part of the volume devoted to his memory; which is the following passage in a letter to Sir Edmund Bacon of the date of 1612 or 1613. 66 In your last you mentioned a certain courtier that seemed to have spoken somewhat harshly of me: I have a guess at the man ; and though for him to speak of such as I am, in any kind whatsoever, was a favour: yet I wonder how I am fallen out of his estimation, for it is not long since he offered me a fair match with his own tribe, and much addition to her fortune out of his private bounty. When we meet, all the world to nothing we shall laugh; and in truth, sir, this world is worthy of nothing else."

During Sir Henry Wotton's residence at Vienna, the following correspondence occurs, memorable for the celebrity of the parties concerned in it.

"Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Wotton.

My very good Cousin—

"Your letter, which I received from your Lordship upon your going to sea, was more than a compensation for any former omission; and I shall be very glad to entertain a correspondence with you in both kinds, which you writ of: for the latter whereof I am now ready for you, having sent you some ore of that mine. I thank you for your favours to Mr. Meawtus, and I pray continue the same. So wishing you out of that honourable exile, and placed in a better orb, I ever rest,

Your Lordship's affectionate Kinsman,

And assured Friend,

FR. VERULAM CANC."

York House, Oct. 20, 1620.

"Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon. "Right Honourable, and my very good Lord

"I have your Lordship's letters, dated the 20th of October, and I have withal by the care of my Cousin, Mr. Thomas Meawtis, and by your own special favour, three copies of that work, wherewith your Lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the children of nature; and to Nature herself, in her uttermost extent and latitude, who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or, as I am readier to style your Lordship, never so inward a secretary of her cabinet: but of your said work, which came but this week to my hands, I shall find occasion to speak more hereafter; having yet read only the first book thereof, and a few aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet, that men may superficially taste, and put up the rest in their pockets: but in truth, a solid feast, which requireth due mastication. Therefore when I have once myself perused the whole, I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain hours in my domestic college, as an ancient author, for I have learned thus much by it already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity, by searching it backwards, because indeed the first times were the youngest; especially in points of natural discovery and experience. For though I grant, that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and Solomon of all plants, not only more than any, but more than all since their time; yet that was by divine infusion, and therefore they did not need any such Organum as your Lordship hath now delivered to the world; nor we neither, if they had left us the memories of their wisdom.

*The "Novum Organum."

"But I am gone further than I meant in speaking of this excellent labour, while the delight yet I feel, and even the pride that I take in a certain congeniality, as I may term it, with your Lordship's studies, will scant let me cease: And indeed I owe your Lordship, even by promise, which you are pleased to remember, thereby doubly binding me, some trouble this way; I mean, by the commerce of philosophical experiments, which surely, of all other, is the most ingenious traffic;therefore, for a beginning, let me tell your Lordship a pretty thing which I saw coming down the Danube, though more remarkable for the application, than the theory. I lay a night at Lintz, the metropolis of the higher Austria, but then in very low estate, having been newly taken by the Duke of Bavaria; who 'blandiente fortuna, was gone on to the late effects: there I found Keplar, a man famous in the sciences, as your Lordship knows, to whom I purpose to convey from hence one of your books, that he may see we have some of our own that can honour our King, as well as he hath done with his "Harmanica." In this man's study, I was much taken with the draught of a landscip on a piece of paper, methoughts masterly done: whereof inquiring the author, he bewrayed with a smile, it was himself; adding, he had done it, Non tanquam Pictor, sed tanquam Mathematicus. This set me on fire at last he told me how. He hath a little black tent, of what stuff is not much importing, which he can suddenly set up where he will in a field, and it is convertible, like a windmill, to all quarters at pleasure, capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no great ease; exactly close and dark, save at one hole, about an inch and a half

in the diameter, to which he applies a long perspective trunk, with a convex glass fitted to the said hole, and the concave taken out at the other end, which extendeth to about the middle of this erected tent, through which the visible radiations of all the objects without, are intromitted, falling upon a paper, which is accommodated to receive them, and so he traceth them with his pen in their natural appearance, turning his little tent round by degrees, till he hath designed the whole aspect of the field. This I have described to your Lordship, because I think there might be good use made of it for Chorography; for otherwise, to make landscips by it were illiberal; though surely no painter can do them so precisely.Now, from these artificial and natural curiosities, let me a little direct your Lordship to the contemplation of fortune.

'Here, by a slight battle, full of miserable errors, if I had leisure to set them down, all is reduced, or near the point. In the Province, there is nothing but of fluctuation and submission, the ordinary consequences of victory; wherein the triumphs of the field do not so much vex my soul, as the triumphs of the pulpit; for what noise will now the Jesuit disseminate more in every corner, than Victrix Causa Deo placuit; which yet was but the Gospel of a Poet: No, my Lord, when I revolve what great things Zisca did in the first troubles of his country, that were grounded upon conscience, I am tempted to believe the all-distinguishing eye hath been more displeased with some human affections in this business, than with the business itself.

"F am now preparing my departure toward my other employment; for in my first instructions I had a power

to go hence, when this controversy should be decided, either by treaty, or by fortune; whereof now the worser means have perverted the better.

"Here I leave the French embassadors upon the stage, as I found them; being willing, quod solum superest, to deal between the Emperor and Bethlehem Gabor, with whom I have nothing to do, as he is now singled.

"Betwixt this and Italy I purpose to collect the memorablest observations that I have taken of this great affair, and to present a copy thereof unto your Lordship's indulgence,not to your severe judgment.

"The present I cannot end, though I have too much usurped upon your precious time, without the return of my humble thanks unto your Lordship, for the kind remembrance of my cousin, Mr. John Meawtis, in your letter to me, and of your recommendation of him before; being a gentleman, in truth, of sweet conditions and strong abilities: I shall now transport him over the Alps, where we will both serve your Lordship and love one another. And so beseeching God to bless your Lordship with long life and honour, I humbly rest,

Your Lordship's"

The negociation at Vienna, as it was much the most important, so it appears to have been the last state affair in which Sir Henry Wotton was engaged. He returned to his residence at Venice in the latter end of the year 1620, where from the length of his employment, he had become in a great measure naturalised. He seems however, from this time, to have occupied himself less in political business, and to have indulged