SOURCE: Coleridge, Gilbert. “Sir Henry Wotton.” The Nineteenth Century and After 94, No. 559 (September 1923): 370-78.

In the following essay, Coleridge summarizes Wotton's life and offers commentary on his major works.

Not many years ago the street of the Holy Well, narrow and mediæval in its aspect, ran parallel with the Strand between St. Clement Danes and St. Martin's. As everyone knows, it was swept away in a so-called improvement scheme promoted by the London County Council in its salad days, when that body wished to show what it would do for London. The scheme as a whole may have been desirable, but no exceptions were made, and thus one of the most interesting thoroughfares was destroyed. Certainly Holywell Street was dark, airless and confined, but it was a street to linger in: every shop was open; no glass lay between the purchaser and the wares, which were literally...