that all Nations prosecuted him with love and wonder as fast as the King with Grace and to his last he never lost any of his lustre His swiftness and nimbleness in rising may be with less injury ascribed to a Vivacity then any Ambition in his nature since it is certain the Kings eagerness to advance him so surprized his youth that he seemed only to submit his shoulders without resistance to such burdens as his Highness would be pleased to lay on him and rather to be held up by the violent inclination of the King then to climb up by any Art or industry of his own yet once seated he would not affront that judgement that raised him by an unseasonable diffidence of himself but endeavoured with an understanding boldness to manage those imployments which his modesty would never suffer him to court During the Reign of his first Master I cannot but say he enjoyed an indifferent calm in his Fortune and Favour for though there were some boisterous interruptions by the clamour of the people yet shortly again their affections were as violent and almost as senseless toward him as ever their accusations were before or after Insomuch as the Chief Rulers among them performed frequent visits to him when he was somewhat diseased in his health and out of a zealous care of him would have begot in him some jealousie that his Physicians and nearest Attendants about him being perhaps of the same Religion with the King of Spain had a purpose by poyson to revenge some injuries these people had conceived in the right of that Nation And here the Fortunes of our great Personages met when they were both the Favourites of the Princes and Darlings of the people But their affections to the Duke were but very short lived And now 't is seasonable to say somewhat of the disposition and spirit of this time since the Disparity of those we treat of will be in that discerned and the Earl be found by so much to have the advantage that there will be little need of conferring the particulars of their lives 'T was a busie querulous frowardtime so much degenerated from the purity of the former that the people under pretences of Reformation with some petulant discourses of Liberty which their great Impostors scattered among them like false glasses to multiply their fears began Abditos Principis sensus quid occultius parat exquirere extended their enquiries even to the Chamber and private actions of the King himself forgetting that truth of the Poet Nusquam Libertas gratior extat quam sub Rege pio 'T was strange to see how men afflicted themselves to find out calamities and mischiefs whilest they borrowed the name of some great persons to scandalize the State they lived in A general disorder throughout the whole body of the Commonwealth nay the vital part perishing the Laws violated by the Judges Religion prophaned by the Prelates Heresies crept into the Church and countenanced and yet all this shall be quickly rectified without so much as being beholding to the King or consulting with the Clergy Surely had Petronius now lived he would have found good cause to say Nostra regio tam praesentibus plena est numinibus ut facilius possis deum quam hominem invenire For my part whether the frenzy was nourish'd in the warm brest of young men who are commonly too much in love with their own time to think it capable of reformation or whether it was fomented by riper heads that had miscarried in their propositions of advancement and are violent in the successes of Queen Elizabeth or whether it was only the revolution of time that had made them unconcerned in the loyal fears that governed sixty years since I shall not presume to guess but shall rather wish for the spirit and condition of that time as he did for wars and commotions Quoniam acerbissima Dei flagella sunt quibus hominum pertinaciam punit ea perpetua oblivione sepelienda potius quà m memoriae mandanda esse King James being no sooner dead but such as had from his beginning impertinently endeavoured to supplant him and found that he was so deeply rooted in his Soveraigns acceptance that there should be no shaking him with clamorous objections found some means to commend over his condition and transcendent power as they termed it as a matter of publick consequence to the people and from this instant to his fatal end he stood as it were exposâ—…d notwithstanding all the shelter of the Soveraigns regard to all the calumnies and obloquies the impudent malice of the Rabble could fling on him and in all their pretences of Reformation as if their end were only his shame not amendment they rather cudgeâ—… then reprâ—…hend him Of this wilde rage not within the main purpose of an Apology I shall give one or two instances insisting on them only as they were mentioned in the indigested noise of the people not as they were marshalled with other imployments in any publick Declaration or Remonstrance There were two errours chiefly laid to his charge and so eagerly urged that in them he was almost concluded an Enemy to the King and Countrey which certainly in the next Age will be conceived marvellous strange Objections the one being a strong Argument of his Worth the other a piece of its Reward the first was the plurality of Offices though they were immediately conferred on him by the King or else such as he was promoted to by his Majesties own allowance to acquire to the which there was no condition but his Majesty was a witness if not a surety for the performance and yet for the execution of them never man studied more to apt himself nor descended to meaner Arts to give general content And here possibly it concerned his Mirth to see his ambition prosecuted of some who desired to ease him of this Guilt by undertaking his Trust. The other was the preferment of his Kindred upon whom his Majesty delighting to give all gracious expression of his affection to the Duke would to enliven any branch that grew from the same Stock confer both Honour and Living And this surely had so little signification of offence in the Dukes conscience that he thought he should have sinned against the Law of Nature and a generous disposition that it would have been an eternal brand to his name and memory if being so seized of this great Kings favour he had no regard but to his own advancement And 't is not improbable that his noble care of his Family confirmed him in the estimation of his Master who knew that all Fountains ought to bestow themselves upon their Neighbour-brooks and could have hoped for little effects from his service whose care was only directed for himâ—…f Now whether the importunate clamour upon these two faults whereof he found no regret but comfort in himself made him so to esteem of the popular discretion and honesty or whether he esteemed it the same
Pope that his Holiness vvould expect from him some Recantation in Print as an Antidote against certain Books and Pamphlets vvhich he had published vvhilst he stood in Revolt Namely his first Manifesto Item Two Sermons preached at the Italian Church in London Again a little Tract entituled his Scogli And lastly his greater Volumes about Church Regiment and Controversies These vvere all named For as touching the Tridentine History His Holiness sayes the Cardinal vvill not press you to any disavowment thereof though you have an Epistle before the Original Edition because vve knovv vvell enough that Frier Paolo is the Father of that Brat Upon this last Piece of the aforesaid Advertisement the good Father came fairly off for on a sudden laying all together that to disavovv the Work vvas an untruth to assume it a danger and to say nothing an incivility he took a middle evasion telling the Prince That he understood he vvas going to Rome vvhere he might learn at ease vvho vvas the Author of that Book as they were freshly intelligenced from thence Thus vvithout any mercy of your Time I have been led along from one thing to another vvhile I have taken pleasure to remember that Man vvhom God appointed and furnished for a proper Instrument to Anatomize that Pack of Reverend Cheaters among whom I speak of the greater part exceptis sanioribus Religion was shuffled like a pair of Cards and the Dice so many years vvere set upon us And so wishing you very heartily many good years I will let you breathe till you have opened the inclosed remaining From the Arms of your good Nurse who fed you with her best Milk Jan. 17. 1637 Your poor Friend to serve you HENRY WOTTON THE ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE Collected by HENRY WOTTON K t From the Best AUTHOURS AND EXAMPLES THE PREFACE I Shall not need like the most part of Writers to celebrate the Subject which I deliver In that point I am at ease For Architecture can want no commendation where there are Noble-Men or Noble Minds I will therefore spend this Preface rather about those from whom I have gathered my knowledge For I am but a gatherer and disposer of other mens stuff at my best value Our principal Master is Vitruvius and so I shall often call him who had this felicity that he wrote when the Roman Empire was neer the pitch Or at least when Augustus who favoured his endeavours had some meaning if he were not mistaken to bound the Monarchie This I say was his good hap For in growing and enlarging times Arts are commonly drowned in Action But on the other side it was in truth an unhappiness to express himself so ill especially writing as he did in a season of the ablest Pens And his obscurity had this strange fortune That though he were best practised and best followed by his own Country-men yet after the receiving and repolishing of good Literature which the combustions and tumults of the middle-age had uncivilized he was best or at least first understood by Strangers For of all the Italians that took him in hand those that were Grammarians seem to have wanted Mathematical knowledge and the Mathematicians perhaps wanted Grammar till both were sufficiently conjoyned in Leon-Batisti Alberti the Florentine whom I repute the first learned Architect beyond the Alpes But he studied more indeed to make himself an Author then to illustrate his Master Therefore amongst his Commenters I must for my private conceit yeeld the chief praise unto the French in Philander and to the high Germans in Gualterius Rivius who besides his Notes hath likewise published the most elaborate Translation that I think is extant in any Vulgar Speech of the World though not without bewailing now and then some defect of Artificial terms in his own as I must likewise For if the Saxon our Mother-tongue did complain as justly I doubt in this point may the Daughter Languages for the most part in terms of Art and Erudition retaining their Original poverty and rather growing rich and abundant in complemental Phrases and such froth Touching divers Modern men that have written out of meer practise I shall give them their due upon occasion And now after this short Censure of others I would fain satisfie an Objection or two which seem to lye somewhat heavily upon my selfe It will be sayd That I handle an Art no way sutable either to my Imployments or to my Fortune And so I shall stand charged both with Intrusion and with Impertinency To the first I answer That though by the ever-acknowledged goodness of my most dear and gracious Soveraign and by his long indulgent tolerations of my defects I have born abroad some part of his civil service yet when I came home and was again resolved into mine own simplicity I found it fitter for my Pen at least in this first Publick adventure to deal with these plain Compilements and tractable Materials then with the Laberynths and Mysteries of Courts and States And less presumption for me who have long contemplated a famous Republick to write now of Architecture then it was anciently for Hippodamus the Melesian to write of Republiques who was himself but an Architect To the Second I must shrink up my shoulders as I have learn'd abroad and confess indeed that my fortune is very unable to exemplifie and actuate my Speculations in this Art which yet in truth made me the rather even from my very disability take encouragement to hope that my present Labour would find the more favour in others since it was undertaken for no mans sake less then mine own And with that confidence I fell into these thoughts Of which there were two wayes to be delivered The one Historical by description of the principal Works performed already in good part by Goirgio Vassari in the Lives of Architects The other Logical by casting the rules and cautions of this Art into some comportable Method whereof I have made choice not onely as the shortest and most Elemental but indeed as the soundest For though in practical knowledges every compleat Example may bear the credit of a Rule yet per adventure Rules should precede that we may by them be made fit to judge of Examples Therefore to the purpose for I will preface no longer OF THE ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE The First Part. IN Architecture as in all other Operative Arts. the End must direct the Operation The End is to build well Well-building hath three Conditions Commodity Firmness and Delight A common Division among the Deliverers of this Art though I know not how somewhat misplaced by Vitruvius himself lib. 1. cap. 3. whom I shall be willinger to follow as a Master of Proportion then of Method Now For the attaining of these Intentions we may consider the whole Subject under two general Heads The Seat and the Work Therefore first touching Situation The Precepts thereunto belonging do either concern the Total Posture as I may term it
enough to graduate a Master of this Art yet let me before I pass to other matter prevent a familiar Objection It will perchance be said that all this Doctrine touching the five Orders were fitter for the Quarries of Asia which yielded 127 Columnes of 60 Foot high to the Ephesian Temple or for Numidia where Marbles abound then for the Spirits of England who must be contented with more ignoble Materials To which I answer That this need not discourage us For I have often at Venice viewed with much pleasure an Atrium Graecum we may translate it an Anti porch after the Greek manner raised by Andraea Palladio upon eight Columnes of the compounded Order The Bases of Stone without Pedistals The Shafts or Bodies of meer Brick three Foot and an half thick in the Diameter below and consequently thirty five Foot high as himself hath described them in his second Book Then which mine Eye hath never yet beheld any Columnes more stately of Stone or Marble For the Bricks having first been formed in a circular Moula and then cut before their burning into four Quarters or more the sides afterwards joyn so closely and the points concenter so exactly that the Pillars appear one entire Peece which short descriptionâ—… could not omit that thereby may appear how in truth we want rather Art then Stuff to satisfie our greatest Fancies After Pillars the next in my distribution are Pilasters mentioned by Vitruvius lib. 5. cap. 1. and scant any where else under the name of Parastates as Philander conceiveth which Grammatical point though perchance not very clear I am contented to examine no further Alwayes what we mean by the thing it self is plain enough in our own vulgar Touching which I will briefly collect the most considerable Notes Pylasters must not be too tall and slender lest they resemble Pillars nor too Dwarfish and gross lest they imitate the Piles or Peers of Bridges Smoothness doth not so naturally become them as a Rustick Superficies for they aim more at State and Strength then Elegancy In private Buildings they ought not to be narrower then one Third nor broader then two parts of the whole Vacuity between Pylaster and Pylaster but to those that stand at the Corners may be allowed a little more Latitude by discretion for strength of the Angles In Theaters and Amphi theaters and such weighty Works Palladio observeth them to have been as broad as the half and now and then as the whole Vacuity He noteth likewise and others consent with him that their true Proportion should be an exact Square But for lestening of expence and inlarging of room they are commonly narrower in Flank then in Front Their principal Grace doth consist in half or whole Pillars ' applied unto them in which case it is well noted by Authors that the Columnes may be allowed somewhat above their ordinary length because they lean unto so good Supporters And thus much shall suffice touching Pylasters which is a cheap and a strong and a noble kind of Structure Now because they are oftner both for Beauty and Majesty found arched then otherwise I am here orderly led to speak of Arches and under the same head of Vaults for an Arch is nothing indeed but a contracted Vault and a Vault is but a dilated Arch Therefore to handle this Piece both compendiously and fundamentally I will resolve the whole business into a few Theorems Theorem 1. All solid Materials free from impediment do descend perpendicularly downwards because Ponderosity is a natural inclination to the Center of the World and Nature performeth her Motions by the shortest lines Theorem 2. Bricks moulded in their ordinary Rectangular form if they shall be laid one by another in a level row between any Supporters sustaining the two ends then all the pieces between will necessarily sink even by their own natural Gravity and much more if they suffer any depression by other weight above them because their sides being parallel they have room to descend perpendicularly without impeachment according to the former Theorem Therefore to make them stand we must either change their Posture or their Figure or both Theorem 3. If Bricks moulded or Stones squared Cuneatim that is Wedge-wise broader above then below shall be laid in a Row-level with their ends supported as in the precedent Theorem pointing all to one Center then none of the pieces between can sink till the Supporters give way because they want room in that Figuration to descend perpendicularly But this is yet a weak piece of Structure because the Supporters are subject to much impulsion especially if the Line be long for which reason this Form is seldome used but over Windowes or narrow Doors Therefore to fortifie the Work as in this third Theorem we have supposed the Figure of all the Materials different from those in the second So likewise we must now change the Posture as will appear in the Theorem following Theorem 4. If the Materials figured as before Wedge-wise shall not be disposed levelly but in form of some Arch or portion of a Circle pointing all to the same Center In this case neither the pieces of the said Arch can sink downwards through want of room to descend perpendicularly Nor the Supporters or Butments as they are termed of the said Arch can suffer so much violence as in the precedent flat posture for the roundness will alwayes make the incumbent weight rather to rest upon the Supporters then to shove them whence may be drawn an evident Corolary that the safest of all Arches is the Semi-circular and of all Vaults the Hemisphere though not absolutely exempted from some natural weakness †as Bernardino Baldi Abbot of Guastalla in his Commentary upon Aristotles Mechanicks doth very well prove where let me note by the way that when any thing is Mathematically demonstrated weak it is much more Mechanically weak Errours ever occurring more easily in the management of Gross Materials then Lineal Designes Theorem 5. As Semi-circular Arches or Hemispherical Vaults being raised upon the total Diameter be of all other the roundest and consequently the securest by the precedent Theoreme So those are the gracefullest which keeping precisely the same height shall yet be distended one fourteenth part longer then the said entire Diameter which addition of distent will confer much to their Beauty and detract but little from their Strength This Observation I find in Leon-Batista Alberti But the practice how to preserve the same height and yet distend the Arms or Ends of the Arch is in Albert Durers Geometry who taught the Italians many an excellent Line of great use in this Art Upon these five Theoremes all the skill of Arching and Vaulting is grounded As for those Arches which our Artizans call of the third and fourth point And the Tuscan Writers di terzo and dâ—… quarto accuto because they alwayes concurre in an acute Angle and do spring from division of the Diameter into three four
above And this in exact Ovals is a Master-piece Of Chimnies IN the present business Italians who make very frugal fires are perchance not the best Counsellers Therefore from them we may better â—…earn both how to raise fair Mantels within the rooms and how to disguise gracefully the shafts of Chimnies abroad as they use in sundry forms which I shall handle in the latter part of my Labour and the rest I will extract from Philippe de l'Orme in this part of his Work more diligent then in any other or to do him right then any man else First he observeth very soberly that who in the disposition of any Building will consider the nature of the Region and the Winds that ordinarily blow from this or that Quarter might so cast the rooms which shall most need fire that he should little fear the incommodity of Smoke and therefore he thinks that inconvenience for the most part to proceed from some inconsiderate beginning Or if the errour lay not in the Disposition but in the Structure it self then he makes a Logical enquiry That either the Wind is too much let in above at the mouth of the Shaft or the Smoke stifled below If none of these Then there is a repulsion of the Fume by some higher Hill or Fabrick that shall overtop the Chimney and worâ—… the former effect If likewise not this Then 〈◊〉 concludes that the Room which is infested muâ—… be necessarily both little and close so as the smoâ—… cannot issue by a natural Principle wanting a suâ—…cession and supply of new Air. Now in these cases he suggesteth divers Artificial Remedies of which I will allow one a littâ—… Description because it savoureth of Phylosophy and was touched by Vitruvius himself lib. 1. cap. 6. bâ—… by this man ingeniously applyed to the present use He will have us provide two hollow brass Balls oâ—… reasonable capacity with little holes open iâ—… both for reception of Water when the Air shaâ—… be first sucked out One of these we must plaâ—… with the hole upwards upon an iron Wire thâ—… shall traverse the Chimney a little above the Mâ—…tel at the ordinary height of the sharpest heat 〈◊〉 flames whereof the Water within being rarified and by rarifaction resolved into Wind will breâ—… out and so force up the smoke which otherwiâ—… might linger in the Tunnel by the way and oftentimes revert With the other saith he 〈◊〉 may supply the place of the former when it is exhausted or for a need blow the Fire in the meâ—… while Which Invention I have interposed foâ—… some little entertainment of the Reader I wiâ—… conclude with a note from Palladio who observeâ—… that the Ancients did warm their Rooms with certain secret Pipes that came through the Walls transporting heat as I conceive it to sundry parts of the House from one common Furnace I am ready to baptize them Cali ducts as well as they are termed Venti-ducts and Aquae-ducts that convey Wind and Water which whether it were a custome or a delicacy was surely both for thrift and for use far beyond the German Stoves And I should prefer it likewise before our own fashion if the very sight of a fire did not adde to the Room a kind of Reputation as old Homer doth teach us in a verse sufficient to prove that himself was not blind as some would lay to his charge Touching Conducts for the Suillage and other necessities of the House which how base soever in use yet for health of the inhabitants are as considerable and perhaps more then the rest I find in our Authors this Counsel That Art should imitate Nature in those ignoble conveyances and separate them from Sight where there wants a running Water into the most remote and lowest and thickest part of the Foundation with secret vents passing up through the Walls like a Tunnel to the wilde Air aloft which all Italian Artizans commend for the discharge of noysome vapours though else-where to my knowledge little practised Thus having considered the precedent Apertions or Overtures in severalty according to their particular Requisites I am now come to the casting and Contexture of the whole Work comprehended under the term of Compartition Into which being the mainest piece I cannot enter without a few general Precautions as I have done in other Parts First therefore Let no man that intendeth to build settle his Fancy upon a draught of the Work in paper how exactly soever measured or neatly set off in perspective And much less upon a bare Plant thereof as they call the Sciographia or Ground lines without a Model or Type of the whole Structure and of every parcel and Partition in Pastboard or Wood. Next that the said Model be as plain as may be without colours or other beautifying lest the pleasure of the Eye preoccupate the Judgement which advice omitted by the Italian Architécts I find in Philippe de l'Orme and therefore though France be not the Theater of best buildings it did merit some mention of his name Lastly the bigger that this Type be it is still the better not that I will perswade a man to such an enormity as that Model made by Antonio Labaco of St. Peters Church in Rome containing 22 foot in length 16 in breadth and 13 in heighth and costing 4184 Crowns The price in truth of a reasonable Chappel Yet in a Fabrick of some 40 or 50 thousand pounds charge I wish 30 pounds at least laid out before hand in an exact Model for a little misery in the Premises may easily breed some absurdity of greater charge in the Conclusion Now after these premonishments I will come to the Compartition it self By which the Authors of this Art as hath been touched before do understand a gracefull and usefull distribution of the whole Ground-plot both for rooms of Office and of Reception or Entertainment as far as the Capacity thereof and the nature of the Countrey will comport Which circumstances in the present subject are all of main consideration and might yield more discourse then an Elemental Rapsodie will permit Therefore to anatomize briefly this Definition the Gracefulness whereof we speak will consist in double Analogy or correspondency First between the Parts and the whole whereby a great Fabrick should have great Partitions great Lights great Entrances great Pillars or Pylasters In summe all the Members great The next between the Parts themselves not only considering their breadths and lengths as before when we spake of Doors and Windows but here likewise enters a third respect of Height a point I must confess hardly reduceable to any general precept True it is that the Ancients did determine the Longitude of all Rooms which were longer then broad by the double of their Latitude Vitruvius lib. 6. cap. 5. And the Heighth by the half of the breadth and length summed together But when the Room was precisely square they made the Height half as much more as the Latitude which Dimensions the Modern
exactly limit all the Proportions so as they call him the Lawgiver because in the Images of the Gods and of Heroical Personages others have followed his Patterns like a Decree But Picture did most flourish about the dayes of Philip and even to the Successors of Alexander yet by sundry Habilities for Protogenes did excel in Diligence Pamphilus and Melanthius in due Proportion Antiphilus in a frank Facility Theon of Samos in strength of Fantasie and conceiving of Passions Apelles in Invention and Grace whereof he doth himself most vaunt Euphranor deserves admiration that being in other excellent Studies a principal Man he was likewise a wondrous Artizan both in Painting and Sculpture The like difference we may observe among the Statuaries for the works of Calon and Egesias were somewhat stiff like the Tuscan Manner Those of Calamis not done with so cold strokes And Myron more tender then the former a diligent Decency in Polycletus above others to whom though the highest praise be attributed by the most yet lest he should go free from exception some think he wanted solemness for as he may perchance he said to have added a comely Dimension to humane shape somewhat above the truth so on the other side he seemed not to have fully expressed the Majesty of the Gods Moreover he is said not to have medled willingly with the graver age as not adventuring beyond smooth cheeks But these vertues that were wanting in Polycletus were supplyed by Phidias and Alcmenes yet Phidias was a better Artizan in the representing of Gods then of Men and in his works of Ivory beyond all emulation even though he had left nothing behind him but his Minerva at Athens or the Olympian Jupiter in Elis whose Beauty seems to have added somewhat even to the received Religion the Majesty of the VVork as it were equalling the Deity To Truth they affirm Lysippus and Praxiteles to have made the nearest approach for Demetrius is therein reprehended as rather exceeding then deficient having been a greater aimer at Likeness then at Loveliness This is that witty Censure of the ancient Artizans which Quintillian hath left us where the laâ—… Character of Demetrius doth require a little Philosophical Examination How an Artificer whose end is the Imitation of Nature can be too natural which likewise in our dayes was either the fault or to speak more gently the too much perfection of Albert Durer and perhaps also of Michaâ—… Angelo da Buonaroti between whom I have heard noted by an ingenuous Artizan a pretty nice difference that the German did too much express thâ—… which was and the Italian that which should be Which severe Observation of Nature by the one in her commonest and by the other in her absoluteâ—… Forms must needs produce in both a kind of Rigidity and consequently more Naturalness then Gracefulness This is the clearest reason why some exact Symmetrists have been blamed for being too true as near as I can deliver my conceit And so much touching the choice of Picture and Sculpture The next is the application of both to the beautifying of Fabricks First therefore touching Picture there doth occurre a very pertinent doubt which hath been passed over too slightly not only by some Men but by some Nations namely whether this Ornament can well become the Outside of houses wherein the Germans have made so little scruple that their best Towns are the most painted as Augusta and Norembergh To determine this question in a word It is true that a Story well set out with a good Hand will every where take a Judicious eye But yet withal it is as true that various colours on the Out-walls of Buildings have alwayes in them more Delight then Dignity Therefore I would there admit no Paintings but in Black and VVhite nor even in that kind any Figures if the Room be capable under Nine or Ten foot high which will require no ordinary Artizan because the faults are more visible then in small Designs In unfigured paintings the noblest is the imitation of Marbles and of Architecture it self as Arches Treezes Columns and the like Now for the Inside here grows another doubt wherein Grotesca as the Italians or Antique work as we call it should be received against the express authority of Vitruvius himself lib. 7. cap. 5. where Pictura saith he fit ejus quod est seu potest esse excluding by this severe definition all Figures composed of different Natures or Sexes so as a Syrene or a Centaure had been intolerable in his eye But in this we must take leave to depart from our Master and the rather because he spake out of his own Profession allowing Painters who have ever been as little limited as Poets a less scope in their imaginations even then the gravest Philosophers who sometimes do serve themselves of Instances that have no Existence in Nature as we see in Plato's Amphisboena and Aristotle's Hirco-Cervus And to settle this point what was indeed more common and familiar among the Romans themselves then the Picture and Statue of Terminus even one of their Deities which yet if we well consider is but a piece of Grotesca I am for these reasons unwilling to impoverish that Art though I could wish such medly and motly Designs confined only to the Ornament of Freezes and Borders their properest place As for other Storied VVorks upon VValls I doubt our Clime be too yielding and moist for such Garnishment therefore leaving it to the Dwellers discretion according to the quality of his Seat I will only adde a Caution or two about the disposing of Pictures within First That no Room be furnished with too many which in truth were a Surfet of Ornament unless they be Galleries or some peculiar Repository for Rarities of Art Next that the best Pieces be placed not where there are the least but where there are the fewest lights therefore not only Rooms windowed on both ends which we call through-lighted but with two or moe windows on the same side are enemies to this Art and sure it is that no Painting can be seen in full perfection but as all Nature is illuminated by a single Light Thirdly That in the placing there be some care also taken how the Painter did stand in the working which an intelligent Eye will easily discover and that posture is the most natural so as Italian Pieces will appear best in a Room where the Windows are high because they are commonly made to a descending Light which of all other doth set off mens Faces in their truest spirit Lastly that they be as properly bestowed for their quality as fitly for their grace that is chearfull Paintings in Feasting and Banqueting Rooms Graver Stories in Galleries Land-skips and Boscage and such wilde works in open Tarraces or in Summer-houses as wee call them and the like And thus much of Picture which let me close with this Note that though my former Discourse may serve perchance for some reasonable leading in
off King Ethelred your Progenitor How much is there now a nobler cause for our imbracing your Majesty with open arms who are descended unto us from so plentiful a Race of Kings since the access of the most ancient Cambrian Bloud to the rest of your Nobility by Queen ANNE your Mother a Lady of a great and masculine Mind And how much the more truly may we now repeat that which in the former Age Buchanaâ—… a Poet next the Ancients of most happy invention sang to your Grand-mother I wish with happier fate From numberless Progenitors you hold Transmitted Scepters which they sway'd of old But all these hitherto you scarcely account your own I pass then to such as are your own peculiar which conferre no less of lustre then they admit Three particulars we observe O best of Kings which Appellation I now again willingly and shall often use in your Beginnings of no small importance to your succeeding Progress as for the most part the first favour of Principles continues in the after-growths First That you were not born to the supream hope of Soveraignty so as flattery though an evil swift and watchful which attends the Cradles of Potent Heirs more gently pressed on your tender years And the whiles your native goodness drank in with a draught more uncompounded the generous liquor of Integrity for no doubt how the earliest dispositions of private persons much more of Princes be at first formed and as it were instilled that I may so speak is of highest importance to the Commonwealth whereof they are to become afterwards not only the Props but also the Precedents Next That you succeeded a Brother of no small Natural Endowments which begat thence-forward in your Parents a more industrious and closer sedulity for it surpasseth care for the accomplishment of their only Son Nay your own spirits daily grew the more intent when now the weight of so vast an expectation was lodged on your self alone Then were advanced to you such who faithfully instructed in learning that youth of yours as yet unapt for business Then such were sent for who as your strength increased dressed you in the exercises of the Horse which I call to mind with how graceful a dexterity you managed until afterwards at a solemn Tilting I became uncertain whether you strook into the beholders more Joy or Apprehension In the third place It comes to mind that for some time while Nature was as it were in strugling you were somewhat weak of limbs and far below that vigour which now with gladness we admire which I may judge to have befallen by the secret Councel of Providence thereby at that time to render more intense the care of furnishing your mind as became the Heir then secretly designed of a King whom Malignants themselves deny not to have been the wisest of all Princes from many Ages past From your first Essaies I shall hasten to your stronger times not unmindful of my promised business After your forraign Travels obnoxious to many hazards you came unto the Crown whence it appeared how much your self then dared to adventure when the while at home each one was trembling for your sake But the favour of Heaven brought you back safely to us not so much as coloured with out-landish Dye not unlike another Ulysses who accounted it sufficient even by Homers witness To have known the Morals of Men and Cities When you had assum'd the Crown before all other things there was resplendent in you a Religious mind the Support of Kingdomes the Joy of good men The Chappel Royal was never more in order The number of eminent Divines daily increased Sermons in no age more frequented In none more learned And the example of the Prince more effectual then the Sermons No execrations rashly proceeded from your mouth Your ears abhorring not only any wanton but even the least sordid word which perchance under Edward the 4th while toyish Loves did raign passed for Courtly eloquence Neither stopped this piety within the Walls of Court but was diffused also through the Kingdome The Church Revenues were not touched Temples here and there new founded Dâ—…apidations repaired And which Posterity will chiefly speak of the Riches of your Kingdome excited by your most religious exhortation for restauration of the Church consecrated to the Apostle of the Nations out of question the amplest and equally ancient of the Christian world which had sustained the injuries of time Where your Majesties care was greatly conspicuous in demolishing those private dwellings which disgraced the aspect of so goodly a Fabrick And not less in imposing the management of that whole business upon that most vigilant Prelate who for his singular fidelity and judgement hath lately merited far higher place Now next to God how tender was your affection to your People When the Sickness raged by your Command recourse was had to publick Fastings When we were pressed with greater fear then evil of Famine the Horders of Provisions were constrained to open their Garners and the prices of grain abated Among these most pious cares I cannot omit one peculiar Elogy proper to your own providence whereof I must repeat the Original a little higher There were hatched abroad some years agone or perhaps raked up out of Antiquity certain Controversies about high points of the Creed which having likewise flown over to us as flames of Wit are easily diffused lest hereabout also both Pulpits and Pens might run to heat and publick disturbance Your Majesty with most laudable temper by Proclamation suppressed on both sides all manner of debates Others may think what pleaseth them In my opinion if I may have pardon for the phrase The Itch of disputing will prove the Scab of Churches I shall relate what I have chanced more then once to observe Two namely arguing about some subject so eagerly till either of them transported by heat of contention from one thing to another they both at length had lost first their Charity and then also the Truth Whither would restless subtilty proceed if it were not bounded there is of captiousness no end but seasonable provision was made against it To these praises of Piety I will adde a very great evidence of Gratitude and almost a greater of Constancy towards George Villiers Duke oâ—… Buckingham him when amidst the dangers of the Spanish journey he had been the nearest of your attendants your Majesty afterwards as in requital bore safely with you at home through all the rocks of either Fortune till an unforeseen day was his conclusion We observed also no ordinary beams of your Favour to be cast upon another of your trusty Associates in the same Journey a Person of approved Judgement Neither do I recount these only among the arguments of an heart mindful of faithful Offices which indeed is Kingly but likewise of singular obsequiousness towards your Father even when deceased to whom the Duke of Buckingham had been for many years a Favourite as iâ—… Your Majesty
Sylla but of Pompey in your gestures nothing of affectation in your vvhole aspect no swelling nothing boysterous but an alluring and vvell becoming suavity your alacrity and vigour the celerity of your motions discovers otherwise your affections are temperate and demeanour vvell setled most firm to your purposes and promises Loving Truth hating Vice Just Constant Couragious and not simply so but knowingly Good Such you are and being such vvith vvhat applause shall vve receive you Me thinks I see vvhen sometimes I compare together horrid and quiet Times as often as Rich. the Third return'd perchance from his York or further off to London and assembled his Peers about him how the heads of Noblemen did hang how pale their cheeks vvhat solicitous suspicions and murmurs they conferred together as if suddenly some dismal Comet or inauspicious Star had risen above the Horizon But contrariwise the return of a just and a good Prince is in truth nothing else but the very approach of the Sun vvhen vvith his vernal beams he doth expel the deformed Winter and vvith a gentle heat doth comfort and exhilarate all things about us Live therefore O King to all that are good most grateful But in vvhat vvishes shall I end After Trajans times there vvas among the ancients vvith vvhose example smitten I have too boldly undertaken this small labour under every renowned Emperour a form of acclamation in this kind Long maist thou live Antoninus Long maist thou reign Theodosius happier then Augustus better then Trajan but let this be the concluding Character of Your Majesties time That the things we can wish are fewer then those we praise Wherefore vvhen I have out of an ardent zeal only vvished this that Charles our excellent King and Master may reign and live like himself alone and long Be this the Conclusion In what transcendent happiness were we If know we would how fortunate we be Robert Deuereux Earle of Essex w. Dolle F. OF ROBERT DEVEREUX Earl of ESSEX AND GEORGE VILLIARS Duke of BVCKINGHAM Some Observations by way of PARALLEL in the time of their estates of Favour AMongst those Historical Imployments vvhereunto I have devoted my later years for I read that old men live more by memory then by hope vve thought it vvould be a little time not ill spent to confer the Fortunes and the Natures of these two great Personages of so late knowledge Wherein I intend to do them right vvith the truth thereof and my self vvith the freedome The beginning of the Earl of Essex I must attribute vvholly or in great part to my Lord of Leicester but yet as an Introducer or supporter not as a Teacher for as I go along it vvill easily appear that he neither lived nor died by his discipline Alwayes certain it is that he drew him first into the fatal Circle from a kind of resolved privateness at his house at Lampsie in South-wales vvhere after the Academical life he had taken such a taste of the Rural as I have heard him say and not upon any flashes or fumes of Melancholly or traverses of discontent but in a serene and quiet mood that he could vvell have bent his mind to a retired course About which time the said Earl of Leicester bewrayed a meaning to plant him in the Queens favour vvhich vvas diversly interpreted by such as thought that great Artizan of Court to do nothing by chance nor much by affection Some therefore vvere of opinion that feeling more and more in himself the vveight of time and being almost tyred if there be a satiety in Power vvith that assiduous attendance and intensive circumspection vvhich a long indulgent fortune did require he vvas grown not unwilling for his own ease to bestow handsomly upon another some part of the pains and perhaps of the envy Others conceived rather that having before for the same ends brought in or let in Sir Walter Raleigh and having found him such an apprentice as knew vvell enough how to set up for himself he now meant to allie him vvith this young Earl vvho had yet taken no strong impressions For though the said Sir Walter Raleigh vvas a little before this vvhereof I now speak by occasion much fallen from his former splendour in Court yet he still continued in some lustre of a favoured man like billowes that sink by degrees even vvhen the vvind is down that first stirred them Thus runs the discourse of that time at pleasure Yet I am not ignorant that there vvas some good vvhile a very stiff aversation in my Lord of Essex from applying himself to the Earl of Leicester for vvhat secret conceit I know not but howsoever that humour vvas mollified by time and by his Mother and to the Court he came under his lee The Duke of Buckingham had another kind of Germination and surely had he been a Plant he vvould have been reckoned among the Sponte nascentes for he sprung vvithout any help by a kind of congenial composure as vve may term it to the likeness of our late Soveraign and Master of ever blessed memory vvho taking him into his regard taught him more and more to please himself and moulded him as it vvere Platonically to his own Idea delighting first in the choice of the Materials because he found him susceptible of good form and afterward by degrees as great Architects use to do in the vvorkmanship of his Regal hand nor staying here after he had hardned and polished him about ten years in the School of observance for so a Court is and in the furnace of tryal about himself for he vvas a King could peruse men as vvell as books he made him the associate of his Heir apparent together vvith the now Lord Cottington as an adjunct of singular experience and trust in forraign travels and in a business of Love and of no equal hazard if the tenderness of our zeal did not then deceive us enough the vvorld must confess to kindle affection even betwixt the distantest conditions so as by the various and inward conversation abroad besides that before and after at home vvith the most constant and best natured Prince Bona si sua nôrint as ever England enjoyed this Duke becomes now secondly seized of favour as it vvere by descent though the condition of that estate be commonly no more then a Tenancy at vvill or at most for the life of the first Lord and rarely transmitted vvhich I have briefly set down vvithout looking beyond the vail of the Temple I mean into the secret of high inclinations since even Satyrical Poets vvho are otherwise of so licentious fancy are in this point modest enough to confess their ignorance Nescio quid certè est quod me tibi temperet Astrum And these vvere both their springings and Imprimings as I may call them In the profluence or proceedings of their fortunes I observe likewise not only much difference between them but in the Earl not a little from himself First all his hopes
Sir Richard Greham vvho vvould needs perswade them they vvere mistaken Which in truth is no very hard matter for the very strangeness of the thing it self and almost the impossibility to conceive so great a Prince and Favourite so suddenly Metamorphosed into Travellers vvith no greater train vvas enough to make any man living unbelieve his five senses And this I suppose next the assurance of their own vvell resolved Carriage against a new accident to have been their best Anchor in all such Incounters At Paris the Prince spent one vvhole day to give his mind some contentment in viewing of a famous City and Court vvhich vvas a Neighbour to his future Estates But for the better vailing of their Visages his Highness and the Marquess bought each of them a Perriwig somewhat to over-shadow their fore heads Of the King they got a sight after dinner in a Gallery vvhere he vvas solacing himself vvith familiar pleasures And of the Queen-Mother as she vvas at her own Table in neither place descryed no not by Monsieur Cadinet vvho saw them in both and had been lately Ambassadour in England Towards Evening by a meer chance in appearance though under-lined vvith a Providence they had a full sight of the Queen Infanta and of the Princess Henrietta Maria vvith other great Ladies at the practise of a Masquing Dance vvhich vvas then in preparation having over-heard two Gentlemen vvho vvere tending towards that sight after vvhom they pressed and vvere let in by the Duke De Mont Bason the Queens Lord Chamberlain out of humanity to strangers vvhen divers of the French vvent by Note here even vvith the point of a Diamond by vvhat oblique steps and inimaginable preparatives the high Disposer of Princes Affections doth sometimes contrive the secrets of his vvill For by this casual curiosity it fell out that vvhen afterwards the Marriage came in motion between our Soveraign Lord and the aforesaid most Amiable Princess it must needs be howsoever unknown no small spur to the Treaty that she hath not before been altogether a stranger to his Eye From the next day vvhen they departed at three of the Clock in the morning from Paris the 23. of February vvere spent six dayes to Bayon the last Town of France having before at Bourdeaux bought them five riding-Coats all of one colour and fashion in a kind of Noble simplicity Where Sir Francis Cottington was imployed in a fair manner to keep them from being entertained by the Duke De Espernon telling him they were Gentlemen of mean degree and formed yet to little Courtship who perchance might otherwise being himself no superficial man in the practices of the World have pierced somewhat deeper then their outside They were now entred into the deep time of Lent and could get no flesh in their Innes Whereupon fell out a pleasant passage if I may insert it by the way among more serious There was near Bayon an Herd of Goats with their young ones upon which sight the said Sir Richard Greham tells the Marquess he would snap one of the Kids and make some shift to carry him close to their lodging Which the Prince over-hearing Why Richard sayes he do you â—…nk you may practise here your old tricks again â—…on the borders Upon which words they â—…st gave the Goat Herd good contentment and then while the Marquess and his servant being both on foot were chasing the Kid about the stack the Prince from Horse back killed him in the Head with a Scottish Pistol Set this Fear for a Journal Parenthesis which yet may shew how his Highness even in such slight and sportful damage had a Noble sense of just dealing At Bayon the Count De Gramont Governour of that jealous Key took an exquisite notice of their persons and behaviour and opened himself to some of his train That he thought them to be Gentlemen of much more worth then their habits bewrayed yet he let them courteously pass And four dayes after they arrived at Madrid being Wednesday the fifth of March Thus have I briefly run over transcursions as if my Pen had been posting with them Which done I shall not need to relate the affluence of young Nobles and others from hence into Spain after the voice of our Prince his being there had been quickly noised and at length believed neither will I stay to consider the Arts of Rome where now all Engines were whetted though by the Divine blessing very vainly when they had gotten a Prince of Great Brittain upon Catholick ground as they use to call it This and the whole matter of Negotiation there the open entertainments the secret working the Apprehensions on both sides the appearance on neither And in summe all the circumstances and respect of Religion and State intermixed together in that commixture will better become a Royal History or a Councel-Table then a single Life Yet I cannot omit some things which intervened at the meeting of two Pleiades me thinks not unlike that which Astrologers call a Conjunction of Planets of no very benign Aspect the one to the other I mean the Marquess of Buckingham and the Conde d'Olivares They had some sharper and some milder differences which might easily happen in such an intervene of Grandees both vehement on the parts which they swayed But the most remarkable was upon a supposition of the Condes as fancies are cheap that the Marquess had intimated unto her some hopes of the Prince his Conversion which coming into debate the Marquess so roundly disavowed this guilded dream as Olivares alledged he had given him La-Mentida and thereupon forms a Complement to the Prince himself which Buckingham denying and yet Olivares persisting in the said Complement the Marquess though now in strange hands yet seeing both his Honour and the Truth at stake was not tender likewise to engage his life but replyed with some heat that the Condes asseveration would force him to do that which he had not done before for now he held himself tyed in terms of a Gentleman to maintain the contrary to his affirmative in any sort whatsoever This was the highest and the harshest point that occurred between them which that it went so far was not the Dukes fault nor his fault neither as it should seem that it went no further There was another memorable passage one day of gentler quality and yet eager enough The Conde d' Olivares tells the Marquess of a certain flying noise that the Prince did plot to be secretly gone To which the Marquess gave a well temper'd answer that though Love had made his Highness steal out of his own Countrey yet Fear would never make him run out of Spain in other manner then should become a Prince of his Royal and generous Vertues In Spain they stayed near eight entire moneths during all which times who but Buckingham lay at home under millions of maledictions Which yet at the Prince his safe arrival in the West did die and vanish here and there into
in the most remote parts by the diligence of Erpenius the most excellent Linguist These had been left to the Widow of the said Erpenius and were upon sale to the Iesuits at Antwerp liquorish Chapmen of such Ware Whereof the Duke getting knowledge by his worthy and learned Secretary Doctor Mason interverted the bargain and gave the poor Widow for them five hundred pounds a sum above their weight in silver and a mixed act both of bounty and charity the more laudable being out of his natural Element These were they which after his death were as Nobly presented as they had been bought to the University of Cambridge by the Dutchess Dowager as soon as she understood by the aforesaid Doctor Mason her Husband's intention who had a purpose likewise as I am well instructed to raise in the said University whereof he was Chancellor a fair Case for such Monuments and to furnish it with other choice Collections from all parts of his own charge perchance in some emulation of that famous Treasury of knowledge at Oxford without parallel in the Christian World But let me resume the file of my Relation which this Object of Books best agreeable to my course of life hath a little interrupted The aforesaid Negotiation though prosecuted with heat and probable appearance of great effects took up a Month before the Duke's return from his excentricity for so I account Favorites abroad and then at home he met no good news of the Cadiz attempt In the preparation thereof though he had spent much solicitude ex officio yet it principally failed as was thought by late setting out and by some contrariety of Weather at Sea whereby the particular design took vent before hand a point hardly avoidable in actions of noise especially where the great Indian Key to all Cabinets is working Not long after this the King pondering in his Wisdom the weight of his Forreign Affairs found it fit to call a Parliament at Westminster this was that Assembly where there appeared a sudden and marvellous conversion in the Duke's Case from the most exalted as he had been both in another Parliament and in common Voice before to the most depressed now as if his condition had been capable of no Mediocrities And it could not but trouble him the more by happening when he was so freshly returned out of the Low-Country Provinces out of a meritorious employment in his inward conceit and hope Which being the single example that our Annals have yielded from the time of William de la Pool Duke of Suffolk under Henry the Sixth of such a concurrence of two extreams withinso short time by most of the same Commenders and Disprovers like the natural breath of man that can both heat and cool would require no sleight memorial of the particular Motives of so great a change but that the whole Case was dispersed by the Knights of Shires and Burgesses of Towns through all the Veins of the Land and may be taken by any at pleasure out of the Parliament Registers Besides that I observe it not usual among the best patterns to stuff the report of particular lives with matter of publick record but rather to dive as I shall endeavour before I wipe my Pen into secret and proper afflictions howsoever somewhat I must note in this strange Phainomenon It began from a travelled Doctor of Physick of bold spirit and of able Elocution who being returned one of the Burgesses which was not ordinary in any of his Coat fell by a Metaphorical Allusion translated from his own Faculty to propound the Duke 's as a main cause of divers infirmities in the State or near that purpose being sure enough of Seconds after the first On-set in the Lower House As for any close intelligence that they had before hand with some in the Higher though that likewise was said I want ground to affirm or believe it more then a general conceit which perhaps might run of the working of envy amongst those that were nearest the object which we see so familiar both in natural and moral causes The Duke's Answers to his Appeachments in number thirteen I find very diligently and civilly couched and though his heart was big yet they all savour of an humble spirit one way equitable consideration which could not but possess every vulgar conceit and somewhat allay the whole matter that in the bolting and sifting of near fourteen years of such power and favour all that came out could not be expected to be pure and white and fine Meal but must needs have withal among it a certain mixture of Padar and Bran in this lower age of humane fragility Howsoever this Tempest did only shake and not rent his Sails For his Majesty considering that almost all his Appeachments were without the compass of his own Reign and moreover That nothing alledged against him had or could be proved by Oath according to the Constitution of the House of Commons which the Duke himself did not forget in the Preface of his Answers And lastly having had such experience of his fidelity and observance abroad where he was chief in trust and in the participations of all hazards found himself engaged in honour and in the sense of his own natural goodness to support him at home from any further inquietude and too dear buy his highest testimonies of divers important imputations whereof the truth is best known to his Majesty while he was Prince The Summer following this Parliament after an Embarque of our Trading Ships in the River of Bourdeaux and other points of Sovereign affront there did succeed the action of Rheez wherein the Duke was personally imployed on either Element both as Admiral and General with hope in that service to recover the publick good will which he saw by his own example might quickly be won and lost This action as I hear hath been delivered by a Noble Gentleman of much learning and active spirits himself the fitter to do it right which in truth it greatly wanted having found more honourable censure even from some of the French Writers then it had generally amongst our selves at home Now because the said work is not yet flowing into the light I will but sweep the way with a few notes and these only touching the Duke's own deportment in that Island the proper subject of my quill for in the general survey of this action there was matter of glory and grief so equally distributed on both sides as if Fortune had meant we should quickly be Friends again Wherein let their names that were bravely lost be rather memorized in the full table of time for my part I love no ambitious pains in an eloquent description of miseries The Duke's carriage was surely Noble throughout to the Gentlemen of fair respect bountiful to the Souldier according to any special value which he spied in any tender and careful of those that were hurt of unquestionable Courage in himself and rather fearful of Fame then
Advantages Number being miserably overthrown and slain by the Parthians And Iulia a little before dying of an Abort in Child-bed together with the Infant she bare it lay thenceforth open and clear in every Mans eye that the Triumvirate dissolved and She gone without any Slip remaining who had been the fastest Cement to hold her Father and Husband together there would soon ensue but a dry and sandy Friendship between them being now left at large to the Scope and Sway of their voluntary Appetites Wherefore having undertaken for some entertainment of my private time to compile out of the best of Ancient Memories that mighty Action which anon under these two Chiefs involved almost the whole World then known I impute it not impertinent to take first a short view how they stood before hand in Parallel together They were both in general esteemed of Affections too strong for their own or the common Quiet That the one could not endure a Superior nor the other an Equal we are told both in Prose and in Verse by ingenious Authors But whether they agreed to leave us a draught of the greatness or of the weakness of their Minds I dare not affirm some seeming Magnanimities being indeed if you found them well at the bottom very Impotencies Certainly in sober conceit howsoever they stood towards other they were impatient of all comparison or approach between themselves and of their former nearness no fruit remaining but this That the more inwardly they had then studied and understood each other they now loved the less For point of invading the Soveraignty such narrow Humorists as could look through them thought Pompey of the two rather the closer then the better For Caesar's was not a smothered but a flagrant Ambition kindling first by Nature and blown by Necessity in the course whereof one might observe a kind of Circular Motion for as his vast Desires had exhausted him with unmeasureable gifts above private Condition so again when he was grown as he would often sport with himself in earnest a great deal worth less then nothing He fell next to resolve by an usual Coincidence of extreams that he could not subsist unless he were Master of all In their practical ways Pompey had one very ignoble custom to insert or as I may term it to inoculate himself into other mens merits and praises So he undermined Lucullus in Asia and Metellus in Spain the first a wise and magnificent the other a good plain Souldier-like Gentleman But on the other side all that went for good or bad in Caesar was clearly his own having so little need to borrow from any other virtues or vices that he left it a Doubt among the best Wits of his time whether of which himself had most in the two proper Dowries of that Age Eloquence or Arms. A CHARACTER OF FERDINANDO di MEDICI Grand Duke of Tuscany DEDICATED TO THE KING BEing desirous albeit I dare promise little fruit or pleasure to others by any use of my Pen yet at least to record unto my self some such Observations as I picked up abroad in the time of my former travels and imployments I stand obliged in grateful memory to say somevvhat of a Prince long since at rest namely Fordinando Grand Duke of Tuscany vvhich vvas the ancient Hetruria vvhose Palace of Piti at Florence vvhen I came often to review and still me thought vvith fresh admiration being incomparably as far as I can yet speak by experience or report for solid Architecture the most magnificent and regular Pile vvithin the Christian World It pleased him by means of the Cavalier Vieta his principal Secretary of Estate to take some notice of my Person though no intruder by Nature and God knows of little ability The said Duke Ferdinando vvas reputed a vvise and vvary Prince and it vvas a Solid vvisdom rather then a Formal He had been long a Cardinal and at two or three Conclaves as they call them or Elections of Popes so as he came to the Dukedom well seasoned before with practice and vvell broken to Affairs and vvith such an impression of his first Tincture as falleth out naturally in all things else that he always maintained a great interest in the Roman Court as indeed vvas necessary for a near and jealous Confiner He vvas in his Civil Regiment of a fine composition between Frugality and Magnificence A great cherisher of Manual Arts especially such as tended to splendor and ornament as Picture Sculpture cutting of Chrystals Ambers and all of the softer Gems inlaying of Marbles limning of Birds Beasts and Vegetables Imbossing and the like In all which he drew to him from all parts the most exquisite Artificers with a setled Pension and placed them in several compartments of his Palace vvhere he vvould come oftentimes to see them vvork for his own delight and so he did furnish his Cabinets vvith Rarities at an easie rate being in truth one of the greatest Oeeâ—…nomists of his Age. And as he had much at first of the Deacon and more of the Prince so he did novv and then not disdain to have a little of the Merchant 't was as vvell as fighting vvith his Gallies After the death of the Duke Francesco his Brother it vvas a vvhile somewhat an Ambiguous Deliberative vvhether he should divest the Cardinalship or rule vvith a double Greatness Ecclesiastical and Civil But the hope of Posterity over-balanced the scale and so he took to Wife the Daughter of Loraign as it vvere to interest himself novv in the Borders of France whereas his Name before had spread it self in the Body He vvas by nature more reserved then popular and had virtues fitter to beget estimation then love yet he vvould duly in his Coach take almost every day a revievv of the City and receive Petitions vvillingly Besides I have been shewed a strange device of State namely an outward hole like a Trunk in a Wall of one of his Galleries the bottom vvhereof vvas under lock and key into vvhich any one might let forth any secret intelligence and convey it closely to the ears of the Prince enough to disquiet all the days of his life He vvas served by able Instruments of State and diligently attended in Court but rather by choice then number and vvith more neatness then noise He had a close and intrinsecal Favourite by Birth a Stranger being born in Piedmont but by his favour made Archbishop of Pisa a notable Screen between him and his Subjects upon vvhom the Duke vvould handsomely bestovv all manner of complaint and he as vvillingly bear it He vvas unquestionably the powerfullest of all the Italian Dukes and being centred in the very Navel of italy thereby the furthest from Invasion on all sides and the most participant of the common Interest vvhich I believe among other causes hath much preserved that State in busie times yet surely a little over-awed or over-looked by the King of Spain vvho holdeth in actual possession Pont
most affectionate poor Friend to serve you HENRY WOTTON Feb. 1613. SIR ONe Reason of my writing now unto you is because it seemeth a great while unto me since I did so Another to give you many thanks which upon the casting up of my reckonings I find I have not yet done for that Gelding wherewith you so much honoured me which in truth either for goodness or beauty runneth for one of the very best about this place And I have had a great deal of love made unto me for him by no small ones After this I must plainly tell you that I mean to perswade you I am sorry I cannot say to invite you for my Mind would bear that word better then my Fortune to bestow your self and your whole Family upon us this Shrovetide if it be but for three dayes at the conjunction of the Thames and the Rhene as our ravished Spirits begin to call it The occasion is rare the expence of time but little of money inconsiderable You shall see divers Princes a great confluence of Strangers sundry entertainments to shorten your patience and to reward your travel Finally nothing spared even in a necessitous time I will adde unto these Arguments that out of your own Store at home â—…ou may much encrease the beauty of this Assembly â—…nd your Daughters shall not need to provide any great splendour of Cloathing because they can â—…pply that with a better contribution as hath been â—…ell authenticated even by the Kings own testimony of them For though I am no longer an Ambassador yet am I not so bank-rupt of Intelligence but that I have heard of those rural passages Now let me therefore with this hobling Pen again and again pray you to resolve upon your coming if not with all the fair Train yet your self and my Lady and my Nephew and his Wife or at the least of leasts the Masculine We begin to lay off our mourning habits and the Court will shortly I think be as merry as if it were not sick The King will be here to morrow The Friday following he goeth to Windsor with the Count Palatine about the Ceremony of his Instalment In the mean time there is expected the Count Henry of Nassaw to be at the said Solemnity as the Representant of his Brother Yesternight the Count Palatino invited all the Counsel to a solemn Supper which was well ordered He is a Gentleman of very sweet hope and hath rather gained upon us then lost any thing after the first Impression And so Sir having ended my Paper I will end my Letter with my hearty prayers for the prosperity of your self and yours ever resting Your faithfull poor Friend to serve you HENRY WOTTON To the King 1615. May it please Your Sacred Majesty I Beseech your Majesty to pardon me a little short repetition how I have spent my time since my departure from your Royal sight because I glory in your goodness I have been imployed by your favour in four several Treaties differing in the Matter in the Instruments and in the Affections The first was for the sequestration of Juliers wherein I was joyned with the French The second for the provisional possession of the two Pretendents wherein contrary to the complaint of the Gospel the Labourers were more then the Harvest The third was for a defensive League between the united Provinces and the united Princes Who though they be separate Bodies of State do now by your onely Mediation make one Body of Strength The fourth was for the composing of some differences between your own and this People in matter of Commerce which hath exceeded the other Three both in length and in difficulty for two Reasons as I conceive it First Through the sensibleness of the Subject which is private Utility next because it had a secret commixture of publick respects and those of no light consequence For surely it importeth more to let the King of Spain dispense alone the Commodities of the East then for either of us to want them Now of the three former Treaties I have given your Majesty an accompt in divers Dispatches according to my poor apprehensions As for this last they that have eased my weakness in the conduct thereof I mean my good Associates by whose light and leadings I have walked will ease me likewise by your gracious leave in the Relation By them it may please your Majesty to understand in what fair terms we have left it somewhat resembling to my fancy those Women of Nombre de Dios who they say are never brought to bed in the place where they conceive but bring forth their children in a better Air And so I hope that our travels and unformed conceptions will take life in your own Kingdome which will be more honour to their Birth For our parts I dare affirm of these your Commissioners that now return unto the comfort of your gracious Aspect That they have discharged their Duties and their Consciences with all faithfull care of your Majesties Commandments I am confident likewise that they will give me their honest Testimony And we are bound joyntly to profess unto your Majesty from whom we receive our estimation the respects and kindnesses that have been here done us as your Vassals And so with my continual prayers to God for your blessed Being I here remain till your Majesty shall vouchsafe me again the grace of your eyes Your Majesties long devoted poor Servant HENRY WOTTON To the Marquess of Buckingham January 25. 1619. My most Noble Lord I Will be bold by this opportunity to give His Majesty through your Lordships hands an account of a Command which I had from him at Theobalds about sounding how the Venetian Ambassador stood satisfied with the late determination touching his predecessor Donato I did visit the said Ambassador immediately at my return from the King and saluted him as by express Commandment interjecting some words of mine own gladness that he had received contentment in this tender point which would signalize his beginnings This I said because in truth I had found him always before the more passionate in it by some reflection upon himself His answer after due thanks for His Majesties gracious remembrance of him from abroad was that for his own part he was Contentissimo and had represented things home in the best manner He hoped likewise it would be well tasted there also though with some doubt because the State out of their own devotion towards His Majesty might form a confidence of expecting more I replied that the King upon the matter if we consider disgrace had done more then themselves for he was but once banished at Venice and twice here viz. once from the verge of the Court and secondly from London which was as much as could be done with preservation of rational immunities and more then would have been done at the suit of of any other Ambassador here resident or perhaps of any of their own hereafter if the like
were his Hosts being destitute of other habitation I answered him as merrily as it was propounded that I knew the Jesuits had every where the best rooms more splendent then true fitter to lodge Princes then Monks and that their habitations were always better then themselves Moreover that for mine own part though I was not much afraid of their infection and that Saint Paul did not refuse to be carried in a Ship which was consecrated to false Gods yet because on our side they were generally and no doubt justly reputed the true causes of all the troubles of the Christian World I doubted it would be a scandalous Reception and that besides those Artificers vvould go near to make appear on my part a kind of silent approbation of their Order and course This was my answer which being faithfully transported by the Italian the Arch-Duke made choice of another mean house in the Town vvhere he received me truly in a noble sweet fashion to whom having presented Your Majesties Letters and Love he disposed himself with sharp attention to hear me To him besides that which I had said to the Duke of Loraign I added two things The first that not only Your Majesty was clear of all fore-knowledge or counsel in the business of Bohemia but likewise Your Son-in-law himself of any precedent practice therein till it was laid upon him as You knew by his own high affirmations and most infallible testimonies The second that though Your Majesty to this hour did continue as equal betwixt both parties as the Equinoctial between the Poles yet about the time of my departure You were much moved and the whole Land likewise with a voice I know not how spread abroad that there were great preparations to invade the Nether Palatinate which if it did fall out Your Majesty should have just reason to think Your Moderation unthankfully requited the said Palatinate being the Patrimonial Lands of Your own Descendents and no way connexed with the Bohemian Business Whereupon I perswaded him fairly in Your Majesties Name being a Personage of such authority in the present actions to keep them from any such precipitious and impertinent rupture as might preclude all Mediation of Accord and because Your Majesty had now which was a second Argument of Your equity sent several Ambassadors to the Fountains for Your better information in the merit of the Cause by Your own Instruments I besought him to illuminate me who was the weakest of Your Creatures as far as he should think fit and to assist me with his best advice towards this good end whereunto besides the dear Commandment of the King my Master I would confer mine own plain and honest zeal His answer to all the points which he had very orderly laid up was this Of Your Majesties own clearness he professed much assurance of Your Son-in-law as much doubt charging him both with close practice with the Bohemians at the time of the Emperors Election at Francfort and more foully with a new practice either by himself or by others to introduce the Turk into Hungary Of any design upon the Lower Palatinate he utterly disavowed all knowledge on his part yet would not deny but the Marquess Spinola might perchance have some such aim and if things went on as they do men would no doubt assail their enemies wheresoever they should find them In such ambiguous clouds as these he wrapped this point Of the Emperors inclination to an agreement he bade me be very assured but never vvithout restitution of the usurped Kingdom vvhich vvas not a loss of easie concoction especially being taken from him by the Count Palatine his Subject as he often called him and once added that he thought he vvould not deny it himself Of the merit of the cause he said he had sent divers records and papers to the Emperor vvhere I should find them Lastly he acknowledged himself much bound unto Your Majesty for the honour You had done him to take such knowledge of his Person and was contented to bestow some thanks upon me for mine honest inclination which he would present before my arrival at Vienna I had almost omitted a point touched by him that he had knowledge of some English Levies coming toward the Palatinate About which I cleared him with confessing that Your Majesties People and some of Your principal Nobility had taken Alarm upon a voice of an Invasion there and meant voluntarily to sacrifice themselves in that action but vvithout any concurrence of Your Majesty thereunto either by money or command To which he replied that in truth so he had heard and made no question of Your Royal Integrity In the afternoon of this day he took me abroad with him in his Coach to shew me some of his nearer Towns and Fortifications and there descended into many familiarities and amongst other to shew us how to make Frogs leap at their own skins a strange purchase me thought at a time when Kingdoms are in question But it may be it was an Art to cover his weightier Meditations Amongst other discourse there was some mention of Your Majesties Treaty with Spain in point of Alliance which I told him was a concluded business for that warrant I had from Your own Royal mouth in Your Gallery at Theobalds having let fall none of Your syllables Whereupon he said That he did not despair upon so good an occasion to salute Your Majesty in Your own Court The morning following he sent unto me Seignior Ascanio with express desire that since Your Majesties intentions were so clear I would as frankly acquaint him whether in mine Instructions I had any particular form of accord to project unto the Emperor which himself likewise at my second Audience did somewhat importunely press excusing his curiosity with a good meaning to prepare the Emperor in as good manner as he could to accept it My answer was that Your Majesty thought it first necessary on both sides to dispose the affections and then by reciprocal Intelligence between Your Servants from Vienna and Prague to collect some measure of Agreement for otherwise if we should find both Parties fixed in extream resolutions it were a folly to spend any further the Honour of our Master Here again he told me that I should find the Emperor peswasible enough if his Reputation may be saved and for his own part he thought that the Count Palatine being the Inferior might yield without prejudice of his To terms of this height he revolved and of the same complexion are his Letters to Your Majesty that I send herewith of which I must needs say that in some part Olent Patrem Henricum so they call a Jesuit of inward credit with him Always true it is that they were couched in the Colledge for his Secretaries were absent as the Italian told me at his ordinary place of residence At my leave-taking he spake with much reverence of Your Majesty with much praise of Your Christian mind and with much
to yield some releasment to certain restrained Persons of the Roman Faith I have taken a conceit upon it that in exchange of his Clemency therein the great Duke would be easily moved by the Kings gracious request to interceed with the Pope for Master Mole 's delivery To which purpose if it shall please his Majesty to grant his Royal Letters I will see the business duely pursued And so needing no arguments to commend this proposition to his Majesties goodness but his goodness it self I leave it as I began in your Noble hand Now touching your Lordships familiar service as I may term it I have sent the Complement of your bargain upon the best provided and best manned Ship that hath been here in long time called the Phoenix And indeed the cause of their long stay hath been for some such Vessel as I might trust About which since I wrote last to your Lordship I resolved to fall back to my first choice so as now the one Piece is the work of Titian wherein the least Figure viz. the Child in the Virgins lap playing with a Bird is alone worth the price of your expence for all four being so round that I know not whether I shall call it a Piece of Sculpture or Picture and so lively that a man would be tempted to doubt whether Nature or Art had made it The other is of Palma and this I call the speaking Piece as your Lordship will say it may well be termed for except the Damsel brought to David whom a silent modesty did best become all the other Figures are in discourse and action They come both distended in their Frames for I durst not hazard them in Rowls the youngest being 25 years old and therefore no longer supple and pliant With them I have been bold to send a Dish of Grapes to your Noble Sister the Countess of Denbigh presenting them first to your Lordships view that you may be pleased to pass your censure whether Italians can make Fruits as well as Flemings which is the common glory of their Pensils By this Gentleman I have sent the choicest Molon seeds of all kinds which his Majesty doth expect as I had Order both from my Lord of Holderness and from Mr. Secretary Calvert And although in my Letter to his Majesty which I hope by your Lordships favour himself shall have the honour to deliver together with the said Seeds I have done him right in his due Attributes yet let me say of him farther as Architects use to speak of a well chosen foundation that your Lordship may boldly build what Fortune you please upon him for surely he will bear it vertuously I have committed to him for the last place a private Memorial touching my self wherein I shall humbly beg your Lordships intercession upon a necessary Motive And so with my heartiest prayers to Heaven for your continual health and happiness I most humbly rest Venice Dec. 2 12 1622. Your Lordships ever obliged devoted Servant H. W. POSTSCRIPT My Noble Lord It is one of my duties to tell your Lordship that I have sent a servant of mine by Profession a Painter to make a search in the best Towns through Italy for some principal Pieces which I hope may produce somewhat for yourâ— Lord ships contentment and service To the Earl of Holderness 1622 3 Right Honourable and my very good Lord IN a late Letter from your Lordship by my Servant I have besides your own Favours the Honour of Imployment from the King in a piece of his Delight which doth so consort with the opportunity of my Charge here that it hath given me acquaintance with some excellent Florists as they are styled and likewise with mine own disposition who have ever thought the greatest pleasure to consist in the simplest Ornaments and Elegancies of Nature as nothing could fall upon me more happily Therefore your Lordship shall see how I will endeavour to satisfie this Command I had before Order by Mr. Secretary Calvert to send his Majesty some of the best Melon-seeds of all kinds which I have done some Weeks since by other occasion of an express Messenger and sent withall a very particular Instruction in the Culture of that Plant. By the present Bearer I do direct unto your Lordship through the hands either of my Nephew or Mr. Nicholas Pey as either of them shall be readiest at London for some beginning in this kind of Service the Stem of a double Yellow Rose of no ordinary nature For it flowereth every moneth unless change of the Clime do change the property from May till almost Christmas There hath gone such care in the manner of the Conveyance as if at the receiving it be presently put into the earth I hope it will prosper By the next commodity I shall send his Majesty some of the rarest Seeds Now for mine own Obligations unto your Lordship whereof I have from some Friends at home very abundant knowledge What shall I say It was in truth my Lord an argument of your noble Nature to take my fortune into your Care who never yet made it any great part of mine own business I am a poor Student in Philosophy which hath redeemed me not only from the envying of others but even from much solicitude about my self It is true that my most Gracious Master hath put me into civil practice and now after long Service I grow into a little danger of wishing I were worth somewhat But in this likewise I do quiet my thoughts For I see by your Lordships so free and so undeserved estimation of me that like the Criple who had lain long in the Pool of Bethesda I shall find some body that will throw me into the water when iâ—… moveth I will end with my humble and hearty thanks for your Favour and Love To the PRINCE May it please Your Highness BEside that which I have now represented unto your Highness by my 〈◊〉 to your worthy Secretary I must 〈◊〉 crave leave herein to be delivered oâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith my Pen is in travel I have observed in your Highness among other noble Endowments of your Mind a quick and delightfull apprehension of the fundamental Causes of all Secrets both natural and artificial that have been brought to your View which surely is the highest pleasure of a discoursive Soul Now of this part of your Highness's delectation I am serious to take hold For having been a long Lover of Philosophy and from the contemplative Part being slid into the practical I shall hope for pardon if I take so much freedome from the ingenuity of mine own Nature and Studies as to entertain your Highness now and then with some Experiments especially such as do not end in wonder but reach to publick Useâ—… For meer Speculations have ever seemed to my conceit as if Reason were given us like an half Moon in a Coat of Arms only for a Logical Difference from inferiour Creatures and not for any active power
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