SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
483
designation of the "New River Company." This scheme, although the greatest undertaking ever attempted by an individual, and the source of accumulating immense wealth, proved the ruin of the great man whose mind conceived the design, and whose personal exertion achieved the execution of it. The undertaking was com- menced in 1608, and finished in 1613 ; and the water is supplied by uniting two streams in Hertfordshire and Middlesex, and conveying the same through various soils for a course of sixty miles. Sir Hugh was a native of Denbighshire, and was knighted by James I.
1 63 1, May 6. Died, Sir Robert Bruce Cot- ton, bart., H)under of the Cottonian library; and whose arduous labours have contributed so much to illustrate the history and antiquities of this country; whose noble collection of books and manuscripts were such an invaluable acqui- sition to the national museum ; " whose name," as an admirable writer observes, " must always be remembered with honour; and whose memory cannot fail of exciting the warmest seutiments of gratitude, while the smallest regard for learning subsists among us." He was of an ancient family, and born at Darton, in Hunting- donshire, January 22, 1570, and studied at Cambridge. About 1585, he went to London, and was admitted into a society of antiquaries, who met at stated seasons for their own amuse- ment. He accompanied Camden in his travels through the kingdom, and very much assisted him in carrying on and perfecting his Britannia. He was knighted by James I. and very much courted by the privy council and ministers of state upon almost every point relating to the constitution. New projects being contrived to repair the royal revenue, which had been so prodigally squandered, none pleased James so much as the creating a new order of knights, called baronets, and sir Robert Cotton was the thirty-sixth baronet that was created. He was a member of the first parliament of Charles I. and joined in complaining of those grievances whicn the nation was said, in 1628, to groan under; but was always for mild remedies, zea- lous for the honour and safety of the king, and had no views but the nation's advantage.
It is almost incredible how much we are in- debted to the library of sir Robert Cotton for what we know of our own country. Such a man, we may imagine, must have had many friends and acquaintance : and indeed he was not only acquainted with all the virtuosi and learned in his own country, but with many also of a high reputation abroad. He died May 6, 1631, aged 60 years, and was succeeded by his only son, Thomas, who died in 1662.
1631, Dec.i3. Died, Michael Drayton, a very voluminous author, but throughout the whole extent of his writings, shows the fancy and feeling of a true poet He was born in Warwickshire, in the year 1563. In 1693, he published a collection of pastorals, entitled the S/upherd't Garland; which was followed by his poems of the Baron't Wars, and England's
Heroical Epiitlei. In 1613, he published his Pulyolhion, to which Mr. Selden wrote notes. It is constructed in an uncommon measure of twelve syllables, and is a work entirely unlike any other in English poetry, both in its subject, and the manner in which it is written. It is full of topographical and antiquarian details, with innumerable allusions to remarkable events and persons, OS connected with various localities; yet such is the'poetical genius of the author, so happily does he idealize almost every thing he touches on, and so lively is the flow of his verse, that we do not readily tire in perusiug this vast mass of information. He seems to have followed the manner of Spenser in his unceasing personi- fications of natural objects, such as hills, rivers, and woods. His works were reprinted in 1748, in one volume folio ; and 1753, in ten volumes, 8vo. He was buried in Westminster abbey.
The following lines are a good specimen of his style :
THE SOUL. - To show her powerful ddtjr.
Her sweet Endjrmlon more to beanUfy, Into his soul the sroddess doth Infuse The fiery nature of a heavenly muse ; Which the spirit labouring by the miad, Paitaketh of celestial thin^ by kind: For why the soul beioi? divine aloue, Exempt ftom ffross and vile conmptioD. Of heavenly secrets incomprehensible. Of which the dull flesh is not sensible. And by one only powerful faculty. Yet govemcth a multiplicity. Belnp essential uniform in all Not to be severed or dividual } Rut in her function holdeth her estate By powers divine in her iogenerate ; And so by Inspiration conceivetb. What heaven to her by divination breatheth.
1632, Feb. 6. Henry Sherfield, recorder of the city of Salisbury, was tried in the star chamber, and fined £500, and also required to make acknowledgment of his offence before the bishop of the diocese and such persons as he should think proper to be present. The crime for which this sentence was inflicted, was as fol- lows : — In one of the windows of the cathedral were some fine paintings, the six days work of the creation, in four diflierent lights or partitions, were exquisitely represented ; in several parts of it were figures of God the Father, pourtrayed in blue and red vests, like little old men ; the head, feet, and hands naked; in one place having a pair of compa.sses on the sun and moon ; in others were some blunders committed in point of chronology, the godhead being figured creating the sun and moon on the third day, whereas it should be on the fourth ; and the trees and herbs on the fourth day, instead of the third ; the fowls on the third day, instead of the fifth ; and the creation of man (from whose side the woman literally rises) on the fifth, instead of the last ; and tlie rest of the seventh day was represented by God the Father in a deep sleep. The superstition of this piece raised the spleen of the recorder, who irreligously and violently broke this window; for which the above sentence was inflicted.
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