THOMAS WENTWORTH, afterwards Earl of Strafford, was born in Chancery-lane, London, on the 13th of April, 1593. He was the eldest son of Sir William Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, in the county of York, where his family are said to have been settled since the time of the Conquest. His family was one of the most opulent as well as ancient of the class known in England under the name of gentry, and had frequently intermarried with the higher aristocracy. The estate which Wentworth inherited from his father was worth 60007, a year, a very large sum at that time, probably equal to more than three times the amount in the present day. ('Strafford's Letters and Dispatches,' vol. ii., pp. 105, 106, folio edition, London, 1739, and Dr. Knowler's Dedication, prefixed to them.) He received part of his education at St. John's College, Cambridge. În 1611 he married the Lady Margaret Clifford, the eldest daughter of Francis, earl of Cumberland. The

accuracy of this date as that of his first marriage, given by his friend Sir George Radcliffe, appears to be established by a letter dated 11th January, 1611, from Sir Peter Frechevile to his father Sir William Wentworth ; although the compilers of his Life in the 'Biographia Britannica' have chosen, in direct opposition to the statement of Radcliffe, the old and intimate friend of Wentworth, to place his marriage after his return from the Continent, towards the end of 1612 (by the old mode of reckoning, according to which the legal year began on the 25th of March, but by the new about the beginning of 1613), instead of in 1611, before his going abroad.

The same letter also shows that he was from his early years of studious and regular habits. He appears to have taken almost as much pains as Cicero recommends for the education of an orator. Sir George Radcliffe informs us that the excellence possessed by him in speaking and writing he attained first by reading well-penned authors in French, English, and Latin, and observing their expressions; secondly, by hearing of eloquent men, which he did diligently in their sermons and public speeches; thirdly, by a very great care and industry, which he used when he was young in penning his epistles and missives of what subject soever; but above all, he had a natural quickness of wit and fancy, with great clearness of judgment, and much practice, without which his other helps of reading and hearing would not have brought him to that great perfection which he had obtained. "I learned one rule of him," adds Sir George, "which I think worthy to be remembered; when he met with a well-penned oration or tract upon any subject or question, he framed a speech upon the same argument, inventing and disposing what seemed fit to be said upon that subject before he read the book; then reading the book, compare his own with the author, and note his own defects, and the author's art and fullness; whereby he observed all that was in the author more strictly, and might better judge of his own wants to supply them." (Strafford's Letters and Dispatches,' vol. ii. p. 435.)

In some of Strafford's earlier letters, particularly those

to Sir George Calvert, principal secretary of state in the time of James I., there is, though no marks of profound scholarship, a somewhat pedantic display of trite Latin quotations. From these however, though we may judge so far of the extent of Strafford's scholarship, it would be incorrect to estimate his abilities, for they are mostly confined to his early letters, and, among them, to his letters to courtiers.

Upon his early habits still further light is thrown by some advice which he gives to his nephew, Sir William Savile, in a letter dated "Dublin Castle, 29th September, 1633." Advising him to "distrust himself and fortify his youth by the counsel of his more aged friends before he undertakes any thing of consequence;" he adds, "It was the course that I governed myself by after my father's death, with great advantage to myself and affairs, and yet my breeding abroad had shown me more of the world than yours hath done; and I had natural reason like other men, only I confess I did in all things distrust myself, wherein you shall do, as I said, extremely well if you do so too." (Letters and Dispatches,' vol. i. p. 169.)

The letter from which the above quotation is made contains so much good advice, so well and so weightily expressed, that it may bear a comparison with Burleigh's celebrated Advice to his Son;' the resemblance in some passages is striking. With respect to the greater part of this advice, particularly what regards economy and regularity in the management of his private affairs, temperance in drinking, and abstinence from gaming, it was the rule by which Wentworth shaped his own conduct, and to which, according to Radcliffe, he strictly adhered. The part of the advice to which he himself least adhered was that recommending calmness and courtesy of demeanour; for even his most intimate friend Sir George Radcliffe admits that "he was naturally exceeding cholerick," and the actions of his life show that in that particular he was never able thoroughly to subdue nature.

In the same year in which he was married Wentworth

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