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highnefs in the whole land; it is oppofite to the front of the great houfe, whence from the gallery one may fee much of the game when they are a-hunting. Now for the gardening and coftly choice flowers, for ponds, for stately large walks, green and gravelly, for orchards and choice fruits of all forts, there are few the like in England: here you have your bon chriftian pear and bergamot in perfection, your mufcadel grapes in fuch plenty, that there are fome bottles of wine fent every year to the King; and one Mr. Daniel, a worthy gentleman hard by, who hath been long abroad, makes good store in his vintage. Truly this houfe of Long Melford, though it be not fo great, yet it is fo well compacted, and contrived with fuch dainty conveniences every way, that if you faw the landscape of it, you would be mightily taken with it, and it would ferve for a choice pattern to build and contrive a houfe by. If you come this fummer to your manor of Sheriff in Effex, you will not be far off hence; if your occafions will permit, it will be worth your coming hither, though it be only to fee him, who would think it a fhort journey to go from St. David's Head to Dover Cliffs to fee and ferve you, were there occafion: if you would know who the fame is, it is yours, &c.

LETTER XXII.

Touching your intention to travel beyond the feas the next spring, and the intimation you make how happy you would be in my company; I let you know that I am glad of the one, and much thank you for the other, and will think upon it, but I cannot refolve yet upon any thing. I am now here at the Earl Rivers, a noble and great knowing Lord, who hath feen much of the world abroad; my Lady Savage his daughter is alfo here with divers of her children, I hope this Hilary term to be merry in London, and among other to re-enjoy your converfation principally, for I efteem the fociety of no foul upon earth more than yours; till then I bid you farewel and as the feafon invites me, I wish you a merry Christmas, refting yours, &c.

LETTER XXIII.

From the fame to his Brother Mr. Hugh
Penry, upon his Marriage.

Sir,

20th May 1622.

YOU have had a good while the intereft of a friend in me, but you have me now in a straighter tie, for I am your brother by your late marriage, which hath turned friendship into an alliance; you have in your arms one of my dearest fifters, who I hope, nay I know will make a good wife. I heartily congratulate this marriage, and pray that a bleffing may defcend upon it from that place where all marriages are made,

From the fame to R. Altham, Efq; from which is from heaven, the fountain of all

Sir,

20th Dec. 1622.

Me

St. Ofith. LIFE itfelf is not fo dear to me as your friendship, nor virtue in her beft colours as precious as your love, which was lately fo lively pourtrayed unto me in yours of the 5th of this prefent. thinks your letter was like a piece of tiffue richly embroidered with rare flowers up and down, with curious reprefentations and landscapes: albeit I have as much fluff as you of this kind (I mean matter of love), yet I want fuch a loom to work it upon; I cannot draw it to fuch a curious web; therefore you must be content with homely ware from me, for you must not expect from us country-folks fuch urbanities and quaint invention, that you, who are daily converfant with the wits of the court, and of the inns of court, abound withal.

felicity to this prayer I think it no profanenefs to add the faying of the lyric poet Horace, in whom I know you delight much; and I fend it you as a kind of epithalamium, and wish it may be verified in you both.

Felices ter et amplius

Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis
Divulfus querimoniis
Suprema citius folvet amor die.

Thus Englished:

That couple's more than trebly bleft,
Which nuptial bonds do fo combine,
That no diftaste can them untwine,
Till the last day fend both to reft.

So, my dear brother, I much rejoice for this alliance, and wish you may increafe and multiply to your heart's content. Your affectionate brother.

LETTER XXIV.

From James Howell, Efq; to Dr. Thomas
Prichard, at Wercejler House.

Sir,

Paris, 3d Aug. 1621.

be

FRIENDSHIP is the great chain of human fociety, and intercourfe of let ters is one of the chiefelt links of that chain you know this as well as I, therefore I pray let our friendship, let our love, that nationality of British love, that virtuous tie of academic love, be ftill ftrengthened (as heretofore) and receive daily more and more vigour. I am now in Paris, and there is weekly opportunity to receive and fend; and if you pleafe to fend, you fhall be fure to receive, for I make it a kind of religion to be punctual in this kind of payment. I am heartily glad to hear that you are become a domeftic member to that moit noble family of the Worceers, and I hold it to be a very good foundation for future preferment; I wish you may as happy in them, as I know they will be happy in you. France is now barren of news, only there was a fhrewd brush lately betwixt the young king and his mother, who, having the Duke of Epernon and others for her champions, met him in open field about Pont de Ce, but The went away with the worlt; fuch was the rare dutifulnefs of the King, that he forgave her upon his knees, and pardoned all her accomplices; and now there is an univerfal peace in this country, which it is thought will not lait long, for there is a war intended against them of the reformed religion; for this King, though he be flow in fpeech, yet he is active in fpirit, and loves motion. I am here comrade to a gallant young gentleman, my old acquaintance, who is full of excellent parts, which he hath acquired by a choice breeding the Baron his father gave him, both in the univerfity and in the inns of court; fo that for the time I envy no man's happiness. So with my hearty commends, and much endeared love unto you, I reft yours.

I

and farther too if occafion required; nor are thefe affections I have to ferve you fo dull, but they can clamber over the Alps and Appenine to wait upon you, as they have adventured to do now in this

paper.

am forry I was not in London to kifs your hands before you fet to fea, and much more forry that I had not the happinefs to meet you in Holland or Brabant, in Dort and Antwerp, in the fame lodg for we went the very fame road, and lay ings you had lain in a fortnight before. of the fweetnefs of trave!, and that you I prefume you have by this time tafted have weaned your affections from England for a good while; you must now think upon home, as (one faid) good men think upon heaven, aiming ftill to go thither, but not till they finish their three years: in the mean time you must courfe; and yours I understand will be thoughts, or longing defires, to distract not fuffer any melting tendernefs of in to virtue, and to beautify within that or interrupt you in that fair road you are comely edifice which nature hath built without you. I know your reputation is precious to you, as it should be to every noble mind; you have expofed it now to the hazard, therefore you must be careful it receive no taint at your return, by not anfwering that expectation which your Prince and noble parents have of you. You are now under the chiefeft clime of wisdom, fair Italy, the darling of nature, the nurfe of policy, the theatre of virtue; but though Italy give milk to virtue with the other; therefore you must take heed one dug, fhe often fuffers vice to fuck at you mistake not the dug; for there is an è diavolo incarnato ; ill-favoured faying, that Inglefe Italionate Italianate, is a devil incarnate. I fear an Englishman pregnant proofs of your ingenuity, and no fuch thing of you, I have had fuch noble inclinations to virtue and honour: muit tell you that you will hardly get the I know you have a mind to both, but I good-will of the latter, unless the first fpeak a good word for you. When you go to Rome, you may haply fee the ruins of two temples, one dedicated to virtue, the other to honour; and there was no way to enter into the laft but through the firft. Noble Sir, I with your good very feriously, and if you pleafe to call to memory, and examine the circumftance of as far as Florence to find you out, things, and my carriage towards you

LETTER XXV.

From the fame to the Honourable Mr. John
Savage (now Earl of Rivers), at
Florence.

Sir,

Lond. 24th March 1622.

Y love is not fo fhort but it can reach

MY

fince I had the happiness to be known first to your honourable family, I know you will conclude that I love and honour you in no vulgar way.

My Lord, your grandfather was complaining lately that he had not heard from you a good while: by the next thipping to Leghorn, among other things he intends to fend you a whole brawn in collars. I pray be pleafed to remember my affectionate fervice to Mr. Thomas Savage, and my kind refpects to Mr. Bold. For English news, I know this packet comes freighted to you, therefore I forbear at this time to fend any. Farewel, noble heir of honour, and command always your true fervitor.

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My Lord Chancellor Bacon is lately dead of a long languishing weakness; he ched fo poor that he fcarce left money to

"in my age forced in effect to bear a "wallet; nor that I, who defire to live "to ftudy, may be driven to study to "live." Which words, in my opinion, argued a little abjection of fpirit, as his former letter to the Prince did of profaneness; wherein he hoped, that as the father was his creator, the fon will be his redeemer. I write not this to derogate from the noble worth of the Lord Viscount Verulam, who was a rare man; a man recondita fcientiæ, et ad falutem literarum natus, and I think the eloquenteft that was born in this ifle. They fay he shall be the last Lord Chancellor, as Sir Edward Coke was the laft Lord Chief Justice of England; for ever fince they have been termed Lord Chief Juftices of the King's Bench; fo hereafter they fhall be only Keepers of the Great Seal, which for title and office are depofeable; but they fay the Lord Chancellor's title is indelible.

I was lately at Gray's Inn with Sir Eubule, and he defired me to remember him to you, as I do alfo faiute Meum Prichardum ex imis præcordis, Vale talá prin. Yours affectionately.

LETTER XXVII.

Mr. T. V.

bury him, which, though he had a great From the fame 19 bis well-beloved Crofi
wit, did argue no great wisdom; it being
tue of the effential properties of a wile
man, to provide for the main chance. I
have read, that it had been the fortunes
of all poets commonly to die beggars;
but for an orator, a lawyer, and philofo-
pher, as he was, to die ic, it is rare. It
ieems the fame fate befel him that at-
tended Demosthenes, Seneca, and Cicero
(all great men), of whom the two fri
fell by corruption. The faired diamond
may have a flaw in it, but I believe he
died poor out of a contempt of the prif
of fortune, as alfo out of an excess of ge-
nerofity, which appeared, as in den
other paffages, fo once when the King
had fent him a fag, he fet up for tae We have prot
under-keeper, and having in the agit, homem
King's health to him saguting actores 10-
bowl, he gave it him for his foe,

Coafia,
London, 5th Feb. 1625.
YOU have a great work in hand, for

you write to me that you are upon a treaty of marriage; a great work indeed, and a word of fain confequence that it may make you or mar you; it may make the whole remainder of your

e uncouth, or comfortable to you; for of al dill aftions that are incident to mia there is no ay un tad mes to his infelidity or hasplaeft; therfore it cos cars you not to be a meaty teran, por to use the bit before You at se cast your ane kao faca a

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not long before his deam, and cond, boules to marry, clé viens TOL JORD

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Help me, dear Sovereign Lord and

"Mafter, and pity me is fir, man who «have been born to a bag, to so

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be good, yet for my part, I had rather the latter fhould be wanting than the firft: the one is the pilot, the other but the ballaft of the fhip, which fhould carry us to the harbour of a happy life. If you are bent to wed, I wish you another guess wife than Socrates had; who when she had fcolded him out of doors, as he was going through the portal, threw a cham

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tham Efq;

ber-pot of itale urine upon his head; From James Howell, Efq; to Richard Alwhercat the philofopher, having been filent all the while, fmilingly faid, "I "thought after fo much thunder we should " have rain." And as I with you may not

light upon fuch a Xantippe (as the wifelt men have had ill luck in this kind, as I could inftance in two of our most eminent lawyers, C. B.), fo I pray that God may deliver you from a wife of fuch at generation, that Strowd our cook here a Weftminfter faid his wife was of, who, when (out of a millike of the preacher) he had on Sunday in the afternoon gone out of the church to a tavern, and returning towards the evening pretty well heated with Canary, to look to his roaft, and his wife falling to read him a loud leffon in fo furious a manner, as if he would have bafted him instead of the mutton, and among other revilings, telling him often, "That the devil, the devil would fetch "him," at last he broke out of a long filence, and told her, "I prithee good wife, hold thyfelf content; for I know "the devil will do me no hurt, for I have married his kinfwoman." If you light upon fuch a wife (a wife that hath more bone than flesh), I wish you may have the fame measure of patience that Socrates and Strowd had, to fuffer the grey mare fometimes to be the better horfe. member a French proverb:

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La maison eft miferabile & méchante,
Où la poule plus haut que
le
сосд chante.
That houfe doth every day more wretched grow,
Where the hen louder than the cock doth crow.

Yet we have another English proverb almost counter to this, "That it is better to marry a threw than a fheep;" for though filence be the dumb orator of beauty, and the best ornament of a woman, yet a phlegmatic dull wife is fulfome and faftidious.

Excuse me, Coufin, that I jeft with you in fo ferious a bufinefs: I know you need no counsel of mine herein: you are difcreet enough of your felf; nor, I prefume,

Sir, 27th Feb. 1625. THE echo wants but a face, and the

looking-glafs a voice, to make them both living creatures, and to become the fame bodies they reprefent; the one by repercuffion of found, the other by reflection of fight. Your most ingenious letters to me from time to time, do far echo or cryftal can do; I mean, they more lively reprefent you, than either reprefent the better and nobler of part fet forth the notions of your mind, and you, to wit, the inward man; they clearly the motions of your foul, with the ftrength of your imagination: for as I know your exterior perfon by your lineaments, fo I know you as well inwardly by your lines, and by thofe lively expreffions you give of yourfelf; infomuch that I believe if the interior man within you were fo vifible as the outward (as once Plato wifhed, that virtue might be feen with the corporeal eyes), you would draw all the world after you; or if your well-born thoughts, and the words of your letters, were echoed in any place, where they might rebound and be made audible, they are compofed of fuch fweet and charming trains of ingenuity and eloquence, that all the nymphs of the woods and the valleys, the Dryades, yea the graces and mufes, would pitch their pavilions there; nay, Apollo him. felf would dwell longer in that place with rays, and make them reverberate more ftrongly than either upon Pindas, or Parnafius, or Rhodes itfelf, whence he never removes his eye, as long as he is above this hemifphere. I confefs, my letters to you, which I fend by way of correfpondence, come far fhort of fuch virtue; yet are they the true ideas of my mind, and that real and inbred affection I bear you. One fhould never teach his letter or his lacquey to lie, I obferve that rule; but befides my letters, I with there were a crystal-cafement in my breaft.

through

through which you might behold the motions of my heart.

-Utinamq; oculos in pectore poffes inceffere; then fhould you clearly fee, without any deception of fight, how truly I am, and how entirely yours.

fame air it had in English, both for cadence and number of feet. With it I fend my moft humble thanks, that your Grace would defcend to command me in any thing, that might conduce to your contentment and fervice; for there is nothing I defire with a greater ambition

And to answer you in the fame ftrain (and herein I have all the world my ri

of verse you fent me:

First, fhall the heavens bright lamp forget to fhine,
The ftars shall from the azur'd fky decline;
First, thall the Orient with the Weft fhake hand,
The centre of the. world fhall cease to ftand:

Firft, wolves fhall league with lambs, the dolphins fy,

The lawyer and phyfician fees deny,

The Thames with Tagus fhall exchange her bed,
My mistress' locks, with mine, shall first turn red;
First, heaven shall lie below, and hell above,
E er I inconftant to my Altham prove.

LETTER XXIX.

From the fame to the Lady Jane Savage,

fee

Marchioness of Winchester.

Excellent Lady, Lond. 15th Mar. 1626. I MAY fay of your grace, as it was faid once of a rare Italian Princefs, that you are the greatest tyrant in the world, becaufe you make all thofe that you your flaves, much more them that know you, I mean thofe that are acquainted with your inward difpofition, and with the faculties of your foul, as well as the phifnomy of your face; for virtue took as much pains to adorn the one, as nature did to perfect the other. I have had the happiness to know both, when your Grace took pleasure to learn Spanish: at which time, when my betters far had offered their fervice in this kind, I had the honour to be commanded by you often. He that hath as much expeperience of you as I have had, will confefs, that the handmaid of God Almighty was never fo prodigal of her gifts to any, or laboured more to frame an exact model of female perfection: nor was Dame Nature only bufied in this work, but all the graces did confult and co-operate with her; and they wafted fo much of their treafure to enrich this one piece, that it may be a good reafon why fo many lame and defective fragments of women-kind are daily thrust into the world.

I return you here inclofed the fonnet your Grace pleafed to fend me lately, rendered into Spanish, and fitted for the

val) than to be accounted, Madam, your Grace's most humble and ready fervitor.

LETTER XXX.

From the fame to Mr. R. Sc. at York. Lond. 19th July,

Sir,

the 1ft of the Dogdays, 1626.

ISENT you one of the 3d current, but it was not answered; I sent another of the 13th like a fecond arrow, to find out the firit, but I know not what's become of either: I fend this to find out the other

two; and if this fail, there fhall go no more out of my quiver. If you forget me, I have cause to complain, and more if you remember me: to forget, may proceed from the frailty of memory; not to answer me when you mind me, is pure neglect, and no less than a piacle. So I reft yours easily to be recovered.

Ira furor brevis, brevis eft mea littera, cogor,
Irà correptus, corripuiffe ftylum.

LETTER XXXI.
From the fame to Mr. Richard Leat.

York, 9th July 1627. SIGNOR mio, It is now a great while,

methinks, fince any act of friendship, or other interchangeable offices of love, have paffed between us, either by letters, or other accumftomed ways of correfpondence; and as I will not accufe, so I go not about to clear myself in this point: let this long filence be termed therefore a ceffation rather than neglect on both sides. A bow that lies a while unbent, and a field that remains fallow for a time, grow never the worse, but afterwards the one fends forth an arrow more ftrongly, the other yields a better crop, being recultivated: let this be also verified in us, let our friendship grow more fruitful after this paufe, let it be more active for the future: you fee I begin and fhoot the first fhaft. I fend

you

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