his formal writings during this period, (if the word can be applied to the work of so desultory a person), only about one hundred pages remain, and these will all be found printed in the Reliquiae. A fragment on English history, the Character of William the Conqueror,1 another in Latin on the founder of Eton, Henry VI, a few pages on Pompey and Caesar, and two short religious meditations, call for no special notice. Of somewhat greater interest is the parallel between the two royal favourites, Buckingham and Essex, which was circulated in MS. in 1634, and was printed after his death in 1641. In this, and in the View of the Life and Death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (apparently printed at the same time), Wotton gives, in his gossiping, disconnected manner, some interesting details about the lives of these two patrons of his, who had both played a great part on the stage of fortune, and both met with a tragic end. The Plausus et Vota, a panegyric on Charles I,2 written and published after the King's return from his coronation in Scotland in 1633, shows, as Dr. Ward has pointed out, a certain candour of soul that rises above flattery, in that he congratulates Charles on the moral discipline derived from his early weakness of body, and from the fact that he was born a younger son, and succeeded an elder brother who was the nation's darling.3 The panegyric is of special interest, too, as giving a picture or ideal of that king as a devoted loyalist saw him, his fostering Care for the influence and dignity of the English Church, his personal beauty, his temperance, and strict justice, and his enlightened love of music and the fine arts, for sculpture and painting and architecture, shown by his so adorning his palaces, that Italy might seem, by his magnificence, to have been transported into England.* 1 Reliq., 1st ed., p. 163; 3rd ed., p. 100. A short preface to the latter is printed in Gutch, Collectanea, i, p. 215, but omitted in the Reliquiae. Wotton states that he had resolved to 'express (as it were) the juice and substance, like a kind of chemical extract, out of the lives and reigns of our royal monarchs of either sex'. 2 Ad Regem e Scotia reducem Henrici Wottonii Plausus et Vota MDCXXXIII, 3 Ward, p. 141. In this panegyric Wotton made use of the phrase which he afterwards chose for his epitaph, Disputandi Pruritus est Ecclesiarum Scabies (Reliq., p. 124). An echo of Shakespeare may be noted. Wotton, after referring to Richard III, paraphrases the lines Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York (Rich. III, i, 1). Iusti bonique Principis Reditus nihil aliud omninò est quam ipsa Solis antistrophe, cùm vernalibus radiis deformem Hyemem expellit, ac blando tempore cuncta circumquâque refovet et exhilarat.' (Reliq., 4th ed., pp. 132-3.) But of the literary remains of this period, published in the Reliquiae, the most interesting are the Survey of Education, sent to the King in 1630, and its continuation, the Aphorisms of Education. The Survey is a little essay of twelve pages, written to fulfil the promise at the end of the Elements of Architecture, to follow that work with a book on Education which was, as he said, 'a second building, or repairing of Nature, and as I may term it, a kind of moral architecture.' On the subjects of both architecture and education Wotton was much in advance of his age, and in this little fragment it is surprising to read how he insists, as the first preliminary, on the study of the temperament and character of the child. The teacher or parent must not think it an easy matter to discover the natural powers and inclinations of children, which are often deep hidden and slow of development; but must carefully watch for little revelations of character and taste. Wotton's notes on this process of observation are most curious, and evidently the fruit of considerable thought and study. The eye of the child must be noted, for it loveth or hateth before we can discern the heart,' and, in fact, letteth out all our fancies and passions as it were by a window.' The child's smiles and frowns should be observed, especially 'when withal they lighten or cloud the whole face in a moment'; his little lies, and 'crafty and pertinent evasions', his jests, his powers of mimicry and memory, his quickness of temper (for Wotton believed in the paradox about children, tantum ingenii quantum irae), his dreams, and 'how prettily the child himself doth manage his pretty pastimes'. The fragment unfortunately ends just when Wotton is about to enter into the question of goodness of nature in children, a point though 'round about in every mother's mouth', which yet' will need very nice and narrow observation'.1 The Survey of Education was printed in the first edition of the Reliquiae; to the second edition were added the Aphorisms of Education, a collection of wise and witty reflections, with a short essay on each. These aphorisms have, as a matter of fact, no direct connexion with the subject of education, but are concerned with such subjects as travel, study, thrift, discretion, and the causes and circumstances of success or failure. But Wotton's formal writings have seldom or never the freshness and intimate charm of his letters; and it is in the somewhat 1 Reliq., 4th ed., pp. 73–85. scanty remains of his correspondence that we shall find the pleasantest product of these quiet years. For purposes of business or compliment, and in his modest and vain endeavour to procure the payment of the large sums of money owing him, he would occasionally write to Charles I, or to the Lord Treasurers of the time, Weston and Juxon; and his letters to these great personages are models of courtly and dignified appeal. Of his intimate letters, the greater number are written to his old friend, Sir Edmund Bacon, and to his former secretary in Venice, John Dynely. Others of an intimate character are addressed to Sir Thomas Wentworth (afterwards the Earl of Strafford), and to Wentworth's brother-in-law, that fine old country gentleman, Sir Gervase Clifton; to the Provost of King's College, Samuel Collins; to his devoted friend and man of business, Nicolas Pey; and these are plainly but the remaining fragments of a continued and regular correspondence. Among the intimate letters must also be numbered those to the Queen of Bohemia, then living in poverty and exile at the Hague. Wotton had celebrated her grace and beauty in the day of her triumph; that day had been but a brief one, but no change of worldly prosperity could affect the supremacy of one who, in his phrase, was born within the chance, but without the power of fortune'; and the memory of her sweet and royal virtues' was, he wrote, the last thing that would die in him. It only remains to give a brief account of the events of these last tranquil years of Sir Henry Wotton's life. The chronicle requires little space, as his active years were over. But with his appointment to Eton he did not at once retire from public affairs; he was a member of the Parliament of 16251, although he took no active part in its proceedings; and just before the death of James I, Chamberlain mentions him as a candidate for the office of Secretary, or if he miss that, to be Dean of Canterbury.' 2 At the King's funeral Wotton was one of the twelve knights who surrounded the hearse of their old master, and carried his armorial bearings. In the autumn of this year he suffered a great grief in the death of his accomplished nephew, 1 Chamberlain mentions on May 6, 1625, that Wotton had been defeated at Canterbury. (Cal. S. P. Dom., 1625-6, p. 19.) He was, however, elected one of the members for Sandwich. (Hasted, ii, p. 429.) 2 C. & T. Jas. I, ii, p. 508. 3 Nichols, iii, p. 1046. Wotton bore the arms of Scotland impaling those of Lorraine. Sir Albertus Morton, just when Morton had obtained the coveted post of Secretary, and the most brilliant prospects seemed to have opened before him. This was followed, not long after, by the death of his beloved niece, Sir Edmund Bacon's wife. These were two irreparable losses, which Wotton always remembered with grief that time could not cure; and his poem on the death of Morton, though not free from the frigid conceits then fashionable, is still remembered for its last verse: Dwell thou in endless light, discharged Soul; Freed now from Nature's and from fortune's trust; While on this fluent globe my glass shall roll, And run the rest of my remaining dust.1 More perfect is the inimitable epigram on Lady Morton, who did not long survive her husband: He first deceased; she for a little tried To live without him; liked it not, and died.2 In the year following the death of Sir Albertus Morton, 1626, Wotton performed the only piece of State business with which he was charged in the new reign. This was not a matter of much importance, being merely to discover from a maiden lady living in Windsor, the history of a list of names, on which had been founded a wild accusation against Buckingham of the intention to poison a number of eminent people.3 In 1627, as I have said, Wotton entered into Deacon's Orders, and in this year he, with the Fellows of Eton College, petitioned the Duke of Buckingham that a regiment of soldiers, quartered at Eton in violation of the privileges of the College, might be removed, as their company did not well comport 'with the youth repairing to the School, and lodging in the town' Of the next few years there is little to chronicle. In the summer of 1629, while on a visit to Canterbury, he suffered a rude 'a affront', probably an attempt to arrest him for debt, about which he wrote to his old friend Sir Dudley Carleton, now Viscount Dorchester and Secretary of State." In December of this year his pension was increased for the purpose, as I have already mentioned, of enabling him to write his history of England. In 1630 he celebrated the birth of the future 1 For this poem, Tears at the Grave of Sir Albertus Morton, Wept by Sir Henry Wotton, see J. Hannah, pp. 40-3. 2 ii, p. 311. S. P. Dom. Chas. I, lxxxviii, no. 45 (Maxwell Lyte, p. 233). ii, p. 291. Charles II in verses of no great merit; and also in 1630 he submitted to the King's approval a portion of his Survey of Education, which apparently met with no encouragement, as it seems never to have been finished. In 1631 the King summoned Wotton to Whitehall to give his judgement on some newly arrived pictures. Wotton gave to the Bodleian, in 1633, a rare and beautiful book which Tycho Brahe had presented to the Doge Grimani, and which Wotton had bought long before in Venice.2 In this year also he wrote his Plausus et Vota on the return of the King from Scotland, and this was published by him, being, with his letter to Mark Welser, and his Elements of Architecture, the only writings which Wotton himself printed. His ode on the King's return, beginning Rouse up thyself, my gentle Muse Though now our green conceits be gray, was circulated among his friends, and printed after his death with his other poems by Izaak Walton.3 4 In 1634 Laud, who had charge of the diocese of Lincoln as Bishop Williams was in disgrace, reported to the King that he found that Sir Henry Wotton had 'carried himself very worthily' as Provost of Eton College. But in the following year Wotton, as I have said, suffered the indignity of an arrest for debt in London, and was confined by bailiffs in his lodgings. His letter to the secretary, Windebank, written from his 'chamber and prison', will be found in these volumes 5, and a protection against arrest for the space of a year was granted him by Windebank. In 1636 Wotton presented to Eton College the immense mappicture of Venice painted by Fialetti, which now hangs in the Provost's large dining hall, with this beautiful inscription: 'Henricus Wottonius, post tres apud Venetos legationes ordinarias, in Etonensis Collegii beato sinu senescens, eiusque, cum suavissima inter se sociosque concordia, annos iam 12 praefectus, hanc miram urbis quasi natantis effigiem in aliquam sui memoriam iuxta socialem mensam affixit. 1636.' 1 Sir Thomas Culpepper to Sir Francis Nethersole at the Hague, Feb. 13, 1631, 'On Sunday last my Lord ambassador's four pictures were brought to Whitehall for the King and Queen to see. The King sent for Sir Henry Wotton to give his judgment of them.' 'They be exceedingly commended and will continue Courtyars (courtiers?) at Whitehall.' (S. P. Dom. Chas. I, clxxxv, no. 5.) 2 ii, p. 347. J. Hannah, p. 24. Laud's Troubles and Tryals, 1695, p. 531. ii, p. 350. |