State-worthies, or, The states-men and favourites of England since the reformation their prudence and policies, successes and miscarriages, advancements and falls, during the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, King Charles I.

Observations on the Life of Sir William Waad.

A Scholar himself, and a Patron to such that were so; being never well but when em∣ploying the Industrious, pensioning the Hopeful, and preferring the Deserving. To his Directions we owe Riders Dictionary, to his Encou∣ragement Hooker's Policy, to his Charge Gruter's Inscriptions. As none more knowing, so none more civil. No man more grave in his Life and Manners, no man more pleasant in his Carriage and Complexion; yet no man more resolved in his Bu∣siness: for being sent by Queen Elizabeth to Phi∣lip King of Spain, he would not be turned over to the Spanish Privy-Council, (whose greatest Gran∣dees are Dwarfs in honour to his Mistress) but would either have audience of the King himself, or return without it; though none knew better how and when to make his close and underhand Addresses to such potent Favourites as strike the stroke in the State; it often happening in a Commonwealth, (saith my Author) that the Masters Mate steers the Ship better than the Master himself. A man of a constant toyl and industry, busie and quick, equal∣ly an enemy to the idle and slow undertakings, judg∣ing it a great weakness to stand staring in the face of business, in that time which might serve to do it. In his own practice he never considered longer than till he could discern whether the thing proposed was fit or not; when that was seen, he immediately set to work: when he had finished one business, he

could not endure to have his thoughts lie fallow, but was presently consulting what next to under∣take.

Two things this Gentleman professed kept him up to that eminence; 1. Fame, that great inci••e∣ment to Excellency. 2. A Friend, whom he had not onely to observe those grossnesses which Ene∣mies might take notice of, but to discover his pru∣dential failings, indecencies, and even suspitious and barely doubtful passages. Friendship (saith my Lord Bacon) easeth the heart, and cleareth the understand∣ing, making clear day in both; partly by giving the purest councel apart from our interest and prepossessi∣ons, and partly by allowing opportunity to discourse; and by that discourse to clear the mind, to recollect the thoughts, to see how they look in words; whereby men attain that highest wisdome, which Dionysius the A∣reopagite saith, is the Daughter of Reflexion.