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.'

By this lady he had our author, who received the rudiments of his
education from his mother, who was it seems a woman of taste, and
capable of inspiring him with a love of polite accomplishments. When
he became fit for an academical education, he was placed in New
College in Oxford, in the beginning of the year 1584, where living in
the condition of a Gentleman Commoner, he contracted an intimacy with
Sir Richard Baker, afterwards an eminent historian. Sir Henry did
not long continue there, but removed to Queen's College, where, says
Walton, he made a great progress in logic and philosophy, and wrote a
Tragedy for the use of that college, called Tarroredo. Walton tells
us, 'that this tragedy was so interwoven with sentences, and for the
exact personating those passions and humours he proposed to represent,
he so performed, that the gravest of the society declared, that he
had in a flight employment, given an early and solid testimony of his
f