William Habington (1605-54) was born and lived at Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, a house with more priest's holes than any other in England. His life presents few incidents, though he came of a race of Catholic conspirators. His father lay for six years in the Tower over Babington's conspiracy; his uncle was hanged for his share in the same plot. The poet's mother atoned in some measure for this disloyalty, for she is said to have been the writer of the famous letter to Lord Monteagle which averted the execution of the Gunpowder Plot. The poet was educated at St Omer's, but declined to become a Jesuit. About 1631 he married Lucy Herbert, youngest daughter of the first Lord Powis, whom he had celebrated under the name of Castara. His collected poems-also entitled Castara- were published in 1634-40, the volume consisting of 'The Mistress,' 'The Wife,' and 'The Holy Man.' These titles include each several copies of verses, and the same design was afterwards adopted by Cowley. The short life of the poet seems to have glided quietly away, cheered by the society and affection of his Castara. He had no stormy passions to agitate him, and no unruly imagination to control or subdue. His poetry is of the same unruffled description-placid, tender, and often elegant, but studded with conceits to show his wit and fancy. When he talks of meadows wearing a 'green plush,' of the fire of mutual love purifying an infected city, and of a luxurious feast so rich that heaven must have rained showers of sweetmeats, as if Heaven were Blackfriars, and each star a confectioner we are astonished to find one who could ridicule the 'madness of quaint oaths' and the ‘fine rhetoric of clothes' in the gallants of his day, fall into such absurd and tasteless puerilities. Habington had all the vices of the 'metaphysical' school, excepting its occasional and sometimes studied licentiousness. He tells us himself (in his preface) that if the innocency of a chaste muse shall be more acceptable, and weigh heavier in the balance of esteem, than a fame begot in adultery of study, I doubt I shall leave no hope of competition.' And of a pure attachment he says that 'when Love builds upon the rock of Chastity, it may safely contemn the battery of the waves and threatenings of the wind; since Time, that makes a mockery of the firmest structures, shall itself be . ruinated before that be demolished.' Description of Castara. Like the violet which alone For she's to herself untrue, Such is her beauty, as no arts Her high birth no pride imparts, For she blushes in her place. Folly boasts a glorious blood; She is noblest, being good. Cautious, she knew never yet Of herself survey she takes, But 'tween men no difference makes. She obeys with speedy will She nor acts nor understands: If once to ill they know the way. She sails by that rock, the court, Where oft Honour splits her mast; And retiredness thinks the port, Where her fame may anchor cast: Virtue safely cannot sit, Where vice is enthroned for wit. She holds that day's pleasure best, O'er that darkness, whence is thrust Her pure thoughts to heaven fly: Epistle to a Friend. I hate the country's dirt and manners, yet Or quick designs of France? Why not repair And by the aid of leisure so control Whate'er is earth in us, to grow all soul? Knowledge doth ignorance engender, when And foreign plots. Do but in thy own shade- The world to his great master, and you'll find O' th' country dead our thoughts, nor busy care Thomas Randolph (1605-35) wrote miscellaneous poems and six plays, all edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1875. He was born at Newnham-cumBadby, near Daventry, Northamptonshire; from Westminster passed in 1623 to Trinity College, Cambridge; and in 1629 was elected a fellow. He was early distinguished for talents that procured him the friendship of Ben Jonson and the other wits of the day. Ben enrolled him among his adopted sons; but Randolph fell into intemperate habits, and the fine promise of his genius was cut short by his death in his thirtieth year at Blatherwick, in his native county. His poems are bright and sometimes humorous: Aristippus and The Conceited Peddler are academic interludes; The Jealous Lover is a cleverly written but very artificial comedy; The Muse's Looking-glass is a satire, in pseudo-dramatic form, on the several vices, and the virtues find occasion to join in a dance; Amyntas is a pastoral play on materials derived from Tasso and other Italians, though the plot is Randolph's own. Upon his Picture. When age hath made me what I am not now, Here the smooth brow will stay, the lively eye, The ruddy lip, and hair of youthful dye. To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-glass 'Now you have what to love,' you'll say, James Howell (1594?-1666), whose collection of Familiar Letters is still an English classic, was the son of the minister of Abernant, in Caermarthenshire, and having been educated at Hereford and Jesus College, Oxford, went to London in quest of employment. Appointed steward to a patent-glass manufactory, he went abroad in 1616 to procure materials and engage workmen. In the course of his four years' travels he visited Holland, Flanders, France, Spain, and Italy; brought capable workmen from Middelburg, Venice, and elsewhere; and, being of an acute and inquisitive turn, laid up a store of useful observations on men and manners, besides acquiring an extensive knowledge of modern languages. His connection with the glass company soon after ceased, and he again visited France as the travelling companion of a young gentleman. After this he was sent to Spain (1622) as agent for the recovery of an English vessel which had been seized in Sardinia on the charge of smuggling; but his good hopes of ob taining redress being destroyed by the breaking off of Prince Charles's proposed marriage with the Infanta, he returned to England in 1624 His next office was that of secretary to Lord Scrope, Lord-President of the North; and in 1627 he was chosen by the corporation of Richmond in Yorkshire to be one of their representatives in Parliament. In 1632 he visited Copenhagen as secretary to the English ambassador, and prepared the Latin orations of condolence with the Danish king on the loss of his mother. At Nottingham in 1642 he was appointed a clerk to the Privy Council; but being 'prodigally inclined,' according to Anthony Wood, and therefore running much into debt,' he was imprisoned eight years in the Fleet, by order of a committee of Parliament. Here he remained, supporting himself by translating and composing a variety of works. In 1661 he became historiographer-royal, the first who ever enjoyed that title; and having continued his literary vocation till his death on 3rd November 1666, he may be accounted after Markham (page 398) as one of the earliest Englishmen to make a livelihood by his pen. His fortyone publications comprise translations from Italian, French, and Spanish; controversies, pamphlets, and books on history, politics, and philological questions. His Instructions for Forreine Travel (1642) was reprinted by Professor Arber in 1869; his new editions of Cotgrave's French dictionary are interesting to lexicographers; he published a description of London and a history of all the battles between England and Scotland, apologues, A Trance or News from Hell, and The Party of Beasts (an allegory). But this witty and entertaining writer is now chiefly remembered for his Epistola Ho-Elianæ, or Familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign, divided into Sundry Sections, partly Historical, Political, and Philosophical (published in four instalments, in 1645, 1647, 1650, and 1655). The letters are dated from various places at home and abroad; but most of them seem to have been composed as a deliberate literary undertaking in the Fleet Prison, though many of them were no doubt based on his actual letters or notes of some kind, and not solely drawn from memory. His remarks on the leading events and characters of the time, as well as the description of what he saw in foreign countries, and the reflections with which his letters abound, are entertaining reading; though a large proportion of his learning is second hand, many of his most interesting facts are taken straight from books, and inaccurate statements are frequent ; and the interest is rather autobiographical than historical. They set a fashion of fictitious letterwriting, and Defoe seems to have known them well. The letters are marked by lucidity, vivacity, and variety; are quite exceptional in that or any age; and have generally been voted one of the most amusing volumes extant. Montaigne's essays and Howell's letters were Thackeray's 'bedside books,' constantly in use. Hallam judged Howell rather harshly, declaring he had no wit, but abundance of conceit, flat and commonplace enough.' Certainly the letters are extraordinarily unequal in interest, some being obviously mere compendiums of such books as he could lay hands on at the time. Letter from Venice. : These wishes come to you from Venice, a place where there is nothing wanting that heart can wish: renowned Venice, the admiredst city in the world; a city that all Europe is bound unto, for she is her greatest rampart against that huge eastern tyrant, the Turk, by sea; else I believe he had over-run all Christendom by this time. Against him this city hath perform'd notable exploits, and not only against him, but divers others: she hath restored emperors to their thrones, and popes to their chairs, and with her gallies often preserv'd St Peter's bark from sinking for which, by way of reward, one of his successors espous'd her to the sea, which marriage is solemnly renew'd every year in solemn procession by the Doge and all the Clarissimos, and a gold ring cast into the sea out of the great galeass, call'd the Bucentoro, wherein the first ceremony was perform'd by the pope himself, above three hundred years since, and they say it is the self-same vessel still, tho' often put upon the careen and trimm'd. This made me think on that famous ship at Athens; nay, I fell upon an abstracted notion in philosophy, and a speculation touching the body of man, which being in perpetual flux, and a kind of succession of decays, and consequently requiring, ever and anon, a restoration of what it loseth of the virtue of the former aliment, and what was converted after the third concoction into a blood and fleshy substance, which, as in all other sublunary bodies that have internal principles of heat, useth to transpire, breathe out, and waste away through invisible pores, by exercise, motion, and sleep, to make room still for a supply of new nouriture: I fell, I say, to consider whether our bodies may be said to be of like condition with this Bucentoro, which, tho' it be reputed still the same vessel, yet I believe there's not a foot of that timber remaining which it had upon the first dock, having been, as they tell me, so often planked and ribbed, caulked and pierced. In like manner, our bodies may be said to be daily repaired by new sustenance, which begets new blood, and consequently new spirits, new humours, and, I may say, new flesh; the old, by continual deperdition and insensible transpirations, evaporating still out of us, and giving way to fresh; so that I make a question whether, by reason of these perpetual reparations and accretions, the body of man may be said to be the same numerical body in his old age that he had in his manhood, or the same in his manhood that he had in his youth, the same in his youth that he carried about with him in his childhood, or the same in his childhood which he wore first in the womb. I make a doubt whether I had the same identical individually numerical body, when I carried a calf-leather sachel to school in Hereford, as when I wore a lambskin hood in Oxford; or whether I have the same mass of blood in my veins, and the same flesh now in Venice, which I carry'd about me three years since, up and down London streets, having, in lieu of beer and ale, drunk wine all this while, and fed upon different viands. Now, the stomach is like a crucible, for it hath a chemical kind of vertue to transmute one body into another, to transubstantiate fish and fruits into flesh within and about us: but tho' it be questionable whether I wear the same flesh which is fluxible, I am sure my hair is not the same; for you may remember I went flaxen-haired out of England, but you shall find me returned with a very dark brown, which I impute not only to the heat and air of those hot countries I have eat my bread in, but to the quality and difference of food. But you will say that hair is but an excrementitious thing, and makes not to this purpose; moreover, methinks I hear you say that this may be true only in the blood and spirits, or such fluid parts, not in the solid and heterogeneal parts. But I will press no further at this time this philosophical notion, which the sight of Bucentoro infused into me, for it hath already made me exceed the bounds of a letter, and, I fear me, to trespass too much upon your patience; I leave the further disquisition of this point to your own contemplations, who are a far riper philosopher than I, and have waded deeper into and drank more of Aristotle's well. But, to conclude, tho' it be doubtful whether I carry about me the same body or no in all points that I had in England, I am well assur'd I bear still the same mind, and therein I verify the old verse: 'Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.' 'The air but not the mind they change, Who in outlandish countries range.' For what alterations soever happen in this microcosm, in this little world, this small bulk and body of mine, you may be confident that nothing shall alter my affections, specially towards you, but that I will persevere still the same-the very same J. H. VENICE, 25th June 1621. Letter from Rome. I am now come to Rome, and Rome, they say, is every man's country; she is called Communis Patria, for every one that is within the compass of the Latin Church finds himself here, as it were, at home, and in his mother's house, in regard of interest in religion, which is the cause that for one native there be five strangers that sojourn in this city; and without any distinction or mark of strangeness, they come to preferments and offices, both in church and state, according to merit, which is more valued and sought after here than anywhere. But whereas I expected to have found Rome elevated upon seven hills, I met her rather spreading upon a flat, having humbled herself, since she was made a Christian, and descended from those hills to Campus Martius; with Trastevere, and the suburbs of Saint Peter, she hath yet in compass about fourteen miles, which is far short of that vast circuit she had in Claudius his time; for Vopiscus writes she was then of fifty miles' circumference, and she had five hundred thousand free citizens in a famous cense that was made, which, allowing but six to every family in women, children, and servants, came to three millions of souls; but she is now a wilderness in comparison of that number. The pope is grown to be a great temporal prince of late years, for the State of the Church extends above 300 miles in length, and 200 miles in breadth; it contains Ferrara, Bologna, Romagnia, the Marquisate of Ancona, Umbria, Sabina, Perugia, with a part of Tuscany, the patrimony, Rome herself, and Latium. In these there are above fifty bishoprics; the pope hath also the duchy of Spoleto, and the exarchate of Ravenna; he hath the town of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples, and the country of Venisse, called Avignon, in France. He hath title also good enough to Naples itself; but, rather than offend his champion, the king of Spain, he is contented with a white mule, and purse of pistoles about the neck, which he receives even year for a herriot or homage, or what you will call it, he pretends also to be lord-paramount of Sicily, Urin, Parma, and Maseran; of Norway, Ireland, and Englan since King John did prostrate our crown at Pandulfo s legate's feet. The state of the apostolic see here in Italy lieth tw x two seas, the Adriatic and the Tyrrhene, and it ras through the midst of Italy, which makes the pope power ful to do good or harm, and more capable than any other to be an umpire or an enemy. His authority being mixe 'twixt temporal and spiritual, disperseth itself into many members, that a young man may grow old here before he can well understand the form of government. The consistory of cardinals meet but once a week, an! once a week they solemnly wait all upon the pope. I am told there are now in Christendom but sixty-eight cardinals, whereof there are six cardinal bishops, fiftyone cardinal priests, and eleven cardinal deacons. The cardinal bishops attend and sit near the pope, when he celebrates any festival; the cardinal priests assist him a mass; and the cardinal deacons attire him. A cardinal is made by a short breve or writ from the pope in these words: Creamus te socium regibus, superiorem ducibus, a fratrem nostrum: 'We create thee a companion to king superior to dukes, and our brother.' If a cardinal bish * should be questioned for any offence, there must be twenty-four witnesses produced against him. The Bisba of Ostia hath most privilege of any other, for he com secrates and instals the pope, and goes always next to him. All these cardinals have the repute of princes, ard besides other incomes, they have the annats of benefices to support their greatness. For point of power, the pope is able to put 50.000 men in the field, in case of necessity, besides his naval strength in gallies. We read how Paul III. sent Charles III. 12,000 foot and 500 horse. Pius V. sent a greater ad to Charles IX.; and for riches, besides the temperal dominions he hath in all the countries before named, the datary or despatching of bulls. The triennial subsilies, annats, and other ecclesiastical rights mount to an un known sum; and it is a common saying here, that as long as the pope can finger a pen, he can want no penc Pius V. notwithstanding his expenses in buildings, let four millions in the Castle of Saint Angelo in less than five years; more, I believe, than this Gregory XV. wil, for he hath many nephews; and better is it to be the pope's nephew, than to be a favourite to any prince = Christendom. Touching the temporal government of Rome, and op pidan affairs, there is a pretor and some choice citizens, who sit in the Capitol. Among other pieces of polky, there is a synagogue of Jews permitted here (as in other places of Italy) under the pope's nose, but they go with a mark of distinction in their hats; they are toleratel for advantage of commerce, wherein the Jews are wonderful dexterous, though most of them be only brokers and Lombardeers; and they are held to be here, as the cynic held women to be, malum necessarium. Present Rome may be said to be but a monument of Rome past, when she was in that flourish that St Austi desired to see her in. She who tamed the world, timed herself at last, and falling under her own weight, fell to be a prey to time; yet there is a providence seems to have a care of her still; for though her air be not so good, nor her circumjacent soil so kindly as it was, yet Howell tells the story of the 'Pied Piper of Hamelen' much as it is given by Browning, who may have taken it hence or from Verstegan; he shows in two letters that popular opinion in England inclined to the belief that Raleigh had deliberately fibbed about the gold-mines he pretended to go in search of on that last disastrous expedition; he reports the murder of Buckingham by Felton when the news reached him; describes the languages and religions of all countries in the world, as far as he could find out about them; has many pious and theological reflections, some naughty stories, and many statements as facts which are manifest fables (as of the lady, commemorated by Coryate also, who as a punishment for discourtesy to a poor woman bore 365 children at a birth); gives a complete statistical account of the Low Countries, and a history of the Inquisition; propounds a scheme of spelling reform, and intersperses not a few poems and hymns, most highly unpoetic. His notion of tolerance may be seen from his saying, 'I pity rather than hate Turk or Infidel . . . if I hate any, 'tis those Schismaticks that puzzle the sweet peace of our Church, so that I could be content to see an Anabaptist go to Hell on a Brownist's back.' An account of the wine countries of the world begins with Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and then goes on to France. : On Wines. France, participating of the climes of all the countries about her, affords wines of quality accordingly; as, towards the Alps and Italy, she hath a luscious rich wine called Frontiniac. In the country of Provence, towards the Pyrenees in Languedoc, there are wines congustable with those of Spain: one of the prime sort of white wines is that of Beaume; and of clarets, that of Orleans, though it be interdicted to wine the king's cellar with it, in respect of the corrosiveness it carries with it. As in France, so in all other wine-countries, the white is called the female, and the claret or red wine is called the male, because commonly it hath more sulphur, body, and heat in't the wines that our merchants bring over upon the river of Garonne, near Bordeaux, in Gascony, which is the greatest mart for wines in all France. The Scot, because he hath always been a useful confederate to France against England, hath (among other privileges) right of pre-emption of first choice of wines in Bordeaux ; he is also permitted to carry his ordnance to the very walls of the town, whereas the English are forced to leave them at Blay, a good way distant down the river. There is a hard green wine, that grows about Rochelle, and the islands thereabouts, which the cunning Hollander sometime used to fetch, and he hath a trick to put a bag of herbs, or some other infusions, into it-as he doth brimstone in Rhenish-to give it a whiter tincture and more sweetness; then they re-embark it for England, where it passeth for good Bachrag [Bacharach], and this is called stuming of wines. In Normandy there 's little or no wine at all grows; therefore the common drink of that country is cider, specially in low Normandy. There are also many beer-houses in Paris and elsewhere; but though their barley and water be better than ours, or that of Germany, and though they have English and Dutch brewers among them, yet they cannot make beer in that perfection. The prime wines of Germany grow about the Rhine, specially in the Psalts [Pfalz] or Lower Palatinate about Bachrag, which hath its etymology from Bacchi ara; for in ancient times there was an altar erected there to the honour of Bacchus, in regard of the richness of the wines. Here, and all France over, 'tis held a great part of incivility for maidens to drink wine until they are married, as it is in Spain for them to wear high shoes or to paint till then. The German mothers, to make their sons fall into a hatred of wine, do use, when they are little, to put some owls' eggs into a cup of Rhenish, and sometimes a little living eel, which twingling in the wine while the child is drinking, so scares him, that many come to abhor and have an antipathy to wine all their lives after. From Bachrag the first stock of vines which grow now in the Grand Canary Island were brought, which, with the heat of the sun and the soil, is grown now to that height of perfection, that the wines which they afford are accounted the richest, the most firm, the best bodied, and lastingst wine, and the most defecated from all earthly grossness, of any other whatsoever; it hath little or no sulphur at all in 't, and leaves less dregs behind, though one drink it to excess. French wines may be said but to pickle meat in the stomachs, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction, that good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humours, good humours cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven-ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven.' If this be true, surely more English go to heaven this way than any other; for I think there's more Canary brought into England than to all the world besides. I think also, there is a hundred times more drunk under the name of Canary wine than there is brought in; for Sherries and Malagas, well mingled, pass for Canaries in most taverns, more often than Canary itself; else I do not see how 'twere possible for the vintner to save by it, or to live by his calling, unless he were permitted sometimes to be a brewer. When Sacks and Canaries were brought in first among us, they were used to be drunk in aqua-vitæ measures, and 'twas held fit only for those to drink who were used to carry their legs in their hands, their eyes upon their noses, and an almanac in their bones; but now they go down every one's throat, both young and old, like milk. ་ The countries that are freest from excess of drinking are Spain and Italy. If a woman can prove her husband to have been thrice drunk, by the ancient laws of Spain she may plead for a divorce from him. Nor indeed can the Spaniard, being hot-brained, bear much drink, yet I have heard that Gondomar was once too hard for the king of Denmark, when he was here in England. But the Spanish soldiers that have been in the wars of Flanders will take their cups freely, and the Italians also. When I lived t'other side the Alps, a gentleman told me a merry tale of a Ligurian soldier, who had got drunk in |