15 HENRY CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, THE second of that title, has but little claim to a place in this list, unless any farther discoveries are made of his writings than— "Some Verses which he composed on his Father's presenting a Treatise of Natural Philosophy, in old French, to the Priory of Bolton;" and which, with the book itself, were preserved in Mr. Thoresby's museum at Leeds". [Henry, the second earl of Cumberland, succeeded his father in all his honours April 22, 1543; joined lord Scroope in fortifying Carlisle against the insurgents of the north, in 1569; and died in the same year at Brougham castle in Westmoreland 3. His eldest son George was the celebrated naval volunteer in the reign of Elizabeth.] HENRY, LORD PAGET, [SON of William first lord Paget, the statesman and embassador, whom he succeeded in title and estate in • William the first lord Paget is ranked as an author in Tanner's Bibliotheca, but merely, it would seem, from his state papers and epistolary compositions. He is the nobleman whom Howell records as having quashed the proposition of king Philip, at the time he offered to give security to surrender the regency of England when he should be called upon. Lord Paget's laconic argument was, "But who shall sue the king's bond?" Familiar Letters, book i. sect. 3. He was the generous patron of Tusser, the agricultural poet, who thus gratefully inscribed to him "A Hundreth good Pointes of Husbandrie," first printed in 1557: "To the right honorable my speciall good lorde and maister, the lorde Paget of Beudesert, "Time trieth the truth in every thing, As therefore truth in time doth crave, "Take you, my lorde and master, than, Since more in court I may not be: And let your praise wonne heretofore, Remaine abrode for evermore, &c. "T. Tusser, edit. 1570." An elegy on the death of William lord Paget was printed in Haddoni Poemata, 1567. the eighth year of queen Elizabeth; married Catherine, daughter of sir Henry Knevet, knight, and died in 15693. Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie, 1589, has registered Henry lord Paget on the list of courtly makers, noblemen, and gentlemen, of queen Elizabeth's owne servauntes, who have written. excellently well, as it would appeare if their doings could be found out and made publicke4." Peacham, probably from this slight intimation, has ranked Henry lord Paget with the earle of Oxford, lord Buckhurst, &c. above others, who honoured poesie with their pennes and practise in the golden age of Elizabeth, which produced such a world of refined wits and excellent spirits, whose like are hardly to be hoped for in any succeeding age 5. His lordship's name has not found a place in Ritson's Bibliographia.] • Dugdale's Baronage, tom. iii. p. 391. WALTER DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX, [DISTINGUISHED by suppressing a rebellion in the north, but more perhaps for being father to the celebrated Robert earl of Essex, has been pointed out as the author of "A godly and virtuous Song" extant in Sloan MS. 1898; and of "The Complaint of a Sinner, [made] and sung by the Earle of Essex upon his Deathbed in Ireland," and printed in the Paradise of daintie Devises, 15762. On comparing the pieces thus referred to, I find them to be the same production which has been transcribed for insertion, from a third copy in the Harleian MS. 293, where it follows a relation of the sickness and death of "Waulter, the noble earle of Essex and Ewe, earle marshall of Ireland," where he died of "a laske, called dysenteria, on Frydaie the laste of Auguste," A.D. [1576]3. • Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 188, where the reference ought to be, Sloan MS. 1896. 3 Three things, says Lloyd, undid this earl: 1. That he could not imagine he was to be ruined by his advancement: 2. That he never mistrusted an oath: 3. That he never considered as princes, so favourites, have many eyes and long hands. No sooner understood my lord of Leicester Essex's disposition, but the better fool Pace could tell his fortune, begging of my lord at his departure the making of his mourning; and adding, "You and I have done for this world." Obs. on Statesmen, &c. of England, p. 307. |