despatches to the Chancery of militant Calvinism in the Empire. Wotton, before he became a diplomatist himself and wrote despatches which lie outside our present range, and of which, for the rest, but few seem to have been preserved, took occasion to put forth a manifesto of his opinions which is certainly not lacking in plainness. In his later days he advised a young aspirant in his profession always to tell the truth, more especially since nobody would ever believe it to be such. But the spirit of The State of Christendom, written shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the largest and most important of Wotton's extant prose writings, is that of a self-confident aggressiveness without arrièrepensées. It opens with a plain statement that in the weary days of the author's foreign exile there had occurred to him, among other possible ways of bringing about his return, the notion of 66 murdering some notable traitor to his prince and country"; but that on second thoughts he had not carried out the scheme, as likely to entail upon him both danger and disquietude. In the body of the essay he argues very audaciously, and at the same time very subtly, in defence of such disputable acts as the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of the Duke of Guise, but he is not less prepared to show cause why King Philip of Spain should be lawfully excommunicated and deposed, and dealt with accordingly. An argument conducted in this practical fashion may serve to show that revolutions, such as were attempted in the state of Western Christendom alike by the Calvinist propaganda and by the Catholic reaction, are not made with rose-water; but no refinements of style could render it pleasant reading, and to these indeed it makes no pretence. With this treatise should be compared Wotton's youthful letters to Lord Ford from Germany, which breathe the same defiant spirit. I have extracted from The State of Christendom part of an interesting passage on the relations between the King of Spain and "the Turk" of the period, in order to show the forcible directness of which Wotton was capable when he allowed his English Prose to remain unadorned by the quaint conceits and Italian phrases which abound in his "familiar " letters. His chief attempt in the field of natural science, for which he always retained a keen interest, was in Latin, and the work of his Oxford days; but his treatise on The Elements of Architecture is in the vernacular, and to the full as readable as any modern pamphlet on housedecoration. More ambitious in design, but, like nine-tenths of

his writings, only fragmentary in execution, is the Survey of Education; or, Moral Architecture, which consists of aphorisms and a preface, the latter interesting as seeking to place education on its true, i.e. psychological, basis. The historical pieces are similarly unfinished, unless we should except the not very profound quasi- Plutarchian parallel between Essex and Buckingham, and the servile panegyric "to" Charles I. This king loved epigrams, and Wotton the making of them-witness his famous definition of an ambassador, as sent to 'lie abroad,' on behalf of his country-a witticism, wickedly published by Scioppius several years after date. The panegyric contains a more academic saying of which its author wished mention to be made in his epitaph, thus "Englished" by Izaak Walton:

"Here lies the first author of this sentence:

'The itch of disputation will prove the scab of Churches.'
Inquire his name elsewhere."

We might well wish that he had, among his many designs, carried out that of a Life of Luther, with a history of the German Reformation; for nobody better knew how to correlate a great man and his times, and he had in him both enthusiasm and humour enough to understand the genius of the great Reformer. Wotton's own religious meditations have nothing specially characteristic in them, but they breathe the fervent piety which lends their deepest charm to his later letters, and which reveals itself even in the chance expressions of so personal a 66 report" as that which I have extracted from his letters to Sir Edmund Bacon,—to my mind next to the Poems the pleasantest part of the Reliquia Wottonianæ. It is necessary to turn to this varied collection from Izaak Walton's delightful but imperfectly balanced Life, which presents to us the Provost of Eton in his cloistered retirement -a solitude of study and prayer-rather than the enthusiastic "servant" of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the eager friend of Father Paul, the courtier, the politician, and the wit. And to those who are not content with a mere glance at Wotton's prose, fragmentary as it is, most passages of his Remains will I think suggest a combination of characteristics rare in the style even of a highly cultivated writer, unless he is at the same time a man of convictions rooted in principle and matured by experi

ence.

A. W. WARD.

HOW TO MEET THE TURK

THE Turk he (the Spanish king) knoweth to be a Prince greatly to be feared of all Christians, as well in regard of his great power, as in respect of his subtile policy. His power is terrible, because he armeth speedily, and that in such multitudes, as both the number and the expedition terrifieth all Christendom. For when he armeth, he most commonly bruiteth it abroad, that he meaneth to carry his Forces to one place, when indeed, he conveyeth them to another; yea, and sometimes he sendeth Ambassadors to will them to be assured and out of all doubt, that he will not in any wise molest or trouble them, whom his full intent, purpose, and resolution is to invade upon a sudden. Considering therefore his strength, his religion, his natural hatred against Christians, together with the continual emulation, quarrels, and contentions that are betwixt Christian princes, he holdeth it most convenient and necessary to have always a vigilant eye over such an adversary. For of Christian princes, he considereth who they be whom he most envieth, whose states he most longeth for, after whose dominions he most thirsteth, and unto which he hath best access, and easiest possibility to attain them. The House of Austria are his nearest kinsmen, and on one side, the next adjoining neighbours unto the Turkish territories. With them for kindred's sake he entertaineth perpetual amity, and is loth to offer them any occasion of discontentment because he knoweth that of late years they have not only possessed the Empire, but also been greatly favoured in Germany, with whose invincible power and puissance, they are both able and ready, when occasion shall be offered, to offend and defend the Turk. For it is their dominion unto which the Turk hath an especial eye, and an unsatiable desire, and by them and their means, Christian princes most annoy him; because by the country of Hungary the way lieth open unto these regions, which he lately subdued; and a

Christian prince leading an army through the country against the Turk, may undoubtedly have good success against his forces, if he shall observe these conditions following:-

First. If in conducting his army he shall avoid and decline the wide plains, and come not near unto the river Danubius; of the commodity whereof, the Turk by reason of his great courage, standeth always in need.

Secondly. If he shall not come nigh unto such places where the Turk may have convenient use of his horsemen and innumerable footmen; with the excessive multitudes of which, he will easily oppress and suppress a Christian army, if they should chance to encounter in those plains.

Thirdly. If the Christian prince shall arm this year, and proceeding slowly on his journey not meet with the Turk, but fortify and strengthen such places as he shall get and conquer; and the next year, when, as the Turk neither is wont, nor can arm with the like number and quantity, proceed manfully; for the Prince in thus doing, shall compel him to stand continually upon his guard, and always to entertain great and gross armies, which he should not be able to endure long; or else enforce him to use such forces as might be more easily conquered, and so consequently drive him to change the accustomed course and custom of his wars, which would be as much as half a victory gotten against him.

Fourthly. If the Christians shall endeavour to draw him into some strait, and there with some warlike stratagem enforce him to a battle, and with a troop of well-ordered footmen, encounter his Janizaries, which he usually reserveth for some extremity, and some unknown and unusual exploit, drive them to the worst, or put them out of their array and order; there is no doubt but with the strangeness thereof he might obtain a notable victory against him; whose horsemen are most easily overthrown, because they are for the most part unarmed.

Fifthly. If he shall mark and observe when there is a mutiny, sedition, or secret dissension, disturbance, or discontentment betwixt the Turk and his subjects, and by all cunning and policy entertain the same, maintain the procurers and heads thereof, and in the very heat of their tumult be ready to invade them. For indeed, the especial means to weaken the Turk, is to assault him when he is otherwise busied in wars with the Sophi, or with any other enemies, or when his successors are at contention for the crown, or his people divided amongst themselves, or he did

lately receive some notable overthrow; for he, tyrannising his subjects in such manner as he doth, the least overthrow that can be, must needs endanger his State greatly, because he feareth that his own people will be ready to give entertainment, aid, and succour unto any, by whom they may have certain hope to wind their necks out of the yoke of that intolerable servitude which they now suffer.

This is so true, that it is credibly affirmed by the best warriors of our age that if the Christians had proceeded with their invincible navy, when Don John de Austria gave the Turk the famous overthrow (for which all Christendom greatly rejoiced) they might haply have gotten Constantinople, and have recovered most part of the Turkish dominion.

(From The State of Christendom.)

TO SIR EDMUND BACON

O (MY most dear nephew, for so I still glory to call you, while Heaven possesseth her who bound us in that relation) how have I of late after many vexations of a fastidious infirmity, been at once rent in pieces by hearing that you were at London: what? said I, and must it be at a time when I cannot fly thither to have my wonted part of that conversation; wherein all that know him enjoy such infinite contentment? Thus much did suddenly break loose from the heart that doth truly honour you. And now (Sir) let me tell you both how it hath gone with me, and how I stand

at the present. There is a triple health. Health of body, of

mind, and of fortune; you shall have a short account of all three.

For the first it is now almost an whole cycle of the sun, since after certain fits of a quotidian fever, I was assailed by that splenetic passion, which a country good fellow that had been a piece of a grammarian meant, when he said he was sick of the flatus, and the other hard word, for hypocondriacus stuck in his teeth; it is the very Proteus of all maladies; shifting into sundry shapes, almost every night a new, and yet still the same; neither can I hope that it will end in a solar period; being such a saturnine humour; but though the core and root of it be remaining, yet the symptoms (I thank my God) are well allayed, and in general I have found it of more contumacy than malignity; only since the late cold weather, there is complicated with it a more