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
for divers vveighty reasons to enter into an Alliance vvith the State of Venice and to that end to send Ambassadors to those several places did propose the choice of these Imployments to Sir Henry Wotton vvho considering the smallness of his own Estate vvhich he never took care to augment and knowing the Courts of great Princes to be sumptuous and necessarily expensive inclined most to that of Venice as being a place of more retirement and best suiting vvith his Genius who did ever love to joyn with Business Study and a tryal of natural Experiments for both which fruitfull Italy that Darling of Nature and Cherisher of all Arts is so justly fam'd in all parts of the Christian World Sir Henry having after some short time and consideration resolved upon Venice and a large allowance being appointed by the King for his voyage thither and a setled maintenance during his stay there he left England nobly accompanied through France to Venice by Gentlemen of the best Families and breeding that this Nation afforded they were too many to name but these two for following reasons may not be omitted Sir Albertus Morton his Nephew who went his Secretary and William Bedel a man of choice Learning and sanctified Wisdom who went his Chaplain And though his dear friend Dr. Donne then a private Gentleman was not one of that number that did personally accompany him in this Voyage yet the reading of this following Letter sent by him to Sir Henry Wotton the morning before he left England may testifie he wanted not his friends best wishes to attend him SIR AFter those reverend Papers whose soul is name Our good and great Kings lov'd hand and fear'd By which to you he derives much of his And how he may makes you almost the same A Taper of his Torch a Copy writ From his Original and a fair Beam Of the same warm and dazling Sun though it Must in another Sphear his vertue stream After those Learned Papers which your hand Hath stor'd with notes of use and pleasure too From which rich treasury you may command Fit matter whether you will write or do After those loving Papers which Friends send With glad grief to your Sea-ward-steps faerewel And thicken on you now as prayers ascend To Heaven on troops at a good mans passing-Bell Admit this honest Paper and allow It such an audience as your self would ask What you would say at Venice this sayes now And has for nature what you have for task To swear much love nor to be chang'd before Honour alone will to your fortune fit Nor shall I then honour your fortune more Then I have done your honour-wanting-wit But 't is an easier load though both oppress To want then govern greatness for we are In that our own and only business In this we must for others vices care 'T is therefore well your spirits now are plac'd In their last furnace in activity ore-pâ—… Which fits them Schools and Courts and Wars To touch and taste in any best degree For me if there be such a thing as I Fortune if there be such a thing as she Finds that I bear so well her tyranny That she thinks nothing else so fit for me But though she part us to hear my oft prayers For your encrease God is as near me here And to send you what I shall beg his stairs In length and ease are alike every where J. Donne SIR Henry Wotton was received by the State oâ—… Venice with much honour and gladness botâ—… for that he delivered his Ambassage most elegantly in the Italian Language and came also in such a Juncture of time as his Masters friendship seem'd usefull for that Republick the time of his coming thither was about the year 1604. Leonardo Donato being then Duke a wise and resolv'd man and to all purposes such Sir Henry Wotton would often say it as the State of Venice could not then have wanted there having been formerly in the time of Pope Clement the eighth some contests about the priviledges of Church-men and the power of the Civil Magistrate of which for the information of common Readers I shall say a little because it may give light to some passages that follow About the year 1603. the Republick of Venice made several Injunctions against Lay-persons giving Lands or Goods to the Church without Licence from the Civil Magistrate and in that inhibition they exprest their reasons to be For that when any Goods or Land once came into the hands of the Ecclesiasticks it was not subject to alienation by reason whereof the Lay-people being at their death charitable even to excess the Clergy grew every day more numerous and pretended an exemption from all publick service and Taxes and from all secular Judgement so that the burden grew thereby too heavy to be born by the Laity Another occasion of difference was That about this time complaints were justly made by the Venetians against two Clergy-men the Abbot of Nervesa and a Canon of Vicenza for committing such sins as I think not fit to name nor are these mentioned with an intent to fix a Scandal upon any Calling for holiness is not tyed to Ecclesiastical Orders and Italy is observed to breed the most vertuous and most vicious men of any Nation these two having been long complained of at Rome in the Name of the State of Venice and no satisfaction being given to the Venetians they seized the persons of this Abbot and Canon and committed them to prison The justice or injustice of such or the like power then used by the Venetians had formerly had some calm debates betwixt the former Pope Clement the Eighth and that Republick I say calm for he did not excommunicate them considering as I conceive that in the late Council of Trent it was at last after many Politique disturbances and delayes and endeavours to preserve the Popes present power in order to a general reformation of those many Errors which were in time crept into the Church declar'd by that Counsel That though Discipline and especial Excommunication be one of the chief sinews of Church Government and intended to keep men in obedience to it for which end it was declar'd to be very profitable yet it was also declar'd and advised to be used with great sobriety and care because experience had informed them that when it was pronounced unadvisedly or rashly it became more contemn'd then fear'd And though this was the advice of that Council at the Conclusion of it which was not many years before this quarrel with the Venetians yet this prudent patient Pope Clement dying Pope Paul the fifth who succeeded him though not immediately yet in the same year being a man of a much hotter temper brought this difference with the Venetians to a much higher Contention objecting those late acts of that State to be a diminution of his just power and limited a time of twenty four dayes for their revocation threatning if he were not obeyed
may speak both openly and safely Yea let me adde this with confidence that if Nature her self the first Architectress had to use an expression of Vitruvius windowed your brest if your Majesty should admit the eyes of all men not only within the privatest parts of your Bed-Chamber but even into the inwardest closets of your heart no other thing at all would there appear save the splendor of your Goodness and an undistemper'd serenity of your Vertues What said I if you would admit As if those whom the Supreme Power hath set on high and in the light could be hid from our eyes or cover as it were by a drawn cloud the wayes of their Lives and Government Herein no doubt Obscurity and Solitude it self is more vailed then Majesty Thinks that Abissine Emperor whom men report to appear to publick view but once a year that therefore it is less known what he doth in secret Know we not at this day that Domitian even in his closest Cabinet wherein each day he shut up himself did nothing but stick flyes with a pointed Bodkin Lay Tiberius hid in his recess to the Islands of Caprea when among so many wounds and tortures of his conscience which as so many furies tormented him many tokens of a distracted mind did daily break forth Surely no. Your Majesty hath taught the Princes of your own and future times the only and most wholsome way of self-concealing in that you indeavour nothing to be concealed There are certain creatures of ingrateful aspect as Bats and Owls condemn'd by nature to hate the light I know also that some in power have also held it among the secrets of State and as a great mystery of craft to be served at a distance as if reverence did only dwell in Dens and Caves not in the light Whence then these Subtilties of Government In a word and freely they walked in crooked paths because they knew not the shortest way to be good But your Majesty doth not shun the eyes and access of your Subjects delight not in covert nor withdraw your self from your own people you do not catch at false veneration with a rigid and clouded countenance yea sometime you vouchsafe to descend even to some familiarity without offence to your dignity for thus you reason with your self in the clearness of your own bosome If it were not above our power to lye concealed yet were it below our goodness to desire it then which nothing surely can be in effect more popular for good Kings all good men openly revere and even the worst do it silently Whilest Vertues beauty not unlike some brightest Rayes strikes into the most unwilling eyes Wherefore as of late I took in hand Tranquillus Suetonius who hath laid open the very bowels of the Cesars to beguile in the time of your absence with some literate diversion the tedious length of those dayes and fell by chance upon that passage so lively describing the wailings of Augustus after the Varian defect often crying out Render me Quintilius Varus my Legions my desires of Your Majesty instantly flamed out and my wishes gowed for your Return for it seemeth then much juster for England to have solicited her SISTER with these panting suspirations then Augustus the Ghost of Quintilius Restore to me Scotland my Sister our King Restore the best of men whom none but the wicked love not none but the ignorant praise not Restore both the Director and Rule it self of Morality whereby we may become not the gladder only but the better too while at hand we may contemplate a thing most rare One in highest Place not inaulging to himself the least excess Since therefore such you are O best of Kings suffer I humbly pray if rather by Prayers then Arguments you choose to be inclined That the nine Nations of different Language for I reckon them no fewer over which you gently reign may glory in your being such and may each declare it not in their native Dialects alone which would not give sufficient compass to our joyes but however in this also more publick Tongue That even forraigners may know your Britany which formerly bestowed upon the Christian World their first and most renowed Emperor is not become so barren yet as not to afford even at this day a Type of the highest-famed King Having now thus I hope somewhat smooth'd the way to your patience in hearing good it will be henceforth out of the whole state of your Life and Carriage thus far summarily to pick up some particulars as those do who make their choice of Flowers For I please my self more in the choice then in the plenty of my Matter Although I am not ignorant neither that in this kind of speaking the diligence or ambition of the Ancients was so profuse that perhaps Timeus said not unwittily That Alexander the Macedonian sooner subdued all Asia then Isocrates did write his Panegyrick Certainly there seems then to have been too great an indulgence to Art while the Wits of Orators were wanton in that fertile age of Eloquence but it becometh me mindful both of my simplicity and age to touch rather the heads of your praises then to prosecute them all that even the succinctness of my speech may as it were resemble the passage of my fleeting years In the first place is offered the eminent Nobleness of your Extraction whereby in a long Order of antecedent Kings your lustre is above them all your Father himself not excepted This in brief I will deduce more clearly Your Great Great-Grandfather Henry the Seventh whether more valiant or fortunate I know not being almost at once an Exile and a Conqueror united by the Marriage of Elizabeth of York the white Rose and the red the Armories of two very powerful Families which being in division had so many years polluted their own Countrey with bloud and deadly Fewds The more blessed Colligation of the Kingdomes then that of the Roses we owe to the Happiness of your Father who even for that alone were to be remembred ever with highest veneration But in you singly most Imperial Charles is the conflux of the glory of all Nations in all Ages which since the Romans have possessed Britany either by right or by Arms in you I say alone whom the Cambrians first the English-Saxons Scots Normans and finally the Danes do acknowledge with us to be the branch of that Stock that hith erto hath worn the Crown In this perchance if the meanness of the comparison be not rejected not unlike to Europes famous Ister which rolling along through vast Countreys is ennobled with the waters of so many famous streams One not obscure among our Authors hath written that our Ancestors would not acknowledge the Norman Rule in England for legitimate which had so weak a beginning until Maud marrying with Henry the First had brought into the world a child of the bloud of the ancient Saxon Kings she was Sister to David Nephew twice removed
Case shall occur For as I told him it was the Kings express will that his particular respect to the Republick and to him in this business should not be drawn into Examples With this point he was not a little pleased for his own glory and said that indeed Master Secretary Nanton had told him so This was the sum of what passed between us omitting impertinencies Let me end my dear Lord as I am bound in all the use either of my pen or of my voice with an humble and hearty acknowledgement of my great obligations towards your Lordship which will make me resolve and in good faith unhappy till I can some way shew my self Your Lordships most thankeful and faithful Servant H. W. To the KING From Augusta the 8 18 of August 1620. May it please Your most Sacred Majesty FRom this place I determined to make my first Dispatch unto Your Majesty hoping in such Cities and Courts vvhereunto I had address on the vvay to take up somewhat that should be considerable and till then unwilling to entertain Your solicitous Mind vvith immaterial things I have hitherto been vvith five several Princes and Communities the Duke of Loraign the Arch-Duke Leopoldus the Town of Strasburg the Duke of Wirtenberg and the Town of Ulme in the same order as I have set them down among whom I spent in all twelve days and the rest of the time in uncessant journeys vvhereof I shall now render Your Majesty a full account in the substance retrenching impertinencies Unto the Duke of Loraign I had no credential address from Your Royal hand and yet to pass silently like a stream through his Land by a Prince of so near conjunction in blood with You and interessed in the scope of my errand as a member of the Empire had been some incongruity Therefore excusing as I might justly the want of Letters vvith my purpose to have taken another way till I heard that the French King had cleared the confines of Loraign by drawing such Forces as lay hovering there with some hazard of Passengers over the River of Marne towards Normandy I say after this excuse I told him I knevv Your Majesty vvould be singularly pleased to understand by me of his health and that I had in transitu conferred vvith him Your Christian ends vvherein You could not but expect at his hands a concurrence both of Counsel and Affection This I said to dravv civilly from him as much as I could being a Prince cumbred as I found him vvith the German troubles on the one side and the French on the other and therefore bound to study the passages of both especially having a State vvhich perhaps is harder for him to keep neutral then himself In the rest of my discourse I possessed him vvith two main heads of mine Instructions First vvith Your Majesties innocency in the Bohemian business at the beginning next vvith Your impartiality therein even to this hour both vvhich did render You in this cause the fittest Mediator of the World And so I shut up all vvith this That God had given Your Majesty two eminent blessings the one Peace at home the other vvhich vvas surely the greater and the rarer a Soul desirous of the like abroad vvhich You found Your self tied in the Conscience of a Christian King to prosecute by all possible means and therefore though You had before in the beginning of the Bohemian Motions sent Your good meaning by a solemn Ambassage to the Emperor in the Person of a dear and zealous Servant of great Quality even before any other King had entred into it vvhich through the crudity of the matter as then took not the vvished effect yet novv hoping that time it self and the experience of vexation had mollified the affections and better digested the difficulties You had not refused by several Ambassages to both sides and to all the intervenient Princes and States to attempt again this high and Christian Work Thus much though in effect extracted from Your Majesties own directions I have here once rehearsed to save the repetition thereof in my following Audiences at other places The Dukes answer was more tender then free lamenting much the present condition of things commending as much Your Majesties good mind proclaiming his own remitting the vvhole to those great and vvise Kings that had it in hand and concluding vvith a voice me thought lower then before as if he had doubted to be overheard though in his private Chamber that the Princes of the Union vvould tell me vvhat his affections vvere in the Cause For vvhich I gave him thanks commending in all events to his continual memory that Your Majesties Daughter my gracious Lady and her Descendents vvere of the Bloud of Loraign Yea said he and the Elector likewise This vvas all that passed from him of any moment After vvhich he brought me to Monsieur de Vaudemont vvhose principal business as I hear at the present is to vvork the Dukes assent and the Popes dispensation for a Marriage between his own Son and his Brothers Daughter a thing much affected by that People and no doubt fomented by France to keep so important a Province from Strangers In the mean vvhile de Vaudemont's Son for improvement of his merit and fame is bestowed in the Command of those Troops vvhich vvere suffered to pass the Rheine at Brysack on Whitson-Monday last Before I leave Loraign I cannot but advertise Your Majesty that at Faltsbourg a Town in the confines of that Province towards Elsatia inhabited and built by many good men of the Religion the Ministers came unto me bewailing the case of the Inhabitants vvho for some thirty years had possessed that place quietly till of late by instigation of the Jesuits at Nancy the Duke had given them vvarning to be gone vvithin the term of two years vvhereof some good part vvas expired Their request unto me vvas that by Your Majesties gracious Mediation they might be received into a place vvithin the Palatine Jurisdiction near their present seat which they offered to enlarge and fortifie at their own charge upon the grant of reasonable immunities vvhich I have assumed to treat by Letter vvith Your Majesties Son-in-lavv needing no other commission from Your Majesty in things of this nature then Your own goodness The Arch-Duke Leopald I vvas forced to seek three days journey from his ordinary seat where being at his private sports of the field and no fit things about him he desired me to turn back half 〈◊〉 days journey to Mulzham the notorious nest of Jesuits commanding the Governors of his Towns in the mean time to use me vvith all due respects among vvhom he made choice of an Italian by name Ascanio Albertine a man of singular confidence vvith him and surely of very fair conditions to sound me though in a merry fashion and half laughing as there was good cause how I would taste it if he should receive me in the Jesuits Colledge for at Mulzham those
favours fade You that in her arms do sleep Learn to swim and not to wade For the Hearts of Kings are deep But if Greatness be so blind As to trust in Towers of Air Let it be with Goodness lin'd That at least the Fall be fair Then though darkned you shall say When Friends fail and Princes frown Vertue is the roughest way But proves at night a Bed of Down H. W. The Character of a Happy Life HOw happy is he born and taught That serveth not anothers will Whose armour is his honest thought And simple truth his utmost skill Whose passions not his masters are Whose soul is still prepar'd for death Unti'd unto the World by care Of publick fame or private breath VVho envies none that chance doth raise Nor vice hath ever understood How deepest wounds are giv'n by praise Nor rules of State but rules of good VVho hath his life from rumours freed VVhose conscience is his strong retreat VVhose state can neither flatterers feed Nor ruine make Oppressors great VVho God doth late and early pray More of his grace then gifts to lend And entertains the harmless day VVith a Religious Book or Friend This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall Lord of himself though not of Lands And having nothing yet hath all H. W. On a Bank as I sate a Fishing A description of the Spring ANd now all Nature seem'd in love The lusty sap began to move New juiee did stir th' embracing Vines And Birds had drawn their Valentines The jealous Trout that low did lie Rose at a well-dissembled flie There stood my Friend with patient skill Attending of his trembling quill Already were the Eves possest VVith the swift Pilgrims daubed nest The Groves already did rejoyce In Philomels triumphing voice The showers were short the weather mild The morning fresh the evening smill'd Ione takes her neat-rub'd Pale and now She trips to milk the Sand-red Cow VVhere for some sturdy foot-ball Swain â—…ne strokes a sillabub or twain The Fields and Gardens were beset VVith Tulip Crocus Violet And now though late the modest Rose Did more then half a blush disclose Thus all look'd gay all full of chear To welcome the New-livery'd year H. W. A Translation of the CIV Psalm to the Original Sense MY soul exalt the Lord with Hymns of praise O Lord my God how boundless is thy might Whose Throne of State is cloath'd with glorious rays And round about hast rob'd thy self with light Who like a curtain hast the Heavens display'd And in the watry Roofs thy Chambers laid Whose chariots are the thickned clouds above Who walk'st upon the winged winds below At whose command the airy Spirits move And fiery meteors their obedience show Who on this Base the earth didst firmly found And mad'st the deeâ—… to circumvest it round The waves that rise would drown the highest hill But at thy check they flie and when they hear Thy thundring voice they post to do thy will And bound their furies in their proper sphere Where surging flouds and valing ebbs can tell That none beyond thy marks must sink or swell Who hath dispos'd but thou the winding way Where springs down from the steepy crags do beat At which both foster'd Beasts their thirsts allay And the wild Asses come to quench their heat Where Birds resort and in their kind thy praise Among the branches chant in warbling laies The mounts are watred from thy dwelling place The barns and meads are fill'd for man and beast Wine glads the heart and oyl adorns the face And bread the staff whereon our strength doth rest Nor shrubs alone feel thy suffizing hand But even the Cedars that so proudly stand So have the Fowls their sundry seats to breed The ranging Stork in stately Beeches dwells The climing Goats on hills securely feed The mining Conies shroud in rocky Cells Nor can the heavenly lights their course forget The Moon her turns or Sun his times to set Thou mak'st the Night to over-vail the Day Then savage Beasts creep from the silent wood Then Lions whelps lie roaring for their prey And at thy powerful hand demand their food VVho when at morn they all recouch again Then toyling man till eve pursues his pain Lord when on thy various works we look How richly furnish'd is the earth we tread VVhere in the fair Contents of Nature's Book VVe may the wonders of thy wisdom read Nor earth alone but lo the sea so wide Where great small a world of creatures glide There go the Ships that furrow out their way Yea thereof Whales enormous sights we see VVhich yet have scope among the rest to play And all do wait for their support on thee VVho hast assign'd each thing his proper food And in due season dost dispence thy good They gather when thy gifts thou dost divide Their stores abound if thou thy hand enlarge Confus'd they are when thou thy beams dost hide In dust resolv'd if thou their breath discharge Again when thou of life renew'st the seeds The withered fields revest their chearful weeds Be ever gloried here thy Soveraign Name That thou may'st smile on all which thou hast made Whose frown alone can shake this earthly frame And at whose touch the hills in smoak shall vade For me may while I breathe both harp voice In sweet indictment of thy Hymns rejoyce Let Sinners fail let all Profaness cease His Praise my Soul His Praise shall be thy Peace H. WOTTON Tears at the Grave of Sir Albertus Morton who was buried at Southampton wept by Sir H. Wotton SIlence in truth would speak my sorrow best For deepest wounds can least their feelings tell Yet let me borrow from mine own unrest But time to bid him whom I lov'd farewel O my unhappy lines you that before Have serv'd my youth to vent some vvanton cries And now congeal'd vvith grief can scarce implore Strength to accent Here my Albertus lies This is the sable Stone this is the Cave And vvomb of earth that doth his Corps embrace VVhile others sing his praise let me engrave These bleeding Numbers to adorn the place Here vvill I paint the Characters of vvoe Here vvill I pay my tribute to the Dead And here my faithful tears in showers shall flovv To humanize the Flints vvhereon I tread VVhere though I mourn my matchless loss alone And none between my vveakness judge and me Yet even these gentle vvalls allovv my moan VVhose doleful Ecchoes to my Plaints agree But is he gone and live I rhyming here As if some Muse vvould listen to my Lay VVhen all distun'd sit vvaiting for their Dear And bathe the Banks vvhere he vvas vvont to play Dwell thou in endless Light discharged Soul Freed now from Natures and from Fortunes trust VVhile on this fluent Globe my glass shall role And run the rest of my remaining dust H. W. Upon the death of Sir Albert. Morton's Wife HE first deceas'd She for a
ipsis visceribus hath been lately here with us at a time when he hath been content to be entertained with the pastimes of children a Latin and a Greek Hyppolitus How often you were remembred between us is harder for me to tell you then I hope for you to believe Among other discourse he shewed me a little excrescence that he hath beginning upon the uttermost ball of his eyes a filmy matter like the rudiment of a Pin and Web as they call it Whereupon fell into my memory a secret that Mr. Bohan had told me his Mother knew How to take away that evil in growth and perchance much more in the infancy with a Medicine applyed only to the Wrists And I have heard your self likewise speak of a rare thing for that part I beseech you Sir be pleased with all possible speed to entreat that receipt from Mr. Bohan to whom we shall both be much beholden for it And Sir Gervase Clifton is already so possessed that he both sayes and thinks that nothing will cure him better then that which any way shall come through your hand unto him No peace as yet with either of the Kings The more wished I think with France the likelier perchance with Spain No Offices disposed in Court No Favourite but the Lord Treasurer More news in my next For the present God keep you in his dear love Servidore H. WOTTON To the Queen of Bohemia The beginning is wanting YEt my mind and my spirits give me against all the combustions of the World that before I die I shall kiss again your Royal hand in as merry an hour as vvhen I last had the honour to vvait upon your gracious eyes at Heidelberge I vvill now take the boldness to conclude my poor lines vvith a private and humble suit unto your Majesty vvhich I bring vvith me out of Suffolk from Sir Edmund Bacon's House and that vvhole Family among vvhom your Majesties name and vertues are in singular admiration There is of that House a young Plant of some sixteen years vvell natured and vvell moulded both for face and limbs and one of the bravest spirited Boyes in Christendome It is their joynt ambition and they have made me their Intercessor that your Majesty vvould be pleased to take him for one of your Pages They vvant not means otherwaies to bestow him but their zeal towards your Majesty and their judgements guide them to this humble desire for his more vertuous and noble nurture And lest the ordinary number of your Majesties Attendants in that kind being perhaps full might retard their hope of this high favour I have commission to assure your Majesty that their meaning is not to aggravate your charge for he shall have yearly a competent provision allowed to maintain him in good fashion If my Niece Bacon of dearest memory were alive whom God took not long after my Nephevv Albertus into his eternal Bliss I am sure she vvould joyn in this suit unto your Majesty that all Sexes might enter into the Obligation But it is your Majesties own goodness from vvhich only vve can hope for a favourable Answer And so vvith all our Prayers and vvith my particular obliged devotion I most humbly commit your Majesty to God's reserved Blessings and continual Love ever resting Your Majesties poor Servant in all truth and zeal H. WOTTON On the 6. of March 1628. SIR I Beseech you let these lines vvith as much affection though vvith less civility convey my good vvishes after you vvhich I should my self have brought before your departure You seem to have left the Town somewhat Prophetically not to be near the noise of a very unhappy morning on Munday last at vvhich time the Parliament assembling again vvhich you knovv had been silenced till that day vvas then re-adjourned by the Kings especial Command till Tuesday next Whereupon the Lower-House fell into such heat one passion begetting another that the Speaker vvho as discharged by the Royal Power did refuse to read a kind of Remonstrance vvhich Sir Iohn Eliott had provisionally set down in Paper vvas forced into the Chair It is strange to consider the lubricity of popular favour For he that before during this vvhole Session if so vve may call it and the former vvas so highly commended and even in this very act by some of the soundest and soberest of the House yet vvith the general Body is so stript of all his credit in a moment that I have hardly seen in any Chymical vvork such a precipitation What hath insued vvill be better told you by this good Captain Some think the Parliament doth yet hang upon a thread and may be stitched again together But that is an airy conceit in my opinion yet the peace of Italy and the preparations of France against us are voyced so strongly that I verily believe vve shall have a nevv summons The States of the low Provinces have since their Western great Prize newly taken a Careck out of the East of huge value so as their acts are Sub utroque sonantia Phoebo I have not yet sent those Verses to Mrs. Katharine Stanhope that she may rather have them in the second Edition For the Author hath licked them over and you shall have a new Copy sent you by the next Carrier We have met together once or twice since your going loco solito but like a disjoynted company wanting one of our best pieces God send us often chearfully together and so I rest Your hearty Servant H. W. When Iack Dinely shall return out of Lincolnshire I will give you an account what I writ by him to the Queen of Bohemia about your Spiritous Nephew And I will not forget to rouse the Doctor it Cambridge in the charitable intention I pray remember my service to your whole name and to my Noble Cousin Sir Drue To whom I will write the next week SIR I Know that between us there needs little complement for which I am for my part so unproper and so unmoulded that I often neglect even civil duties as well appeared by my coming from London without taking leave of you but yet I cannot be wanting unto your self nor to the least of your name in any real service for that were too much violence to my nature therefore before my coming from Westminster I wrote such Letters to the Queen of Bohemia about your Spiritous Frank as I hope together with the good offices of the bearer thereof will place him with the Prince of Orenge when he hath taken the Buss. I could have wished that his lively blood had been a little fleshed at that siege But Iack Dinelies long stay at London for his dispatch and at Gravesend for a wind hath lost us time We hear that the King of Spain upon the peazing of his affairs in Italy where a palm of ground importeth him more then a Province abroad was resolved to make the Marquess Spinola Governor of Milan and that the Count Henry Vanden
sport of my modesty leaving me in bad case and the world so as though we now know by what Arts he lived yet are we ignorant to this hour by what Religion he died save only that it could not be good which was not worthy the professing This free passage let me commit to your noble brest remembring that in confidence of the receiver I have transgressed a late Counsel of mine own which I gave to a young friend who asking me casually of what he should make him a sute as he was passing this way towards London I told him that in my opinion he could not buy a cheaper nor a more lasting stuff there then silence For I loved him well and was afraid of a little freedome that I spied in him And now Sir I must needs conclude or I shall burst with letting you know that I have divers things in wilde sheets that think and struggle to get out of several kinds some long promised and some of a newer conception but a poor exercise of my Pen wherewith I shall only honour my self by the dedication thereof unto your own person is that which shall lead the way by mine and your good leave intending if God yield me his favour to Print it before it be long in Oxford and to send you thence or bring you a Copy to our Redgrave What the subject is you must not know before hand for I fear it will want all other grace if it lose virginity And so the Lord of all abundant joy keep you long con quella buona Ciera which this my Servant did relate unto me Who live at all your commands H. WOTTON From your Colledge this Ashwednesday 1637. Postscript Mr. Clever one of the now Fellows of this Colledge where have been divers changes since it had the honour and the gladness to receive you being this day returned hither from the Excellent Lord Keeper to whom we had addressed him about a business that concerneth us Tells me even at this instant in the account of his journey that it pleased his good Lordship to enquire of him twice or thrice very graciously touching my health I beseech you My Noble Nephew let his Lordship see if it please you this whole Letter for I dare trust his indulgent goodness both with my liberties and with my simplicities and that will tell him my present Estate which by making it any part of his care is for ever at his most humble service Noble Sir above all the most honoured and loved UPon the receipt of a Letter from you which came late and I know not by what misadventure half drowned to my hands with advertisement that you had been at Sudbury in your passage homewards assailed with a Quartan I resolved immediately to visit you by this Bearer the best of my flights and lately well acquainted himself with farther travellers who yet hath been kept here after my said resolution that he might bring you a full account of the business touching my inviolate Neece so dear unto us both which was a part of your foresaid Letter and wherein I am confident you will receive very singular contentment out of the very Originals of some and true Copies of other Letters which I send you by this my said inward servant and if he were not so I would not have intrusted him with so tender Papers The rest of his stay was only that I might collect among my poor memorials and experiments something conducible to the recovery of your health wherein I reckon my self as much interessed as in any one thing of this world I will not say unto you Courage as the French use to speak for you have enough of that within your self Nor Be merry in our English phrase for you can impart enough of that even to others in the incomparable delight of your conversation But let me give you two comforts though needless to the serenity of your spirits The first That I hope your infirmity will not hold you long because it comes as I may speak according to the barbarous Translators of Avicenna In complexionato suo that is in the very season of the revolution of melancholick humours for Omnis Morbus contra complexionatum Patientis vel Temporis est periculosus aut longus The other That it hath not succeeded any precedent caustick disease because those Quartans are of all the most obstinate which arise out of the Incineration of a former Ague The rest I have committed to the instructions and memory of this Bearer being himself a Student in Physick and though I dare not yet call him a good Counsellor yet I assure you it is a good Relator with this dispatch I will intermingle no other vulgar subject but hereafter I will entertain you with as jolly things as I can scamble together And so Sir for the present commending you into the sweet and comfortable preservation of our dear God I rest Your faithful poor Servant H. WOTTON From the Colledge Novemb. 6. 1638. My Noble Honoured Loved ever Remembred ever Desired Nephew I Shall give to morrow morning Matthew Say our Boat-man before his going a shilling and promise him another at his return to deliver this small packet with his own hands at the Green-Dragon in Bishopsgate-street according to the form of your address not for any value of mine own Papers but for some things therein contained which I wish may come safely and quickly to you And first I send you your immortal Uncles Confession of his Faith which I did promise you at Canterbury solidly and excellently couched as whatsoever else had the happiness to fall under his Meditation and Pen. Next you receive a Letter freshly written me from Cambridge with mention God bless us of a Jesuite of your name who seems as all that comes from any of you is piercing to have sent over lately some pretty insinuative Book in matter of Theological Controversie perchance better dressed then any before and with more relish commended to the vulgar taste but I believe it will be the same to the stomack for well they may change their form but it is long since we have heard their substance over and over still the same ad fastidium usque I shall languish to know how he toucheth upon your Name and stirp The Name of my friend who writ me the said Letter I have defaced for the censure of some other things therein which I should be sorry to adventure at large but you shall know him from me hereafter and believe it he will be worth your knowing I cannot forbear to tell you a thing I know not whether I should call it news because it is nearer you then to us but strange in truth written me from the said University at the same time by the Provost of Kings Colledge there between whom and me doth pass much familiar correspondency It is of a weekly Lecture there performed heretosore by the Person of Mr. Christopher Goad and lately deposed with
between Princes and Neighbouring Estates by Constitutions of the Empire may faithfully be continued it is provided That the two Armies here near encamped with all possible speed remove out of the places where they were pitched without any detriment to either Party and that they lodge not together in one place Secondly it is concluded That if perchance any Elector Prince Confederate State of either Party or indeed either of them in gross should require upon necessity a Passage by virtue of Ordinances of the Empire for the Defence and Security of them and their Subjects having first peaceably given sufficient Caution neither of them ought to deny it Provided the same requisition be seasonably made not upon rash and precipitate Advice when the Army be upon the Frontiers or indeed within the Territories of them with complaint or discommodity of the Subject Thirdly Forasmuch as We Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and other Electors Princes Catholick Estates and Alliants have excluded from this present Treaty the Kingdom of Bohemia with the Incorporated Provinces and other States Hereditary of the House of Austria and comprehended within the Treaty only the Electorals and Countries belonging to Electors Princes and States Confederates of either Party under which also is contained the Electoral Palatinate with all Inheritances thereunto belonging scituate within the Empire They ought not to be expended further seeing at this present we persist not in these differences that having nothing common with the rest but we will keep good Correspondence with them without any suspition Which likewise We Ioachim Ernest Marquess of Brandenburg do agree to the Resolution of the Electors Princes and States Catholick touching the Kingdom of Bohemia and the United Provinces with other Inheritances appertaining to the House of Austria for Us our Alliants Electors Princes and States and We will no less on our side that the said Kingdom of Bohemia with the United Provinces and Countries Hereditary to the House of Austria be not comprised in this Treaty understanding as well this Declaration to be for the Electoralities Principalities and Estates scituate and being within the Empire Fourthly Whereas during this Treaty divers times mention hath been made of the Griefs of the Empire not yet decided the decision of the same is remitted to some more convenient time seeing this was too short and the Grievances touched not only those of either Party but in general all both Catholick and Evangelical States of the whole Empire concerning which for this present there is no sufficient Power or Authority to determine And seeing both of either Party pretend losses and damages done and received by either side and particularly at the Village of Sandthaim and thereabouts it shall be shortly treated of reasonable restitution for the same All vvhich things vve Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and vve Ioachim Ernest Marquess of Brandenburg as vvell for us as for the above-named our Confederates Electors Princes and States do promise to maintain and keep inviolably In vvitness of vvhich vve have set to our Hands and Seals the 3. July 23. June An. 1620. Locus O Sigilli Maximilian Locus O Sigilli Ioachim Ernest. A Dispatch by Ralph from Venice 1621. SIR I Choose at the present to vvrite thick and small for the closer conveyance of that vvhich followeth first to your faithfull hands and by them immediately unto our Soveraign Lord the King The deputed Cardinals of the Congregation or Committee in Rome touching his Majesties Matrimonial Treaty vvith Spain having resolved negatively even after six Assemblies the Cardinal Ludovisio and the Spanish Ambassador vvent joyntly to the Pope to pray him that by no means the negative resolution might be divulged as yet but suppressed for a time because some turns vvere to be done by the concealment thereof Hereupon the Venâ—…tian Ambassador by name Reniero Zen the most diving man that ever the Republick hath held in that Court and of much confidence vvith the Pope upon old acquaintance observing that the foresaid Congregation had voted and that their censures vvere concealed comes to the Cardinal Ludovisio the Popes Nephew before-named and extracts from him the vvhole matter vvith the means and reason of the suppression This I have received from a credible and I vvould say from an infallible fountain if it did not become my simplicity in a point so much concerning the eternal dishonour of a great King to leave alwayes some possibility of mis-information Yet thus much more I must adde not out of intelligence but from sober discourse that although the present Pope hath been hitherto esteemed more French then any of his Predecessors a great vvhile yet is not the King of Spain such a Bankrupt in Rome but that he might easily have procured an assent in the fore-named Congregation or at least a resolution sooner then after five or six meetings of the deputed Cardinals unless delays had been studied Be it how it vvill as to his Majesty doth belong the Soveraignty of judgement so to his poor honest Creatures abroad the liberty of relation and a frank discharge of our zeal and duties To vvhich I vvill subscribe my unworthy Name Venice Feb. 15 25. 1621. A Dispatch about the King of Bohemia's Affairs at Venice 1622. Right Honourable I Have formerly acquainted his Majesty through your hands how my self being then in Padoua under Physick of late my familiar evil I vvas recalled to Venice by the arrival here of Seignor Filippo Calandrini expresly sent to sollicit some contribution from this Republick to the support of Count Mansfelt's Army vvherein my joynt endeavour vvas required by Letters from the Elector himself as then at the Hague And likewise I vvas thereunto the better enabled by very carefull instruction from Sir Dudley Carlton under cypher of the vvhole business how it stood Neither did I need any new immediate Command from his Majesty to serve in the Cause of his own descendents especially after your Letters of the 19th of January by Order vvhereof I had before in his Royal Name made a general exploration here of their good vvill towards us and now by the present imployment of the foresaid Calandrini as also upon Letters from the Elector to this Duke vvhereof the delivery and pursuit vvas recommended to me I found apt occasion to descend à Thesi ad Hypothesin vvhich vvith vvhat discretion it hath been handled I dare not say but sure I am vvith as much zeal and fervour as the capacity of my heart could hold vvhereof the accompt is now due as followeth Two full Audiences I had upon this Subject at mine own demand and a third at their calling as long as both the former In my first to make it appear more serious then an ordinary duty I told them I vvould do that vvhich I had never done before For vvhereas vve commonly leave the reference of our Propositions to a Secretary of the State vvho stands alwayes by the Ambassador and is the transporter both of our Arguments and of
to proceed to Excommunication of the Republick who still offered to shew both reason and ancient custom to warrant their Actions But this Pope contrary to his Predecessors moderation required absolute obedience without disputes Thus it continued for about a year the Pope still threatning Excommunication and the Venetians still answering him with fair speeches and no complyance till at last the Popes zeal to the Apostolick Sea did make him to excommunicate the Duke the whole Senate and all their Dominions and that done to shut up all their Churches charging the whole Clergy to forbear all sacred Offices to the Venetians till their Obedience should render them capable of Absolution But this act of the Popes did but the more confirm the Venetians in their resolution not to obey him And to that end upon the hearing of the Popes Interdict they presently published by sound of Trumpet a Proclamation to this effect That whosoever hath received from Rome any Copy of a Papal Interdict publish'd there as well against the Law of God as against the Honour of this Nation shall presently render it to the Councel of Ten upon pain of death Then was Duado their Ambassador call'd home from Rome and the Inquisition presently suspended by Order of the State and the Flood-gates being thus set open any man that had a pleasant or scoffing wit might safely vent it against the Pope either by free speaking or by Libels in Print and both became very pleasant to the people Matters thus heightned the State advised vvith Father Paul a Holy and Learned Frier the Author of the History of the Council of Trent vvhose advice vvas Neither to provoke the Pope nor lose their own Right he declaring publickly in Print in the name of the State That the Pope was trusted to keep two Keys one of Prudence and the other of Power And that if they were not both used together Power alone is not effectual in an Excommunication And thus these discontents and oppositions continued till a report was blown abroad that the Venetians were all turned Protestants which was believed by many for that it was observ'd the English Ambassadour was so often in conference with the Senate and his Chaplain Mr. Bedel more often with Father Paul whom the People did not take to be his Friend And also for that the Republick of Venice was known to give Commission to Gregory Justiniano then their Ambassadour in England to make all these Proceedings known to the King of England and to crave a Promise of his assistance if need should require and in the mean time they required the King's advice and judgement which was the same that he gave to Pope Clement at his first coming to the Crown of England that Pope then moving him to an Union with the Roman Church namely To endeavour the calling of a free Council for the settlement of Peace in Christendom and that he doubted not but that the French King and divers other Princes would joyn to assist in so good a work and in the mean time the sin of this Breach both with His and the Venetians Dominions must of necessity lie at the Pope ' s door In this contention vvhich lasted almost two years the Pope grew still higher and the Venetians more and more resolv'd and careless still acquainting King James with their proceedings which was done by the help of Sir Henry Wotton Mr. Bedel and Padre Paulo whom the Venetians did then call to be one of their Consulters of State and with his Pen to defend their just Cause which was by him so performed that the Pope saw plainly he had weakned his Power by exceeding it and offered the Venetians Absolution upon very easie terms which the Venetians still slighting did at last obtain by that which was scarce so much as a shew of acknowledging it For they made an order that in that day in which they were Absolv'd there should be no Publick Rejoycing nor any Bonfires that night lest the Common People might judge that they desired an Absolution or were Absolved for committing a Fault These Contests were the occasion of Padre Paulo's knowledge and interest with King James for whose sake principally Padre Paulo compiled that eminent History of the remarkable Council of Trent which History was as fast as it was written sent in several sheets in Letters by Sir Henry Wotton Mr. Bedel and others unto King James and the then Bishop of Canterbury into England and there first made publick both in English and in the universal Language For eight years after Sir Henry Wotton's going into Italy he stood fair and highly valued in the Kings opinion but at last became much clouded by an accident which I shall proceed to relate At his first going Ambassadour into Italy as he passed through Germany he stayed some days at Augusta where having been in his former Travels well known by many of the best note for Learning and Ingeniousness those that are esteemed the Virtuosi of that Nation with whom he passing an evening in merriments was requested by Christopher Flecamore to write some Sentence in his Albo a Book of white Paper which for that purpose many of the German Gentry usually carry about them and Sir Henry Wotton consenting to the motion took an occasion from some accidental discourse of the present Company to write a pleasant definition of an Ambassadour in these very words Legatus est vir bonus peregrè missus ad mentiendum Reipublicae causâ Which Sir Henry Wotton could have been content should have been thus Englished An Embassadour is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his Country But the word for lye being the hinge upon which the Conceit was to turn was not so exprest in Latine as would admit in the hands of an Enemy especially so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English Yet as it was it slept quietly among other Sentences in this Albo almost eight years till by accident it fell into the hands of Iasper Scioppius a Romanist a man of a restless spirit and a malicious Pen who with Books against King Iames Prints this as a Principle of that Religion professed by the King and his Ambassadour Sir Henry Wotton then at Venice and in Venice it was presently after written in several Glass-windows and spitefully declared to be Sir Henry Wottons This coming to the knowledge of King Iames he apprehended it to be such an oversight such a vveakness or vvorse in Sir Henry Wotton as caused the King to express much vvrath against him and this caused Sir Henry Wotton to write two Apologies one to Velserus one of the Chiefs of Augusta in the universal Language vvhich he caused to be Printed and given and scattered in the most remarkable places both of Germany and Italy as an Antidote against the venomous Books of Scioppius and another Apology to King Iames vvhich vvere both so ingenious so clear and so choicely Eloquent that his Majesty vvho vvas
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
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
the adâ—…ancing of their own and if more ingenuous no farâ—…er just then to forbear detraction at the best rather â—…sposed to give praise upon their own accord then to make â—…ayment upon demand or challenge The testimony of sufficiency is better entertained then the report of Excellency THe nature of some places necessarily requires 〈◊〉 competently endowed but where there is choice none think the appointment to be a duty of Justice bound respect the best desert nay the best conceive it a work free bounty which men of mean qualities are likely to â—…knowledge and the worldly make it a business of proâ—… unto which the most deserving are least apt to subscribâ—… But besides these unlucky influences from above this 〈◊〉 success may be occasioned either by the too great confideâ—… of those who hope to rise or the jealous distrust of sâ—… are already raised whilest they too much presuming 〈◊〉 their own desert neglect all auxiliary strength these sâ—…pecting some diminution to their own stop the passage anothers worth that being most certain Alterius viâ—…tuti invidet qui diffidit suae He that appears often in the same place gets liâ—… ground in the way to credit FAmiliar and frequent use which makes things first ungrateful by continuance pleasing or toleâ—…ble takes away the lustre from more excellent objeâ—… and reduceth them from the height of admiration uâ—… low degrees of neglect dislike and contempt 〈◊〉 were not strange if it wrought only among the Vulâ—… whose opin on like their stomacks is overcome witâ—…â—…tiety or men of something a higher stage the edge 〈◊〉 whose sight is abated and dulled by long gazing but 〈◊〉 same entertainment is given by the Judicious and Learnâ—… either because they observe some defects which at 〈◊〉 sight are less visible or the Actors in this kind betray weakness in their latter attempts usually straining so high at first that they are not able to reach again in the rest or by this often obtrusion not required discover a good conceit of their own Graces and men so well affected to themselves are generally so happy as to have little cause to complain of Corrivals The Active man riseth not so well by his strength as the expert by his stirrop THey that climb towards preferment or greatness by their own vertue get up with much ado and very slowly whereas such as are raised by other means usually ascend lightly and appear more happy in their sudden advancements sometimes by the only strength of those who stand above exercising their power in their dependants commonly by subordinate helps and assistance which young men happily obtain from the commendations of friends old men often compass by the credit of their wealth who have a great advantage in that they are best able to purchase and likely soonest to leave the room Few men thrive by one onely Art fewer by many AMongst Tradesmen of meaner sort they are not poorest whose Shop windows open over a red Lettice and the wealthiest Merchants imploy Scriveners for security at home as much as Factors for their advantage abroad both finding not more warrantable gains by negotiating with the industrious then profitable returns by dealing with unthrifts The disposition of the time hath taught this wisdome to more ingenuous professions which are best entertained when they come accompanied with some other respects whence preciseness is become a good habit to plead in and Papistry a privy commendation to the practise of Physick contentious Zeal making most Clyents and sensual Superstition yielding the best Patients They who are intent by diverse means to make progress in their estate cannot succeed well as he that would run upon his hands and feet makes less speed then one who goes as nature taught him the untoward moving of some unskilful parts hindring the going forward of those which are better disposed It is good to profess betimes and practise at leasure THere is a saying That the best choice is of an old Physician and a young Lawyer The reason suppos'd because where errors are fatal ability of judgement and moderation are required but where advantages may be wrought upon diligence and quickness of wit are of more special use But if it be considered who are generally most esteemed it will appear that opinion of the multitude sets up the one and the favour of Authority upholds the other yet in truth a mans age and time are of necessary regard such of themselves succeeding best who in these or any other professions neither defer their resolution too long nor begin their practice too soon whereas ordinarily they who are immaturely adventurous by their iusufficiency hurt others they who are tedious in deliberation by some improvidence hinder themselves Felicity shews the ground where Industry builds a Fortune ARchimedes the great Engineer who in defending Syracusa against Marcellus shewed wonderful Experiments of his extraordinary skil was bold to say That he would remove the world out of his place if he had elsewhere to set his foot And truly I believe so far that otherwise he could not do it I am sure so much is evident in the Architecture of Fortunes in the raising of which the best Art or endeavour is able to do nothing if it have not where to lay the first stone for it is possible with the like Skil to raise a frame when we have matter but not to create something out of nothing the first being the ordinary effect of industry this only of Divine Power Indeed many from very mean beginnings have aspired to very eminent place and we usually ascribe it to their own worth which no doubt in some is great yet as in Religion we are bound to believe so in truth the best of them will confess that the first advantage was reached out meerly by a Divine hand which also no doubt did alwayes assist their after endeavours Some have the felicity to be born heirs to good Estates others to be made so beyond their hopes Marriage besides the good which oftentimes it confers directly collaterally sometimes helps to Offices sometimes to Benefices sometimes to Dignities Many rise by relation and dependance it being a happy step to some to have fallen on a fortunate Master to some on a foolish to some few on a good There are divers other means of which as of these I am not so fit to speak but truly considered they are all out of our own power which he that presumeth most cannot promise himself and he that expects least sometimes attains A CONCEIPT Of some OBSERVATIONS INTENDED Upon Things most Remarkeable in the Civil History of this Kingdom and likewise in the State of the Church From the NORMAN Invasion till the Twelfth Year of our vertuous SOVERAIGN CHARLES The FIRST Whom God have in his precious Custody Of WILLIAM the First WILLIAM the First was a Child of Fortune from his Cradle We do commonly and justly stile Him The Conqueror For he made a general Conquest of the whole Kingdome
of advancement had like to be strangled almost in the very Cradle by throwing himself into the Portugal Voyage vvithout the Queens consent or so much as her knowledge vvhereby he left his friends and dependants near six moneths in desperate suspense vvhat vvould become of him And to speak truth not vvithout good reason For first they might vvell consider That he vvas himself not vvell plumed in favour for such a flight Besides That now he vvanted a Lord of Leicester at home for he vvas dead the year before to smooth his absence and to quench the practises at Court But above all it lay open to every mans discourse that though the bare offence to his Soveraign and Mistriss vvas too great an adventure yet much more vvhen she might as in this case have fairly discharged her displeasure upon her Laws Notwithstanding a noble report coming home before him at his return all vvas clear and this excursion vvas esteemed but a Sally of youth Nay he grew every day more and more in her gracious conceit vvhether such intermissions as these do sometimes foment affection or that having committed a fault he became the more obsequious and plyant to redeem it Or that she yet had not received into her Royal brest any shadows of his popularity There vvas another time long after vvhen Sir Fulke Grevill late Lord Brook a man in appearance intrinsecal vvith him or at the least admitted to his Melancholly hours either belike espying some vveariness in the Queen or perhaps vvith little change of the vvord though more in the danger some vvariness towards him and vvorking upon the present matter as he vvas dexterous and close had almost super-induced into favour the Earl of Southampton vvhich yet being timely discovered my Lord of Essex chose to evaporate his thoughts in a Sonnet being his common vvay to be sung before the Queen as it vvas by one Hales in vvhose voice she took some pleasure vvhereof the complot me thinks had as much of the Hermit as of the poet And if thou should'st by her be now forsaken She made thy Heart too strong for to be shaken As if he had been casting one eye back at the least to his former retiredness But all this likewise quickly vanished and there vvas a good vvhile after fair vveather over-head Yet still I know not how like a gathering of Clouds till towards his latter time vvhen his humours grew Tart as being now in the Lees of favour it brake forth into certain sudden recesses sometimes from the Court to Wansteed otherwhiles unto Greenwich often to his own Chamber Doors shut Visits forbidden and vvhich vvas vvorse divers Contestations between even vvith the Queen her self all preambles of ruine vvherewith though now and then he did vvring out of her Majesty some petty contentments as a man vvould press sowr Grapes yet in the mean time vvas forgotten the Counsel of a Wise and then a Prophetical Friend vvho told him that such courses as those vvere like hot Waters vvhich help at a pang but if they be too often used vvill spoil the stomack On the Dukes part vve have no such abrupt strayns and precipees as these but a fair fluent and uniform course under both Kings And surely as there vvas in his natural Constitution a marvellous equality vvhereof I shall speak more afterwards so there vvas an image of it in his Fortune running if I may borrow an ancient comparison as smoothly as a numerous Verse till it met vvith certain Rubs in Parliament vvhereof I am induced by the very Subject vvhich I handle to say somewhat so far as shall concern the difference between their times When my Lord of Essex stood in favour the Parliaments vvere calm Nay I find it a true observation that there vvas no Impeachment of any Nobleman by the Commons from the Reign of King Henry the sixth until the eighteenth of King James nor any intervenient precedent of that Nature not that something or other could be vvanting to be said vvhile men are men For not to go higher vve are taught easily so much by the very Ballads and Libels of the Leicestrian time But about the aforesaid Year many young ones being chosen into the House of Commons more then had been usual in great Councels vvho though of the vveakest vvings yet are the highest Flyers there arose a certain unfortunate and unfruitful Spirit in some places not sowing but picking at every stone in the Field rather then tending to the general Harvest And thus far the consideration of the Nature of the Time hath transported me and the occasion of the Subject Now on the other side I must vvith the like liberty observe two vveighty and vvatchful Solicitudes as I may call them vvhich kept the Earl in extreme and continual Caution like a Bow still bent vvhereof the Dukes thoughts vvere absolutely free First he vvas to vvrastle vvith a Queens declining or rather vvith her very setting Age as vve may term it vvhich besides other respects is commonly even of it self the more umbratious and apprehensive as for the most part all Horizons are charged vvith certain Vapours towards their Evening The other vvas a matter of more Circumstance standing thus viz. All Princes especially those vvhom God hath not blessed vvith natural issue are by vvisdome of State somewhat shye of their Successors and to speak vvith doe Reverence there may be reasonably supposed in Queens Regnant a little proportion of tenderness that vvay more then in Kings Now there vvere in Court two names of Power and almost of Faction the Essexian and the Cecilian vvith their adherents both vvell enough enjoying the present and yet both looking to the future and therefore both holding correspondency vvith some of the principal in Scotland and had received advertisements and instructions either from them or immediately from the King as indubiate Heir of this Imperial Crown But lest they might detect one another this vvas Mysteriously carried by several instruments and conducts and on the Essexian side in truth vvith infinite hazard for Sir Robert Cecil vvho as Secretary of State did dispose the publick Addresses had prompter and safer conveyance vvhereupon I cannot but relate a memorable passage on either part as the story following shall declare The Earl of Essex had accommodated Master Anthony Bacon in partition of his House and had assigned him a noble entertainment This vvas a Gentleman of impotent feet but a nimble head and through his hand ran all the intelligences vvith Scotland vvho being of a provident nature contrary to his Brother the Lord Viscount St. Albons and vvell knowing the advantage of a dangerous Secret vvould many times cunningly let fall some vvords as if he could much amend his Fortunes under the Cecilians to vvhom he vvas near of alliance and in bloud also and vvho had made as he was not unwilling should be believed some great proffers to win him away which once or twice he pressed so far and with
such tokens and signs of apparent discontent to my Lord Henry Howard afterwards Earl of Northampton who was of the party and stood himself inmuch Umbrage with the Queen that he flyes presently to my Lord of Essex with whom he was commonly primae admissionis by his bed side in the morning and tells him that unless that Gentleman were presently satisfied with some round summe all would be vented This took the Earl at that time ill provided as indeed oftentimes his Coffers were low whereupon he was fain suddenly to give him Essex-House which the good old Lady Walsingham did afterwards dis-ingage out of her own store with 2500 pound and before he had distilled 1500 pound at another time by the same skil So as we may rate this one Secret as it was finely carried at 4000 pounds in present money besides at the least 1000 pound of annual pension to a private and bed-rid Gentleman What would he have gotten if he could have gone about his own business There was another accident of the same nature on the Cecilian side much more pleasant but less chargeable for it cost nothing but wit The Queen having for a good while not heard any thing from Scotland and being thirsty of news it fell out that her Majesty going to take the air towards the Heath the Court being then at Greenwich and Master Secretary Cecill then attending her a Post came crossing by and blew his Horn The Queen out of curiosity asked him from whence the Dispatch came and being answered From Scotland she stops the Coach and calleth for the Packet The Secretary though he knew there were iâ—… it some Letters from his Correspondents which to discover were as so many Serpents yet made more shew of diligence then of doubt to obey and asks some that stood by forsooth in great hast for a knife to cut up the Packet for otherwise he might perhaps have awaked a little apprehension but in the mean time approaching with the Packet in his hand at a pretty distance from the Queen he telleth her it looked and smelt ill-favouredly coming out of a filthy budget and that it should be fit first to open and air it because he knew she was a verse from ill sents And so being dismissed home he got leasure by this seasonable shift to sever what he would not have seen These two accidents precisely true and known to few I have reported as not altogether extravagant from my purpose to shew how the Earl stood in certain perplexities wherewith the Dukes dayes were not distracted And this hath been the Historical part as it were touching the difference between them in the rising and flowing of their fortunes I will now consider their several indowments both of Person and Mind and then a little of their Actions and Ends. The Earl was a pretty deal the taller and much the stronger and of the abler body But the Duke had the neater limbs and freer delivery he was also the uprighter and of the more comely motions for the Earl did bend a little in the neck though rather forwards then downwards and he was so far from being a good Dancer that he was no graceful goer If we touch particulars the Duke exceeded in the daintiness of his leg and foot and the Earl in the incomparable fairness and fine shape of his hands which though it be but feminine praise he took from his Father For the general Air the Earl had the closer and more reserved Countenance being by nature somewhat more cogitative and which was strange never more then at meals when others are least Insomuch as he was wont to make his observation of himself that to solve any knotty business which cumbred his mind his ablest hours were when he had checked his first appetite with two or three morsels after which he sate usually for a good while silent yet he would play well and willingly at some games of greatest attention which shewed that when he listed he could licence his thoughts The Duke on the other side even in the midst of so many diversions had continually a very pleasant and vacant face as I may well call it proceeding no doubt from a singular assurance in his temper And yet I must here give him a rarer Elogy which the malignest eye cannot deny him That certainly never man in his place and power did entertain greatness more familiarly nor whose looks were less tainted with his felicity wherein I insist the rather because this in my judgement was one of his greatest vertues and victories of himself But to proceed in the attiring and ornament of their bodies the Duke had a fine and unaffected politeness and upon occasion costly as in his Legations The Earl as he grew more and more attentive to business and matters so less and less curious of cloathing Insomuch as I do remember those about him had a conceit that possibly sometimes when he went up to the Queen he might scant know what he had on for this was his manner His Chamber being commonly stived with Friends or Suiters of one kind or other when he was up he gave his legs arms and brest to his ordinary servants to button and dress him with little heed his head and face to his Barber his eyes to his letters and ears to Petitioners and many times all at once then the Gentleman of his Robes throwing a cloak over his shoulders he would make a step into his Closet and after a short prayer he was gone only in his Baths he was somewhat delicate For point of diet and luxury they were both very inordinate in their appetites especially the Earl who was by nature of so indifferent a taste that I must tell a rare thing of him though it be but a homely note that he would stop in the midst of any physical Potion and after he had licked his lips he would drink off the rest but I am weary of such slight Animadversions To come therefore to the inward furniture of their Minds I will thus much declare The Earl was of good Erudition having been placed at study in Cambridge very young by the Lord Burleigh his Guardian with affectionate and deliberate care under the oversight of Doctor Whitgift then Master of Trinity Colledge and after Archbishop of Canterbury A man by the way surely of most Reverend and Sacred memory and as I may well say even of the Primitive temper when the Church by lowliness of spirit did flourish in high examples which I have inserted as a due recordation of his vertues having been much obliged to him for many favours in my younger time About sixteen years of his age for thither he came at twelve he took the formality of Master of Arts and kept his publick Acts. And here I must not smother what I have received by constant Information That his own Father died with a very cold conceit of him some say through the affection to his second son Walter Devereux who
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
Danger In his countenance which is the part that all eyes interpret no open alteration even after the succours which he expected did fail him but the less he shewed without the more it wrought intrinsecally according to the nature of suppressed passions For certain it is that to his often mentioned Secretary Doctor Mason whom he laid in Pallet near him for natural Ventilation of his thoughts he would in the absence of all other ears and eyes break out into bitter and passionate Eruptions protesting That never his Dispatches to divers Princes nor the great business of a Fleet of an Army of a Siege of a Treaty of War of Peace both on foot together and all of them in his head at a time did not so much break his repose as a conceit That some at home under his Majesty of whom he had well deserved were now content to forget him but whom he meant I know not and am loth to rove at conjectures Of their two Forts he could not take the one nor would he take the other but in the general Town he maintained a seisure and possession of the whole three full months and eighteen days and at the first descent on shore he was not immured within a wooden Vessel but he did countenance the landing in his long Boat Where succeeded such a defeat of near two hundred Horse and these not by his ghess mounted in haste but the most part Gentlemen of Family and great resolution seconded with two thousand Foot as all circumstances well ballanced on either side may surely endure a comparison with any of the bravest Impressions in ancient time In the issue of the whole business he seems charged in opinion with a kind of improvident conscience having brought of that with him to Camp perchance too much from a Court where Fortune had never deceived him Besides we must consider him yet but rude in the profession of Arms though greedy of Honour and zealous in the Cause At his return to Plimouth a strange accident befell him perchance not so worthy of memory for it self as for that it seemeth to have been a kind of prelude to his final period The now Lord Goring a Gentleman of true honour and of vigilant affections for his Friend sends to the Duke in all expedition an express Messenger with advisement to assure his own Person by declining the ordinary Road to London for that he had credible Intelligence of a plot against his life to be put in execution upon him in his said journey towards the Court. The Duke meeting the Messenger on the way read the Letter and smothering it in his pocket without the least imaginable apprehension rides forwards His company being about that time not above seven or eight in number and those no otherwise provided for their defence then with ordinary swords After this the Duke had advanced three miles before he met with an old Woman near a Town in the Road who demanded Whether the Duke were in the company and bewraying some especial occasion to be brought to him was lead to his Horse-side where she told him that in the very next Town where he was to pass she had heard some desperate men vow his death And thereupon would have directed him about by a surer way This old Womans casual access joyn'd with that deliberate advertisement which he had before from his Noble Friend moved him to participate both the tenour of the said Letter and all the circumstances with his Company who were joyntly upon consent that the Woman had advised him well Notwithstanding all which importunity he resolved not to wave his way upon this reason perhaps more generous then provident that if as he said he should but once by such a diversion make his Enemy believe he were afraid of danger he should never live without Hereupon his young Nephew Lord Viscount Fielding being then in his Company out of a Noble spirit besought him that he would at least honour him with his Coat and blew Ribbon thorow the Town pleading that his Uncle's life whereon lay the property of his whole Family was of all things under Heaven the most precious unto him and undertaking so to gesture and muffle up himself in his hood as the Duke's manner was to ride in cold weather that none should discern him from him and so he should be at the more liberty for his own defence At which sweet Proposition the Duke caught him in his arms and kissed him yet would not as he said accept of such an offer in that case from a Nephew whose life he tendred as much as himself and so liberally rewarded the poor Creature for her good will After some short directions to his Company how they should carry themselves he rode on without perturbation of his mind He was no sooner entred into the Town but a scambling Souldier clapt hold of his bridle which he thought was in a begging or perchance somewhat worse in a drunken fashion yet a Gentleman of his train that rode a pretty distance behind him conceiving by the premisses it might be a beginning of some mischievous intent spurred up his Horse and with a violent rush severed him from the Duke who with the rest went on quickly through the Town neither for ought I can hear was there any further enquiry into that practice the Duke peradventure thinking it wisdome not to resent discontentments too deep At his return to the Court he found no change in Faces but smothered murmurings for the loss of so many gallant Gentlemen against which his friends did oppose in their discourses the chance of War together with a gentle expectation for want of supply in time After the complaints in Parliament and the unfortunate issue at Rheez the Dukes fame did still remain more and more in obloquy among the mass of people whose judgements are only reconciled with good successes so as he saw plainly that he must abroad again to rectifie by his best endeavour under the publick Service his own reputation Whereupon new preparatives were in hand and partly reparatives of the former beaten at Sea And in the mean while he was not unmindfull in his civil course to cast an eye upon the wayes to win unto him such as have been of principal credit in the Lower House of Parliament applying lenitives or subducting from that part where he knew the humors were sharpest amidst which thoughts he was surprized with a fatal stroke written in the black Book of necessity There was a younger Brother of mean fortunes born in the County of Suffolk by name Iohn Felton by nature of a deep melancholy silent and gloomy constitution but bred in the active way of a Souldier and thereby raised to the place of Lieutenant to a Foot-Company in the Regiment of Sir Iames Ramsey This was the man that closely within himself had conceived the Dukes death But what may have been the immediate or greatest motive of that fellonious conception is even
rightful Heir of mine own Body was I forward at all these times to acknowledge thee the GOD of my support and comfort and shall I now question thy voice when thou demandest but a part of thine own Benefits No my dear Isaac although the Heavens know how much I love thee yet if thou wert or couldest be millions of times more precious in the eyes of thy trembling Father I would summon together all the strength of mine aged Limbs to render thee unto that gracious GOD from whom I had thee Alas poor Boy how sweetly thou slumbrest and in thy harmless Bed dost little think what change is towards thee but I must disturb thy rest Isaac arise and call up my Servants bid them prepare for a journey vvhich vve are to make unto the Mount Moriah and let some Wood be carried for the burning of a Sacrifice Mean while I will walk out a little by my self to contemplate the declining Stars and the approach of the Morning O ye Ornaments of the Sky who when all the World is silent obey your Maker in the determinate Order of your Motions Can Man behold his own duty in a fairer Volume why then stand I gazing here and do not rather go my self to hasten my Servants that I may execute his Will But stay His Will Why Is his Will contrary to the example of his own Justice Did he not heavily punish Cain even at the beginning of the first World for killing but a Brother and can I stay my Child and imbrue my hands in mine own Bowels without offence of his Immortal Majesty Yes why not The Act of Cain was the Act of his own sinful malice but I have received an immediate Command from God himself A Command Why Is his Command against his Law shall the Fountain of all Truth be served with Contradictions Did not the same God streight after the universal Deluge as our Fathers have told us denounce this Judgement That whoso sheddeth mans blood his blood shall be shed How then can I herein obey my God but I must withal disobey Him O my weak Soul what poor Arguments doest thou search to cover thine own rebellious Affections Is there any Warrant higher then his Will or any better Interpreter of his Will then himself If the Princes of the Earth who are but mortal Types of his invisible Glory can alter their Edicts at pleasure shall not the Lord of the whole whom Angels and Men adore have leave to dispence with his own Prohibitions Yes surely But then how shall the Blessing that my good God hath determined upon my Seed and even upon this very Child be accomplished if I destroy the Root O Lord was not thy Divine goodness pleased in the depth of thy Mercy to accept my Belief for Righteousness and shall I now frustrate thy Promises with my Obedience But what am I fallen again into a new Reluctation Have I before contested with thy Justice and shall I now dispute thy Power Didst thou not create the Light before the Sun and the effect before the cause and shall I bind thee to the Passions of a natural Agent Didst thou not make this All of Nothing even by thy Word which was thy Wisdom and foment all that thou hast made by thy Spirit which is thy Love and shall I doubt but thou canst raise innumerable Nations out of the very Ashes of my poor Isaac Nay did I not even at first receive him in a manner from a dead Womb and art not thou still the same Almighty and ever living God Merciful Father full of all tenderness and compassion that seest from Heaven whereof we are made Pardon my Discourses and forget my Delays I am now going to perform thy good Pleasure And yet there is remaining one humble Suit which refuse not O my God though it proceed from the weakness of thine unworthy Creature Take my Child and all that is mine I have resigned him with my whole Heart unto thy Will He is already thine and mine no longer and I glory that he shall die upon thy holy Altar But yet I fear withal that these my shaking hands and fainting Limbs vvill be seized vvith horror be not therefore Dear Lord displeased if I use my Servants in the Execution How now my Soul doest thou shrink in the last Act of thy Loyalty Can I yet vvalk up and down about vile and ordinary Functions and vvhen my God is to be served do my Joynts and Members fail me Have I humbled my desires to his Will and shall I deny him the choice of his own Instrument Or if his indulgent Mercy would permit it shall I suffer another to anticipate the chearfulness of my Obedience O thou great God of Life and Death who mightest have made me an insensible Plant a dead Stone or a poysonous Serpent and yet even in that likewise I should have conduced to the variety of thy glorious Wisdom but hast vouchsafed to endue us vvith the form of Man and to breath into our first Parent that spark of thy Divine Light vvhich vve call Reason to comprehend and acknowledge therewith thy high and indisputable Soveraignty over all Nature Thou then Eternal maker and Mover whose Will is the first of Causes and whose Glory is the last of Ends direct my Feet to the Place which thou hast appointed strengthen there these poor Hands to accomplish thy Pleasure and let Heaven and Earth obey thee A MEDITATION UPON CHRISTMAS-DAY Of the Birth and Pilgrimage of our Saviour CHRIRT on Earth O Glorious Morning wherein was born the Expectation of Nations and wherein the long Suspired Redeemer of the World did 〈◊〉 his Prophets had cryed rent the Heavens and come down in the Vesture of Humanity Thou that by the Vertue of the Highest wert conceived in the Womb of an inviolate Virgin of all Women the most blessed and yet more blessed by being thy Daughter and thy Servant then thy Mother Thou at whose Birth the Quire of Heaven did sing Hallelujahs and Angels made haste to acquaint even Shepherds with the news Stay my Soul before I go further and crave leave of thy Lord to ask some Questions Why wouldest thou be first made known to the meanest condition of Men why were they sent to see their Saviour not in some gorgeous Palace but in the vilest Room of a common Inn and instead of a Cradle decked with Rich Imbroideries lying in a Despicable Manger Why didst Thou not choose for the Place of thy blessed Mothers Delivery either Athens the Learned or Rome the Imperial or Ierusalem the Holy City Or since poor Bethlehem by thy Prophets prediction must receive that Honour why didst Thou not send Millions of Cherubims and Seraphims before Thee for thy Harbingers No my God it was Thy Will it was Thy Will which is the highest of Reasons by thy low beginning in the flesh to confound all Pride and to teach the Glories of the Earth to blush Yet thus born and thus
homely received behold a new Star descending to illustrate thy obscurity and to conduct the Wise Men of the East now wise indeed with their choicest Presents to adore Thee O strange Phaenomenon Did ever Hipparchus or the great Trismegist or the greater Moses or all the Aegyptian Gazers contemplate before such a Planet So irregular so excentrical as if the Celestial Lights had forsaken their proper Motions and Position to welcome the Lord of all Nature into the World And now in the Course of Thy precious Life what shall I first what shall I most admire All is depth all is wonder and amazement Shall I first Celebrate Thy ever-blessed Name for convincing the great Doctors of the Law at twelve years of Thine Age when Thy Divine Essence began to blaze which had lain before as it were slumbring in the Vail of Thy Manhood Or shall I pass from this Miracle of Knowledg to Thy Miracles os Charity in healing the Blind the Lame the Deaf the Dumb Or shall I more insist upon the Acts of Thy Power in checking the Winds in walking on the Waves in raising the Dead in ejecting the impure Spirits Or shall I remain stupified as all the Learnedest part of the World was which lay grovelling in the Contemplation of Inferiour Causes that at Thy Coming all their false Oracles and Delusions were strucken mute and nothing to be heard at Delphos or Hammon Or shall I contemplate that at Thy Passion all Nature did suffer the Earth did shake and the Heavens were darkened Or lastly after Thou hadst triumphed over Death and Hell whose Keys are in thine hand shall I glorifie Thy Assumption into the Highest Heavens Yes Lord all this and much more there is then the whole World can contain if it were written Yet one thing remains even after Thy glorious Departure for the comfort of our Souls above all the Miracles of Thy Goodness and of Thy Power That Thou hast dispensed Thy saving Doctrine unto curious Men not only by Eloquent Sophists and Subtil School-men such as have since distracted and torn thy Church in pieces but by the simpliest and silliest Instruments so as it must needs be Thy Divine Truth since it was impressed by no Humane Means For give me leave again my dear Lord to demand in the Extasie and Admiration of one of Thy blessed Vessels Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this World How should we have known how should we have apprehended Thy Eternal Generation if Thou hadst not been pleased to vouchsafe a silly Fisherman to lean on Thy Breast and to inspire him to tell us from his Boat that In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God Therefore to Thee Thou Incarnate Word and Wisdom of the Father Thou only true Messias in whom all Prophecies are accomplished and in whom the Will of God and the Desires of Men are fulfilled look down upon us Thy unworthy Creatures from where Thou sittest in Thy Glory Teach us Thy Love but such a Love as doth fear to offend Thee Teach us Thy Fear but such a Fear as first doth love Thee And indue us with Thy Grace whilest by Thy Permission we walk on this Globe which Thy blessed Feet have troden to solemnize this Day of Thy Nativity not with wanton Jollities but with Hymns of Joy and Meditations of like Comfort LETTERS TO SEVERALL PERSONS LETTERS TO SEVERAL PERSONS To Sir Arthur Throckmorton SIR I Have been desirous of some fit opportunity to render you humble thanks for a very kind Letter which I received from you and I cannot have a fitter then by the return of this Gentleman who beareth much devotion to your Name I will therefore by his honest hand present you the service of a poor Scholar for that is the highest of my own Titles and in truth the farthest end of my Ambition This other Honour wherewith it hath pleased His Majesty to cloath my unworthiness belonging unproperly unto me who I hope am both born and formed in my Education fitter to be an Instrument of Truth then of Art In the mean while till His Majesty shall resolve me again into my own plain and simple Elements I have abroad done my poor endeavour according to these occasions which God hath opened This Gentleman leaveth Italy in present tranquillity though not without a little fear of some alteration on the side of Savoy Which Prince seemeth to have great and unquiet thoughts and I think they will lack no fomentation from abroad Therefore after the remembrance of my most affectionate poor service to your self and to my Honourable Ladies your Wife and Daughters and your whole House with which we are now so particularly conjoyned I commit You and Them to our mercifull God Your willing Servant HENRY WOTTON To Sir Arthur Throckmorton SIR I Am sorry that having so good opportunity to write unto you joyned with so much Obligation I have withal so little matter at the present yet I will entertain you with a few Rapsodieâ—… My Lord my Brother is returned a day sooner then he thought out of Kent for that the King who is now at Hampton-Court hath appointed all his Counsellors and all the Judges to meet Him here to morrow about matters of the Mint as it is voiced perhaps to cover some greater Subject and yet Money is a great one On Saturday the King goeth to Windsor there to honour with his presence both his Sons and his Favourites at their Instalments On Sunday last the new Venetian Ambassador had his first Audience at Greenwich at which time the old took his leave and received from the King three Honours An addition of the English Lion to his Coat-Armour Knight-hood and the Sword with the Furniture from the Kings side wherewith he had Knighted him which last being more then was done to any of his Predecessors and done to him who had deserved less then any is enough to prove that wise Kings know how to do graces and hide affections so mystical things are Courts Now to lead you a little abroad for I have no more to say within our own visible Horizon We have advice out of Germany that they have extorted from the Emperour his consent to make Matthias King of the Romans so as having first spoiled him of obedience and reverence next of his estates and titles they have now reduced him to so low a case that he is no longer Patron of his own voice Howsoever this violent cure is likely to settle the Motions of Germany out of which Countrey when they are quiet at home they may perhaps send us some suiters hither This is all Sir that I can write at the present which is your advantage for if there had been more you had been further troubled And so with many hearty thanks for your kind Letters and with many hearty wishes for the prosperity of your whole House I humbly rest May 8. 1611. Your
were in Lavender without an Answer save this only The pleasure I have taken in your Style and Conceptions together with a Meditation of the Subject you propound may seem to have cast me into a gentle slumber But being now awaked I do herein return you most hearty thanks for the kind prosecution of your first motion touching a just Office due to the memory of our ever memorable Friend To whose good fame though it be needless to add any thing and my age considered almost hopeless from my Pen yet I will endeavor to perform my promise if it were but even for this cause that in saying somewhat of the Life of so deserving a man I may perchance over-live mine own That which you add of Doctor King now made Dean of Rochester and by that translated into my native soil is a great spur unto me with whom I hope shortly to confer about it in my passage towards Boughton Malherb which was my genial Air and invite him to a friendship with that Family where his Predecessor was familiarly acquainted I shall write to you at large by the next Messenger being at present a little in business and then I shall set down certain general heads wherein I desire information by your loving diligence hoping shortly to enjoy your own ever welcome company in this approaching time of the Fly and the Cork And so I rest Your very hearty poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON To the same My worthy Friend SInce I last saw you I have been confined to my Chamber by a quotidian Feaver I thank God of more contumacy then malignity It had once left me as I thought but it was only to fetch more company returning with a surcrew of those splenetick vapours that are called Hypocondriacal of which most say the cure is good company and I desire no better Phisician then your self I have in one of those fits endeavoured to make it more easie by composing a short Hymn and since I have apparelled my best thoughts so lightly as in Verse I hope I shall be pardoned a second vanity if I communicate it with such a Friend as your self to whom I wish a chearful spirit and a thankful heart to value it as one of the greatest blessings of our good God in whose dear love I leave you remaining Your poor Friend to serve you H. WOTTON A Hymn to my God in a Night of my late Sickness OH thou great Power in whom I move For whom I live to whom I die Behold me through thy beams of love Whilst on this couch of tears I lie And cleanse my sordid soul within By thy Christs Blood the Bath of Sin No hallowed Oyls no grains I need No rags of Saints no purging fire One rosie drop from David's Seed Was worlds of Seas to quench thine Ire O precious Ransome which once paid That Consummatum est was said And said by him that said no more But seal'd it with his sacred Breath Thou then that hast dispung'd my Score And dying wast the death of Death Be to me now on thee I call My Life my Strength my Joy my All. H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir I Cannot according to the Italian phrase at which I have been often ready to laugh among a Nation otherwise of so civil language accuse the receit of any Letter from you since your remove from these parts save of two by this Bearer my Servant and yours as all mine shall be Neither can I satisfie my imagination so far I am from quieting my desire where a third which you intimate in your last may yet lie smothered in some pocket for which I should have made a great research if that were not the diligentest way to miss it The truth is as I do highly estimate every line from your Pen so on the other side I am as jealous that any of them should stray For when a Friend of mine that was lately going towards your City fell casually into some discourse with me how he should cloath himself there I made some sport to tell him for a little beguiling of my Melancholy Fumes that in my opinion the cheapest stuff in London was Silence But this concerneth neither of us both for we know how to speak and write safely that is honestly Always if we touch any tender matter let us remember his Motto that wrote upon the Mantle of his Chimney where he used to keep a good fire OptimusSecretariorum I owe you abundant thanks for the Advertisements in your last so clearly and judiciously delivered you cannot do me a greater favour for though I am a Cloystered Man in the Condition of my present Life besides my Confinement by Infirmity yet having spent so much of mine Age among Noise abroad and seven Years thereof in the Court at home there doth still hang upon me I know not how a certain Concupiscence of Novelties I am sorry I have nothing in that kind at the present to interchange with you In mine own sickness I had of late for one half night and a whole day following a perfect intermission like a Truce from all Symptoms but some of them are returned again and I am afraid it will be hard to throw out altogether this same Saturnine Enemy being now lodged in me almost a full year In your way of applying the Leeches I have found sensible benefit If I could get a lodging near Paul's Church I would fain pass a week there yet before the great Festival Pardon me Good Sir this Communication with you of my Domestick purposes and pardon me likewise the use of another mans hand in this Letter for a little ease of mine own Head and Eyes And so I rest Your hearty Friend and Servant in all occasions H. WOTTON Sir Your subscription of Aldrovandus putteth me in mind of a mishap which befel me in the time of my private Travels I had been in a long pursuit of a much commended Author namely Johannes Britanicus de re Metallica and could never see him but in the Library of the brave Monks of Mont d'Oliveto in the Contaà o di Siena where while I had taken order to have him transcribed Aldrovando passing that way borrowed him from the Monastery and I sending not long after unto him in Bologna my Friend found him newly dead And this was the period of my fruitless curiosity To Doctor C. Worthy Sir I See by your Letters by your discourses and by your whole conversation that you are a Friend of great Learning and which are commonly consociated of as great humanity which shall make me study by any means within the narrowness of my fortune and judgement to deserve your love The rest I leave to this Bearer my Servant As I am Yours H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir HEnceforward no Complemental forms between us Let others repute them according to the Latine denomination Fine civil filling of speech and Letters For my part in good faith ex Diametro I
now more then a moneth since the day of our Election was proclaimed on our Colledge and Church-gates the World is nimble in the anticipating of Voices and for my particular according to my improvidence in all things else I am in this likewise no reserver of my good will till the last I must therefore heartily beseech you as I have delivered my self at your disposal so to dispose of me when I am my self which I am not now And so I rest Unquiet till I shall some way serve you H. WOTTON To Doctor C. Worthy Sir IT is one of the wonders of the World unto me how your Letters come so slowly which if either themselves or their Bearers knew how welcome they are would flie I speak this both by some other before and by your last or the 19. of December which was almost nine days on the way and I hope the Scene of Scotland much changed in the mean while to the better But to let go exotick matter if that may be so termed I must congratulate with you your actual possession of the Place of the For although your own Merit was before you had it in their judgements that understand you a kind of present investure yet I learned long since of our old Master at Oxford That Actus is better then Potentia which yet I hope will not divert you from your Philosophical Profession wherein I know no man of sweeter or sounder ability And so Sir I rest Very truly and affectionately at your Command H. WOTTON Honourable Sir FOr this time I pray you accept in good part from me a Bottle made of a Serpentine Stone which hath the quality to give any Wine or Water that shall be infused therein for four and twenty hours the taste and operation of the Spanwater and is very medicinable for the Cure of the Spleen and the Gravel as I am informed But sure I am that Sir Walter Raloigh put a value upon it he having obtained it amongst the Spoils of the Governour of St. Omy in his last fatal Expedition and by his Page understood the vertues thereof and that his Captain highly esteemed it And surely some good Cures it hath wrought since it came into my hands for those two infirmities c. Etracted from a Letter of the Earl of Cork written to Sir Henry Wotton Decemb. 22. 1636. SIR FIrst I must thank you for the fruition of your L. at life here though it was too short Next for your Pictures whereof I return one by this first Boat and retain the other longer by your courtesie Thirdly and most of all for a promise which I receive from you by my Servant or at least a hope that you will send me some of your own rural Poesie That will be a nearer image of your inward self especially when you were retired into your self I do therefore expect it greedily by this for I well remember to have seen some lines that flowed from you vvith much strength and grace When you have any great piece of news I pray now and then Candidus Imperti to Your professed Servant H. WOTTON SIR ALthough I am novv a retired and cloystered man yet there do still hang upon me I know not how some reliques of an harkening humour The easiest vvay for you to quench this appetite in your poor Friend is to empty your self into my Servant vvhom I send to salute you and to knovv two things First vvhether you be of the Parliament your self Next vvhether I should be sorry that I am not of it You can by this time resolve me of both We are here only fed vvith certain Airs of good Hope Camelions food More I will not say novv and you see by this little hovv tender I am to usurp upon your time Yet before I end let me ask a third question Have you no playing and breathing days If you be of the House might you not start hither for a night or two The interposing of a little Philosophical diet may perchance lighten a mans spirits surcharged vvith publick thoughts and prevent a surfeit of State Howsoever hold me fast in your love and Gods mercy be vvhere you are Your poor Friend and Servant Alla suiscerata H. WOTTON To Dr. C. 1638. Worthy Sir I Find in the bowels of your last which I received yesternight shall I say by your or by my Nicholas much harsh and stiff matter from Scotland and I believe insusceptible of any farther Concoction unless it be with much time quod concoquit omnia But let me lay all publick thoughts aside for the present having now with you a bosome-business which may perhaps fall out to concern us more here Our Nicholas for I account him at least halfed between us tells me that you have good means to know when will be in Town About whom you may perhaps have heard of certain as I think for my part well conceived wishes though but yet in the Air touching a vertuous conjunction between him and so dear unto me both in my affection and judgement and in all respects that if our nearness in blood did not make me more tender to violate mine own modesty then I need to be with such a Friend as you are I would boldly say that there are few better Matches in this Kingdome for the indowments of her Person and Fortune nor in the whole World for the sweetness and goodness of her Mind And on the other side albeit I have no acquaintance with the Gentleman yet I hear likewise so much good of him as makes me wish I had more interest in his familiarity I write this from whence I wrote my last unto you being on my wings towards Canterbury whence I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 return hither again within six or seven dayes And this Bearer my domestick Friend a German Gentleman of value will from London meet me at Canterbury by whom I shall be glad to hear from you about what time the foresaid is expected of return to the City and any thing else that you shall think fit to be told me But I pray let this privacy which I have passed with you sleep between us As I rest in your Love H. WOTTON To Sir C. C. SIR LEt me first thank you much for that Rural Communication with your own Thoughts the best of all Companions I was first taken with the Virginity as I may say of the inscription in our Vulgar Next with a natural suavity in the Elocution which though it be Lyrical yet it shews you can put on the Buskin when you list And when you are tempted again to solicite your own spirits I would fain have you venture upon some Tragical Subject though you borrow it out of Arabia For I am glad our England cannot yield it I hear for matter of Novelty That Sir Thomas Roe a well-chosen Instrument is to take his leave on Sunday next at Court being designed to be one of the great Synod of Protestant Ambassadors that
all my good is but vain hope of gain The day is past and yet I saw no Sun And now I live and now my life is done 2. The Spring is past and yet it hath not sprung The fruit is dead and yet the leaves are green My youth is gone and yet I am but young I saw the vvorld and yet I vvas not seen My thread is cut and yet it is not spun And now I live and now my life is done 3. I sought my death and found it in my womb I look'd for life and saw it was a shade I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb And now I die and now I am but made The glass is full and now my glass is run And now I live and now my life is done 1. RIse oh my Soul with thy desires to Heaven And with Divinest contemplation use Thy time where times eternity is given buse And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts aâ—… But down in darkness let them lie So live thy better let thy worse thoughts die 2. And thou my Soul inspir'd with holy flame View and review with most regardful eye That holy Cross whence thy salvation came On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die For in that Sacred object is much pleasure And in that Saviour is my life my treasure 3. To thee O Jesu I direct my eye To thee my hands to thee my humble knees To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice To thee my thoughts who my thoughts only sees To thee my self my self and all I give To thee I die to thee I only live Ignoto Sir Walter Raleigh the Night before his Death EVen such is time that takes on trust Our youth our joyes our all we have And pays us but with age and dust Who in the dark and silent Grave When we have wandred all our ways Shuts up the story of our days But from this earth this grave this dust My God shall raise me up I trust W. R. The World THe World 's a bubble and the life of man less then a span In his conception wretched from the womb so to the tomb Nurst from his cradle and brought up to years with cares and fears Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns on water or but writes in dust Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest what life is best Courts are but only superficial Schools to dandle Fools The rural part is turn'd into a den of savage men And where 's a City from foul vice so free But may be term'd the worst of all the three Domestick cares afflicts the Husbands bed or pains his head Those that live single take it for a curse or do things worse none These would have children those that have them or wish them gone What is it then to have or have no wife But single thraldom or a double strife Our own affections still at home to please is a disease To cross the Seas to any forreign soil peril and toil Wars with their noise affright us when they cease w' are worse in peace What then remains but that we still should cry For being born and being born to die Fra. Lord Bacon De Morte MAns life 's a Tragedy his mothers womb From which he enters is the tyring room This spacious earth the Theater and the Stage That Country which he lives in Passions Rage Folly and Vice are Actors The first cry The Prologue to th' ensuing Tragedy The former act consisteth of dumb shows The second he to more perfection grows I' th third he is a man and doth begin To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin I' th fourth declines i' th fifth diseases clog And trouble him then Death 's his Epilogue Ignoto EPIGRAM IF breath were made for every man to buy The poor man could not live rich would not die John Hoskins to his little Child Benjamin from the Tower SWeet Benjamin since thou art young And hast not yet the use of tongue Make it thy slave while thou art free Imprison it lest it do thee LETTERS TO Sir EDMUND BACON SIR IT is very just since I cannot personally accompany this Gentleman yet that I do it with my Letter wherein if I could transport the Image of mine own mind unto you as lively as we have often represented you unto our selves abroad then I should not think us asunder while you read it But of my longing to see you I am a better feeler then a describer as likewise of my obligations towards you whereof it is not the least that I have been by your mediation and judgement and love furnished with so excellent a Comforter of my absence and so loving and discreet a divider and easer of my Travels after whose separation from me I am ready to say that which I remember the younger Pliny doth utter with much feeling after the loss of his venerable and dearest Friend Cerellius Rufus Vereor saith he ne posthac negligentius vivam But herein my case is bettter then his for I cannot but hope that some good occasion will bring him again nearer me And I must confess unto you I should be glad to see him planted for a while about the King or Prince that so if his own fortune be not mended by the Court yet the Court may be bettered by him in that which it doth more desperately want Now Sir Besides himself there cometh unto you with him an Italian Doctor of Physick by name Gasperâ—… Despotini a man well practised in his own faculty and very Philosophical and sound in his discourses By birth a Venetian which though it be not Urbs ignobilis as Saint Paul said of his own Mother-City yet is his second birth the more excellent I mean his illumination in Gods saving Truth which was the only cause of his remove and I was glad to be the conductor of him where his conscience may be free though his condition otherwise till he shall be known will be the poorer This Stranger I was desirous to present unto you as my friend in his company whose testimony may more value him then mine own And so committing them both to your love and your self with all that family to Gods blessing hand I rest From my Lodging in Kings-street April 2. 1611. Your poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON SIR IT is late at night and I am but newly come to the knowledge that my Lord is to send a Messenger unto you to morrow morning yet howsoever I have resolved not to be left out of this dispatch though in truth I had rather be the sootman my self then one of the Writers But here I am tied about mine own business which I have told you like a true Courtier for right Courtiers indeed have no other business but themselves Our Lord Jesus bless you all as you are now together and wheresoever you shall be From Greenwich May 27. 1611. Your Uncle by your own election and your Servant by mine
which shall be done as soon as I have sealed this and sent it to the Carriers I thought now to have said no more but lest it lose the grace of freshness I pray let me tell you that yesterday morning the Viscount Rochester was very solemnly in the Banqueting hall in the sight of many great ones and small ones created Earl of Somerset and in the afternoon for a farther honouring and signalizing of the day my Lord Cook brought in by the said Earl was sworn a Privy Counsellor to counterpoise the difference of the profit between the Common-pleas and the Kings Bench. I will turn over the leaf though I die for it to remember the heartiest love of my soul to that good Niece to that sweet Niece to whom I have much to say by the next opportunity Our dear Saviour keep you both in his continual love Your faithful Servant H. WOTTON Touching the project of our House believe it Sir I boyl in it and am ready to begin again that I may tell you how busie I have been in the matter but let this also be put over till the following week which is likely to fall heavy upon you Written on the day of our great Preservation for which our God be ever glorified On Tuesday the 16th of November SIR AN express Messenger will ease us both of the trouble of a cypher but I was in pain whether I should send another or be that Messenger my self being now as near you as Royston and scant able to obtain pardon of mine own severity for not passing farther yet this may be said for me that the present occasion required little noise and besides I am newly ingaged into some business whereof I will give you a particular account when I shall first have discharged that part which belongeth to your self My Lord my Brother having been acquainted with the matter inclosed in your last to me dispatched the very next day Mr. Pen down to Boughton for such writings as had passed at your marriage which having consulted with his Lawyers he found those things to stand in several natures according to the annexed Schedule For the point of your coming up he referreth that to your own heart and I have only charge from him to tell you that without any such occasion as this which seemeth to imply your affectionate respect of his Daughter your own Person and conversation shall be ever most welcome and dear unto him As for my Lady through whose knowledge and myself through whose hands you have passed this point of confidence if you could behold us and compare us with my Lord you should see though no difference in the reality yet some in the fashion For to him you must allow the sober forms of his age and place but we on the other side are mad with gladness at the hope we have now taken by this occasion of enjoying both you and my Niece this Winter at London and we are contented to profess it as profusely as it is possible for a better Pen to set it down Nay for my part who in this case have somewhat single I flatter my self yet farther that the Term whereof not much now remaineth will accelerate your coming vvhich if you resolve I pray then let me only by this Bearer know it that I may provide you some fit Lodgings at a good distance from White-Hall for the preservation of blessed liberty and avoidance of the comber of kindness vvhich in troth as vve have privately discoursed is no small one Novv touching my self It may please you Sir to understand That the King vvhen he vvas last at Hampton called me to him and there acquainted me vvith a general purpose that he had to put me again into some use Since vvhich time the French Ambassador and very lately having at an Audience of good length besought His Majesty I knovv not vvhether voluntarily or set on by some of our own to disincumber himself of frequent accesses by the choice of some confident Servant to vvhom the said Ambassador might address himself in such occurrences as did not require the Kings immediate ear It pleased him to nominate me for that charge vvith more gracious commendation then it can beseem me to repeat though I vvrite to a Friend in vvhose breast I dare depose even my vanities But lest you should mistake as some others have been apt to do here in the present constitution of the Court vvhich is very ombragious the Kings end in this application of me I must tell you that it is only for the better preparing of my insufficiency and vveakness for the succeeding of Sir Thomas Edmunds in France towards which His Majesty hath thought meet first to indue me vvith some knowledge of the French businesses vvhich are in motu And I think my going thither vvill be about Easter Thus you see Sir both my next remove and the exercise of my thoughts till then vvherewith there is joyned this comfort besides the redemption from expence and debt at home vvhich are the Gulfs that vvould swallovv me that His Majesty hath promised to do something for me before I go I should novv according to the promise of my last tell you many things vvherewith my Pen is swoln but I vvill beg leave to defer them till the next opportunity after my coming to London And they shall all give place novv to this one question Whether there be any thing in this intended journey that you vvill command Which having said I vvill end ever resting Your faithfullest poor Friend and Servant H. WOTTON June 8. 1614. SIR IT is both morally and naturally true that I have never been in perfect health and chearfulness since we parted but I have entertained my mind when my body would give me leave with the contemplation of the strangest thing that ever I beheld commonly called in our Language as I take it a Parliament which hath produced nothing but inexplicable Riddles in the place of Laws For first it is aborted before it was born and nullified after it had a being insomuch as the Count Palatine whose Naturalization was the only thing that passed in both Houses is now again an Alien And whereas all other Parliaments have had some one eminent quality that hath created a denomination some being called in our Records mad Parliaments some merciless and the like This I think from two properties almost insociable or seldom meeting may be termed the Parliament of greatest diligence and of least resolution that ever was or ever will be For our Committies were as well attended commonly as full Houses in former Sessions and yet we did nothing neither in the forenoon nor after whereof I can yield you no reason but this one that our diversions were more then our main purposes and some of so sensible nature as took up all our reason and all our passion in the pursuit of them Now Sir what hath followed since the dissolution of this Civil Body let me rather
predatory I have forgotten for memoria primò senescit whether I told you in my last a pretty late experiment in Arthritical pains it is cheap enough Take a rosted Turnip for if you boyl it it will open the pores and draw too much apply that in a Poultice to the part affected with change once in an hour or two as you find it dried by the heat of the flesh and it will in little time allay the pain Thus much in our private way wherein I dare swear if our Medicines were as strong as our wishes they would work extreamly Now for the Publick where peradventure now and then there are distempers as well as in natural bodies The Earl of Holland vvas on Saturday last the day after your Posts departure very solemnly restored at Council Table the King present from a kind of Eclipse wherein he had stood since the Thursday fortnight before All considered the obscuration vvas long and bred both various and doubtfull discourse but it ended vvell All the cause yet known vvas a verbal challenge sent from him by Mr. Henry Germain in this form to the now Lord Weston newly returned from his forraign imployments That since he had already given the King an account of his Embassage he did now expect from him an account of a Letter of his vvhich he had opened in Paris and he did expect it at such a time even in the Spring garden close under his Fathers Window vvith his Sword by his side It is said I go no farther in such tender points that my Lord Weston sent him by Mr. Henry Percy between vvhom and the said Lord Weston had in the late journey as it seems been contracted such friendship as overcame the memory that he vvas Cousin-German to my Lord of Holland a very fair and discreet answer That if he could challenge him for any injury done him before or after his Embassage he vvould meet him as a Gentleman vvith his Sword by his side vvhere he should appoint But for any thing that had been done in the time of his Embassage he had already given the King an account thereof and thought himself not accountable to any other This published on Thursday vvas fortnight the Earl of Holland vvas confined to his Chamber in Court and the next day morning to his House at Kensington vvhere he remained vvithout any further circumstance of restraint or displeasure Saturday and Sunday on vvhich dayes being much visited it vvas thought fit on Munday to appoint Mr. Dickenson one of the Clerks of the Council to be his Guardian thus far that none vvithout his presence should accost him This made the vulgar judgements run high or rather indeed run low That he vvas a lost and discarded man judging as of Patients in Feavers by the exasperation of the fits But the Queen vvho vvas a little obliquely interested in this business for in my Lord of Holland's Letter vvhich vvas opened she had one that vvas not opened nor so much as they say as superscribed and both the Queen's and my Lord of Holland's vvere inclosed in one from Mr. Walter Mountague vvhereof I shall tell you more hereafter The Queen I say stood nobly by him and as it seems pressed her own affront It is too intricately involved for me so much as to guess at any particulars I hear generally discoursed that the opened dispatch vvas only in favour if it might be obtained of Monsieur de Chateau Neuf and the Chevalier de Jarr vvho had both been here but vvritten vvith caution and surely not vvithout the Kings knowledge to be delivered if there vvere hope of any good effect and perchance not vvithout Order from His Majesty to my Lord Weston afterwards to stop the said Letters upon advertisement that both Chateau Neuf and de Jarr vvere already in the Bastille But this I leave at large as not knowing the depth of the business Upon Munday vvas seven-night fell out another quarrel nobly carried branching from the former between my Lord Fielding and Mr. Goring Son and Heir to the Lord of that Name They had been the night before at Supper I know not vvhere together vvhere Mr. Goring spake something in diminution of my Lord Weston vvhich my Lord Fielding told him it could not become him to suffer lying by the side of his Sister Thereupon these hot hearts appoint a meeting next day morning themselves alone each upon his Horse They pass by Hide-Park as a place vvhere they might be parted too soon and turn into a Lane by Knights-bridge vvhere having tyed up their Horses at a Hedge or Gate they got over into a Close there stripped into their Shirts vvith single Rapiers they fell to an eager Duel till they vvere severed by the Host and his servants of the Inne of the Prince of Orange vvho by meer chance had taken some notice of them In this noble encounter vvhere in blood vvas spent though by Gods providence not much on either side there passed between them a very memorable interchange of a piece of courtesie if that vvord may have room in this place Sayes my Lord Fielding Mr. Goring If you leave me here let me advise you not to go back by Piccadillia-hall lest if mischance befall me and be suddenly noised as it falleth out in these occasions now between us you might receive some harm by some of my friends that lodge thereabouts My Lord replyes Goring I have no vvay but one to answer this courtesie I have here by chance in my Pocket a Warrant to pass the Ports out of England vvithout a Name gotten I suppose upon some other occasion before If you leave me here take it for your use and put in your own Name This is a passage much commended between them as proceeding both from sweetness and stoutness of spirit vvhich are very compatible On the solemn day of Saturday last both this difference and the Original between the Earl of Holland and the Lord Weston vvere fairly reconciled and forgiven by the King vvith shaking of hands and such Symbols of agreement And likewise Sir Maurice Dromand vvho had before upon an uncivil ture on his part between him and my Lord of Carlile been committed to the Tower was then delivered at the same time and so it all ended as a merry Fellow said in a Maurice But whether these be perfect cures or but skinnings over and Palliations of Court will appear hereafter Nay some say very quickly for my Lord Westons Lady being since brought to bed of a Daughter men stand in a kind of suspence whether the Queen will be the Godmother after so crude a reconcilement which by the Kings inestimable goodness I think may pass in this forgiving week For foreign matter there is so little and so doubtfull as it were a misery to trouble you with it The States confuted Treaty is put to the stock and the Prince of Orenge by account gone to the Field two days since having broken the business
excuse is accepted but because they did not aftervvards vvithout a second demand send him vvord that they vvould be at leisure incrassatus est sanguis on the Spanish side A much deeper and incurable case is fallen out betwixt the French and the Extraordinary Ambassador of Parma vvho after the French sent first unto him as they say though he affirms it vvas the Spaniard did yet visit the Spaniard before them belike according to the method of his devotion and proximity to his Master or of Authority in this Court howsoever hereupon the Duke of Angolesme assigned the same Ambassadour a day to visit him and vvhen he came alla buona he shut his Gates upon him Which is here generally the worse interpreted because he is a Bishop seeming an affront to both his qualifications In such a touchy time as this I had almost had my share to whom after the three French Ambassadors had sent their three Secretaries for prevention of the Spaniard as far as Cloyster Newburg vvhere I made my stop they vvere likewise the first here that sent to visit me but came all three together and vvith them Monsieur de Beaugie the Ordinary Agent Whereupon fell a little disputation between us Whether visits of respect between Representants of equality being received in specie should be paid in individuo vvhich seemed unto me no good complemental Logick but finding afterwards first that their Commissions vvere the same then that the Emperor had sent to their several Lodgings and the Popes Nuncio though visited in gross had visited them apart I made an end of this scruple yet not before a promise that if your Majesty should send more Ambassadors hither they vvill proceed a la pareille vvith them having gained thus much by this small debate that perchance they think me not over-punctual nor altogether supine I have likewise received and rendered to the Spanish Ambassador all due formalities and from all other Ambassadors and Agents except the Popes and the Duke of Parma's vvhose habits make us incommiscible Of the rest I need not speak at all of the French and Spanish I vvill presume to speak my opinion as far as may conduce to the main I find the French surely of good intention towards a peace here but not hasty either to believe in truth that the Crowns of Hungaria or Bohemia vvere Hereditary Here at their first coming they had more credit as I receive from a good hand then they seem to have novv vvhich is thought to proceed from the Spanish Ambassador vvho in this Court is not only the Supream Counsellor but hath in truth a Dictatoriam potestatem as the French find the reason being not very obscure for vvhen I put in the major that the Emperors resolutions depend upon necessities and in the minor that his necessities depend upon Spain I think I may spare the conclusion Thus stand the publick Ministers here and thus they stand one vvith another vvhich I thought fit to set down because it hath some influence into the general business Novv to proceed to the scope of my employment in matter of substance I had Audience of the Emperor as the French the second day after my arrival vvhere vvhat I said vvill best appear to your Majesty out of the Memorial vvhich I aftervvards sent unto him at his own requisition here following vvord for vvord as I have translated it out of the Italian in vvhich language the Emperor treateth most vvillingly The Proposition of Henry Wotton Knight Ambassador Extraordinary from his Majesty of Great Britain delivered in the Name of his Sovereign-Lord the King with all real intention to his Sacred Imperial Majesty the 23 of August stylo vet did contain four points FIrst That his Imperial Majesty would be pleased to make known his inclination towards a sincere Treaty upon the present Motions Secondly That it will please him by one or two or more to inform the said Ambassador of all the fundamental Arguments in the merit of the Cause which shall be most faithfully represented by him to the King his Master Thirdly Either his Imperial Majesty vvill refuse or agree to enter into Treaty In the first case It vvere vain for Representants of Princes of good intentions to spend further the Reputation of their Masters In the second His Majesty of Great Britain doth think it most convenient that both the Parties together with their Confederates be contented to condescend to a cessation of Arms for some competent time lest vvhile their Reconcilements vvere in Treaty their passions be more exasperated then before Fourthly That for the furthering of their Reconcilement His Imperial Majesty would be pleased to free the passages of Curriers from Vienna to Prague vvhich shall be procured likewise on the other side Besides these substantial points the said Ambassador did touch three Considerations about the Person of His Soveraign Lord the King which did render Him with His Imperial Majesty of indubitable credit although interessed by so strait Bonds in the contrary side First His Majesties clearness in the beginning of these Motions Secondly His Neutrality in the progress thereof Thirdly His Equity in the present Touching the first point the Ambassador declared in His Majesties Name with high and holy affirmations that He had had in Election of His Son-in-Law to the Crown of Bohemia no participation of Counsel or fore-knowledge VVhich His Majesty did not only affirm for Himself but as indubitably in the Person of His Son-in Law that he had no way fore-practised that Election For the second point of Neutrality the Ambassador said that His Majesty had not yet given the Title of King to His Son-in-Law or of Queen to His Daughter in any Letter either publick or private nor had permitted the same Title in any Sermons within His Kingdomes As for the third point of Equity the Ambassador shewed most evidently the great moderation and aequanimity of the King his Master in not having setled any firm judgement touching the merit of the Cause upon information from that side vvherein His Majesty is most interessed vvithout first requiring farther knowledge from the Emperor himself by an express Minister This vvas the Memorial of my Proposition Four days after the Emperor sends me vvord that his Answer vvas ready giving me my choice vvhether I vvould receive it from himself or else from the Baron of Eckemberg his Principal Counsellor and vvhether verbally or in vvriting or both In this gracious option I took hold of the vvriting because scripta manent and vvished I might have it from the Baron vvithout the Emperors farther trouble till from it might rise some nevv occasion To the Baron I vvas called two days after vvhom I found infirmer of his feet then of his head for in truth he is a Gentleman of strong conceit and fair delivery though as most of the Court are tainted vvith the Iesuit From him I received besides complements and many thanks for the honour that your Majesty
had done his Master and vehement protestation of intire belief in your Christian intentions at the present and of your former clearness the Paper that cometh herewith indorsed Contenta Resolutionis Caesareae data Nobilissimo Legato serenissimi Regis Magnae Brittanniae In delivery whereof the Baron seeming much to insist upon the persons to whom the Emperour had formerly been content to commit the business as first to the four Interposers whereof the Count Palatine himself was one then to the whole Electoral Colledge even after sufficient offence to distast him from the Bohemians who would have hindred his Election at Francfort I say by these recapitulations perchance silently inferring that the German Princes were the properest Intervenients I was moved to tell him that I knew Your Majesty in this case was more ambitious of the good then of the glory and if Your worthier Servants at Prague and I here co-operating with the French could prepare the matter is it were in Chylo for a fuller concoction hereafter by more hands we should think our selves very happy With which reply he seemed extreamly pleased To the third point about a Cessation he spake somewhat more gloriously then we here see cause that things were now too far run on the Emperours preparations being made and his friends in motion wherein he gave a touch though more I think then he could then say upon Saxony he added likewise that no doubt the Count Palatine was as forward with his powers and Confederates naming Bethlem Gabor and perchance said â—…e by his means the Turk I replied as I had done before to the Emperour himself that the event of Arms was uncertain and pittyfull to conceive what desperation might breed But in the mean time I had heard wise men of opinion that the Count Palatine had done the Emperour no dâ—…spleasure in accepting the Crown of Bohemia laid upon him by those which peradventure might otherwise have placed it on a worse neighbour to these Provinces To which truth the Emperour when I said it nor himself replied any thing and upon my conscience so they think To the last about freeing the Passage he understood me too largely as if I had meant the re-establishment of a Current Post which round about this place is every where broken but he hath granted his safe Conduct upon occasion as far as he is able though ea conditione as Your Majesty sees in his written Answer ut non alias quam dicti Domini Legati literas deferant The only point of jealousie that I have met with since my coming To the second which I make the last because I have most to say upon it he told me that the Emperour would send to my Lodging some Persons of dignity and knowledge to inform me in that Cause As he did the day after namely the Baron Pople Great Chancellour of Bohemia the Baron of Straulendorf Chief President of the Aulical Counsel Der Here Mostitz Consiliarius Aulicus the first a Bohemian the other two Germans of whose persons I shall afterwards inform Your Majesty But to proceed The Errand delivered by the Great Chancellour consisted for the most part of things I knew were often published already which I shall the less care for to repeat because Your Majesty received lately the substance thereof under the title of ex Constitutionibus Privilegiis c. consigned to me by the said Deputies and likewise the same again more clearly set down and more fully expressed by a new Author as yet unknown a Book the Emperour himself sent me the day after this Conference to be conveyed unto Your Majesty Two things they urged with much vehemency First certain Letters both from the Bohemian Directors and which is more from all the States of Hungary with pendent Seals wherein they call this Emperour King fifteen moneths after they had chosen him and yet the Chancellor having spoken nothing in all that time they afterwards pretended that the Election was null They shewed likewise an Original Letter from the Count Palatine himself dated at Hidelberg April 23. 1619. tempore Vicariatus to the now Emperor as King of Bohemia both in the Subscription and the Superscription The second urged point was that neither the Silesians nor the Moravians which concurred in the Election of the Count Palatine had any power to do it at that time but that it was approved at their return home ex post facto Lastly all objections made against Ferdinando in point of Regiment or Intrusion during the life of the Emperor Matthias they are contented for ought I see to bestow upon Matthias himself This is the substance of a long Conference beautifully interlarded with divers praises of the Emperors good nature which I think truly are due unto him if he be considered in his own capacity but these Orators could give it no credit being as I hear the greatest inflamers of all this business and principally the principallest of them a man saved at the time of the defenestration dum regnabat rosa only by being here This is a faithful Relation of all that hath hitherto passed between the Emperor or his Servants and me in this place wherein your Majesty sees that I have obtained two things First a freedom to propound and next a freedom to send whereupon the French Ambassadors and my self have this very day accorded to send joyntly to Prague for there we must begin even in point of civility This is but an exploratory and pretentative purpose between us about the form whereof and the matter we shall consult to morrow and your Majesty immediately upon the return of our Messengers from thence and some feeling of the Emperor here shall have knowledge of all by another express Currier Septemb. 23. 1620. Duplicate of Secretary Nantons Letters My Lord Ambassador HIs Majesty hath commanded me to make you this short Answer to your fair and well-digested Relation sent by Ballard 1. That He allows very well and is throughly satisfied with the good endeavors you have used with the Emperor 2. That He would have you give thanks to His Imperial Majesty for the good respect shewed to His Majesty in your Person being His Ambassador which we conceive by your Lordships Letters to have been every way equal at least if not beyond those demonstrations that have been afforded the French of which we have received other informations out of France that they have no more then answered their expectations 3. That your Lordship can do no better Service to Christ and to his Majesty then to open any fair way to a Treaty Macte ergo quam nactus es spartam exorna You have begun well wherein you have already facti plusquam dimidium know your own understanding and judgment to be such and your zeal to the Publick and to our Great Masters Service that you will need neither encouragement nor further directions for the main then those you carried along with you That you are to deal effectually