SIR HENRY WOTTON.

THE Conclufion of the Infcription which this learned man used to put under the Achievement of his Arms, when he left them in foreign Inns in his Travels, after the enumeration of his qualities, and of the Embaffies in which he had been engaged, was

" HENRICUS WOTTON, tandem hoc didicit "Animas fieri fapientiores quiefcendo."

He

gave this excellent character of Sir Philip Sydney's wit, "That it was the very measure of congruity."

According to his Biographer, Sir Henry had made fome progrefs in a work which he had be gun on the Reformation, and which he gave up at the defire of his Sovereign Charles the First, who wished him to write the Hiftory of England. It were, indeed, much to be wished, that it were poffible to procure Sir Henry's Manuscripts of his, intended work.

He wrote a very excellent Treatife on the "Elements of Architecture," in which the idea of Home, that scene of every man's happiness or mifery, is thus pathetically defcribed: Every "man's proper manfion-house and home being "the theatre of his hofpitality, the feat of felffruition,

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"fruition, the comfortablest part of his own "life, the nobleft of his fon's inheritance, a "kind of private princedom, nay, to the pof"feffors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, cc may well deserve by these attributes, accord"ing to the degree of the master, to be decently and delightfully adorned." He wrote likewife "A Survey of Education," which he calls Moral Architecture, in which he well obferves, that the way to knowledge by epitome is too ftreight, and by commentaries too much about. "When," adds he, "I mark in chil"dren much folitude and filence, I like it not, "nor any thing born before its time, as this "muft needs be in that fociable and expofed ແ age, as they are for the most part. When either "alone or in company they fit still without doing

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any thing, I like it worfe. For furely all dif

pofition to idleness or vacancy, even before they

grow habits, is dangerous; and there is com"monly but little distance in time between doing of nothing and doing of ill."

Sir Henry fays beautifully, in his character of a Happy Life

I.

How happy is he born and taught

That ferveth not another's will,
Whose armour is his honeft thought,

And fimple truth his utmost skill:

Whole

II.

Whose paffions not his masters are, Whofe foul is still prepared for death; Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath :

III.

Who envies none that chance doth raise, Nor vice hath ever understood,

How deepest wounds are given by praise, Nor rules of State, but rules of good:

IV.

Who hath his life from rumours freed, Whofe confcience is his ftrong retreat, Whofe ftate can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make oppreffors great:

V.

Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend,

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend:

VI.

This man is freed from fervile bands,
Of hope to rife, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing, yet hath all.

OLIVER CROMWELL,

after he had run through his youthful career of amufement and diffipation, became fo hypochondriacal, that he used occafionally to have his physician called up in the middle of the night to attend him, as he imagined himself to be dying. In one of these fits of melancholy he is faid to have seen a gigantic female figure, that told him he fhould be a King.

Sir Philip Warwick thus defcribes Oliver Cromwell:

"The first time that I ever took notice of him was in the very beginning of the Parliament ❝ held in November 1640. I perceived a gen"tleman speaking, whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain cloth "fuit, which feemed to have been made by an "ill country taylor. His linen was plain,

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not very clean, and I remember a fpeck

two of blood upon his little band, which "not much larger than his collar: his ha "without a hat-band.---His ftature was of a "fize; his fword ftuck clofe to his fid

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countenance fwoln and reddish; his sharp and untunable, and his eloque "of fervor, for the fubject-matter

"bear much of reafon, it being in behalf of a ❝fervant of Mr. Prynne's who had dispersed "libels against the Queen for her dancing, and "fuch like innocent and courtly fports; and he

aggravated the imprisonment of this man by "the Council-table unto that length, that one "would have believed that the very govern❝ment itself had been in great danger by it. I "fincerely profess it leffened very much my re"verence for that great Council, for he was

very much hearkened unto. And yet I lived "to fee this very Gentleman whom (out of no "ill-will to him) I thus defcribe, by multiplied "fucceffes, and by real but ufurped power, hav❝ing had a better taylor, and more converse "amongst good company, in mine own eye, "when, for fix weeks together, I was a pri"foner at Whitehall, appear of a great and ma jestic deportment and comely presence.

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"The first years," adds Sir Philip, "of "Cromwell's manhood were spent in a diffolute "courfe of life, in good fellowship and gaming, "which afterwards he feemed very fenfible of, "and very forry for; and as if it had been a "good spirit that had guided him therein, he "ufed a good method upon his converfion; for "he declared that he was ready to make refti"tution unto any man who would accuse him, "or whom he could accufe himfelf to have "wronged.

VOL. I.

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