Sir Hugh de Port* of Etwall, Kt. had Sir Edward de Warren, Kt. This is the point at which the principal dispute arises. Flower and Glover say that Sir Edward de Warren, Knt. married "Matild. de Nerford, dña de Skegton and Boton, 20 Ed. II." daughter of Richard de Skegton, and sister and coheir (with Alice Hauteyn) of Sir Ralph de Skegton, Kt. Now here at least occurs an unlucky confusion of names; for Dugdale cites unquestionable records to prove that John the last Earl of Warren was divorced from Joan his wife upon pretence of a former contract made by him with Maud de Nereford, a person of a great family in Norfolk; and that he had two sons by the said Maud de Nereford, John and Thomas, who were surnamed Warren." This John, he adds, bore for his arms, checky or, and azure, a canton gules with a lion rampant ermine thereon, the proper coat of Nereford; but it must be recollected that this last merely stands on the dictum of Vincent. "This tends to shew, says Dr. Watson, "that there were two Maud de Nerefords,"-and in truth, some of the arguments, which he uses, go some way in establishing this opinion; for it is clear that the Earl of Surry made an entail of Coningsburgh, Sandal, and many large estates on the issue male of his sons by Maud de Nereford; and if the fact be, as Dr, W. asserts, that those estates reverted to the Crown, on the Earl's death, (which by the bye was only the next year) then the inference can scarcely be disputed, that these bastards must then haye been dead without sons, Qu. whether the Ports were settled so early at Etwall? and and therefore could not be ancestors of the Warrens of Poynton. On the other hand, Dr. W. gives extracts from records to prove that the 2d Sir Edward Warren held lands, 20 Edward III. (the very year before Earl Warren died), in Skegton and Boton, which were formerly the lands of John de Skegton; and moreover that he inherited these lands from his father, which certainly seem strong evidence that Maud de Nereford, who was heiress of Skegton, left not only issue, but legitimate issue; and the words "descendebat post mortem Domini Edwardi patris nostri" might have arisen from the father's surviving his wife, and having held the estates as life-tenant. Vincent seems to place strong reliance on the distinction used in the arms of the Warrens of Poynton, a canton, with the coat of Nereford. But Dr. W. argues that it was not the coat of Nereford, but of Moubray, which differs from the former only in having the lion silver, instead of ermine. Sir Edward Warren the younger, of Boton in Norfolk aforesaid, married Cicely daughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas de Eton, Kt. by Joan his wife the heiress of the Barony of Stockport in Cheshire, to which estate his son Sir John de Warren succeeded 44 Ed. III. and from him the descent of the late Sir George Warren, who died possessed of that inheritance, is beyond all question. [To be continued in another Number.] ART. III. "Refolves Divine, Morall, & Political, in Two Centuries. London, 1628, 4to. 1631, &c. By Owen Feltham.”—Bodl. Catalogue. OWEN FELTHAM. "Of this Feltham," says Oldys, "there has been little written. He was a poet of those times, but more noted as a moralist for his book of Resolves, upon which T. Randolph has written a good poem. His father, Thomas Feltham, was a Suffolk man; he died the 11th of March 1631, aged sixty-two, and was buried at Babram in Cambridgeshire; with a monument on which a Latin inscription was written, composed by this Owen, one of his three children. William Loughton, the schoolmaster, in Kensington, is the only person I have met with, who knows any thing more of him. I think he told me once, near thirty years since, that he, or some of his family, was related to Owen Feltham, and that he lived in some noble house in quality of Gent. of the Horse, or Secretary to some nobleman, with several other particulars now forgot. His book of Resolves was published in 4to. 1631, 1636, 1661, &c. having been looked upon by some readers as a treatise full of good counsels and fine conceits. But Mr. John Constable, in his Reflections upon accuracy of style, 8vo. 1734, has in many instances exposed his pedantical, affected, and unnatural phrase. Yet have the said Resolves had a modern impression in 8vo. 1709. "In 1677 the said Resolves were published in folio, From his MS. notes to Langbaine. to to which are joined some occasional pieces of poetry by the same Author, entitled "Lusoria;" but among them I think there is not the Answer to Ben Jonson's famous Ode, "Come, leave the loathed Stage," which is inserted in "Langbaine's Dramatic Poets." "If the Author was not dead before that edition, one may presume he did not live long after. I think there was an edition in folio 1696." The following are the two last stanzas of Feltham's Ode, as inserted by Langbaine: "Alcæus lute had none, Nor loose Anacreon Ere taught so bold assuming of the bays, To rail men into approbation, Is new to yours alone; And prospers not; for know Fame is as coy, as you Can be disdainful; and who dares to prove A rape on her, shall gain her scorn, not love. Leave then this humour vain, And this more humorous strain Where self-conceit and choler of the blood Eclipse what else is good: Then if you please those raptures high to touch. Whereof you boast so much; And but forbear your crown, Till the world puts it on : No doubt from all you may amazement draw, This Answer is also printed in Abraham Wright's Parnassus Biceps, or University Poems, 8vo. 1656. Thomas Randolph wrote a defence of Jonson, in an Ode Ode entitled "An Answer to Mr. Ben Jonson's Ode to persuade him to leave the stage," beginning "Ben, do not leave the stage 'Cause 'tis a loathsome age." This Ode is printed in Randolph's poems, and also by Langbaine. Thomas Carew also has verses "to Ben Jonson upon occasion of his Ode of defiance annext to his play of the New Inne," which are inserted at p. 108 of the first edition of his Poems, 1640. But Feltham was, notwithstanding this, a friend of Randolph, who addressed a poem "to M. Feltham on his Book of Resolves" in which are these lines: "The book I read, and read it with delight, and the following lines close it; "Such is thy sentence, such thy stile, being read Men see them both together happily wed, And so resolve to keep them wed, as we 'Mongst thy Resolves put my Resolves in too; That should my errors choose another's line Before Randolph's Poems, Feltham has verses "On his beloved Friend the Author, and his ingenious poems" subscribed "Owen Feltham, Gent." ART. |