Carey, Henry

, earl of Monmouth, was the eldest son of Robert, the first earl of Monmouth, who died in 1639, and whose “Memoirs,” written by himself, and containing some curious particulars of secret history of the Elizabethan period, were published from a manuscript in the possession of the late earl of Corke and Orrery, in 1759, 8vo. Henry, his son, was born in 1596, admitted a fellow commoner of Exeter college, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, and took the degree of B. A. in 1613, after which he was sent to travel into foreign countries. In 1616 he was made a knight of the bath at the creation of Charles prince of Wales. In 1625 he was known by the name of lord Lepington, his father’s title before he was created earl of Monmouth, and was noted, Wood says, as “a person well skilled in modern languages, and a general scholar.” This taste for study was his consolation when the depression of the nobility after the death of Charles I. threw many of them into retirement. He died June 13, 1661. In Chauncey’s Hertfordshire is the inscription on his monument in the church at Rickmansworth, which mentions his living forty-one years in marriage, with his countess, Martha, daughter of the lord treasurer Middlesex. He was a most laborious writer, but chiefly of translations, and, as lord Orford observes, seems to have distrusted his abilities, and to have made the fruits of his studies his amusement rather than his method of fame. Of his lordship’s publications we have, 1. “Romulus and Tarquin; or De Principe et Tyranno,” Lond. 1637, 12mo, a translation from Malvezzi, in praise of which sir John Suckling has some verses | in his “Fragmenta Aurea,” and others were prefixed by Stapylton, Davenant, Carew, &c. It came to a third edition in 1648. 2. “Speech in the house of peers, Jan. 30, 1641, upon occasion of the present distractions, and of his Majesty’s removal from Whitehall,” London, 1641. 3. “Historical relations of the United Provinces, and of Flanders,” London, 1652, fol. translated from Bentivoglio. 4. “History of the Wars in Flanders,” ibid. 1654, fol. from the same author, with a portrait of the translator. 5. Cf Advertisement from Parnassus, in two Centuries: with the politic touchstone,“ibid. 1656, fol. from Boccalini. 6.” Politic Discourses, in six books,“ibid. 1657, fol. 7.” History of Venice,“ibid. 1658, fol. both from Paul Paruta, a noble Venetian. 8.” The use of Passions,“ibid. 1649 and 1671, 8vo, from the French of J. F. Senault. 9.” Man become guilty or the corruption of his nature by sin,“ibid, from the same author. 10.” The History of the late Wair of Christendom,“1641, fol. which lord Orford thinks is the same work with his translation of” Sir Francis Biondi’s History of the Civil Wars of England, between the houses of York and Lancaster.“11.” Capriata’s “History of Italy,” 1663, fol. His lordship began also to translate from the Italian “Priorato’s History of France,” but died before he could finish it. It was completed by William Brent, esq. and printed at London, 1677. ¹