he delighted. Together they made what Wotton called a 'domestic college' of young Englishmen in their Venetian palace. They had their chaplain and their religious services; they read aloud the classics, or some new book of weight at stated hours, and dined together, toasting by name their friends in England. They occupied themselves sometimes with music 2, (the ambassador himself playing on the viol di gamba), sometimes with chemical experiments, or again with philosophical speculations, attempting, as Wotton put it, to mend the world in the speculative part, since they despaired of putting it right in the practical and moral.3

Wotton has celebrated in verse the happiness of him
Who entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend;

and his ideal of life was ever one in which, either for business or pleasure, nothing more than study and friendship was necessary. This ideal he could more or less realize in Venice, where he had ample provision of books and friends and harmless days, and where his position was one of considerable leisure, compared with that of an ambassador in Spain or France or the Low Countries.4

I give in an appendix some specimens of what I believe to be notes of Wotton's Table Talk', written down by one of his secretaries living in his house. He tells anecdotes of Elizabeth, of his former patron Essex, sayings of Burghley and Salisbury; gives his companions sound and witty moral maxims, wise, if somewhat cynical advice, about Courts and princes; or he amuses them with hits at the Pope and Jesuits, the ways of women and courtiers. Izaak Walton has preserved for us some of the golden talk of Wotton's retired years and genial and pious old age; in these earlier sayings there is the same wit, the same beautiful turn of phrase, with the freedom and sharpness of a younger man, busy with the world and the affairs of Courts. In summa we live happily, merrily, and honestly,' one of his household writes; 'let State businesses go as they will, we follow our studies hard and love one another.' 5

So in this almost collegiate society, not unlike the society

1 ii, p. 204.

2 i, p. 375.

3

ii, p. 231.

4 'Deus nobis haec otia fecit,' Sir Dudley Carleton wrote, on hearing that he had been appointed to succeed Wotton at Venice. (Stowe MS. 171, f. 307.) 5 Will. Leete to Isaac Bargrave (Rox. Club), p. 48.

of Oxford in his youth, or that of Eton, where he passed his old age, Wotton lived pleasantly enough, with his books, his favourite ape1, and his congenial companions. We find him taking the air in his gondola, going over the lagoons to shoot ducks in winter," or watching a comet at night, and rejoicing to think how this sinister apparition would trouble the superstitious old Pope at Rome.3 He haunted the churches to study the pictures, or to listen to the music, and was generally to be found in the Church of S. Gerolamo, near his house, when the nuns were singing. Although, owing to his religion, he could take no official part in the processions and pageants of the State, we may be sure that he went out to see them-indeed, on one occasion some sensation was caused by the sight of the English ambassador climbing up into the organ of St. Mark's to procure a better view of the Christmas services. We get another glimpse of him masked at a festa given by the French ambassador, and listening to nymphs reciting speeches composed by his host; he haunted the bookshops of Venice, the florists' gardens at Chioggia, and the glass factories at Murano, where he was well known, and where he would select the best specimens of their beautiful wares for his patrons and friends in England." He sent melon seeds and rose cuttings to the King; and Parkinson mentions the 'finocchio' that John Tradescant received from him, with full directions as to how it should be cooked and eaten.8

The earliest English connoisseur of Italian art, he started the

1 A. Clogie, son-in-law of William Bedell, Wotton's chaplain, writes: 'I never heard that he (Bedell) displeased the lord ambassador in anything save this one. The ambassador had an ape that upon a time slipt his chain and got out and bit a child very sore. The Venetian mother brought the child into the ambassador's lodging with great fury and rage, which alarmed his whole family. D. B., his chaplain, said: His lordship was bound in conscience to make satisfaction; and that it was a slander to our religion to keep such harmful beasts, and not repair the damage; who answered angrily that he wished he were as sure of the kingdom of heaven, and that he had as good a conscience as another, &c.' (Specutum Episcoporum, reprinted Two Biog., p. 86.)

In his audience of Dec. 7, 1607, 'the Doge said he was glad to hear the ambassador found pleasure in duck-shooting, and that if the ambassador went out again in colder weather he would find it still more amusing on account of the vast quantity of birds, but that he must clothe himself warmly. The ambassador replied that he had been greatly delighted with the double pleasure of killing and eating. This time he had only been out to learn how to stand it; if the cold came back, he would with pleasure stand still more. He added that it seemed to him a pretty sport to kill on the wing, a custom that was quite new to him, as it had not yet been introduced into England.' (Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 441.)

3 ii, p. 161.

Cal. S. P. Ven., x, p. 334.

fashion among his countrymen of buying Italian pictures, helping to form the collections of Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Buckingham, and employing a painter to travel about Italy to hunt for works of art. At Eton, at Hampton Court, in the galleries of Hatfield and Newnham Paddox, are to be found pictures of Wotton's buying; and it is not impossible that, in the gardens of old country houses, there still blossom plants sent from their Italian soil by this courtly ambassador, who was a lover of flowers, and found no greater pleasure than in 'the simplest ornaments and elegancies of nature'.

For the English visitors to Venice Wotton kept open house; and it was part of his duty to present English travellers of distinction to the Doge, taking them to the Collegio for this purpose. Young Englishmen on the grand tour would sometimes stay with him in his palace, and others, when not invited, would try to gain admittance to this pleasant household. The famous Tom Coryate, and James Howell, the letter-writer, both visited Venice while Wotton was ambassador there, and were kindly treated by him; and Coryate makes an enthusiastic acknowledgement in his Crudities, praising his learning, 'his most elegant and gracious behaviour amongst the greatest senators and clarissimoes,' his plausible volubility of speech', his 'piety and integrity of life, and his true worship of God in the midst of Popery, superstition, and idolatry '1

Outside the members of his own household, and the English visitors to Venice, Wotton's principal associates were the other ambassadors and envoys accredited to the Republic. Besides the papal Nuncio (with whom Wotton, a Protestant, had no intercourse 2), there were the Emperor's Resident, the regal ambassadors of France and Spain, and the agents of the six important Italian princes, Savoy, Tuscany, Urbino, Parma, Mantua, and Modena. Ambassadors and envoys, when not engaged in quarrelling, paid frequent visits to each other, each boasting about the power of his own prince, and condoling, with affected sympathy, on the misfortunes of the master of his host. Ambassadors whose relations were friendly saw each other very

1 Coryate's visit to Venice was in the summer of 1608. He brought a mock solemn letter of introduction to Wotton from Richard Martin, the famous wit (Crudities, p. 237). For his references to Wotton see pp. 190, 230, 236, 240, 241. 2 On his arrival in Venice he attempted to enter into relations with the papal Nuncio, but found, owing to the Pope's pretensions to rank above that of kings, that it could not be arranged. (Canaye, III. ii. 362.)

frequently, and interchanged advice and secret information. These friendships were determined by the relations of the countries the envoys represented; and as James showed goodwill both to France and Spain, Wotton began by being on good terms with the French and Spanish ambassadors. The first to call on him was the French representative, Philippe de FresnesCanaye, who wrote home on October 6, 1604 (N.S.), that he found Le Chevalier Hutten' a discreet gentleman, and very affable.1 But Henry IV and James I, in spite of appearances of friendship, thoroughly disliked each other, and this dislike soon had its effect in Venice. Canaye, moreover, (who had formerly been a friend and patron of Casaubon), was a recent convert from Protestantism, had been sent to Venice as a reward for his conversion, and had bitterly attacked his old Protestant friends. Soon he began to complain that Wotton did not return his calls,2 and exaggerated reports of their strained relations reached Henry IV, who mentioned the matter to the Duke of Lennox, then extraordinary ambassador in France, and wrote to De Harlay in England that 'le Chevalier Outon' was more friendly to Spain than France, and suggested that Cecil had given him orders to stand aloof. It was also reported that Wotton had used injurious expressions about Henry IV; but Canaye, on hearing these reports, wrote to deny them; Wotton kept up an appearance of politeness, and he had no real cause for complaint.5

3

With the Spanish ambassador, Don Inigo de Cardenas, Wotton was at first on very friendly terms, and these lasted till the quarrel between Venice and the Pope in 1606, when Spain and England took opposite sides. In 1607 Cardenas was succeeded by Don Alfonzo della Cueva, better known as the Marquis of Bedmar, whom Wotton described as 'la gentilezza del mondo's Wotton seems never to have suspected Bedmar's secret scheming against the Republic, which ended in the abortive plot of 1618, when Wotton himself, owing to his friendship for the Spaniard, fell under some suspicion.

An interesting figure at Venice was the Count Asdrubale di Montauto, envoy from Wotton's old patron, the Grand Duke of

1 Canaye, III. ii. 362.

2 Ibid., p. 447.

3 Viscount Cranborne to Wotton, Jan. 7, 1604-5 (O.S.) (S. P. Ven.). P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, Mission de Christophe de Harlay, Paris, 1895, pp. 292, 293, 302.

Canaye, III. ii. 527. In the Burley Commonplace Book (p. 59 v) are undated transcripts of an Italian letter from Wotton to Canaye about these reports, and of Canaye's answer. S. P. Ven., April 25, 1608.

Tuscany, whose voluminous dispatches in the Florence Archives give many glimpses of the life of this little diplomatic world at Venice. Montauto was a good-natured person, who made it his business to be on friendly terms with his fellow diplomatists, and for this purpose kept a store of the delicacies for which Tuscany was famous, wine, fruits, and biscuits, with which he was accustomed to raddolcire, as he called it, a newly-arrived ambassador. When a supply of these good things was sent from Florence, all the envoys in Venice hurried to his house to get their share (how the news reached them was a mystery to Montauto); Wotton was among the most eager; indeed, he seems to have thought his former relations with the Grand Duke entitled him to special favours. When there were guests of distinction at the English Embassy, he would come to Montauto for a supply of Tuscan wine, and on one occasion he called after midnight and begged for a quantity of Florentine cloth with such energy and eloquence (vehementia et dolcezza di parole) that Montauto was forced to agree to send to Florence for it.3

1

Nor were these gifts confined to presents of wine and Italian delicacies. A good diplomatic turn was sometimes rewarded by a handsome sum of money; and although these gifts were made secretly, it was an almost universal practice at the time to receive presents of money in official transactions, and ambassadors, who found great difficulty in obtaining their pay, had no scruples in accepting money from foreign princes. Wotton, indeed, expressly defends the practice in his State of Christendom on the ground that it was a good thing to ease an indiscreet enemy of his money '4; and while there is no reason to suppose that he was ever induced to act contrary to his conscience or duty by such gifts, he was, like other contemporary statesmen, by no means unwilling to accept them.

When he first arrived in Venice he intimated (though in vain) to the Grand Duke of Tuscany that he would like a gift of 1,000 scudi,5 and in 1607 Montauto gave him secretly six hundred

1 Arch. Med. 2999, Jan. 13, 1607.

3 Ibid., Aug. 28, 1610.

4

2 Ibid., 3001, Oct. 15, 1610.

State of Christendom, Sup. pp. 7, 8. Wicquefort tells how James I, being informed that several members of his council received pensions from Spain, 'answered that he knew it very well, and made a jest of it. He moreover said he wished the King of Spain would give them ten times as much; because this unprofitable expense would render him less able to make war against him.' (p. 354.) Ferdinand I to Lotto, July 6, 1607, Arch. Med. 4186.