Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden
Sir Henry Wotton (15681639)Critical Introduction by John W. Hales
[‘How happy is he born and taught,’ said to have been printed in 1614; see Courtly Poets, ed. Hannah, 1875. It was quoted to Drummond by Ben Jonson in 1618 or 1619: ‘Sir Edward [Henry] Wotton’s verses of a happy life he hath by heart.’ ‘You meaner beauties of the night,’ printed with music in Est’s Sixth Set of Books, 1624. It was probably written a few years before. In 1651, Reliquiae Wottonianae.]
Of poetry he wrote but little; but of that little two pieces at least have obtained a permanent place in English literature, his Character of a Happy Life, written probably circ. 1614; and the lines, On his mistress the Queen of Bohemia, circ. 1620. Of the apophthegm ‘the style is of the man,’ it would be difficult to find better illustrations. As in a mirror, they reflect the high refined nature of one who, living in the world, and a master of its ways and courtesies, was yet never of it—was never a worldling.