821 



WOTTON, WILLIAM, D.D. 



WOUVVERMAN, PHILIP. 



822 



Julius Caesar; but Wotton, who was in a state of great pecuniary 

 necessity, required, we are told, a present support, and very gladly 

 resigned his reversion upon getting a grant of the provostship. He 

 was not instituted however, it appears, till 26th July 1625, some 

 months after the death of James. Conceiving himself bound by the 

 statutes to enter into holy orders, he had himself ordained deacon 

 in 1627; and he retained his office till his death in December 1639. 

 Walton has given a very interesting account of the manner in which 

 he employed the leisure of his latter years ; he did not neglect recrea- 

 tion and society, but most of his time was dedicated to study and 

 devotion, and whatever ambition of politics, power, and honours had 

 formerly actuated him, seems to have been, from the time he ob- 

 tained this shelter in his broken fortunes and wearied old age, 

 completely extinguished. 



Sir Henry Wotton's principal writings are contained in the collection 

 entitled 'Reliquiae Wottonianae,' first published by Izaak Walton, 

 with a Life of the author, in 8vo, in 1651, and afterwards, with 

 additional matter in each impression, in 1654, 1672, and 1685. The 

 principal pieces of which it consists are a treatise, long held in great 

 esteem, entitled ' The Elements of Architecture,' originally published 

 in 4to, at London, in 1624 ; ' A Philosophical Survey of Education, or 

 Moral Architecture' (dedicated to Charles I.) ; Characters of some of 

 the English kings (intended as materials for a History of England) ; a 

 Latin Panegyrical Address to King Charles on his return from Scot- 

 land in 1633 (first published in folio, at London, in 1633), with an 

 English translation by a friend of the author ; ' A Parallel between 

 the Earl of Essex and Villiers, Duke of Buckingham' (first published 

 in 4to, at London, in 1641); 'A View of the Life and Death of the 

 Duke of Buckingham' (first published in 4to, at London, in 1642); 

 some religious Meditations ; and a number of Letters and Poems. 

 More of his letters are in the ' Cabala ; ' and there are some poems 

 attributed to him which are not in the ' Reliquiae.' His ' State of 

 Christendom' has been already mentioned. The literary reputation 

 of Sir Henry Wotton rests now principally on his poetry, which, 

 although consisting^only of some short pieces, is distinguished both 

 by its general correctness, and its happiest passages by a dignity of 

 thought and expression scarcely attained by any of his contemporaries. 

 In his lifetime he was famous for his pointed sayings ; but here the 

 manner, as usual, probably went as far as the matter in creating the 

 impression that was produced. There seems to be nothing either very 

 sharp or very deep in his favourite sentence, his authorship of which he 

 directed should be recorded on his tomb, ' Disputandi pruritus ecclesia- 

 rum scabies' (' The itch of disputation is the scab of the churches '). 



WOTTON, WILLIAM, D.D., chiefly remarkable as an instance of 

 strength of memory, and early progress in the acquirements mainly 

 dependent upon that faculty, was born 13th of August, 1666, at 

 Wrentham in Suffolk, of which parish his father, the Rev. Henry 

 Wotton, was rector. When a mere child he showed an extraordinary 

 faculty for learning languages ; and by the time he was five years of 

 age he had, under the tuition of his father, who was a good scholar, 

 attained considerable facility in reading and translating Latin, Greek, 

 and Hebrew. Sir Philip Skippon, who knew him, in a letter written 

 about this time to Ray, the naturalist, says, " He is not yet able to 

 parse any language, but what he performs in turning the three learned 

 tongues into English is done by strength of memory : so that he is 

 ready to mistake when some words of different signification have near 

 the same sound. His father hath taught him by no rules, but only uses 

 the child's memory in remembering words : some other children of his 

 age seem to have as good a fancy and as quick apprehension." In 

 April 1676, some months before he was ten years old, he was admitted 

 of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, where he made rapid progress, not only 

 in the languages, adding the Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic to the Latin, 

 Greek, and Hebrew, but also, it is asserted, in logic, philosophy, 

 mathematics, chronology, and geography. In 1679 he took his degree 

 of B.A. ; and in the winter following he became the subject of general 

 attention and wonder by being brought up to London on the invitation 

 of Dr. Gilbert Burnet, then preacher at the Rolls, and introduced by 

 him to all his learned acquaintances. Among other persons, he was in 

 this way made known to Dr. William Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph, vho 

 was so highly pleased with a feat of memory which Wotton per- 

 formed, repeating verbatim a sermon preached by the bishop, that he 

 took him down with him to St. Asaph, and kept him there for the 

 summer, employing him in drawing up a catalogue of his library. 

 He then returned to Cambridge, where, by the interest of Dr. Turner, 

 bishop of Ely, he obtained a fellowship in St. John's, and where he 

 took his degree of M.A. in 1683. In 1691 he commenced B.D. ; the 

 same year Bishop Lloyd gave him the sinecure living of Llaudrillo in 

 Denbighshire ; and he was soon after made chaplain to the Earl of 

 Nottingham, then secretary of state, who, in 1693, presented him to the 

 rectory of Middleton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. 



In 1694 Wotton published his first and best remembered work, his 

 ' Reflections on Antient and Modern Learning,' which is a defence of 

 the superiority of the ancients, in answer to Sir William Temple, who 

 had shortly before, in one of his Essays, taken up the opposite side 

 of the question, in arguing against Perrault's ' Parallele des Anciens et 

 Modernes,' which had appeared at Paris in 1687. Wotton's per- 

 formance is famous both for having called forth from Swift his 

 'Battle of the Books," in aid of his friend Temple, and as having also 



originated the great controversy about the so-called ' Epistles of Pha- 

 laris : ' the authenticity of the ' Epistles,' which had been assumed by 

 Temple, was disputed by Wotton ; and it was in an appendix to the 

 second edition of the 'Reflections,' which appeared in 1697, that 

 Bentley published the first draught of his celebrated ' Dissertation,' 

 demonstrating the spuriousness of the ' Epistles,' with a special 

 reference to the edition of them brought out by the Hon. Charles 

 Boyle in 1695. Wotton was distinguished for extent and variety 

 rather than accuracy or profoundness of learning, and his judgment 

 was of no remarkable power ; the inherent value of the ' Reflections,' 

 accordingly, is not considerable. Nor of many other books which he 

 afterwards published is there any that is now held in esteem, with the 

 exception perhaps of his ' View of Hickes's Archaeological Treasure of 

 the Antient Northern Languages,' which was partly drawn up by Hickes 

 himself, and was published in 1708, and of which a second edition 

 appeared in 1735. His edition of the ancient Welsh laws, with a Latin 

 translation, which appeared in a folio volume in 1730, after his death, 

 under the title of 'Cysreithjeu Hywel Dda, ac erail; ceu, Leges 

 Wallicae Ecclesiasticae et Civiles Hoeli Boni et aliorum Walliae priu- 

 cipum,' has been lately superseded by the much more accurate and 

 comprehensive publication of the Record Commission, ' The Antient 

 Laws and Institutes of Wales' (edited by Aneurin Owen, Esq.), folio, 

 London, 1841. Wotton acquired such a command of the Welsh 

 language as to be able to preach in it. In 1707 he was made a D.D. 

 by Archbishop Tenison. He died at Buxted in Essex, on the 13th of 

 February 1726. His easy temper and entire inattention to economy 

 reduced him to great difficulties in the latter part of his life. He left 

 a daughter, who became the wife of the Rev. William Clarke, canon- 

 residentiary of Chichester. 



WOULFE, PETER, a chemist, who lived chiefly in London, and 

 died in 1806. So little is known of his history, that even the place of 

 to his birth does not appear have been recorded. He was a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society, and contributed four papers to its ' Transactions,' 

 the titles of which are 1, ' Experiments on the Distillation of Acids, 

 Volatile Alkalies, &c, ; showing how they may be condensed without 

 loss, and how thereby we may avoid disagreeable and noxious 

 fumes;' 2, '.Experiments to show the nature of Aurum Mosaicum;' 

 3, 'Experiments on a new colouring-substance, from the Island of 

 Amsterdam in the South Seas;' 4, 'Experiments on some Mineral 

 Substances.' 



The apparatus described in the first of these papers has saved the 

 name of its inventor from oblivion, and yet the arrangement appears 

 to have been first devised by Glauber, though probably unknown to 

 Woulfe, and a representation of it is given at the end of the preface to 

 Glauber's works (folio, 1689). 



WOUVVERMAN, PHILIP, one of the most popular of the Dutch 

 painters, was born at Haarlem in 1620, and received his first instruc- 

 tions in his art from his father, Paul Wouvverman, an obscure histo- 

 rical painter. He was instructed also by John Wynants of Haarlem, 

 but his style was quite original, and was indebted little if at all to the 

 works of his instructors. Wouvverman lived always at Haarlem, 

 and he is generally considered and reported to have been one of those 

 unfortunate paiuters who depended entirely upon the liberality of 

 picture-dealers, and to have made his patrons rich while he lived in 

 poverty. This does not however agree with the account of Houbraken, 

 who states that Wouvverman's pictures rose immensely in value after 

 his death, but that he was nevertheless a fortunate painter ; and, ha 

 corroboration of the latter part of this assertion, he states that he 

 gave his daughter 20,000 florins (16601.) upon her marriage with the 

 painter of flowers and still life, Hendrik de Fromantjou; but he gives 

 this upon no better authority than private information. D'Argenville 

 states, on the contrary, that Wouvverman was occasionally in great 

 want, that he had much difficulty in supporting a large family, and 

 that there can be no truth in Houbraken' s report that he gave hia 

 daughter 20,000 florins dowry. 



Wouvverman died in 1668, aged forty-eight, and he was so disgusted 

 with his want of success as a painter, that he burned, shortly before 

 his death, all the studies he had made during his life, for fear that a 

 son who had a disposition for painting should be induced by the 

 facilities they might offer to follow the same profession. This sou 

 afterwards entered the order of the Carthusians. Another and a less 

 charitable reason assigned for this destruction is, that he feared they 

 might fall into the hands of his brother Pieter Wouvverman, who 

 painted similar subjects with himself; a third account is, that the 

 designs and studies which he burned were not his own, but principally 

 Pieter Laer's, and that he destroyed them that it might not be known 

 how much he had made use of the labours of others. None of these 

 stories may be true, but they at least show that Wouvverman, like . 

 many other men of genius, had his foes as well as his friends. Wouv- 

 verman must unquestionably be reckoned in his particular style among 

 the most masterly of painters that ever lived. His subjects, though 

 always treated in the same manner, present considerable variety both of 

 scene and action, yet he seldom if ever chose a subject which did not 

 admit of the introduction of one or more horses, animals which he 

 painted with unrivalled skill in his small size. It is a common notion 

 that he never painted a picture without introducing a white or a grey 

 horse into it, and that he very often introduced such a horse is certainly 

 true. His subjects are generally travelling, road-side, hunting, fighting , 



