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tears of gratitude; the highest testimony, as Granger remarks, that could be paid to his merit. The unfeigned attachment of James and Charles to this venerable character is pleasingly evinced by their private letters; and reflects considerable credit on their own discernment of his illustrious talents and virtues as a statesman. His private life ensured him the permanent esteem of the wise and good. The great lord Bacon was his early and life-long friend, and succeeded him, as he had desired, in the office of lord chancellor. That he did not succeed to his unimpeached integrity, who will not sigh that he is compelled to record!

Fuller says, that all Christendom afforded not a person who carried more gravity in his countenance and behaviour than sir Thomas Egerton, insomuch that many have gone to the Chancery on purpose to see him 3; yet was his outward case nothing in comparison of his inward abilities, quick wit, solid judgment, and ready utterance. The Oxford historiographer has also affirmed, that he was a most grave and prudent man 5, a good lawyer, just and honest, of so quick an apprehension and profound judgment,

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3 Mr. Brydges has prefixed a portrait of sir Thomas, from an original at Wotton Court, to his Memoirs of the Peers of England, and has inscribed the work "to his memory." He likewise has reprinted a valuable poem by Daniel, addressed to the lord keeper.

Worthies of Cheshire, p. 176.

⚫ Aubrey observed, that lord Egerton, the chancellor, was a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked. Oxford Cabinet, p. 21. The observation, however, was literally borrowed from Ben Jonson's Discoveries.

that none of the bench in his time went beyond him. Wood adds, "his memory was much celebrated by epigrams while he was living," and he instances those in Latin of Stradling and Dunbar. Others might be adduced from Owen, Fitzgeffrey, and from the English epigrams of Thomas Bastard, Ben Jonson, and Davies of Hereford. The latter titles him "the most. honorable by vertue, estate, and place, his ever approved good lord and master." The former being the shortest tribute, is here annexed.

AD THOMAM EGERTON, EQUITEM, CUSTODEM MAGNI

SIGILLI.

"EGERTON! all the artes whom thou dost cherish, Sing to thy praises most melodiously,

And register thee to eternitie;

Forbidding thee, as thou dost them, to perish:

And artes praise thee, and she' which is above,
Whom thou above all artes dost so protect,
And, for her sake, all sciences respect;
Arts soveraigne mistresse whom thy soul doth love!
Thus
you as stars in earth and heaven shine,
Thou, her's on earth; and she, in heaven thine."
Lib. vi. epig. 6.]

7

Athen. Oxon. vol. i. col. 418.

Qu. Astræa? under which title sir John Davies apotheosized queen Elizabeth, in six-and-twenty acrostical hymns. See also the article of Mary, countess of Pembroke, p. 195.

THOMAS WEST,

LORD DE-LA-WARRE,

[WAS knighted in the lifetime of his father, whom

he succeeded in 16022. On the death of Elizabeth he was one of the twenty-five lords, privy counsellors, who sent a letter dated Whitehall, March 28, 1603, to the lord Eure and the rest of the commissioners for the treaty of Breame; notifying to them the accession of king James, and ordering them to make the best conditions they could, in such points as they had in charge, with the imperial commissioners. By James the first he was put into commission with archbishop Whitgift and others, to inquire and call before them all such persons as should maintain any doctrine repugnant to any of the articles of religion, as agreed on by the whole clergy in convocation, anno 15623. In 1609 he was constituted captain-general of all the colonies then planted, or to be planted, in Virginia; and went thither the same year with three ships of one hundred and fifty men, mostly artificers. After his arrival he marched into divers parts of the country to awe the wild Indians into peaceable subjection. He built two towns, to which he gave the names of Henry and Charles, in honour of the two sons of king James, and the colony of Virginia became so fast rooted by his

• Collins's Peerage, vol. vi. p. 189.

Howes' edit. of Stowe's Annals, p. 496.

care, that it was enabled to stand two terrible storms, two massacres made by the Indians, and to subdue that people so as to put it utterly out of their power for many years to give the colonists the least disturbance 4. Lord De-la-warre's great industry and unceasing care in providing for the settlement he had formed, caused him an extreme sickness, which forced him to depart a second time for his native country, and, according to Collins, he died on his voyage home. Mr. Brydges, however, has remarked 5, that Camden somewhat dif fers in his report, which runs thus: "Anno 1618, May 7. My lord Laware set sail for Virginia: arriving at St. Michael's, is splendidly entertained by the governor of the island; but sailing from thence dies, together with thirty more, not without suspicion of poison." But according to the inquisition taken after his decease at Andover, he died near his seat at Wherwell, Hants, on June 7, 1618; leaving a son and six daughters, by Cicely daughter of sir Thomas Shirley 7.

His lordship seems only to be considered as an author from a tract in the British Museum, published on his first return from his settlement. It bears the title of "A short Relation made by the Lord De-la-Warre

* Account of the European Settlements in America, 1758, P. 223. By these exertions, says Mr. Brydges, in which he perished, lord Delawarre has gained a name for his posterity, which will not easily be forgotten. Preface to Memoirs of Peers, p. xix.

• Memoirs of Peers of England, vol. i. p. 93. "Hist. of Eliz.

'Collins, ut sup.

to the Lords and others of the Counsell of Virginia, touching his unexpected Returne home, and afterwards delivered to the Generall Assembly of the said Company, at a Court holden the 25th Day of June 1611." Lond. 1611, 4to.

66

Being now by accident," says his lordship, "returned from my charge at Virginea, contrary either to my owne desire or other mens expectations, who spare not to censure me in point of duty, and to discourse and question the reason, though they apprehend not the true cause of my returne: I am forced (out of a willingnesse to satisfie every man) to deliver unto your lordships and the rest of this assembly, briefely but truly, in what state I have lived ever since my arrivall to the colonie; what hath beene the just occasion of my sudden departure thence; and in what termes I have left the same: the rather, because I perceive that since my comming into England such a coldnesse and irresolution is bred in many of the adventurers, that some of them seeke to withdraw those paiments which they have subscribed towards the charge of the plantation; making this my returne, the colour of their needlesse backwardes and unjust protraction." His lordship then proceeds to state, that a succession of maladies had caused his return, having been assailed by ague, flux, cramp, gout, and scurvy. "These several calamities," he adds, " I am the more desirous to particularise unto your lordships (although they were too notorious to the whole colonie), lest any man should misdeeme that under the general name and common excuse of sickness, I went about to cloke

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