Note 79 — Chapter XXXIV
Reading edition
Probably, Endymion Porter (1587-1649), groom of the bedchamber to Charles I, whom he had accompanied on his journey to Spain, where he sometimes acted as interpreter, having been educated in that country. He was a generous patron of literature and art, and Herrick declares that poets would never be wanting so long as they had a patron like Porter,
“who doth give Not only subject for our art, But oil of maintenance to it.”
Porter was devoted to Buckingham, to whose favour he owed his rise to fortune, and in his will, dated the year before his death, he “charged all his sons, upon his blessing, that, leaving the like charges to their posterity, they did all of them observe and respect the children and family of his Lord Duke of Buckingham, deceased, to whom he owed all the happiness he had in the world.”