and riche retorne. The painefull husbandeman hath : replenished his barnes with stoore; eache fruite hath awnswered his blossome; each graine, his seede; all events, their hopes: myself onelie more unfortunate then all the rest, have sowne with teares, but can reape by no revolution. But since the learned in astrologie conceive, that the most unhappie constellation in heaven affordeth certen gratious and benigne aspectes; since the worlde is governed by planets, not by fixed starrs; since experience doeth plainlie teach, that the sickest man alive hath sometyme intermission of paine, and the furdest limitt of the longest pilgrimage (even death it selfe) some place of rest: I will attend that happie chaunge with Aristophanes, wherein the cheifest light maie once againe encorage me with beames of grace. I will expect with Esculapius, abatement of my fitt, when signes of full concoction (as phisitions terme it) shall appeare. I will goe forwarde not with ordinarie but with extraordinarie traveilers in this narrowe passage, hedged in on everie side with thornes, till either I maie finde a baite to comforte me, or a pitt to swallowe mee. "In the meane tyme, least the grounde of my devotion, by lieng to longe fallow, might to rashe conceits seeme either to be waxen wilde or overgrowne with weedes, I have presumed once againe to breake the barren soyle of my unfruitfull braine; that prosperous successe maie rather want att all tymes to my endevoure, then endevoure to my loyall determination. For though my pen should stay, yet my desiers coulde never rest, till knowledge hath bin taken of theire heavenlie object by your majestie, uppon whose sugred lippes the bees of Plato have established their goulden hive, and Suada, the goddess of persuasion (as Tullie speaketh of Pericles, but not with soe just cause) hath built her tabernacle," &c. His lordship's Abstract of Navy Frauds, in Reg. MS. 18 A. xxxiv. is addressed to king James, in a vein of common-place no less adulatory than the preceding, as the close of it may evince: "Your majestie is to your servants and this whole island, that bonus angelus, within whose head the mcwses have made their consortes; within whose brest, the morral vertues have established their throanes; and upon whose lipps, the bees of Platoes goulden hive have formed those sweete honycombes. I will both hope and praie, that this worke of reformacion 9 Dr. Birch informs us that lord Northampton procured a large commission from the king for inquiring into all abuses and misdemeanors committed in the navy, under pretence of reformation, and of saving great sums to his majesty, expended yearly in the maintenance of his ships. But this inquiry, which began in 1608, was prosecuted with such violence and malice, as not only occasioned a great trouble and expense to the persons accused, but likewise brought almost ruin on the navy, and a far greater yearly charge upon his majesty than had been ever known before. Life of Prince Henry, p. 151. • Davies of Hereford, in his Addresses to worthy Persons, has a laudatory strain "to the most noble, learned, temperate, and judicious lord, Henry earle of Northampton, lord privyseale, &c." and he observantly attributes the rays of fortune which shone upon him so powerfully, "To that cleare starre ascended from the north." Scourge of Folly, p. 186. which is most meritorius, may bee atchived by the king that is most generus; that Dagon may fall prostrate before the arke; Ghiozi, before Elizeus; Acan, for stealinge awaye regulam plane auram before Josua; ut leprosisep arentur tabernaculis: and that whatsoever your majestie at your first entrance found only deaurata, your most longe and happie raigne leave aurea." Some of his lordship's letters occur among the Harl. MSS. and his will in No. 6693, which is dated the 14th day of June 1614; and contains the following items. After professing to die a member of the catholike and apostolike church, saying with saint Jerome, In qua fide puer natus sui in eadem senex morior; he proceeds: "I recognize, with all loyallnes of my harte, the exceeding extraordinarie love, favour, and bountie, of my most deare and gracious soveraigne, whom I have found ever so constant to me his unworthy sarvant, as no devises of myne enimyes could ever draw or divert his goodness from me. I most humbly beseech his excellent majestie to accept, as a poore remembrance of me his faythfull sarvant, a ewer of golde of one hundred pounds value, with one hundred jacobine peeces of twenty-two shillinges a peece therin; on which ewer my desyer is, there should be this inscription, Detur dignissimo. To the most noble and hopfull prince Charles, I give my best George. To my most deere and entirely beloved nephew the earle of Suffolke, I give my jewell of the three stones; one of them being that ruby which his excellent majestie sent me out of Scotland, as his first token, which jewell I cannot better repose with any then with hym that is so faythfull and trustye to his majestie as my sayd nephew is; and I give hym also a crosse of diamondes, given me by my ladie my mother. Item: I give to my very good lord the earle of Somersett my second George." This good earl of Somerset, it will be remembered, was the leading contriver of Overbury's fate, and escaped alone from condemnation, by being the minion of king James. In Reliquiæ Wottonianæ is a letter from sir Henry Wotton to sir Edmund Bacon, dated London, June 16, 1614, which gives the following account of lord Northampton's decease. "The earle of Northampton having, after a lingering fever, spent more spirits than a younger body could well have borne, by the incision of a wennish tumor on his thigh, yesternight between eleven and twelve of the clock, departed out of this world; where as he had proved much variety and vicissitude of fortune in the course of his life, so peradventure he hath prevented another change thereof by the opportunity of his end: for there went a general voice through the court on Sunday last, upon the commitment of Dr. Sharp and sir C. Cornwallis, that he was somewhat implicated in that business." Sagaciously therefore has lord Orford remarked, that the earl died luckily.] MARGARET, COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND. [THIS Countess of Cumberland, says Mr. Cole 2, was Margaret Russell, youngest daughter of Francis earl of Bedford, and wife to George Clifford, earl of Cumberland. She died May 24, 1616, at Brougham castle, leaving issue one daughter, Anne, whose filial piety is recorded on a pillar in Westmorland, which bears the inscription below 3, Daniel the poet addressed a metrical epistle to this countess, and inscribed to her his Ovidian letter from Octavia to Antony; before which, he declared that • Coleana MSS. vol. xxxv. p. 81. "This pillar was erected in the year 1656, by Anne countess of Pembroke, &c. for a memorial of her last parting, in this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret countess dowager of Cumberland, on the 2d of April 1616: in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of four pounds to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham every second day of April for ever, upon the stone-table hard by. Laus Deo!" Mr. Brydges observes, that lady Margaret was happier in the filial affections of her daughter, than in the conjugal tenderness of her husband; who, taken up with military glory and the pomp of tilts and tournaments, paid little attention to domestic duties. Mcm. of the Peers, p. 452. Mr. Pennant, in his Journey from Chester, has printed part of her ladyship's diary, which too forcibly corroborates the observation of Mr. Brydges. |