"The State of Christendom," was twice printed after his death, in 1657 and 1677; it seems to be a work of little estimation, and written for a temporary purpose. A translation of his latin panegyric on Charles the first, by an unknown pen, was also printed after his death; and two manuscripts of his hand are said to be in existence; one a journal of his several embassies to Venice, formerly in the library of Lord Conway; the other on the subject of duels, in the library of the College of Arms.

The collection published by Walton is of a miscellaneous character, and the various articles are huddled together without any attempt at arrangement. The most important part of it, is the various letters and state papers from which the preceding account has been drawn, and extracts given. The papers on the subject of the negociation at Vienna in 1620, are valuable as historical documents; these are dispersed in different parts of the volume. Of his historical essays, the most worthy of notice are those devoted to the memory of his powerful patrons the Earl of Essex and the Duke of Buckingham, which coming from such a source have supplied the writers on the period in which they lived with genuine materials. Sir Henry Wotton however, viewed the conduct of Villiers with a partial eye, and has probably given us only the better parts of his character; it must be remembered that he was his friend and patron, and much of what he advanced was dictated by gratitude or prejudice. We are told by Walton, that Sir Henry Wotton in his retirement, meditated a history of the reformation under Luther, for which he had collected materials, but that he was prevailed upon to lay the work aside by the king, and

U

substitute in its stead the history of his own country. For this purpose as we have shewn, a handsome pension was assigned to him, but very little fruit of his labour remains; he was too far advanced in life for such a task as this, being at the time he obtained his pension in the sixty-third year of his age, and infirm in health. On the subject of Venetian history there are three or four unimportant papers. Some slight materials also are preserved towards a more finished treatise on education, which seems to have occupied his leisure in the college. His panegyric on King Charles; two religious meditations; and his poems complete the volume.

Walton informs us that Sir Henry Wotton destroyed many papers "that had passed his pen, both in the days of his youth, and in the busy part of his life," during his last illness. He himself in one of his letters of the date of 1628, makes the following remark."I have ransacked mine own poor papers for some entertainment for the Queen." (of Bohemia) "Though it be now a misery to revisit the fancies of my youth, which my judgment tells me are all too green, and my glass tells me, that I myself am grey."

There is nothing remarkable in the prose style of Sir Henry Wotton. It exhibits the prevailing faults of the age in which he lived; being formal, pedantic, abounding in expletives, deficient in grace, and void of harmony. It is however, superior to that of Sir Philip Sidney, fully equal to Lord Bacon's, and perhaps little inferior to Clarendon's. Some of the selections we have already made from his letters may be considered favourable specimens, as they appear to have been written with much care and deliberation. The following exordium to his "Life and death of the Duke of Buckingham," is in his very best manner.

"I determine to write the life and the end, the nature and the fortunes, of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; esteeming him worthy to be registered among the great examples of time and fortune. Which yet I have not undertaken out of any wanton pleasure in mine own pen; nor truly, without much pondering with myself before hand, what censures I might incur. For I could not be ignorant by long observation both abroad and at home, that every where all greatness of power and favour is circumvested with much prejudice. And that it is not easy for writers to research with due distinction as they ought, in the actions of eminent personages, both how much may have been blemished by the envy of others, and what was corrupted in their own felicity: unless after the period of their splendour which must needs dazzle their beholders, and perhaps oftentimes themselves, we could, as in some scenes of the fabulous age, excite them again, and confer awhile with their naked ghosts. However, for my part, I have no servile or ignoble end in my present labour, which may on either side restrain or embase my poor judgment. I will therefore steer as evenly as I can, and deduce him from his cradle, through the deep and lubric waves of state and court, 'till he was swallowed in the gulph of fatality."

We come now to the leading object of the present work,-Sir Henry Wotton as a poet-and this will not detain us long. What may have been the character of the "fancies of his youth," as they have not been preserved, so we have no means of judging; but we may venture to infer from the circumstances of his history, and the objects to which he applied himself, that he was not of the poetic temperament, even at the poetic

age, He was observing, but his observations were for the most part superficial. He studied, as Cowley remarks. "men and manners," but with the eye of a politician rather than that of a poet or a philosopher; looking more. to actions and events than to their causes. On this account it is to be presumed that he would not have shone either as a historian, or as a votary of the muse, had he in good earnest applied his mind to one or the other of these pursuits. His judgment, without being profound, would have curbed his imagination, and his reasoning powers, though not at all times accurate, would nevertheless, have been sufficient to check the current of his enthusiasm.

The poems preserved by Walton in the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, are few in number, and the longest does not contain eighty lines; they are all, with the exception of two, written at an advanced period of his life,› on slight or unimportant occasions, and apparently with little effort. It is plain, that if Sir Henry Wotton possessed poetic strength, he did not exert it in such of his poems as are extant, but we strongly suspect that the worthy knight with all his apparent activity, was in truth, deficient in energy, and fond of ease. complimentary stanzas addressed to the Queen of Bohemia are worth all the remainder, and constitute in fact, slight as they are, the only inspired poem in the collection. The following are the best.

The

Tears at the grave of Sir Albertus Morton, wept by Sir Henry Wotton.

Silence, in truth, would speak my sorrows best,

For deepest wounds can least their feelings tell;

Yet let me borrow from mine own unrest,

But time to bid him whom I loved farewell!

Oh my unhappy lines! you that before

Have served my youth to vent some wanton cries, And now congealed with grief, can scarce implore Strength to accènt,-here my Albertus lies!

This is the sable stone, this is the cave,

And womb of earth that doth his

corpse

embrace;

While others sing his praise, let me engrave
These bleeding numbers to adorn the place.

Here will I paint the characters of woe!

Here will I pay my tribute to the dead!
And here my faithful tears in showers shall flow,
To humanise the flints whereon 1 tread.

Where though I mourn my matchless loss alone,
And none between my weakness judge and me;
Yet even these gentle walls allow my moan,
Whose doleful echoes to my plaints agree.

But is he gone? and live I rhyming here

As if some muse would listen to my lay, When all distuned sit waiting for their dear, And bathe the banks where he was wont to play?

Dwell thou in endless light, discharged soul!

Freed now from nature and from fortune's trust:
While on this fluent globe my glass shall roll
And run the rest of my remaining dust.

H.W.

This elegy was written in 1626. Sir Albertus Mor. ton went as Secretary to his uncle, Sir Henry Wotton, on his first embassy to Venice. He was afterwards secretary to the Queen of Bohemia; one of the clerks of the council, and at the time of his death, in November,