WILLIAM POWLETT,

MARQUIS OF WINCHESTER,

GRANDSON of the lord treasurer2, is memorable for nothing but being the author of a book styled by Anthony Wood3,

Essays, or some Things called his Idleness;" printed at London in 4to, 1586, which was two years before his death. The whole title, as I find it in Ames's Typographical Antiquities 5, runs thus:

"The Lord Marques (his) Idlenes: conteining manifold Matters of acceptable Devise; as sage Sentences, prudent Precepts, morall Examples, sweete Similitudes, proper Comparisons, and other Remembrances of speciall

[Created first marquis of Winchester, by king Edward the sixth, in 1551. Bolton's Extinct Peerage, p. 309. Wood says he received some academical education in the university of Oxford. Athenæ, vol. ii. col. 525.]

3 Vol. ii. p. 525.

[This remark was contradicted by lord Orford's chronological table of noble authors, which placed the marquis of Winchester's death in 1598; Dugdale also says, he departed this life 24th November, an. 1598, and was buried at Basyng. Baronage, tom. ii. p. 377.]

5 Page 402.

Choise. No lesse pleasant to peruse, than profitable to practise. Compiled by the Right Honorable L.. William Marques of Winchester, that now is."

Ninety-four pages in 4to, printed by Niniah Newton.

Dugdale says, that by one mistress Lambert his concubine, he left four natural sons, all knights, called sir William, sir Hercules, sir John, and sir Hector, to whom he granted leases of lands for the term of one hundred years, of little less than 4000l. per ann. value; and that those lands retained the name of the Bastards lands.

[William Paulett the grandsire, who was created earl of Wiltshire before he became marquis of Winchester, held various offices in the reigns of Henry the eighth, Edward the sixth, queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth; and on being asked by what means he was able to keep his ground at court when such violent changes were made in church and state, he replied, "By being a willow, not an oak 7." Of this noble

Vol. ii. p. 377.

Ortus sum e salice, non ex quercu. Vide Fragmenta Regalia, p. 12. Sir John Beaumont has adverted to this anecdote, in a poem addressed to the marchioness of Winchester;

man an accurate account is given in vol. i. of the Biographical Mirror; and to him the following passage refers, in an epistle dedicatory to queen Elizabeth, before "The Lord Marques' Idlenes"—

"My deceased grandfather, (most gracious soveraign!) your majesties late officer and servant, (being a president unto his, to shun idlenes and to performe their duties with all loialtie and obedience) passed many yeeres in court, as well to manifest the humble desire of his dutifull mind towards his princesse, as also for the instruction of his posteritie, to hold nothing (next unto the true knowledge and feare of God) of like price, as the inestimable comfort of the good opinion and favour of their soveraigne."

The book itself is chiefly a compilation of sententious saws, from the writings of the ancient ethic philosophers; but concludes with "Pretie Saiengs in common Places;" from which the following are extracted.

"How much the noble harts do rejoice in giving to other, so much they are ashamed to take service un

"In vaine

Had aged PAULET wealth and honours heap'd
Upon his house, if strangers had them reapt;
In vaine to height, by safe still steps, he climes,
And serves five princes in most different times;
In vaine is he a willow not an oke

Which winds might eas❜ly bend, yet never broke:
All this had been in vaine, unlesse he might
Have left his heires cleare knowledge as their right."
Beaumont's Poems, 1629.

rewarded; for in giving they become lords, and in taking they become slaves.

"The rashnes of youth is restrained with the raines. of reason.

"Although we be wise, we leave not therefore to be men: dost not thou know that all that ever we learne in our life, sufficeth not to governe the flesh in one houre?

"I rest betweene the sailes of feare, and anker of hope.

"We are bound to receive the doctrines of many which do write; but we are not bound to followe the lives which they lead.

"Men that reade much and worke little, are as bels which do sound to call others, and they themselves never enter into the church."

In an address" to the friendly readers," his lordship offers something like an explanatory apology for the title to his book.

"This worke is not intituled The L. Marques Idlenes for your eies to gaze on, or your minds to be amazed at, but as (by your leave) it may be spoken by antiphrasin, so (by your patience) I discover no monster. In shewing an unnaturall generation, happily you will imagine that idlenes can bring foorth no good action, and therefore an unkinde issue, to be called by the name of Idlenes. But I answere, though your surmise or imagination may engender such a report in the life of the L. Marques; yet (you see) my conception and delivery sheweth the contrarie, in that I observed the former idle time in reading and

perusing the learned and wise, whose sentences and good saiengs I so greatly affected, that I did not onely reade them, but also committed many of them to writing which being done onely for my owne recreation and benefite, was earnestly requested by divers my loving friends to make the same more manifest to the world, by committing it to the presse." His lordship adds at the close, "If I cannot to your contentation make sufficient shewe of mine assured good will; pardon my present weaknes, being under the phisitians hands."]