gods dearest blessings I ever rest Your faithfullest poor friend and servant HENRY WOTTON The 14 of May 1613. Sir I Have not yet presented to my Lord that Box which came with your Letter of this week for he removed on Wednesday with the King and houshold to Greenwich And I still remain here to shew you that the Court doth like a Load-stone draw only those that are intra orbem virtutis suae I mean within the compass and circle of profit The Savoy Ambassador seemeth in his second audience to have discharged all his Commission or otherwise he wanteth authority to proceed further then to a general overture till the arrival of the Cavalr Battista Gabaleoni who is hourly expected and is here to remain as Resident for the said Duke With him likewise come certain other Gentlemen of title who should from the beginning have dignified the Ambassadors Train but the cause of this stragling was a sudden attempt which the Duke immediately after the Ambassadors departure who appointed those Gentlemen to follow him made upon the Marquisat of Monserrato
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 finde it dryed 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 was on Saturday last the day after your Posts departure very solemnly restored at Council-Table the King present from a kinde of Eclipse wherein he had stood since the Thursday fortnight before All considered the obscuration was long and bred both various and doubtful discourse but it ended well All the cause yet known was 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 which he had opened in Paris and he did expect it at such a time even in the Spring-garden close under his fathers Window with 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 whom and the said L. Weston had in the late journey as it seems been contracted such friendship as overcame the memory that he was Cosin-German to my L. of Holland a very fair and discreet answer That if he could challenge him for any injury done him before or after his Ambassage he would meet him as a Gentleman with his sword by his side where he should appoint But for any thing that had been done in the time of his Ambassage he had already given the King an account thereof and thought himself not accountable to any other This published on Thursday was fortnight the Earl of Holland was confined to his Chamber in Court and the next day morning to his house at Kensington where he remained without any further circumstance of restraint or displeasure Saturday and Sunday on which dayes being much visited it was thought fit on Munday to appoint M. Dickenson one of the Clerks of the Council to be his Guardian thus far that none without his presence should accost him This made the vulgar judgements run high or rather indeed run low That he was a lost and discarded man judgeing as of Patients in Feavers by the exasperation of the fits But the Queen who was a little obliquely interrested in this business for in my Lord of Hollands Letter which was opened she had one that was not opened nor so much as they say as superscribed and both the Queens and my L. of Hollands were inclosed in one from M. Walter Mountague whereof 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 was only in favour if it might be obtained of Mons r de Chateau Neuf and the Cheval r de Jarr who had both been here but written with caution and surely not without the Kings knowledge to be delivered if there were hope of any good effect and perchance not without order from His Majesty to my Lord Weston afterwards to stop the said Letters upon advertisement that both Cateau Neuf de Jarr were already in the Bastille But this I leave at large as not knowing the depth of the business Upon Munday was seven-night fell out another quarrel nobly carried branching from the former between my L. Fielding and M. Goring son and heir to the Lord of that name They had been the night before at supper I know not where together where M. Goring spake something in diminution of my L. Weston which my L. 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 where they might be parted too soon and turn into a lane by Knights-bridge where having tyed up their Horses at a hedge or gate they got over into a Close there stripped into their shirts with single Rapiers they fell to an eager Duel till they were severed by the Host and his servants of the Inn of the Prince of Orange who by meer chance had taken some notice of them In this noble encounter wherein blood was 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 word may have room in this place Sayes my Lord Fielding M. 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 way but one to answer this courtesie I have here by chance in my pocket a Warrant to pass the Ports out of England without 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 which 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 were fairly reconciled and forgiven by the King with shaking of hands and such Symbols of agreement And likewise Sir Maurice Dromand who had before upon an uncivil rupture 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 forraign matter there is so little and so doubtful as it were a misery to trouble you with it The States confuted Treaty is put to the stock and the Prince of Orange by account gone to the field two dayes since having broken the business as they say by three demands the resignment of Breda and Guelder the dismantling
by what Arts he lived yet are we ignorant to this hour by what Religion he died save only that it could not be good which was not worthy the professing This free passage let me commit to your noble brest remembring that in confidence of the reciever I have transgressed a late Counsel of mine own which I gave to a young friend who asking me casually of what he should make him a sute as he was passing this way towards London I told him that in my opinion he could not buy a cheaper nor a more lasting stuff there then silence For I loved him well and was afraid of a little freedom that I spied in him And now Sir I must needs conclude or I shall burst with letting you know that I have divers things in wilde sheets that think and struggle to get out of several kinds some long promised and some of a newer conception but a poor exercise of my pen wherewith I shall only honour my self by the dedication thereof unto your own person is that which shall lead the way by mine and your good leave intending if God yield me his favour to print it before It be long in Oxford and to send you thence or bring you a Copy to our Redgrave What the subject is you must not know beforehand for I fear it will want all other grace if it lose virginity And so the Lord of all abundant joy keep you long con quella buona Ciera which this my servant did relate unto me Who live at all your commands HENRY WOTTON From your Colledge this Ashwednesday 1637. Postscript Mr. Clever one of the now Fellows of this Colledge where have been divers changes since it had the honour and the gladness to receive you being this day returned hither from the Excellent Lord Keeper to whom we had addressed him about a business that concerneth us Tells me even at this instant in the account of his journey that it pleased his good Lordship to inquire of him twice or thrice very graciously touching my health I beseech you My Noble Nephew let his Lordship see if it please you this whole letter for I dare trust his indulgent goodness both with my liberties and with my simplicities and that will tell him my present Estate which by making it any part of his care is for ever at his most humble service Noble Sir above all the most honoured and loved UPon the receipt of a letter from you which came late and I know not by what misadventure half drowned to my hands with advertisement that you had been at Sudbury in your passage homewards assailed with a Quartan I resolved immediately to visit you by this bearer the best of my flights and lately well acquainted himself with farther travellers who yet hath been kept here after my said resolution that he might bring you a full account of the business touching my inviolâ—…t Neece so dear unto us both which was a part of your foresaid letter and wherein I am confident you will receive very singular contentment out of the very Originals of some and true Copies of other letters which I send you by this my said inward servant and if he were not so I would not have intrusted him with so tender Papers The rest of his stay was only that I might collect among my poor memorials and experiments something conducible to the recovery of your health wherein I reckon my self as much interessed as in any one thing of this world I will not say unto you Courage as the French use to speak for you have enough of that within your self Nor be merry in our English phrase for you can impart enough of that even to others in the incomparable delight of your conversation But let me give you two comforts though needless to the serenity of your spirits The first That I hope your infirmity will not hold you long because it comes as I may speak according to the barbarous translators of Avicenna In complexionato suo that is in the very season of the revolution of melancholick humours for Omnis Morbus contra complexionatum Patientis vel Temporis est periculosus aut longus The other That it hath not succeeded any precedent caustick disease because those Quartans are of all the most obstinat which arise out of the Incineration of a former Ague The rest I have committed to the instructions and memory of this bearer being himself a Student in Physick and though I dare not yet call him a good Counsellor yet I assure you he is a good relator with this dispatch I will intermingle no other vulgar subject but hereafter I will entertain you with as jolly things as I can scamble together And so Sir for the present commending you into the sweet and comfortable preservation of our dear God I rest Your faithful poor servant HENRY WOTTON From the Colledge this 6. of Novemb. 1638. On Tuesday the 16th of November Sir AN express Messenger will ease us both of the trouble of a cypher But I was in pain whether I should send another or be that Messenger my self being now as near you as Royston and scant able to obtain pardon of mine own severity for not passing farther yet this may be said for me that the present occasion required little noise and besides I am newly ingaged into some business whereof I will give you a particular account when I shall first have discharged that part which belongeth to your self My Lord my Brother having been acquainted with the matter inclosed in your last to me dispatched the very next day M. Pen down to Boughton for such writings as had passed at your marriage which having consulted with his Lawyers he found those things to stand in several natures according to the annexed Scedule For the point of your coming up he referreth that to your own heart and I have only charge from him to tell you that without any such occasion as this which seemeth to imply your affectionate respect of his Daughter your own person and conversation shall be ever most welcome and dear unto him As for my Lady through whose knowledge and my self through whose hands you have passed this point of confidence if you could behold us and compare us with my Lord you should see though no difference in the reality yet some in the fashion For to him you must allow the sober forms of his age and place but we on the other side are mad with gladness at the hope we have now taken by this occasion of enjoying both you and my Neece this Winter at London and we are contented to profess it as profusely as it is possible for a better Pen to set it down Nay for my part who in this case have somewhat single I flatter my self yet farther that the Term whereof not much now remaineth will accelerate your coming Which if you resolve I pray then let me only by this Bearer know it that I may provide you some fit
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 John 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 HENRY 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 Sir BY the next Carrier for yet I must say so again you shall hear when this Ambassador 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 Mansfeld 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 wisdom from hence Sure it is that the humors of that Kingdom are very hovering and much awaked with an apprehension taken that we mean to fetter them with Laws of their own making which in truth were an ingenious strain of State My Lord and Lady are stollen down into Kent for a few dayes to take in some fresh ayr 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 Cooks heir and the second Daughter of Sir Arthur Throckmorton is suddainly 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 Neece in his continual love Your poor Uncle faithfull Friend and Willing Servant HENRY 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 From my Chamber this Thursday St. George his Eve 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 Vicount 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 conveighed 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 suddainness like a stroak 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 Pembrock 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 were by the Council interpreted pregnant of contemptin a case where the King had opened his will which refusal of his I should for my part esteem an eternal disgrace to our occupation if withall I did not consider how hard it is to pull one from the bosom of a Favorite Thus you see the point upon which 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 ends Now in this whole matter there is one main and principal doubt which doth travail 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 were done without his knowledge we must expect of himself either a decadence or a ruine if not we must then expect a reparation by some other great publick satisfaction whereof the world may take as much notice These clouds a few dayes will clear In the mean while 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 will not bear it I have shewed my Lord and Ladies Sister your Letter of the 18. of April who 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 who cometh from Savoy nor Don Pedro disarmiento who 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 me-thinks 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 faithfull poor Friend and Servant HENRY WOTTON I pray Sir let me in some corner of every Letter tell my sweet Neece that I love her extreamly as God judge me FINIS