Orange is the most humorous of the
two, whose small portion of juice being squeezed out, Clove serves to
stick him with commendations.
_Cordatus_. The author's friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope
and drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has
the place of a moderator.
_Mitis_. Is a person of no action, and therefore we have reason to
afford him no character.
_Of this kind are the
CHARACTERS
BY
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY,
which were not published until_ 1614, _the year after their writer's
death, at the age of thirty-two; but they may have been written earlier
than the "Characters of Virtues and Vices"--ethical characters--written
by Joseph Hall, which were first published in_ 1609.
_Sir Thomas Overbury died poisoned in the Tower on the_ 15_th of
September_ 1613. _On the_ 5_th of January_ 1606, _by desire of James the
First, the young Earl of Essex, aged fourteen, had been married to the
Lady Frances Howard, aged thirteen, the younger daughter of the Earl of
Suffolk. Ben Jonson's "Masque of Hymen" was produced at Court in
celebration of that union. The young Robert Devereux, third Earl of
Essex, had good qualities too solid for the taste of a frivolous girl;
and when, after travel abroad, the husband of eighteen claimed the wife
of seventeen, he found her happy in flirtation with the King's
favourite, Sir Robert Carr. Though compelled to live with her husband,
she repelled all his advances, and after three years of this repugnance
tried for a divorce.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29