Smith, Logan Pearsall. Preface to The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, Vol. 1, pp. iii-xvi. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

The following excerpt is taken from a two-volume work that was first published in 1907. The first volume offers an extensive biography of Wotton, and the second volume reprints many of his letters. Here, Smith surveys the scope of Wotton's correspondence, both personal and diplomatic, and declares him “the best letter-writer of his time.”

Among the contemporaries of Shakespeare an interesting but little-known figure is that of the poet and ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton. It is still remembered that he was the author of two or three beautiful lyrics which are to be found in every anthology; that he went as ambassador to Venice, and fell into temporary disfavour owing to a witty but indiscreet definition of his office; and that afterwards he became Provost of Eton, where he was...