196 ELEGY ON SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Whom England now no more returned must see ;
He's gone to heaven on his fourth embassy.
On earth he travelled often, not to say
He'd been abroad to pass loose time away;
For in whatever land he chanced to come,
He read the men and manners; bringing home
Their wisdom, learning, and their piety,
As if he went to conquer, not to see.
So well he understood the most and best
Of tongues that Babel sent into the West;
Spoke them so truly, that he had (you'd swear)
Not only lived but been born every where.
Justly each nation's speech to him was known;
Who for the world was made, not us alone.
Nor ought the language of that man be less,
Who in his breast had all things to express :
We say that learning 's endless, and blame Fate
For not allowing life a longer date.

He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find,
And found them not so large as was his mind ;
But, like the brave Pellean youth, did moan,
Because that art had no more worlds than one.
And when he saw that he through all had past,
He died lest he should idle grow at last.

A. COWLEY.

NOTES.

NOTES.

Page xiv. Sir Henry Wotton.

"My next and last example shall be that undervaluer of money, the late Provost of Eton College, Sir Henry Wotton, a man with whom I have often fished and conversed; a man, whose foreign employments in the service of this nation, and whose experience, learning, wit, and cheerfulness, made his company to be esteemed one of the delights of mankind." (Complete Angler. P. 1. Ch. I.)

In Sir Henry Wotton's verses, written by him as he sat fishing on the bank of a river, he probably alludes to Walton himself, who often accompanied him in his innocent amusement:

"There stood my friend with patient skill,
Attending of his trembling quill.”

That this amiable and excellent person set a high value on the conversation of his humble friend, appears from the following letter:

66 MY WORTHY FRIEND,

“Since I last saw you, I have been confined to my chamber by a quotidian fever, I thank God, of more contumacy than malignity. It had once left me, as

I thought, but it was only to fetch more company, returning with a surcrew of those splenetic vapors, that are called hypocondrical; of which most say the cure is good company, and I desire no better physician than yourself. I have in one of those fits endeavoured to make it more easy by composing a short hymn; and since I have apparelled my best thoughts so lightly as in verse, I hope I shall be pardoned a second vanity, if I communicated it with such a friend as yourself; to whom I wish a cheerful spirit, and a thankful heart to value it, as one of the greatest blessings of our good God; in whose dear love I leave you, remaining

"Your poor friend to serve you,

"H. WOTTON."

(Reliquia Wottonianæ, p. 361. 4th edit.)

Page xx. Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.

A contemporary writer has thus delineated the characters of Dr. Donne and Sir Henry Wotton. "To speak it in a word, the Trojan Horse was not fuller of heroic Grecians, than King James's reign was full of men excellent in all kinds of learning. And here I desire the reader's leave to remember two of my old acquaintance: the one was Mr. John Donne, who, leaving Oxford, lived at the Inns of Court, not dissolute, but very neat; a great visitor of ladies, a great writer of conceited verses, until such time as