Non habet ingenium:  Caesar sed jussit:  habebo
  Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putat.

The following may serve as a specimen of the celebrated sonnets of this elegant writer.

Boldness in love.

  Mark how the bashful morn in vain
  Courts the amorous marigold
  With sighing blasts, and weeping rain;
  Yet she refuses to unfold. 
  But when the planet of the day
  Approacheth with his powerful ray,
  Then she spreads, then she receives
  His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.

  So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy;
  If thy tears and sighs discover
  Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy
  The just reward of a bold lover: 
  But when with moving accents thou
  Shalt constant faith and service vow,
  Thy Celia shall receive those charms
  With open ears, and with unfolded arms.

Sir William Davenant has given an honourable testimony in favour of our author, with which I shall conclude his life, after observing that this elegant author died, much regretted by some of the best wits of his time, in the year 1639.

Sir William Davenant thus addresses him,

  Not that thy verses are so smooth and high
  As glory, love, and wine, from wit can raise;
  But now the Devil take such destiny! 
  What should commend them turns to their dispraise. 
  Thy wit’s chief virtue, is become its vice;
  For every beauty thou hast rais’d so high,
  That now coarse faces carry such a price,
  As must undo a lover that would buy.

[Footnote 1:  Wood’s Athen.  Oxon. p. 630. vol. i.]

[Footnote 2:  Wood’s ubi supra.]

* * * * *

Sir Henry Wotton.

This great man was born in the year 1568, at Bocton Hall in the county of Kent, descended of a very ancient family, who distinguished themselves in the wars between the Scotch and English before the union of crowns.  The father of Sir Henry Wotton, (according to the account of the learned bishop Walton,) was twice married, and after the death of his second wife, says the bishop, ’his inclination, though naturally averse to all contentions, yet necessitated he was to have several suits of law, which took up much of his time; he was by divers of his friends perswaded to remarriage, to whom he often answered, that if he did put on a resolution to marry, he seriously resolved to avoid three sorts of persons, namely,

  Those that had children,
  law suits, were of his kindred: 

And yet following his own law suit, he met in Westminster Hall with one Mrs. Morton, the widow of a gentleman of Kent, who was engaged in several suits in law, and observing her comportment, the time of her hearing one of her causes before the judges, he could not but at the same time compassionate her condition, and so affect her person, that though there were in her a concurrence of all those accidents, against which he had so seriously resolved, yet his affection grew so strong, that he then resolved to sollicit her for a wife, and did, and obtained her.’