Dean of Canterbury; as also of the merits of many others, that had the happiness to attend Sir Henry in his foreign employments: but the reader may think that in this digreffion I have already carried him too far from Eton College, and therefore I fhall lead him back as gently and as orderly as I may to that place, for a further conference concerning Sir Henry Wotton.

Sir Henry Wotton had proposed to himself, before he entered into his collegiate life, to write the life of Martin Luther, and in it the hiftory of the reformation, as it was carried on in Germany: for the doing of which he had many advantages by his feveral embaffies into those parts, and his intereft in the several princes of the empire; by whose means he had access to the records of all the Hans towns, and the knowledge of many fecret paffages that fell not under common view; and in these he had made a happy progress, as is well known to his worthy friend Dr. Duppa, the late reverend Bishop of Salisbury. But in the midst of

this defign, his late Majefty King Charles the first, that knew the value of Sir Henry Wotton's pen, did by a perfuafive loving violence (to which may be added a promise of 500l. a year) force him to lay Luther afide, and betake himself to write the history of England; in which he proceeded to write fome fhort characters of a few kings, as a foundation upon which he meant to build; but, for the present, meant to be more large in the story of Henry the fixth, the founder of that college, in which he then enjoyed all the worldly happiness of his present being. But Sir Henry died in the midft of this undertaking, and the footsteps of his labours are not recoverable by a more than common diligence.

This is fome account both of his inclination, and the employment both of his time in the college, where he seemed to have his youth renewed by a continual conversation with that learned fociety, and a daily recourse of other friends of choiceft breeding and parts; by which

that

that great bleffing of a cheerful heart was still maintained; he being always free, even to the laft of his days, from that peevishness which usually attends age.

:

And yet his mirth was fometimes damped by the remembrance of divers old debts, partly contracted in his foreign employments, for which his juft arrears due from the King would have made fatisfaction but being ftill delayed with court-promises, and finding fome decays of health, he did, about two years before his death, out of a Chriftian defire that none should be a lofer by him, make his laft will; concerning which a doubt still remains, namely, whether it discovered more holy wit, or confcionable policy. But there is no doubt, but that his chief defign was a Christian endeavour that his debts might be fatisfied.

And that it may remain as fuch a testimony, and a legacy to thofe that loved him, I fhall here impart it to the reader, as it was found written with his own hand.

"IN

"IN the name of God almighty and "all-merciful, I Henry Wotton, Provost "of his Majesty's college by Eaton, be"ing mindful of mine own mortality, "which the fin of our firft parents did

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bring upon all flesh, do by this last will "and teftament thus difpofe of myself, "and the poor things I fhall leave in this "world. My foul I bequeath to the im"mortal God my Maker, Father of our "Lord Jefus Chrift, my bleffed Redeem"er and Mediator, through his all-fole "fufficient fatisfaction for the fins of the "whole world, and efficient for his elect; "in the number of whom I am one by "his mere grace, and thereof most unre"moveably affured by his holy Spirit, "the true eternal Comforter. My body "I bequeath to the earth, if I fhall end

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my tranfitory days at or near Eaton, to "be buried in the chapel of the faid col"lege, as the fellows fhall difpose there"of, with whom I have lived (my God "knows) in all loving affection; or if I "fhall die near Boston Malherb, in the

"county

Majesty's Exchequer at the time of my "death; and to affift my forenamed ex"ecutors in fome reasonable and confci"entious fatisfaction of my creditors, and "discharge of my legacies now specified;

or that fhall be hereafter added unto "this my teftament, by any codicil or "schedule, or left in the hands, or in any "memorial with the aforefaid Mr. John "Harrison. And firft, to my most dear "Sovereign and Master, of incomparable "goodness, (in whofe gracious opinion I "have ever had fome portion, as far as "the intereft of a plain honeft man,) I "leave four pictures at large of those "Dukes of Venice, in whofe time I was "there employed, with their names writ"ten on the backfide, which hang in my

great ordinary dining-room, done after "the life by Edoardo Fialetto: like"wife a table of the Venetian College, "where ambaffadors had their audi"ence, hanging over the mantle of the "chimney in the said room, done by the "fame hand, which containeth a draught

VOL. I.

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