Henry Wotton

“ Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire:
O, precious ransom! which once paid,
The Consummatum est was said. [81]
And said by him, that said no more,
But sealed it with his sacred breath:
Thou, then, thus hast dispurged our score,
And dying wert the death of death;
Be now whilst on thy name we call,
Our life, our strength, our joy, our all.
Sir Henry Wotton.
Stretched on the cross, the Saviour dies,
Hark! his expiring groans arise!
See, how the sacred crimson tide
Flows from his hands, his feet, his side.
But life attends the deathful sound,
And flows from every bleeding wound ”

“ To the Right Honourable The Lady Mary Wotton Baronness, and to her Three Noble Daughters.
{ KATHERIN STANHOP. THE LADY { MARGARET TUFTON. { ANN HALES. Since Bookes seeme by custome to Challenge a dedication, Justice would not allow, that what either was, or concern'd Sir Henry Wotton, should be appropriated to any other Persons; Not only for that nearnesse of Aliance and Blood (by which you may chalenge a civil right to what was his;) but, by a title of that intirenesse of Affection, which was in you to each other, when Sir Henry Wotton had a being upon Earth. ”

“ These were the thoughts that then possest the undisturbed mind of Sir Henry Wotton. Will you hear the wish of another Angler, and the commendation of his happy life [Jo. Da.] , which he also sings in Verse.
Let me live harmlesly, and near the brink Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling place, Where I may see my quil or cork down sink, With eager bit of Pearch, or Bleak, or Dace; And on the world and my Creator think, Whilst some men strive, ill gotten goods t'imbrace; And others spend their time in base excess Of wine or worse, in war and wantonness. ”

“ Well, that is a question without an answer; but for any journey where the mileage by sea was near the mileage by land, men of [71] experience of these days reckoned it safer and quicker and consequently cheaper to go by sea. Once when Sir Henry Wotton, who exhaled sixteenth-century wisdom whenever he spoke, was at his favourite occupation of holding forth to the Venetian Signory on things in general, we find him taking it for granted that Poland and Hungary were far from Venice as compared with England and Holland ”

“ Sir, this pleasant curiositie of Fish and Fishing (of which you are so great a Master) has been thought worthy the pens and practices of divers in other Nations, which have been reputed men of great Learning and Wisdome; and amongst those of this Nation, I remember Sir Henry Wotton (a dear lover of this Art) has told me, that his intentions were to write a discourse of the Art, and in the praise of Angling, and doubtless he had done so, if death had not prevented him ”

“ Owing to the almost perfect identity of these verses with some by a German poet, George Rudolph Weckerlin, a doubt has been expressed in a German work as to whether they are to be considered the production of Sir Henry Wotton, or a translation from the Geistliche und weltliche Gedichte of Weckerlin, a lyrical poet of considerable eminence and popularity in his day, and who died in London in 1651. Weckerlin was employed in important affairs connected with the Protestants in Germany during the Thirty Years' War, as secretary to an embassy in London from that country ”

“ There are authors whose living voices, if we know them in the flesh, we seem to hear in our ears as we peruse their works. Of such was Mr. Jowett, sometime Master of Balliol College, a good man, now with God. It has ever seemed to me that friends of Walton must thus have heard his voice as they read him, and that it reaches us too, though faintly. Indeed, we have here ‘a kind of picture of his own disposition,’ as he tells us Piscator is the Walton whom honest Nat. and R. Roe and Sir Henry Wotton knew on fishing-days. ”

“ But the word for lie—being the hinge upon which the conceit was to turn—was not so expressed in Latin, as would admit—in the hands of an enemy especially—so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English.’ Later in the ‘Life’ (ibid. 138–9) , Walton writes that ‘a friend of Sir Henry Wotton’s being designed for the employment of an Ambassador, came to Eton’ (of which Wotton was Provost) ‘and requested from him some experimental rules for his prudent and safe carriage in his negociations ”

“ He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for, while he lived at Horton, he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the countess dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatick entertainment.
He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of taking chambers in the inns of court, when the death of his mother set him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's consent, and sir Henry Wotton's directions ”

“ Our College customs allow not that: and I should account myself most happy, if I might change with you; for I have always observed the thread of life to be like other threads or skeins of silk, full of snarles and incumbrances. Happy is he, whose bottom is wound up, and laid ready for work in the New Jerusalem.—For myself, dear Mother, I always feared sickness more than death, because sickness hath made me unable to perform those offices for which I came into the world, and must yet be kept in it ”

“ And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
P. 295. "The Golden Mean." See a poem at p. 88, entitled "Contented Poverty."
P. 297. This pleasing poem has been ascribed to Sir Henry Wotton, a man of great celebrity in his time. My copy has great variations from all the others which I have seen, and the title is quite different. In the other copies it is entitled, "A Description of the Country's Recreations."
P. 300. I am puzzled to make out who is meant by Mrs E. T. It probably means Eliza Thimelby, the same who is celebrated in the Pastoral, p. 277, and also atp. 230 ”

“ This house was then kept by John Churchman, sometime a Draper of good note in Watling-street, upon whom poverty had at last come like an armed man, and brought him into a necessitous condition; which, though it be a punishment, is not always an argument of God's disfavour ”

“ First, that he bottometh very much of his discourse upon a very erroneous principle, which yet he seemeth to be so deeply in love with, that he hath repeated it, I verily believe, some hundreds of times in that work: to wit this; That whatsoever is first in the intention is last in execution, and e converso. Which is an error of that magnitude, that I cannot but wonder how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possibly be deceived with it. All logicians know there is no such universal maxim as he buildeth upon. ”

“ As for my corruptible body, I bequeath it to the earth whence it was taken, to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Buckden, towards the upper end of the Chancel, upon the second, or—at the furthest—the third day after my decease; and that with as little noise, pomp, and charge as may be, without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me, other than the inhabitants of Buckden ”

“ Sad troops of human misery;
Come, serene looks,
Clear as the crystal brooks,
Or the pure azured heaven that smiles to see
The rich attendance on our poverty;
Peace and a secure mind,
Which all men seek, we only find. ”

“ Saravia had, by the help of Bishop Whitgift, made such an early discovery of their intentions, that he had almost as soon answered that Treatise as it became public; and he therein discovered how Beza's opinion did contradict that of Calvin's and his adherents; leaving them to interfere with themselves in point of Episcopacy. But of these tracts it will not concern me to say more, than that they were most of them dedicated to his, and the Church of England's watchful patron, John Whitgift, the Archbishop ”

“ And yet see the restless curiosity of man. Not many years after, to wit, A.D. 1632, out cometh Dr. Twiss's [3] Vindiciæ Gratiæ, a large volume, purposely writ against Arminius: and then, notwithstanding my former resolution, I must need be meddling again. The respect I bore to his person and great learning, and the acquaintance I had had with him in Oxford, drew me to the reading of that whole book. ”

“ There was a younger brother, of mean fortunes, born in the county of Suffolk, by name John Felton, by nature of a deep melancholy, silent, and gloomy constitution, but bred in the active way of a soldier, and, thereby, raised to the place of lieutenant to a foot company in the regiment of Sir James Ramsey; this was the man that, closely within himself, had conceived the duke's death. ”

“ No (replied the duke) , but I think some adventure may kill me, as well as another man.
The very day before he was slain, feeling some indisposition of body, the King was pleased to give him the honour of a visit, and found him in his bed; where, after much serious and private discourse, the duke, at his majesty's departing, embraced him in a very unusual and passionate manner, and did in like sort to his friend the Earl of Holland, as if his soul had divined he should see them no more: Which infusions towards fatal ends had been observed by some authors of no light authority. ”

“ But it should seem the very horror of the fact had stupified all curiosity, and so dispersed the multitude, that it is thought even the murderer himself might have escaped, for who gave the blow none could affirm, if he had not lingered about the house below, not by any confused arrest of conscience, as hath been seen in like examples, but by very pride in his own deed, as if, in effect, there were little difference between being remembered by a virtuous fame, or an illustrious infamy. ”

“ And that it is not easy for writers to research with due distinction, as they ought, in the actions of eminent personages, both how much many have been blemished by the envy of others, and what was corrupted by their own felicity, unless, after the period of their splendor, which must needs dazzle their beholders, and, perhaps, oftentimes themselves, we could, as in some scenes of the fabulous age, excite them again, and confer a while with their naked ghosts. ”

“ As his return to the court, he found no change in fates, 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. ”

“ Sir Edward Villiers, his half-brother on the father's side, he either preferred, or removed (call it how you will) from his stepmother's eye to the presidentship, where he lived in singular estimation for his justice and hospitality, and died with as much grief of the whole province, as ever any governor did before, his religious lady, of sweet and noble direction, adding much to his honour. The eldest of the brethren, and heir of the name, was made a baronet, but abstained from court, enjoying, perhaps, the greater greatness of self-fruition. ”

“ Mason, whom he laid in a 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 ”

“ In Henry VIII's Time there was an admirable Set of Philologers in the Nation; though there is great difference to be made between a good Critick, and a Man that writes Latin as easily and correctly as his Mother-Tongue. ”

“ 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 tendered 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 entered into the town, but a scambling soldier clapped hold of his bridle, who thought it was in a begging, or, perchance, somewhat worse, in a drunken fashion ”

“ And lastly, having had such experience of his fidelity and observance abroad, where he was chief in trust, and in the participation 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 testimony of divers important imputations, whereof the truth is best known to his majesty while he was prince. ”

“ I DETERMINE to write the life, and the end, the nature, and the fortunes of George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham, which yet I have not undertaken out of any wanton pleasure in mine own pen; nor, truly, without often pondering with myself before-hand what censures I might incur; for I would not be ignorant, by long observation, both; abroad and at home, that every where all greatnessof power and favour is circumvested with much prejudice. ”

“ He took to wife, eight years and two months before his death, the Lady Catharine Manners, heir-general to the noble house of Rutland, who, besides a solid addition to his estate, brought him three sons, and a daughter, called the Lady Mary, his first-born. His eldest son died at nurse before his journey to Knee, and his third, the Lord Francis, was born after his father's death; so that neither his first, nor his last, were participant of any sense of his misfortunes, or felicities. His second son, now Duke of Buckingham, was born to chearhim after his return from that unlucky voyage. ”

“ But the other was far greater, though closer; for, by so long, and so private, and so various consociation with a prince of such excellent nature, he had now gotten, as it were, two lives in his own fortune and greatness, whereas, otherwise, the state of a favourite is at the best but a tenant at will, and rarely transmitted. But, concerning the Spanish commission, which in publick conceit was the main scope of the journey, that was left in great suspense, and, after some time, utterly laid aside; which threw the Duke amongst free wits (whereof we have a rank soil) under divers censures. ”