FELTHAM, Owen, a moral writer, whose essays were extremely popular during the 17th century. He is believed to have been the son of Thomas Feltham or Felltham of Mutford in Suffolk, and he was probably born about 1609. He was secretary to the earl of Thomond, under whose roof he wrote, when a youth of eighteen, a volume of one hundred Resolves, Divine, Moral, and Political, short and pithy essays, of which two editions saw the light in 1628. Of this book, which the author constantly augmented, eleven editions were printed before 1700 and several since. To later issues of the Resolves Feltham appended Lusoria, a collection of forty poems. Hardly anything is known of his life, except that Randolph addressed a poem of compliment to him, and became his friend, and that Feltham attacked Ben Jonson in an ode shortly before the aged poet’s death, but contributed a flattering elegy to the Jonsomιs Virbius in 1638. Early in life Feltham visited Flanders, and published his observations in 1652 under the title of A Brief Character of the Low Countries. He was a Royalist and a strict high-churchman. It is supposed that he died soon after 1677. Hallam, with excessive severity, has stigmatized Feltham as one of our worst writers. He has not, indeed, the elegance of Bacon, whom he emulated, and he is often obscure and affected after the fashion of his time; but his copious imagery and genuine penetration give his reflections a charm to those who have leisure to peruse them. To the middle classes of the 17th century he seemed a heaven-sent philosopher and guide, and was only less popular than Quarles the emblematist.

An edition published at London in 1806 contains an account of the life and writings of Feltham by James Cumming.