Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Felltham, Owen
FELLTHAM, OWEN (1602?–1668), author of ‘Resolves,’ was son of Thomas Felltham of Mutford in Suffolk, and of Mary, daughter of John Ufflete of Somerleyton in Suffolk. From a Latin epitaph in the church of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, written by Owen upon his father, and printed among his poems in the folio editions of the ‘Resolves,’ it appears that he was the second or third son (‘natu filium minorem’) of a family of three sons and three daughters, and that his father died in 1631, at the age of sixty-two. According to two pedigrees in the British Museum (Harleian MSS. 5861, f. 76, and 1169, f. 81), he married Mary, daughter of Clopton of Kentwell Hall, Melford, Suffolk. At the age of eighteen he published a first version of the ‘Resolves,’ a series of moral essays, by which he is chiefly known. For some time he seems to have associated in the capacity either of secretary or chaplain with the family of the Earl of Thomond, settled at Great Billing, Northamptonshire. The final editions of the ‘Resolves’ are dedicated to Mary, dowager countess of Thomond. ‘William Johnson, of the colledge of the Society of Jesus in Cadiz,’ told Felltham, in a letter dated December 1637 (printed at end of ‘Resolves,’ 8th edit.), that he had ‘amongst catholicks lost a great deal of credit’ by his sixteenth Resolve ‘of the choice of Religion,’ which stated reasons for preferring the Anglican to the Roman church. Felltham replied that he was not a scholar by profession. ‘My books have been my delight and recreation, but not my trade, though perhaps I could wish they had.’ In another letter, addressed ‘to the Lord C. J. R.’ (i.e. Chief-justice Richardson), Felltham describes himself as ‘being put upon a Tryal for vindicating the right of the Antient Inheritance of my Family, gained from me by a Verdict last Assizes, by what means I shall forbear to speak,’ and congratulates himself on having his case ‘heard before your Lordship.’ No record of the lawsuit has been discovered. Felltham's poems exhibit strong royalist sympathies. In the last lines of the ‘Epitaph to the Eternal Memory of Charles the First … Inhumanely murthered by a perfidious Party of His prevalent Subjects,’ he talks of the dead king as ‘Christ the Second.’ Felltham was well known to the literary men of his time. He replied to Ben Jonson's ode, ‘Come leave the loathèd stage’ (see Lusoria, No. xx.), and Langbaine preferred the ‘sharp Reply made by the ingenious Mr. Feltham’ to the answers of Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling. Thomas Randolph, Jonson's adopted son, who wrote in Jonson's defence, was afterwards acquainted with Felltham, and penned a fine address ‘to Master Feltham on his book of Resolves,’ full of enthusiastic and eloquent praise. Felltham contributed to the ‘Annalia Dubrensia,’ 1636, and to ‘Jonsonus Virbius,’ published in Ben Jonson's memory in 1638. He died and was buried at Great Billing early in 1668. His will is characteristic. He describes himself as of Great Billing, where he desires to be buried, but deprecates more than 30l. being spent on his funeral. His brothers Robert and Thomas and several nephews and nieces are mentioned in the document. To his nephew, ‘Thomas Felltham, minister,’ he bequeaths his books of divinity. His property included leases of ‘Catherlogh,’ Ireland, and ‘Cratelagh Keale,’ co. Clare. He makes his nephew Owen, ‘of Grays Inn,’ his sole executor, and acknowledges special obligations to the Dowager Countess of Thomond. The will, dated 4 May 1667, was proved 22 April 1668. A Latin epitaph, written by himself for his own tomb, is printed in his works.
Felltham's first publication (12mo, n.d. 327 pp.), issued when he was eighteen, was entitled ‘Resolves, Divine, Morall, Politicall, by Owin Felltham’ [1620?]. It is dedicated to Lady Dorothy Crane, daughter ‘to the right Honorable and Religious, the Lord Hobart,’ and consists of a hundred short essays numbered, but with neither titles nor index. A second edition appeared in quarto in 1628, accompanied by ‘A Seconde Centurie,’ which takes three times the space of the first, and is dedicated to Lord Coventry, the lord keeper. In an address ‘to the readers’ he defends the absence of authorities, and his translation of Latin verse quotations. Each Resolve in this edition has a short title. This volume was republished in 1628, with the motto ‘Sic demulceo vitam,’ which is retained in all subsequent editions. The fourth edition appeared in 1631, with the title ‘Resolves, a Duple Century,’ and ‘a large Alphabeticall Table thereunto;’ it reverses the order of the centuries. The fifth, sixth, and seventh editions appeared in 4to in 1634, 1636, and 1647 respectively, without further change. The eighth edition of 1661, the first in folio, is dedicated to Mary, dowager countess of Thomond, and supplies a thoroughly revised version of the earlier series of essays, many of them being altered, and fifteen omitted. With them are bound up two dissertations, entitled ‘Something upon Eccles. ii. 11,’ and ‘upon St. Luke xiv. 20,’ which are good examples of the author's style at its best; ‘Lusoria, or Occasional Pieces. With a Taste of some Letters,’ consisting of thirty-nine poems and two Latin epitaphs; ‘A Brief Character of the Low Countries,’ first published separately in 1652; and nineteen letters, of which all but one are by Felltham. The author's Latin epitaph on himself concludes the volume. This edition was reprinted in folio in 1670, 1677, and 1696. The twelfth and last of the early editions issued posthumously is in 8vo, 1709, and according to a note on the title-page has ‘the language refined.’ It also contains for the first time ‘A Form of Prayer composed for the Family of the Right Honorable the Countess of Thomond.’ ‘The Beauties of O. F., selected from his Resolves … by J. Vine,’ appeared in 16mo in 1800; a second edition in 12mo followed in 1818. In 1806 James Cumming published an unjustifiably garbled edition of the ‘Resolves’ with a careful introduction; a second edition came out in 1820. Pickering in 1840 reprinted the quarto of 1631. The altered folio (1661) version of the earlier essays has thus not been reprinted in modern times. In 1652 Felltham published ‘A Brief Character of the Low Countries under the States. Being three weeks' Observation of the Vices and Vertues of the Inhabitants,’ 12mo. It has the motto ‘Non seria semper,’ and a letter by the printer complaining that two pirated versions had been previously issued. A pirated edition, called ‘Three Moneths Observations of the Low Countries, especially Holland. Containing a brief Description of the Country, Customes, Religions, Manners, and Dispositions of the People,’ 1648, 12mo, was reprinted in 1652, with the title ‘A true and exact Character of the Low Countreyes, especially Holland. Or the Dutchman anatomized and truly dissected. Being the series of Three Moneths, &c.’ The authorised edition was published again in 12mo in 1660, and again in 1662, when ‘By Owen Feltham, Esq.’ appeared on the title-page. It also appeared in the eighth edition of the ‘Resolves.’ The ode to Ben Jonson was reprinted by Langbaine and by Abraham Wright in his ‘Parnassus Biceps.’ Felltham's poems are few in number, but varied in style; some have considerable merit, and none are contemptible. His prose, after enjoying much popularity, was almost totally neglected till Cumming's edition of 1806. Thomas Constable, in ‘Reflections upon Accuracy of Style,’ London, 1734, 1738, criticised the ‘Resolves’ adversely. Hallam is equally severe. A writer in the ‘Retrospective Review’ points out that the ‘Resolves’ bear a resemblance in manner, and still more in matter, to the ‘Essays’ of Lord Bacon; but the resemblance is only occasional, and is obscured by a fondness for conceits and a straining after effect which make the book tedious to a modern reader; Felltham is without Bacon's power of arrangement and condensation. The ‘Brief Character’ is witty and unaffected, and still readable.