uture abilities.'

On the 8th of June, says Wood, 1588, he as a member of Queen's
College, supplicated the venerable congregation of regents, that he
might be admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, which desire was
granted conditionally, that he should determine the Lent following,
but whether he was admitted, or did determine, or took any degree,
does not appear in any of the university registers; though Mr. Walton
says, that about the twentieth year of his age, he proceeded Master of
Arts, and at that time read in Latin three lectures de Ocello. During
the time he was at the university, and gaining much upon mankind by
the reputation of his abilities, his father, for whom he had the
highest veneration, died, and left him a hundred marks a year, to
be paid out of one of his manors of great value. Walton proceeds to
relate a very astonishing circumstance concerning the father of our
author, which as it is of the visionary sort, the reader may credit,
or not, as he pleases; it is however too curious to be here omitted,
especially as the learned prelate Walton already mentioned has told it
with great earnestness, as if he was persuaded of its reality.

In the year 1553, Nicholas Wotton, dean of Canterbury, uncle to our
author's father, being ambassador in France in the reign of queen
Mary, dreamed, that his nephew Thomas Wotton, was disposed to be a
party in a very hazardous project, which if not suddenly prevented,
would issue in the loss of his life, and the ruin of his family; the
dean, who was persuaded of the importance of his own dream, was very
uneasy; but lest he should be thought superstitious, he resolved to
conceal the circumstance, and not to acquaint his nephew, or any body
else with it; but dreaming the same a second time, he determined to
put something in execution in consequence of it; he accordingly wrote
to the Queen to send for his nephew Thomas Wotton out of Kent, and
that the Lords of the Council might examine him about some imaginary
conspiracy, so as to give colour for his being committed to Jail,
declaring that he would acquaint her Majesty with the true reason of
his request, when he should next be so happy to pay his duty to her.
The Queen complied with the dean's desire, who at that time it seems
had great influence with that bigotted Princess. About this time a
marriage was concluded between the Queen of England, and Philip, King
of Spain, which not a little disobliged some of the nobilit