LIONEL CRANFIELD, EARL of MIDDLESEX, From a fine Miniature by 0.Humphry Esq R.A. taken from the Original at Knowle.

THE

NOBLE AUTHORS

OF

ENG LAND.

LIONEL CRANFIELD,

EARL OF MIDDLESEX,

2

3

[SON of Thomas Cranfield, esq. a merchant of London, was bred in the custom-house, and became well versed in the theory and practice of trade. By the interest of the duke of Buckingham, his kinsman, he became successively master of the requests, of the king's wardrobe, and of the wards; and after being advanced to the office of lord-high-treasurer, was created baron Cranfield in 1621, and the following year earl of Middlesex. He murmured at the expense of the journey to Spain, which gave great offence to the duke; and he was, in several instances, less ob

2 Dugdale, Baronage, tom. iii. p. 446.; but Fuller calls him Randal Cranfield.

He may be said to have been his own tutor and his own university, says Fuller; and king James became highly affected with the clear, brief, strong, yea and profitable sense he spake. Worthies of London, p. 211.

sequious than that court luminary had usually found his satellites. Lord Middlesex, who had great pride, thought it beneath a lord-treasurer to be the tool of a favourite, though a lord-treasurer of that favourite's creation. He was questioned in parliament, and deemed guilty of malversation in his office; upon which his treasurer's staff was taken from him. He was heavily fined, rendered incapable of sitting in the house of peers, and committed prisoner to the Tower of London. The duke seems not only to have gratified his revenge, but to have had an eye to his interest in this prosecution, as he is said to have acquired the earl's house at Chelsea, for his own share of the fine. * Retiring to his magnificent seat at Copt-hall, says Fuller, the earl of Middlesex there enjoyed himself contentedly, entertained his friends bountifully, neighbours hospitably, and poor charitably. He was a person of comely presence, cheerful yet grave counteand a solid and wise man. 5 He died in 1645, was buried in Westminster-abbey; and had a long monumental inscription placed over him, which is printed by Dugdale.

nance,

Lord Clarendon has described his political rise and fall, in the first volume of his History; and relates a remarkable anecdote, that when king James in vain endeavoured to dissuade the duke of Buckingham from following up his prosecution of lord Middlesex, he said to him in great choler, "Stenny, you are a fool,

+ Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. ii. p. 131.

› Worthies, ut sup.

and will shortly repent this folly; and will find, that in this fit of popularity, you are making a rod with which you will be scourged yourself." Then turning in some anger to the prince, who sided with the duke, he told him, "that he would live to have his belly-full of impeachments; and, when I shall be dead, you will have too much cause to remember how much you have contributed to the weakening of the crown, by the two precedents you are now so fond of:" intending as well the engaging the parliament in the war, as the prosecution of the earl of Middlesex. 7

The following mock-commendatory verses, by this nobleman, were prefixed, in 1611, to The Travels or Crudities of Tom Coryat, "the whetstone of all the wits," who must have been stimulated by a preposterous species of vanity, to publish so many ludicrous lampoons upon himself, before his own book."

"Great laude deserves the author of this worke, Who saw the French, Dutch, Lombard, Jew, and Turke, But speakes not any of their tongues as yet,

For who in five months can attaine to it?

Short was his time, although his booke be long,
Which shewes much wit, and memory more strong:

6 Afterwards Charles the first.

7 Hist. of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 20. fol. edit.

8 See Wood, Athenæ, vol. i. col. 422.

9 It has been inferred from Coryat's dedication to his Crudities, that he was unconscious of the design of the poets to ridicule him, but this apparently was not the case. See the present editor's addenda and corrigenda to Biog. Brit. vol. v.

An yron memorie-for who but he

Could glew together such a rhapsodie

Of pretious things? as towers, steeples, rocks,
Tombes, theaters, the gallowes, bels, and stocks,
Mules, asses, arsenals, churches, gates, and townes,
Th' Alpine mountaines, cortezans, and Dutch clownes.
What man before hath writ so punctually,

To his eternall fame, his journey's story?
And as he is the first that I can finde,

So will he be the last of this rare kinde.
Me thinks, when on his booke I cast my eies
I see a shop replete with merchandize;
And how the owner, jelous of his fame,
With pretious matter garnisheth the same.
Many good parts he hath, no man too much
Can them commend; some few I 'le only touch.
He Greeke and Latin speakes with greater ease
Then hogs eate akornes, or tame pigeons pease;
His ferret eies doe plod so on his booke,
As make his lookes worse than a testie cooke.
His tongue and feete are swifter then a flight,
Yet both are glad when day resignes to night.
He is not proud, his nature soft and milde;
His complements are long, his lookes are wilde:
Patient enough, but, oh! his action

Of great effect to move and stirre up passion.
Odcombe, be proud of thy odde Coryate,
Borne to be great, and gracious with the state;
How much I him well wish, let this suffice;
His booke best shewes that he is deeply wise.

Explicit Lionel Cranfield.""]

* On these names Mary Fage turns an anagram in Fame's Roule.