110 



WORSLEY WOTTON. 



tociety is regulated by the government (a system 

 more consistently and effectually pursued in Prus- 

 sia than, probably, in any other country), not only 

 the administration of justice, but even of religious 

 worship, is under the superintendence of a minis- 

 ter an abuse which at one time was carried 

 to a great extreme in Prussia. There is still in 

 that country a " minister for the supervision of ec- 

 clesiastical affairs, of schools, and medicine." The 

 use of the word cultus has been discontinued. The 

 minister of public worship, however, does not 

 superintend merely the forms of religious worship, 

 but all ecclesiastical affairs. He appoints the vari- 

 ous examinations which candidates for the ministry 

 must pass through before they can be admitted to 

 holy orders ; investigates complaints against clergy- 

 men, or directs inquiries to be made, &c. ; settles 

 disputes between Catholics and Protestants, &c. 

 In France, the ministry of public instruction is 

 generally connected with that of the " culte" 

 which latter has the management of ecclesiastical 

 affairs in as far as they have a political character 

 (in other* respects they are under the control of the 

 bishops, &c.). These two departments, however, 

 are not always connected. 



WORSLEY, SIR RICHARD, son of Sir Thomas 

 Worsley, born in 1751, in the Isle of Wight, suc- 

 ceeded to the title in his eighteenth year, and soon 

 after visited the continent, where he cultivated his 

 taste for antiquities by the study of the remains of 

 ancient Rome, and made some large purchases of 

 statues, marbles, and other articles of virtu, which, 

 on his return to England, it formed his principal 

 amusement to classify and arrange. A catalogue of 

 this collection was afterwards published under the 

 title of Mus&um Worsleianum, in two folio volumes. 

 (See Fi'sconfi.) Sir Richard published a History 

 of the Isle of Wight (in 1 vol., 4to., with engrav- 

 ings of the principal seats, views, &c., by Godfrey). 

 He was many years in parliament as representative 

 of the borough of Newport, and held a situation 

 about the person of king George III., as comptroller 

 of the royal household. He was also governor of 

 the island, where he died in 1805. 



WORSTED; a thread spun of wool that has 

 been combed, and which, in the spinning, is twisted 

 Harder than ordinarily. It is chiefly used either to.. 

 be knit or woven into stockings, caps, gloves, &c. 

 Worsted has obtained its name from Worstead, a 

 market-town in the county of Norfolk, (population 

 830), where the manufacture of the article was first 

 introduced. The manufactures, which derived 

 their name from the place, are now removed to 

 Norwich and its vicinity. 



WORT. See Brewing, and Malt. 



WOTTON, SIR HENRY, a conspicuous political 

 and literary character in his own age, youngest son 

 of Sir Robert Wotton, was born in 1568. After 

 receiving a classical education at Winchester school, 

 he was entered at Oxford, where he much distin- 

 guished himself by his attention to logic and philo- 

 sophy, and composed a tragedy. Having studied 

 civil law, under an eminent Italian professor, he 

 became a proficient in the Italian language. His 

 father bequeathing him a moderate income, he de- 

 termined, in 1589, to travel, and visited all the 

 principal countries of the continent. On his return, 

 he was appointed secretary to the earl of Essex, 

 whom, he attended in his maritime expeditions 

 against the Spaniards, and afterwards to Ireland. 

 On the fall of that nobleman, he quitted the king- 

 dom, and resided at Florence, where he com- 



posed a treatise, printed after his death, entitled 

 the State of Christendom. While thus employed, 

 the grand-duke of Tuscany having intercepted some 

 letters disclosing a plot to take away the life of 

 James, king of Scotland, he engaged Wotton to 

 carry secret intelligence of it to that prince. This 

 service he ably performed in the character and guise 

 of an Italian, and returned to Florence. "N\ lirn 

 James came to the English crown, he sent for Wot- 

 ton, knighted him, and, in 1604, employed him as 

 an ambassador to the republic of Venice. As Wot- 

 ton passed through Augsburg, being desired to write 

 in an album, he wrote, in Latin, that " an ambas- 

 sador is a good man, sent abroad to lie for the good 

 of his country." This innocent sally was, by the 

 malignity of Schioppius, represented as a state 

 maxim, avowed by the religion of the king of Eng- 

 land. James, who thought nothing relative either 

 to king-craft or state-craft a subject for wit, was, 

 in consequence, highly displeased ; and, on his re- 

 turn, Wotton remained five years unemployed. At 

 length he recovered the royal favour, and was 

 trusted with a mission to the United Provinces, 

 and subsequently restored to his former post at 

 Venice, where he remained three years. Other 

 missions followed, to the duke of Savoy, and to 

 various princes in Germany, on the affairs of the 

 elector palatine. A third embassy to Venice closed 

 his diplomatic labours, from which he did not re- 

 turn until the death of James, when, in 1624, he 

 was made provost of Eton college, as a reward for 

 his various services. The first fruits of his leisure 

 were his Elements of Architecture. The statutes 

 of the college requiring him to assume a clerical 

 character, he took deacon's orders, and spent the 

 remainder of his life in literary leisure, social hos- 

 pitality, and innocent amusement. He had planned 

 a life of Luther ; but, by the persuasion of Charles 

 I., he laid it aside for a history of England, in 

 which he made very little progress. The arrears 

 of his demands on the crown remaining unpaid, be 

 continued embarrassed to his death, which took 

 place in December, 1639, in the seventy-second 

 year of his age. Sir Henry Wotton was a person 

 of sound understanding, poignant wit, and great ac- 

 complishments, in whom the scholar and the man 

 of the world were very happily blended. In addi- 

 tion to the works already mentioned, there is a 

 collection of'miscellanies published, after his death, 

 under the title of Reliquiae Wottoniance, several 

 times reprinted. It consists of lives, letters, poems 

 and characters, displaying a lively fancy and pene- 

 trating understanding, though somewhat obscured 

 by the pedantry of the age. Of his poems, one, 

 entitled a Hymn to God in my latter Sickness, is 

 admired for energy of expression and harmonious 

 versification. There is a Life of Sir H. Wotton 

 by Walton. 



WOTTON, WILLIAM, an English clergyman of 

 distinguished learning, was born in 1666, and, un- 

 der his father's tuition, acquired such a knowledge 

 of languages, during his childhood, as caused him to 

 be regarded as the wonder of the time. In his sixth 

 year, he coutd construe the Latin, Greek, and He- 

 brew tongues, chiefly by the aid of an extraordinary 

 retentive memory. In consequence of this preco- 

 city, he was entered at Catherine hall, Cambridge, 

 before he was ten years old. He took the degree 

 of bachelor of arts in his thirteenth year, sometime 

 before which he had been celebrated in a copy of 

 verses, not only for his acquaintance with the 

 learned languages, including Arabic, Syriac, and 



