May I give a short specimen of one of his letters filled up? It was written, I suppose, to Nicholas Pey:
"My dear Nic,
"More than a voluntary motion doth now carry me towards Suffolk, especially that I may confer by the way with an excellent physician at B., whom I brought myself from Venice."—Reliquiæ, p. 359.
By "B." is meant St. Edmund's Bury, and by the "excellent physician" no less than Gaspero Despotine, who, together with Mark Anthony de Dominis, accompanied Sir H. Wotton and his chaplain Bedell from Italy.
However, he was very unlike the archbishop of whom Dr. Crakanthorp used to say, that he was well called "De Dominis in the plural, for he could serve two masters, or twenty if they would all pay him wages." (Hacket's Life of Williams, part i. p. 103.: Lond. 1693, fol.) Despotine left Italy that he might at the same time leave the communion of the Church of Rome, and when Bedell was appointed to the living of St. Edmund's Bury, he accompanied him thither. One of Wotton's very interesting letters announces the event. (Reliquiæ, p. 400.) Under the fostering care of the saintly Bedell, Despotine rose to eminence in his profession at St. Edmund's Bury, and kept up a kind correspondence with his guide and patron after his promotion to the Provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, and the sees of Ardagh and Kilmore. (Burnet's Life of Bishop Bedell, ad init.)
In another letter (Reliquiæ, p. 356.) Wotton speaks of having given also to Michael Brainthwaite and the young Lord Scudamore the advice of Alberto Scipioni to himself, to "keep his eyes open and his mouth shut," which Milton sadly disregarded.
Rt.
Warmington.
SKULL-CAPS VERSUS SKULL-CUPS.
(Vol. vi., pp. 441. 565.)