I envie aire, because it dare Still breathe, and he not soe; Hate earthe, that doth entombe his youth, "Not I, poor I alone-(alone Not onely men make mone, but more The gods of greenes, the mountain queenes, The muses nine, and powers devine, Do all condole my woe." These stanzas, which seem to have been part of a larger poem, abound, as Mr. Lodge observes, with the imperfect beauties, as well as with the common errors, of a strong but untaught poetical fancy. They appear on the cover of a letter, in the hand-writing of Anne, countess of Arundel.] SIR DUDLEY CARLETON, VISCOUNT DORCHESTER, Is little known but in his capacity of minister to foreign courts, for which he seems to have been well qualified; but by his subservience to his masters, and to his patron the duke of Buckingham, one should have thought he had imbibed his prerogative-notions, as ambassadors are a little apt to do, in other schools than Holland and Venice, where he was chiefly resident. His negotiations have been lately presented to the public 3; a munificence it might oftener, but never should without gratitude receive. It was not the fault of the minister or of the editor that these transactions turned chiefly on the synod of Dort". It is always • Vide Histor. Preface to the new edition of his Letters, p. 20. 3 [In 1757, by Philip viscount Royston, afterwards earl of Hardwicke, who wrote the Historical Preface, which received additions in the impression of 1775. The book has since been reprinted twice, as I am informed by Mr. Ellis of the Museum.] * [Lord Hardwicke printed only one hundred copies of the Carleton Letters, says Dr. Lort. Mr. Cole adds, “Lord H. in a second edition of these letters, seems to be angry that Mr. Walpole has spoken so contemptuously of them. At p. xxxv. he says, 'Had the negotiations of sir Dudley turned curious to know what wars a great monarch waged: sir Dudley would probably have been glad to negotiate in earnest the interests of the palatinate; but the king had other business to think of than the preservation or ruin of his children-while there was a chance that the dyer's son Vorstius might be divinity-professor at Leyden, instead of being burnt, as his majesty hinted" to the Christian prudence 5" of the Dutch, that he deserved to be; our embassadors could not receive instructions, and consequently could not treat, on any other business. The king who did not resent the massacre at Amboyna, was on the point of breaking with the states for supporting a man who professed the heresies of Enjedinus, Ostodorus, &c. points of extreme consequence to Great Britain! Sir Dudley Carleton was forced to threaten the Dutch, not only with the hatred of king James, but also with his pen ‘. chiefly on the synod of Dort, the public would never have 'been troubled with them:' and the editor professes that he has not the least ambition to be a compiler or a writer in the quinque-articular controversy."] 5 They are the king's own words from his letter in the Mercure François. Vide marginal note to the article Vorstius in the General Dictionary, vol. x. p. 36, where may be seen a summary of this whole affair. 6 [Mr. Granger relates, from Howell's Letters, that he was |