SIR HENRY WOTTON.* LT the opening of this "biographical sketch"

of one of the most interesting of our old English worthies, Mr. Ward remarks :— " Although the name of Sir Henry Wotton is a fairly familiar one to the ears of Englishmen, there are not I think many to whom he is very much more than a name. Those who know some- thing of him beyond the fact that once he wrote a pretty poem' derive their knowledge mainly from Izaak Walton's life of his friend. Yet while this biographical narrative, steeped as it is in warm personal sentiment, possesses an interest and a charm of its own, it exhibits Sir Henry Wotton, to all intents and purposes, under a single aspect only, and that hardly of a kind which commands either a widespread or a long-lived popularity."

If we were inclined to be captious we should point out, with some emphasis, that this opening statement is not only contra- dictory in itself, but it leaves the author open to an unpleasant comparison between his work and Izaak Walton's, which, we fear, would prove fatal to his own biographical claims.

Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wotton was his second book, or rather booklet, following, by an interval of eleven years, his first biographical essay, the Life of Donne. It was published in 1651 as an introduction to the Reliquiz Wottonianw, just two years previous to the publication of his famous classic, The Compleat Angler. It has therefore survived nearly two and a half centuries, and is still treasured as a literary solace in the bosoms of all contemplative men,—surely if not "a widespread," at least "a long-lived, popularity." When Mr. Ward writes of this old "biographical narrative" that it "steeped in warm personal sentiment," he reveals the secret of its undying charm. "For God's sake, let those who love us edit us after death," exclaimed Tennyson ; and the old linen- draper of Fleet Street " loved " the knightly provost of Eton, and was beloved in turn by his distinguished courtier-friend and fellow-angler. How strange such a friendship sounds in • Sir Henry Winos: a Biographical Skstalt, By A. W. Ward. London : Cony able and Co.

these so-called "democratic days," when we all have to stand on our petty social dignity and insist on our inferiors" keeping their place " ! But we will not be unduly harsh on Mr. Ward, nor insist on any invidious comparison between his careful, but somewhat dull, " study " of Wotton and that deeply affectionate and profoundly moving fragment of old Izaak.

Referring to Wotton's long residence in early life in foreign countries, and his habit of "diligently and systemati- cally collecting information on the laws, politics, and social life of these countries," and of writing " intelligentiary " letters to his friends and patrons in England, Mr. Ward classes the future Venetian Ambassador as a kind of journalist before the Fleet Street Flood ! "Nowadays," be adds, "the English diplomatic service would be apt to

resent the admission of a journalist to its ranks." But surely, in our own day, we have had a Times leader-writer as Chancellor of the Exchequer and another as Chairman of Committees, while a Times special reporter (in the person

of Sir F. Napier Broome) became a Colonial Governor ; and was not our present High Commissioner at the Cape journalis-

tically trained by writing in the pages of the Pall Mall Gazette in the way he should go ? As a matter of fact, it is straining the point to couple Wotton's systematic political correspondence

with latter-day journalism. Sir Henry Wotton "made him- self," as the phrase goes, by his keen intelligent interest in the machinations and movements of foreign States, and especially by his activity in ferreting out the Jesuit plots against Eli zabeth and James I., which naturally followed on the Papal excom- munication of the former. The story of his masquerading as Octavio Baldi, and going to James at Stirling to warn him against the designs on foot in Italy to take away his life, is so graphically told by Izaak Walton that it needs only to be referred to. Naturally, when James succeeded to the throne of Elizabeth, Wotton suddenly became a "person- age," and one whom the King thought, above most men, qualified for foreign service. He was accordingly knighted and appointed Ambassador at Venice. It was on his way thither that he wrote in an album the witty Latin definition of his new office, of which he himself gave the famous punning translation. "An ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." Like many another passing jest, this lived on to torment its creator ; but we do not think Mr. Waad at all improves on Walton in the account of Casper Scoppiue, that "Romanist of restless spirit and malicious pen" who unearthed the stray wit- ticism of his enemy and printed it as a solemn illustration of the innate perfidy of Protestant Monarchs and their foreign agents. But we are grateful to Mr. Ward for reminding us of those other professional gibes of Sir Henry Wotton's. "Ambassadors," he told Lord Keeper Williams, "in our old Kentish language are but spies of the time." And Mr. Ward justly calls Wotton's jesting saying

" Bismarckian," when he exhorted a novice in the profession always to speak the truth, for then, said he, "You shall never be believed." How good this sense of humour is, and how rare in high official persons ! But Sir Henry Wotton was something more than an Ambassador; he was scholar, poet, man of the world, and courtier in one, as witness his immortal lines to the ill-fated Queen of Bohemia, "the most illustrious Princesse, the Ladie Elizabeth " :— " You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes, More by your number than your light, You common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise ?"

Sir Henry Wotton's long diplomatic career at Venice—he was three times Ambassador—his personal relations with the able and scholarly Chaplain, Bedell (afterwards one of the few great Irish Protestant Bishops), and their close friendship with Padre Paulo—that Paul the Friar who proved so redoubtable a foe to Paul the Pope—are dealt with by Mr. Ward at greater length than by Izaak Walton, but the "marrow of the story" is all in the old writer.

Sir Henry during most of his life was, as the expressive slang phrase has it, "hard up." Old Izaak, who was no half- and-half apologist, speaks of this impecuniosity lovingly, as though it were one of his hero's minor virtues. But the matter doubtless appeared in a different light to Isaac Casaubon, whom his young English guest (as Wotton then was) had left in the lurch with an unpaid bill at Geneva, baying ridden away hurriedly on a horse which was not his own. Of course, these debts were made good ; but the yonthful inci- dent is characteristic of Wotton's entire career. He always "outran the constable," and as his ambassadorial salary was often in arrears, it is not wonderful that he retired from the public service as poor as he went into it. While not alto- gether going as far as his fine old panegyrist, we some- how feel that this Micawberlike trait in Sir Henry's character makes him more human. But when old age came upon him it left him in a pitiful case. "After seventeen years," he himself wrote to the all- powerful Duke of Buckingham, "of Foreign and continual employment, either ordinary or extraordinary, I am left utterly destitute of all possibility to subsist at home ; much like those Seal- fishes which sometimes (as they say) over-sleeping themselves in Ebbing-water, feel nothing about them but a dry shoar when they awake. W-hich comparison I am fain to seek among those Creatures, not knowing among men, that have so long served so gracious a Master, anyone to whom I may resemble my unfortunate bareness." The passage in which Mr. Ward tells us bow the Provostsbip of Eton fell to the impoverished poet-Ambassador is well worth quoting as a picture of English social life at the time, as well as for the illustrious names of Sir Henry's rivals for this piece of poor preferment, worth, we are told, about £100 a year, with 'board, lodging, and allowances " :—

" Early in April, 1623, the Provost of Eton (who, like some other Scottish gentlemen of his day, had found preferment) was known to be sinking ; and the nows of his approaching dissolu- tion, in which Izaak Walton's rather unctuous phraseology seems almost to indicate a certain opportuneness, at once brought into the field many earnest and some important suitors for the suc- cession. Pre-eminent among them was the late Lord Chancellor, the Viscount St. Albans, the half-fierce style of whose letter of application to the Secretary of State is under the circumstances half-pathetic. But the place had been promised beforehand to Sir William Beecher ; and although even after the Provost's death there was still some nibbling' at the appointment, Buckingham, after his return from Spain in October, declared himself ' engaged ' to the applicant in question, unless indeed some means could be found of giving him satisfaction.' We may surmise that this was the beginning of the really serious stage of the contest in which from first to last quite a catalogue of competitors took part. Bacon was now left out of account, having, in the words of his biographer, nothing serious to give up.' The nodus lay in the means of 'satisfying' Sir William Beecher; and these were furnished by Wotton, who placed at Buckingham's disposal the reversion promised to him of the Mastership of the Rolls, and thus enabled him to accommo- date Sir William by means of a further exchange of promises and preferments."

Thus it was that Sir Henry Wotton on June 24th, 1624, "entered into the haven destined to shelter him during the

whole of the concluding period of his life,"—some fifteen years. But though the Provostship provided him with a "haven," we learn that the needy old diplomatist's later life was harassed by pecuniary difficulties, to which the Court turned a deaf ear, but which were often relieved by one faithful and unselfish friend. "The name of Nicholas Pey, one of the Clerks of the King's Kitchen, should find a place in every biographical account of Sir Henry Wotton." At Eton he cultivated the friendship of "the ever-memorable" John Hales, and was very popular with all the Fellows. Like many another intellectual man the best of whose life has been passed in action, he projected learned treatises and works of

erudition never destined to be completed, or in fact fairly commenced,—a history of England, for instance, and a Life of Luther. He solaced himself instead by verse-writing, and went a-fishing with Izaak Walton. Perhaps he chose the wiser part ; for to Walton's friendship we owe all that we know of him, and while many a learned tome is utterly

forgotten, the sea of Oblivion can never altogether engulf such lines as :—

" How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will."

Better than all—and just before his own death—young John Milton sent him Comas, on which, to the infinite delight of the youthful Puritan poet, he wrote of the lyrical passages : "Whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen nothing parallel in our language." Mr. Ward well describes this piece of criticism as "divination." It is, indeed, above mere oriticism,—it is the intuitive perception of genius by genius.

Sir Henry Wotton died at Eton in the month of December, which he so much disliked (he always said he "would rather live five May months than forty Decembers "), in his seventy- second year. By his will he gave instructions that on his tomb should be inscribed the plain-spoken words of his own pointed epigram :—" Here lies the first author of the sentence : the Itch of Disputation will prove the Scab of the Churches."