with all. convenient speed." In the letter, of date 1627, in which he announces this event to the king, Wotton piously says: "If I can produce nothing else for the use of Church and State, yet it shall be comfort enough for the little remnant of my life, to compose some hymns unto his endless glory, who hath called me (for which his name be ever blessed), though late to his service, yet early to the knowledge of his truth and sense of his mercy." The only fruits of this design which we possess, are the psalm we quote-which Lord Aston describes as the finest specimen he had met with of sacred poetry among our earlier authors; and the exceptional excellence of which overcomes our repugnance to the admission of translations-and the hymn, which also we give, written when he was "confined to his chamber by a quotidian fever of more contumacy than malignity," about the year 1638. "The Character of a Happy Life," is by no means, as has been assumed, a portrait by Wotton of himself in his retirement; for this piece was published as early as 1614, with the fourth edition of "Overbury's Wife and Characters." But it is singularly faithful as an anticipative picture, produced in his time of active and stirring employment, of the calm, contemplative, pious, and kindly life which Wotton led in his comparative seclusion at Eton. The "Reliquiæ Wottonianæ," a posthumous collection of his works, which are miscellaneous and versatile rather than voluminous, includes "Lives, Letters, Poems, and Characters." Sir Henry Wotton died at Eton College, in the chapel of which he was buried in December, 1639, aged seventy-two. He willed that his executors should lay over his grave a plain marble stone, and chose for an epitaph "this prudent, pious sentence, to discover his disposition, and preserve his memory:"

"Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus author;
Disputandi pruritus, ecclesiarum scabies.

Nomen alias quære."

The days of Wotton were by no means the most evil on which a man of mark and likelihood could fall. The manufacture and the worship of the hero were extensive branches respectively of industry and culture. If a man of parts were not altogether miserable and beggarly—if his genius were not starved into sterility, like that of the lone and unfostered Hagthorpe, of whom presently-he was pretty sure at least to enter upon the next world with considerable prestige. We are tempted to append a pleasant hyperbole "writ by Mr. Abraham Cowley" as an elegy upon Sir Henry Wotton :—

"What shall we say since silent now is he
Who when he spoke all things would silent be!
Who had so many languages in store
That only fame shall speak of him in more.
Whom England now no more returned must see
He's gone to heaven on his fourth embassy.
On earth he travelled often, not to say
He'd been abroad to pass loose time away;
For in whatever land he chanced to come,
He read the men and manners; bringing home
Their wisdom, learning, and their piety;
As if he went to conquer, not to see.
So well he understood the most and best
Of tongues that Babel sent into the West;
Spoke them so truly, that he had, you'd swear,
Not only lived, but been born everywhere.
Justly each nation's speech to him was known;
Who for the world was made, not us alone.
Nor ought the language of that man be less,
Who in his breast had all things to express :
We say that learning's endless, and blame fate
For not allowing life a longer date.

He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,
And found them not so large as was his mind;
But, like the brave Pellean youth, did moan
Because that art had no more worlds than one.
And when he saw that he through all had past,
He died, lest he should idle grow at last."

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill.

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world by care
Of public fame or vulgar breath.

Who envies none that chance doth raise
Or vice; and never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise ;-
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;

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.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

A TRANSLATION OF THE CIV. PSALM TO THE
ORIGINAL SENSE.

My soul, exalt the Lord with hymns of praise;
O Lord my God, how boundless is thy might!
Whose throne of state is clothed with glorious rays,
And round about hast robed thyself with light:

Who like a curtain hast the heavens displayed,
And in the watery roofs thy chambers laid:

Whose chariots are the thickened clouds above,
Who walk'st upon the wingéd winds below;
At whose command the airy spirits move,
And fiery meteors their obedience show;

Who on this base the earth didst firmly found,
And mad'st the deep to circumvest it round.
The waves that rise would drown the highest hill,
But at thy check they fly; and when they hear
Thy thundering voice, they post to do thy will,
And bound their furies in their proper sphere;

Where surging floods and valing ebbs can tell That none beyond thy marks must sink or swell. Who hath disposed, but Thou, the winding way, Where springs down from their steepy crags do beat, At which both fostered beasts their thirsts allay, And the wild asses come to quench their heat;

Where birds resort, and, in their kind, thy praise
Among the branches chant in warbling lays?
The mounts are watered from thy dwelling place,
The barns and meads are filled for man and beast;
Wine glads the heart, and oil adorns the face,
And bread the staff whereon our strength doth rest;
Nor shrubs alone feel thy sufficing hand,

But even the cedars that so proudly stand.
So have the fowls their sundry seats to breed;
The ranging stork in stately beeches dwells;
The climbing goats on hills securely feed,
The mining coneys shroud in rocky cells:

Nor can the heavenly lights their course forget,
The moon her turns, or sun his times to set.
Thou mak'st the night to over-vail the day;
Then savage beasts creep from the silent wood,
Then lions' whelps lie roaring for their prey,
And at thy powerful hand demand their food;
Who when at morn they all recouch again,
Then toiling man till eve pursues his pain.
O Lord, when on thy various works we look,
How richly furnished is the earth we tread!
Where in the fair contents of Nature's book
We may the wonders of thy wisdom read:

Nor earth alone, but lo! the sea so wide,
Where, great and small, a world of creatures glide.

There go the ships that furrow out their way;
Yea, there of whales enormous sights we see,
Which yet have scope amongst the rest to play;
And all do wait for their support on Thee;

Who hast assigned each thing his proper food, And in due season dost dispense thy good. They gather, when thy gifts Thou dost divide; Their stores abound, if Thou thy hand enlarge; Confused they are when Thou thy beams dost hide; In dust resolved, if Thou their breath discharge: Again, when Thou of life renew'st the seeds, The withered fields revest their cheerful weeds.

Be ever gloried here thy sovereign name,

That Thou may'st smile on all which Thou hast made; Whose frown alone can shake this earthly frame,

And at whose touch the hills in smoke shall vade!
For me may (while I breathe) both harp and voice
In sweet indictment of thy hymns rejoice!

Let sinners fail, let all profaneness cease;
His praise (my soul), his praise shall be thy peace.

A HYMN TO MY GOD IN A NIGHT OF MY LATE SICKNESS.

Oh, Thou great Power! in whom I move,
For whom I live, to whom I die,

Behold me through thy beams of love,
While on this couch of tears I lie;

And cleanse my sordid soul within,
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.
No hallowed oils, no grains I need,
No rags of saints, no purging fire;
One rosy drop from David's seed
Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire :
O precious ransom! which once paid,
That consummatum est was said;

And said by Him that said no more,
But sealed it with his sacred breath:
Thou, then, that hast disponged my score,
And dying wast the death of Death,
Be to me now, on Thee I call,
My life, my strength, my joy, my all!