sion and
imprisoned, and in 1591 he was once more committed to the Fleet. But he
was not treated harshly, and powerful influence soon secured his
liberation. He visited Guernsey (1595-1598), and spent his closing years
in honour and prosperity at Warwick, where he died on the 27th of
December 1603. Cartwright was a man of much culture and originality, but
exceedingly impulsive. His views were distinctly Presbyterian, and he
stoutly opposed the Brownists or Independents. He never conceived of a
separation between church and state, and would probably have refused to
tolerate any Nonconformity with his reformed national Presbyterian
church. To him, however, the Puritanism of his day owed its
systematization and much of its force.

CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM (1611-1643), English dramatist and divine, the son
of a country gentleman who had been reduced to keeping an inn, was born
at Northway, Gloucestershire, in 1611. Anthony a Wood, whose notice of
Cartwright is in the nature of a panegyric, gives this account of his
origin, which is probably correct, although it is contradicted by
statements made in David Lloyd's _Memoirs_. He was educated at the free
school of Cirencester, at Westminster school, and at Christ Church,
Oxford, where he took his M.A. degree in 1635. He became, says Wood,
"the most florid and seraphical preacher in the university," and appears
to have been no less admired as a reader in metaphysics. In 1642 he was
made succentor of Salisbury cathedral, and in 1643 he was chosen junior
proctor of the university. He died on the 29th of November of the same
year. Cartwright was a "son" of Ben Jonson and an especial favourite
with his contemporaries. The collected edition of his poems (1651)
contains commendatory verses by Henry Lawes, who set some of his songs
to music, by Izaak Walton, Alexander Brome, Henry Vaughan and others,
and the king wore mourning on the day of his funeral. His plays are,
with the exception of _The Ordinary_, extremely fantastic in plot, and
stilted and artificial in treatment. They are: _The Royal Slave_ (1636),
produced by the students of Christ Church before the king and queen,
with music by Henry Lawes; _The Lady Errant_ (acted, 1635-1636; printed,
1651); _The Siege, or Love's Convert_ (printed 1651). In _The Ordinary_
(1635 ?) he produced a comedy of real life, in imitation of Jonson,
representing pot-house society. It is reprinted in Dodsley's _Old Plays_
(ed. Hazlitt, vol. xii.).