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The Copy of a Letter written by Sir HENRY WOOTTON, to the Author, upon the following Poem.

From the College, this 13th of April, 1638.

SIR,

IT

Twas a fpecial favour, when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it,and to enjoy it rightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther ftay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H. I would have been bold in our vulgar phrafe to mend my draught, (for you left me with an extreme thirft) and to have begged your converfation again, jointly with your faid learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together fome good authors of the antient time: among which, I obferved you to have been familiar.

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Since your going you have charg'd me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the fixth of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain dorique delicacy in your fongs and odes, whereunto I must plainly confefs to have feen yet nothing parallel in your language: ipfa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modeftly foever) the true artificer. For the work it felf I had view'd fome good while before, with fingular delight, having receiv'd it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very clofe of the late R's poems, printed at

4.

A Letter from Sir H. Wootton.

Oxford, whereunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of ftationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce.

Now Sir,concerning your little more privilege of difcourfe with you; I fuppofe you will not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you to tr you fhall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor; and you may furely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy, where he did refide by my choice fome time for the king, after mine own recefs from Venice.

our travels, wherein I may challenge a

I should think that your best line will be thorough the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by fea to Genoa, whence the paffage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge: I baften as you do to Florence, or Siena, the rather to tell you a fhort flory from the intereft you bave given me in your fafety.

At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were ftrangled, fave this only man that efcap'd by foresight of the tempeft: with him I had often much chat of thofe affairs; into which he took pleasure to book back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the center of his experience) I had won confidence enough to beg his advice, how. Emight carry myself fecurely there, without offence of others, or of mine own confcience. Signor Arrigo mio ( fays he) I penfieri ftretti, et il vifo fciolto, will go fafely over the whole world: of which Delphian oracle (for fo I have found i) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore (Sir)