Career
lieutenant had great popularity in its day. Feltham was for a time in the household of the Earl of Thomond as chaplain or secretary, and published (1652), Brief Character of the Low Countries. His most cited essay is "How the Distempers of these Times should affect wise Men" which was selected for inclusion in John Gross" The Oxford Book of Essays, a compilation of over a hundred of the finest essays in the English language.
Feltham was still a teenager when he published his first edition of Resolves in 1623.
This collection of essays played a crucial role in the development of the English essay as a genre. lieutenant is a Crown of blessings, when in one woman a man findeth both a wife and a friend." In his 1628 edition, which includes the resolve entitled “Of Woman,” Feltham observes the social disparities of his time in regards to gender equality.
Though does not offer any solutions, he again makes incredibly astute commentary that could be considered a type of proto-feminist or proto-egalitarianist philosophy: “Whence proceed the most abhorred villainies, but from a masculine unblushing impudence? When a woman grows bold and daring, we dislike her, and say, ‘she is too like a man’: yet in our selves, we magnify what we condemn. Is not this injustice?”.