Among the few who remembered George Villiers with gratitude, or who endeavoured to rescue his memory from opprobrium, Henry Wotton, his biographer, appears in a conspicuous and favourable light. Most of the eminent men of the time had been reared, and even trained, to public service, during the reign of Elizabeth, when strength of purpose, honesty, ability, and learning were the grounds of promotion in all the minor, as well as in the superior departments of the State. Henry Wotton, born in 1568, at Bocton Hall,[240] in Kent, and descended from an ancient family, was a thoroughly-educated English gentleman. After some years’ instruction at Winchester School, he was entered at New College, Oxford. Close to that grand old college was Hart Hall, a sort of subsidiary establishment; and Wotton, perhaps from being a freshman, had his rooms in Hart Hall Lane. Here his chamber-fellow, as he was then called, was Richard Baker, the historian, who was entered at the same time, and born the same year, and whose predilections for letters resembled those of young Henry Wotton. The inestimable advantage of a companionship of such a nature cannot be too highly appreciated by those who watch the dawning mind of youth, and who desire them to have recourse to the only sure preventive of dissipation--employment. Baker, well known for his Chronicle, was also a writer on theological subjects, and a young man of sincere piety. His friend Wotton was then less distinguished for historical studies than for his wit and learning. For some reason, not explained, he left New College, and established himself in the then old-fashioned tenement of Queen’s College, in the High Street, where he was soon complimented by being selected to write a play for the inmates of that house to perform. He produced a tragedy called “Tancredo,” which was declared to manifest, in a very striking manner, his abilities for composition, his wit, and knowledge. Thus, like the gay Templar, or the student of Gray’s Inn, did the young Oxonian delight in the drama--which formed, to borrow a French expression, a sort of _debût_ for wits; nor did Baker, though serious and plodding, despise the drama; and even when, in after life, he had been knighted at Theobald’s by King James, and Baker’s reputation stood high, he vindicated the stage against Prynne, in a work entitled “Theatrum Redivivum.” Footnote 240: Otherwise Bougton Place (or Palace). See Izaak Walton’s “Life of Sir H. Wotton.”