Microcosmography Part 28

xviii. _Character of an Oxford Incendiary. Printed for Robert White in 1643._ 4to.

[Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, V. 469. edit. 1744.]

xix. _The Reformado precisely charactered (with a frontispiece.)_

[See the Sale Catalogue of George Steevens, Esq. 8vo. Lond. 1800. page 66.

No. 1110.]

xx. "_A new Anatomie, or Character of a Christian or Round-head.

Expressing his Description, Excellencie, Happiness and Innocencie. Wherein may appear how far this blind world is mistaken in their unjust Censures of him. Virtus in Arduis. Proverbs xii. 26; and Jude 10_, quoted.) _Imprimatur John Downame. London, Printed for Robert Leybourne, and are to be sold at the Star, under Peter's Church in Corn-hill, 1645._ 8vo. pp.

13.

[In Ashmole's Museum.]

xxi. In Lord North's _Forest of Varieties, London, Printed by Richard Cotes_, 1645, are several _Characters_, as lord Orford informs us, "in the manner of sir Thomas Overbury." _Royal and n.o.ble Authors_, iii. 82. Of this volume a second edition appeared in 1659, neither of these, however, I have been able to meet with. For some account of the work, with extracts, see Brydges' _Memoirs of the Peers of England_, 8vo. _London._ 1802. page 343.

xxii. _Characters and Elegies[DQ]. By Francis Wortley, Knight and Baronet.

Printed in the yeere 1646._" 4to.

The characters are as follow:

1. The character of his royall majestie; 2. The character of the queene's majestie; 3. The hopeful prince; 4. A true character of the ill.u.s.trious James Duke of York; 5. The character of a n.o.ble general; 6. A true English protestant; 7. An antinomian, or anabaptisticall independent; 8. A jesuite; 9. The true character of a northerne lady, as she is wife, mother, and sister; 10. The politique neuter; 11. The citie paragon; 12. A sharking committee-man; 13. Britanicus his pedigree--a fatall prediction of his end; 14. The Phoenix of the Court.

_Britanicus his Pedigree--a fatall Prediction of his End._

I dare affirme him a Jew by descent, and of the tribe of Benjamin, lineally descended from the first King of the Jewes, even Saul, or at best he ownes him and his tribe, in most we reade of them. First, of our English tribes, I conceive his father's the lowest, and the meanest of that tribe, stocke, or generation, and the worst, how bad soever they be; melancholy he is, as appeares by his sullen and dogged wit; malicious as Saul to David, as is evident in his writings; he wants but Saul's javelin to cast at him; he as little spares the king's friends with his pen, as Saul did Jonathan his sonne in his reproach; and would be as free of his javelin as his pen, were his power sutable to his will, as Ziba did to Mephibosheth, so does he by the king, he belies him as much to the world, as he his master to David, and in the day of adversitie is as free of his tongue as s.h.i.+mei was to his soveraigne, and would be as humble as he, and as forward to meet the king as he was David, should the king returne in peace. Abithaes there cannot want to cut off the dog's head, but David is more mercifull then s.h.i.+mei can be wicked; may he first consult with the witch of Endor, but not worthy of so n.o.ble a death as his own sword, die the death of Achitophel for feare of David, then may he be hang'd up as the sonnes of Saul were against the sunne, or rather as the Amelekites who slew Isbosheth, and brought tidings and the tokens of the treason to David; may his hands and his feet be as sacrifices cut off, and so pay for the treasons of his pen and tongue; may all heads that plot treasons, all tongues that speake them, all pens that write them, be so punisht. If Sheba paid his head for his tongue's fault, what deserves Britannicus to pay for his pen and trumpet? Is there never a wise woman in London? we have Abishaes.

Francis Wortley, was the son of Sir Richard Wortley, of Wortley, in Yorks.h.i.+re, knight. At the age of seventeen he became a commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford; in 1610 he was knighted, and on the 29th of June in the following year, was created a baronet; being then, as Wood says, esteemed an ingenious gentleman. During the civil wars he a.s.sisted the royal cause, by raising a troop of horse in the king's service; but at their conclusion he was taken prisoner, and confined in the tower of London, where it seems he composed the volume just noticed. In the _Catalogue of Compounders_ his name appears as "of Carleton, Yorks.h.i.+re,"

and from thence we learn that he paid 500_l._ for his remaining property.

In the _Athenae Oxonienses_ may be found a list of his works, but I have been unable to trace the date of his decease. Mr. Granger says that "Anne, his daughter, married the second son of the first Earl of Sandwich, who took the name of Wortley," and adds that the late Countess of Bute was descended from him. _Biographical History_, ii. 310.

FOOTNOTES:

[DQ] The Elegies, according to Wood, are upon the loyalists who lost their lives in the king's service, at the end of which are epitaphs.

xxiii. _The Times anatomiz'd, in severall Characters. By T. F_[ord, seruant to Mr. Sam. Man[DR].] _Difficile est Satyram non scribere. Juv.

Sat. 1. London, Printed for W. L. Anno 1647._"

[12mo. in the British Museum.]

_The Contents of the severall Characters._

1. A good king.

2. Rebelion.

3. An honest subject.

4. An hypocritical convert of the times.

5. A souldier of fortune.

6. A discontented person.

7. An ambitious man.

8. The vulgar.

9. Errour.

10. Truth.

11. A selfe-seeker.

12. Pamphlets.

13. An envious man.

14. True valour.

15. Time.

16. A newter.

17. A turn-coat.

18. A moderate man.

19. A corrupt committee-man.

20. A sectary.

21. Warre.

22. Peace.

23. A drunkard.

24. A novice-preacher.

25. A scandalous preacher.

26. A grave divine.

27. A selfe-conceited man.

29. Religion.

30. Death.

"PAMPHLETS

Are the weekly almanacks, shewing what weather is in the state, which, like the doves of Aleppo, carry news to every part of the kingdom. They are the silent traytors that affront majesty, and abuse all authority, under the colour of an _Imprimatur_. Ubiquitary flies that have of late so blistered the eares of all men, that they cannot endure any solid truth.

The ecchoes, whereby what is done in part of the kingdome, is heard all over. They are like the mushromes, sprung up in a night, and dead in a day; and such is the greedinesse of men's natures (in these Athenian dayes) of new, that they will rather feigne then want it."

FOOTNOTES: